Chapter 587 - 587: What? You Have a Similar Experience to Mine?

"I'll gladly take them," Noah promised earnestly. "And rest assured, I will absolute solve the problem of your dragonification."

Even if she hadn't given him the equipment, Noah would have poured his heart and soul into curing her. But acquiring the pinnacle of Alvarez scientific technology was an incredible, unexpected bonus. It would drastically accelerate the research timeline.

"I'm leaving it all in your hands," Irene smiled, her shoulders visibly relaxing.

"Ah, wait a moment. Come here," Irene suddenly remembered something, waving for Noah to follow her.

She led him to the back of the massive laboratory, where hundreds of large, magically sealed filing cabinets were lined up in neat rows. She unlocked the first cabinet, revealing row upon row of meticulously organized files.

"These are the records of my research over the centuries. I've documented every experiment, every theory, and every biological anomaly I've experienced. You can look through them and see if any of it is useful," Irene offered.

"Useful?! This is a goldmine!" Noah's eyes lit up like a child in a candy store. He eagerly pulled out the first file and began scanning the dense, handwritten notes.

The documents detailed her specific biological reactions, failed alchemical treatments, and precise magical fluctuations.

"These are my earliest experimental logs," Irene explained, gesturing to the first few cabinets. "Initially, I didn't have the habit of strictly documenting my data, so the records from the first few decades are sparse. I only started systematically recording everything later."

Noah noticed the dates inscribed on the cabinets. The records only went back roughly three hundred years. The first century of her dragonification was undocumented.

Even so, having three centuries of continuous, first-hand biological data on the dragonification process was an unimaginable treasure.

"This is phenomenal. These logs will save me years of preliminary testing," Noah beamed, his eyes flying across the pages. "I can already see patterns emerging regarding the Ethernano absorption rates of your draconic tissue."

While some of her early research methodologies were slightly unscientific, the raw data itself was impeccable.

"Dragonification?"

Mavis and August had wandered over to see what the commotion was about. Hearing the term, Mavis tilted her head curiously.

"Yes. Due to the side effects of Dragon Slayer Magic, Irene's body fully mutated into a Dragon centuries ago," Noah explained, turning to them.

He quickly summarized Irene's situation for August and Mavis, detailing her creation of Dragon Slayer Magic, the subsequent mutation, and Zeref's cosmetic illusion. He deliberately omitted the tragedy regarding Erza's birth and abandonment, focusing purely on the biological dilemma.

"I had no idea you suffered such a horrific fate," Mavis gasped softly, her eyes filled with profound empathy. "To endure centuries of that specific, inescapable agony... While our circumstances are different, I share a very similar experience."

"What? You have a similar experience to mine?" Irene looked at the young girl in surprise.

"Yes. You suffer from dragonification. I suffer from the Ankhseram Curse," Mavis sighed, offering a sad smile.

"The Ankhseram Curse?!" Irene's eyes widened in absolute shock. "But... that is the curse that afflicts His Majesty!"

"Indeed. We share the same curse. And I suppose you could say my affliction is directly tied to his," Mavis nodded.

Mavis proceeded to give Irene a brief, summarized account of her own history, explaining how she was cursed, her tragic romance with Zeref, and her subsequent century-long coma. Naturally, she omitted any mention of Fairy Heart.

"Wait..." Irene's brilliant mind instantly connected the dots. She looked at August, then at Mavis, her jaw dropping. "Are you saying... August is the child of you and His Majesty?!"

"I am," August declared, his chest puffing out slightly, a look of profound, unwavering pride on his face.

For eighty years, he had hidden his lineage in shame and sorrow. But now, having reunited with his mother and felt her unconditional love, he was incredibly proud to be her son.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Irene frowned, her draconic intellect rapidly analyzing the biological impossibility. "If both of you possessed the Ankhseram Curse, how on earth was he conceived?

"The curse violently detonates the moment you feel love. The sheer, apocalyptic wave of death magic should have instantly annihilated any biological material before conception could even occur. Furthermore, you stated that your interaction with His Majesty only went as far as a single kiss before the curse triggered. Biologically, how did a child result from that?"

"Which is exactly why I call August the 'Child of Miracles,'" Noah smiled, looking up from the documents. "He was conceived in the exact fraction of a second where the absolute laws of magic, biology, and the curse catastrophically collided and shattered. His existence is an impossible, unreplicable miracle."

Hearing Noah's words, Mavis smiled warmly, reaching out to gently squeeze August's massive, calloused hand. August returned the squeeze, offering his mother a gentle, affectionate smile.

Irene stared at them, her mind reeling, before she slowly nodded.

Noah was right. It truly was a miracle. The child had survived the combined, point-blank detonation of two Ankhseram Curses while still a microscopic embryo, and then gestated within a comatose, cursed mother. The sheer odds of his survival were mathematically impossible.

"It truly is a miracle," Irene murmured, looking at Mavis with profound seriousness. "If you had been conscious during the pregnancy, he wouldn't have survived."

Mavis blinked, momentarily confused, before the horrifying realization slammed into her.

If she had been awake, she would have known she was pregnant. As a mother, she would have inherently, unconditionally loved the child growing inside her. And the moment she felt that love, the Ankhseram Curse would have detonated, instantly killing the baby in her womb.

