Chapter 266: Why did Demacia ban magic?
It was late at night and everything was quiet outside the window.
Seraphine and Levi were chatting so enthusiastically that they were not in a hurry to take a break.
She kicked off her slippers and white silk stockings in a relaxed manner, flexed her toes, and climbed onto the bed. Like a child listening to a bedtime story, she adjusted her position and leaned into Levi's arms, asking him with interest:
"Then why did Demacia ban magic?"
Since they were talking about Demacia, Seraphine couldn't help but think of the "Hexgate incident" that Janna had mentioned earlier.
"Even diplomatic missions have to be so particular when they go overseas - is magic really that evil to them?"
Seraphine knew the reason why Demacia banned magic, and Demacia also explained it this way:
Because the ancestors who founded Demacia were the survivors of the Rune War who fled from the eastern Loxhi Plains and hid in the western Demacia Basin shrouded by the forbidden magic stone forest.
They witnessed the horror of magic in that protracted world war, and how much damage this extraordinary power could cause to the human kingdom.
Most importantly, they witnessed how greedy, cruel, and tyrannical a wizard who wielded such power could be.
So in the eyes of the ancestors of Demacia, mages are either criminals or potential criminals.
Because human laws cannot restrain these "mutated creatures", they should be preventively arrested, expelled, or even physically wiped out before they cause harm to humans.
This is the origin of Demacia's policy of banning magic.
" But ..." Seraphine still felt something was wrong.
She is a wizard herself and knows many wizards. In most cases, magic is a useful tool and wizards are a high-level human resource that can be controlled and utilized.
She really couldn't understand why Demacia would give up this resource out of fear of choking.
It would be fine if they banned magic, but they took it to such an extreme. Not only did they have a special army of magic hunters in the country, but even when the diplomatic envoys went overseas, they had to be so sensitive and wary of magic.
"Why?" asked Seraphine.
After so much political training, she instinctively realized that there must be deeper reasons behind this.
"Well..." Levi didn't rush to answer: "Seraphone, the answer is actually very simple. You just need to use the method we used to analyze Noxus to try to analyze Demacia and you will know."
Both Noxus and Demacia are superpowers dominated by transcendent aristocrats.
Why do they treat mages so differently? One treats them like a treasure, while the other avoids them like nuclear waste?
"You just need to think about the biggest difference between Noxus and Demacia, and you can understand this problem." Levi gently stroked Seraphine's soft long hair in his arms and reminded her.
Seraphine quickly thought: "The biggest difference between Noxus and Demacia is——"
"One of them is aggressive and never satisfied, while the other never sets foot outside the Forbidden Magic Stone Forest and never expands his territory!"
Why is Noxus so aggressive?
Levi said in that article that Noxus needs more territory and needs to keep making the pie bigger in order to satisfy the extraordinary people who continue to emerge from the people and fill the appetites of the new military nobles.
So why doesn't Demacia do this?
"Because I can't do it," Levi said.
After all, Demacia was an immigrant nation built from scratch by foreign refugees, while the Roxy Plains, where Noxus is located, had a mature human civilization thousands of years ago.
"So when the ancestors of Demacia gained a foothold in the Forbidden Magic Forest, gradually established cities, countries and civilizations, slowly assimilated the primitive tribes of the indigenous people, and completely digested the fertile basin that could be called the land of abundance—"
"In the vast land outside the Forbidden Stone Forest, the Noxian Empire has been rising for some time."
If there is any benefit to be gained from foreign aggression, Demacia would certainly do it. They are not real knights of justice, so why wouldn't they do something that would benefit them?
But the problem is that by the time Demacia was able to carry out invasion and expansion, Noxus had already become a behemoth, completely blocking their path to external expansion.
Demacia would be lucky enough not to be invaded by Noxus, let alone expand.
"So Demacia completely gave up its expansion plan and instead formed alliances with many kingdoms and city-states outside the Forbidden Stone Forest. It used these small city-states between Demacia and Noxus as a strategic buffer, resisting the invasion of the Noxian Empire to the west year after year."
