After calling Artoria over and explaining her situation to Arthur, Ethan stopped bothering with the two of them.
Artoria had many questions she wanted to ask, and only Arthur could answer them. Whether getting those answers would help her resolve her inner turmoil, Ethan did not know.
It was similar to what he had done before. He acted on a whim because he felt like it, without any significant purpose. Success or failure would not affect him.
In the following days, Arthur would chat with Ethan every day, talking about interesting things Ethan had experienced. The rest of the time, he continued to handle his complex affairs as usual, seemingly no different from his normal routine.
The only difference was that he had a follower by his side. Artoria followed Arthur most of the time, watching closely how he handled various matters.
While Arthur was busy with work, Ethan and his group were free to move around Camelot. To better host his good friend, Arthur assigned Gawain, who was relatively free recently, to be their host.
Originally, Bedivere would have been the best choice, but he happened to be away from Camelot, representing Arthur on a tour of various regions.
Others had no connection with Ethan, so sending anyone casually was not suitable. Someone of low status would not be a good fit, and someone of high status might cause dissatisfaction.
After some thought, Gawain turned out to be the most suitable. Besides being a high-ranking Knight of the Round Table, he was also Arthur's nephew, so he was absolutely one of their own. Sending him to host Ethan was appropriate, and there was no need to worry about Gawain being unhappy.
Moreover, as Arthur's nephew, Gawain knew Ethan's background and would not be displeased with the hosting task.
To Arthur's surprise, another Knight of the Round Table, Lancelot, proactively offered to host Ethan and the others. After thinking for a moment, Arthur realized that Lancelot's son, Galahad, had been following Ethan for the past few years.
Although the relationship between father and son was strained, Lancelot still paid attention to him. After Galahad's return, both his strength and knowledge had clearly increased. As a father, Lancelot felt proud, thinking, My son is becoming more accomplished.
With Gawain and Lancelot in charge of hosting, the group Ethan brought could visit various places and see the details of the magnificent Camelot without needing to find Ethan. Ethan also had more free time to do the things he wanted to do and had already decided to do.
Digesting the energy from the Land of Shadows was one of the least urgent tasks. Ethan took some time to create a special tool.
To avoid trouble, he made this item an existence between reality and illusion. He could place this special tool, used for communication, positioning, and remote teleportation, inside Kazama Ryu's body, binding it directly to his soul so it would not be damaged like ordinary equipment.
Of course, this special existence could also be damaged, but very few people could do it. And if such beings wanted to kill Kazama Ryu, it would be very easy. Accidental harm was impossible.
By the time this work was completed, several days had passed. A bored Diana even went to the front lines for a tour, helping Arthur expand his territory again. With Britain's current strength, no country or force of this era could resist them.
If Arthur had not intentionally controlled the pace of expansion, taking all of Europe would not have been difficult, let alone the entire globe.
The kingdom expanded slowly mainly because he implemented various strengthening and stabilizing measures with each expansion. Even with high speed and efficiency, it would take several years to truly digest these areas.
Besides that, there was the issue of population. Even though Britain's population grew rapidly under Arthur's rule, with advanced hygiene and medical methods greatly increasing infant and maternal survival rates and significantly raising the average lifespan, the original base was too small. Even after many years of rapid development, they still could not fill most of the land.
Even with Arthur controlling the speed of expansion, the situation was still one of vast land and sparse population.
So Britain did not encounter tough battles that required Diana to step in. She simply went out for a tour, fought a few battles, which in her view were fights but in reality were just bullying, and her overwhelming strength crushed the enemy's morale. They proactively abandoned large areas to concentrate troops and shrink their defenses.
In reality, Diana was not someone who liked war or would actively participate in it. However, in this world, she would not demand Arthur stop his expansion for the sake of justice or righteousness.
With her knowledge, she could judge that Arthur's country was better than those still in the feudal age. Furthermore, her intervention pushing opponents to retreat could reduce unnecessary casualties. If they had chosen to surrender and merge into Arthur's country, that would have been perfect.
Unfortunately, she did not achieve that, so after the incident, she returned to Camelot and simply wandered as a tourist. She spent more time with Scáthach. If someone did not know better, they might think their relationship was very close. As for the real reason...
After completing the necessary work, Ethan focused on digesting the energy within his body, guiding it into himself.
During this time, he also tried guiding some energy into his mental universe. It was still absorbed by the black spot. He fed a small amount of energy to ensure the black spot had enough samples, then stopped.
He could now determine that both his body and mental universe required vast amounts of energy. If he did not continue to supply energy, they would not weaken, but he would not complete this transition phase, remaining stuck in an awkward state.
This was not what he wanted. What was more frustrating was that even though most of the energy had been supplied to his body, he still showed no signs of growing up, remaining in his child-like appearance.
"Does this body consume so much energy?"
He finally understood that for this body to grow, it required far more energy than he had anticipated. At this point, he was grateful that when shaping his body, he had gritted his teeth and used all his magic on it. If he had ended up looking like a five- or six-year-old, there would be no hope of growing up, and he would be even more frustrated.
"Looking like a ten-year-old is a bit small, but at least I can move around normally. Wandering outside at five or six would cause a lot of trouble."
"What is wrong with looking like a ten-year-old?"
Compared to Rin and Sakura, who ran through the streets and alleys of Camelot all day and even had Gawain take them out to see the countryside and the primitive natural scenery of this era, Illya was much more of a homebody. Most of the time, she stayed with Ethan, quietly watching him research amazing magic, occasionally asking questions to make her presence known.
Illya's talent was excellent. After Ethan taught her the basic knowledge, she could already cast some simple tricks even without being connected to the Root.
The magic of the Nasuverse is not absolutely unusable in other worlds. However, compared to the Nasuverse, where all mystery belongs to the Root and mages are merely users of certain abilities, some of which do not even require understanding of their structure and principles, casting magic in other worlds is much more troublesome.
If a spell is compared to a model, it requires the mage to understand all the structural details of this model very clearly, then use their magic power to shape the corresponding parts, and finally assemble these parts in the correct way.
Even the assembly order must be remembered clearly. Only then can the spell be cast correctly and completely.
As an extremely excellent mage and scholar, Illya was very familiar with the magecraft she used proficiently and also understood most basic spells very well. This is why, after being disconnected from the Root, she recovered her casting ability in a very short time.
Although she could currently only cast some minor tricks proficiently, she was much stronger than someone like Shirou, who had been a half-baked mage and became an ordinary person after coming here.
Watching Illya manipulate floating, silver-glowing strands of hair with both hands while looking at him, Ethan casually replied.
"Many things are inconvenient."
"Like what?"
Ethan glanced at Illya and used her as an example.
"With your child-like appearance, driving and getting seen by the police would be big trouble."
"..."
Illya had been looking at Ethan with a certain expression, but his answer was so reasonable that she did not know how to refute it. Every time she drove, she had to be very careful, strictly following all traffic rules to avoid being noticed by the police.
She guessed that what Ethan thought of in that instant was definitely not this, but she felt he would absolutely not admit it.
"Now that I know how to correctly use magic, do I not have to go to school anymore?"
"No, you still have to go to school."
Ethan wanted Illya to go to school not just to learn magic. The main reason was to pull her somewhat distorted worldview back a bit. It did not need to be absolutely positive, just not too chaotic or evil.
Also, Leah should be sent to school. Not necessarily to learn a lot, but at least to have a normal and memorable childhood.
(To be continued.)