The color drained from Mavis's face, and she gripped August's hand tighter, a sudden wave of terrified retrospective panic washing over her. August immediately placed his other hand over hers, completely enveloping her small hands in his massive ones to ground and comfort her.

Watching the tender exchange, Irene couldn't help but smile softly.

"Our experiences truly are remarkably similar," Irene said, looking at Mavis with a newfound, profound sense of camaraderie. "We were both struck by an unbreakable curse that completely shattered our lives, stripped us of our humanity, and robbed us of a normal existence."

"I was very fortunate. With Noah's help, I managed to wake up, and we developed countermeasures to minimize the curse's impact on my daily life," Mavis smiled, recovering from her brief panic.

"Wait... Noah helped you resolve the Ankhseram Curse?!" Irene gasped, her eyes snapping toward Noah in absolute, unadulterated awe.

"We haven't resolved it," Mavis quickly corrected. "We merely engineered a highly advanced, automated warding system that teleports me away when the curse detonates, preventing the miasma from harming anyone. The curse itself is still fully active."

Despite Mavis's clarification, Irene's awe didn't diminish in the slightest.

Zeref, the greatest dark mage in history, had suffered from the curse for four hundred years and had never managed to engineer a viable containment system to protect his surroundings. He was forced to wander in isolation.

Yet this twenty-something prodigy from Ishgar had casually designed a fully functional, automated containment ward that allowed a cursed immortal to safely walk among mortals.

It was a staggering display of magical engineering.

Irene turned to look at Noah. The skepticism that had lingered in her mind completely evaporated. Her eyes burned with a blinding, terrifyingly intense light of absolute faith.

Noah, who was still buried in the research files, felt the sudden, overwhelming intensity of Irene's stare. He physically shivered, instinctively wanting to step away from the terrifyingly intense Dragon Queen, but he forced himself to remain still.

"You don't need to worry, Irene. Noah will absolutely pour everything he has into curing you," Mavis assured her, sensing her desperate hope. "And August and I will do everything in our power to assist him."

"Mother's will is my own. I will lend my full magical expertise to this endeavor," August nodded firmly.

"Thank you. Thank you all so much," Irene said, her voice trembling slightly with genuine gratitude. She placed a hand over her heart and offered a deep, respectful bow.

"While my aptitude for biological research is lacking, my mastery of magic is absolute," Irene promised, looking at Mavis. "I will dedicate my own power to helping you fully break the Ankhseram Curse. Whatever you need, you simply have to ask."

"That's wonderful! With your help, we'll definitely find a cure faster!" Mavis cheered, her eyes sparkling with joy.

Having the creator of Enchantment Magic assist in unraveling the Curse of Contradiction was an incredible asset.

August smiled warmly, watching the two women bond. Ever since he had reunited with his mother, his greatest lingering fear was the Ankhseram Curse. While Noah's containment wards were brilliant, they weren't a permanent solution. He wouldn't truly be at peace until the curse was permanently erased from her soul. Having Irene—his only true magical equal—join the research effort lifted a massive weight off his shoulders.

Bound by their shared trauma of monstrous curses, Irene and Mavis bonded rapidly. The formal stiffness completely vanished, replaced by an easy, familial warmth. Before long, they were comfortably referring to each other as "sisters."

Given that Irene had lived for over four hundred years, and Mavis was barely over a century old (including her coma), Mavis naturally deferred to Irene as the "older sister." Irene, amused by the dynamic, happily accepted the title.

Standing nearby, August watched the interaction with a look of profound, comical helplessness.

Because his mother had just declared Irene her "older sister," August had functionally just been demoted a full generation. He went from being Irene's equal and colleague in the Spriggan 12 to technically being her nephew.

But seeing the radiant, carefree smile on his mother's face, August simply chuckled and let it go. If this bizarre new family dynamic made his mother happy, he didn't care in the slightest.

While the two women chatted, Noah remained entirely focused on the research files. He opened his Archive interface, rapidly scanning and digitizing the centuries of handwritten notes into his mental database.

Simultaneously, he pulled out a massive stack of blank parchment from his spatial pocket. Using a specialized replication spell, he created physical backups of the digitized files, storing the pristine copies in his pocket dimension before carefully returning the fragile originals to the sealed cabinets.

These records were invaluable. Having multiple, secure backups was standard scientific protocol.

Seeing that Mavis and Irene were deeply engrossed in conversation, August walked over to assist Noah.

With the Magic King's help, the digitization process sped up significantly. Even so, Irene had amassed a staggering volume of data over four centuries. It took the two master mages an entire day of continuous, high-speed scanning to digitize, backup, and recatalog the hundreds of filing cabinets.

"Are the records genuinely useful?" Irene asked nervously as Noah and August finally closed the last cabinet.

"Incredibly useful," Noah smiled brightly, rolling his stiff shoulders. "Even with a cursory glance, I've already identified several critical biological anomalies that I hadn't accounted for. We'll need to run detailed comparative analytics once we're back in Ishgar, but this data is a goldmine.

"Also, you shouldn't undersell yourself. Your experimental methodology became significantly more rigorous and precise over the last few centuries. Your recent data is highly clinical."

"That was simply the result of trial and error over hundreds of years," Irene sighed, shaking her head modestly. "I have no innate talent for research."

Because she had constantly compared her own agonizingly slow progress to Zeref's effortless genius, Irene possessed zero confidence in her scientific abilities.

~~~

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