Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Christian snapped his fingers and lit a candle, asking Winters, "Do you know the Wind Control Skill?"

"I do." Winters was of course adept at using this most basic of Kinetic Spells.

"Follow my actions and send the wind inside." Christian snuffled arbitrarily, speaking somewhat listlessly, "Gradually apply force, don't blow out the candle."

Just as Winters wondered how he was supposed to send the wind, Christian reached out and "opened" the glass cylinder.

It was then that Winters and Aike realized that the glass cylinder on the table was actually composed of two identical half-cylinders, as if a very sharp sword had vertically split a complete glass cylinder into two halves.

Christian offset the two halves of the cylinder, creating two symmetrical gaps in what had been a seamlessly joined glass cylinder.

"Wind Control Skill, do it like me." Christian gestured for Winters to follow his spellcasting movements.

Cooperating with the instructor, Winters engaged the Wind Control Skill and each directed wind into a gap. Winters exerted himself to control the outflow of magic, gradually increasing his force.

As the magic-driven wind grew stronger, something astonishing happened.

The candle began to burn violently, and the flame, which had been stable, now started rotating and extending upwards. Winters remembered Andre's description of "a serpent of flame ascending towards the sky."

In the glass cylinder before them, a miniature fire serpent was rising into the air, with the flames at the top even shooting half a meter out of the cylinder.

Christian waved his hand lazily, "That's enough; stop now."

However, when Winters and Christian ceased casting, the fire serpent did not disappear. Within the glass cylinder, there was still a visible red line, until the candle rapidly burned down to nothing at a visible pace.

"Fire... Fire Dragon Burning the City?" Axel stammered in amazement, "But isn't this too small?"

"Exactly, this is the 'Fire Dragon,' the same thing that burned down the Victory Arsenal," Christian, the instructor, yawned and then resumed smoking his pipe.

"You mean to say... the Fire Dragon Burning the City is a natural phenomenon?" Winters raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, and no." Christian exhaled a ring of smoke, "If anything, it's a man-made natural phenomenon. Alas, let me get a chart to explain and you'll understand."

Before he had finished speaking, Christian began rummaging through his belongings, finally pulling out a dust-covered scroll of parchment from the top shelf.

He spread out the parchment across the desk, and Winters and Axel leaned in to take a closer look, immediately recognizing what it was.

It was a map, a map of Guidao City. To be precise, it was the old map of Guidao City before the great fire. The Victory Arsenal still occupied more than half of the port area, and the city retained its chaotic, unplanned onion-like structure.

"By supplying air to the fire source at a specific angle, a fire tornado is formed, basically a tornado plus flames." Wrapped in his floor-length robe, Christian explained while pointing at the map with his pipe. His eyes were listless, but his speech was sharp and clear, "On the day of the fire, the buildings functioned as wind channels. The wind driven by magic mingled with the sea breeze coming from the sea and converged at the fire site, thus forming the fire tornado."

Winters remembered the events of that day while Axel suddenly had a revelation.

But Christian wasn't finished; he continued to muse, "The fire tornado constitutes a positive feedback loop. It sucks in air from its surroundings, and the more air that comes into contact with the flames, the stronger the fire burns. The more fiercely the fire burns, the larger the fire tornado grows, until it consumes all burnable material."

"So the Fire Dragon Burning the City was just a coincidence! It was an accident that led to the creation of the fire tornado. And yet, they blamed you... Why didn't you write a letter in your defense?" Axel protested, slapping his thigh indignantly.

"Defend myself? What is there to defend?" Christian's expression was strangely peculiar, "The Fire Dragon Burning the City occurred because the spellcasters changed the wind direction; why would I defend myself?"

"So by that logic, the fire tornado was just a fluke, not replicable?" Winters suddenly felt a tinge of regret.

He had always thought that if he could unravel the secret of the Fire Dragon Burning the City, the spellcasters' book of spells might include a new "Fire Tornado Spell."

However, according to Christian, the Fire Dragon Burning the City was merely a coincidence, making the hope for a Fire Tornado Spell seem remote.

"Replicable?" Christian sniffed again and calmly dropped a bombshell of a statement, "Of course, it can be."

With that, Christian found another candle and lit it.

He made a spellcasting gesture without even looking at the candle. And the flame on the candle began to rotate and ascend once again, like the miniature fire tornado in the glass cylinder before.

"Look, there it is," Christian said casually.

Winters was completely astonished.

"After figuring out the Fire Dragon Burning the City, I found the motion of rotation very intriguing." Christian yawned again and turned to Winters, "Montaigne, how many types of acceleration magic do you think there are?"

[Note: Christian has not yet encountered the "Antoine-Laurent Notes," hence he still uses the old term, calling "Kinetic Spells" "acceleration spells."]

"Um, isn't there just one type?"

"No, there used to be one, but now there are two," Christian answered, "One is the acceleration you learned, linear motion, which I call linear acceleration [kinetic energy]. The other is the rotational motion I just demonstrated to you, which I call angular acceleration [rotational kinetic energy]. Do you understand what this means, Montaigne?"