"That's why Demacia became the 'Kingdom of Righteous Knights'."
Because they arrived too late, Noxus had taken all the benefits of Valoran. Demacia had no choice but to be the Knight of Justice.
So, here comes the question.
"Every country in Runeland needs to face the intense contradiction between the old ruling class and the grassroots extraordinary people who continue to emerge from the people, and their strong demands for power and wealth."
"Noxus can ease the conflict by relying on external aggression and expanding the pie."
"Demacia cannot invade other countries, so how should they resolve this conflict?"
Seraphine could think of the answer herself without Levi having to remind her again.
"I know!" Her eyes lit up: "It's the forbidden magic!"
Noxus can expand outward, and expansion is always successful. Therefore, they can boldly recruit grassroots extraordinary people emerging from the people, give them power and fiefdoms, and integrate them into the ruling class of the empire.
These grassroots extraordinary people in turn enhanced the empire's combat power, making the empire's expansion increasingly impossible to stop.
But there is only so much land in Demacia, and the cake is so small. The territory has long been divided up by the old nobles, and there is really no extra land for the newcomers.
Under such circumstances, grassroots extraordinary people continue to emerge among the people - this is not a high-level human resource for the kingdom, but a bunch of powerful time bombs scattered among the people.
Therefore, Demacia can only fall into endless internal friction and take action on its own to preventively eliminate these unstable factors among the people.
"Then why do they only ban magic? Aren't warriors who don't know magic also extraordinary people?" Seraphine was confused again.
"That's even simpler." Levi said with a smile, "Wealth without power to protect it is like a store in a Zaun community. A single purchase for zero dollars can turn everything you own into nothing."
"So Demacia still has to rely on the extraordinary people."
Banning magic is already like destroying one's own Great Wall. If even the soldiers have to be on guard against it, then they are truly destroying their own martial arts and seeking their own death.
Although warriors are also extraordinary beings, they are different from mages in that:
"The growth curve of a warrior is relatively gentle, which is very safe and controllable compared to a mage."
Except for a very small number of monsters with extraordinary talents, almost every powerful extraordinary warrior has to go through a long process from weak to strong, just like Riven.
Their extraordinary strength is honed inch by inch through constant practice and life-and-death battles, just like forging a sword.
And in the Kingdom of Demacia, who can provide a mortal with such systematic physical training and sufficient actual combat experience?
Of course only the Demacia army.
Therefore, it is difficult for extraordinary warriors to emerge naturally among the people to threaten the rulers of Demacia. On the contrary, the old nobles who rule Demacia can continuously create their own team of extraordinary warriors through family inheritance and war.
"So, in Demacia's history, almost all the famous extraordinary warriors came from the kingdom's aristocratic families. There are some who came from humble backgrounds, but they are very few in number."
"If ordinary people want to become extraordinary warriors through training, not to mention the various expensive potions for tempering the body, they may not be able to afford the large amount of meat needed to replenish physical energy."
"So the old nobles of Demacia are very confident in warriors." Levi paused slightly: "Compared with warriors, mages are different."
Soldiers need to upgrade and buy equipment little by little, and the process is stable and controllable.
The mage, however, seems to have a cheat. A seemingly weak mage apprentice can turn around and give you a level 18+ six-giant outfit if you are not paying attention.
For example, Syndra is still imprisoned in Ionia.
Take Seraphine herself for example:
Before she awakened, she was so weak that she couldn't even beat the Frog. But after awakening, she could easily deal with a large number of gangsters.
"The power of a mage is completely uncontrollable. No one knows how much potential a mage can unleash after awakening, and no one knows how fast a mage can grow and to what extent he can grow."
"So for the Kingdom of Demacia, the existence of folk mages is a time bomb that threatens the kingdom's rule."
Levi stopped at the right time and looked at Seraphine in his arms and said:
“Seraphone, now you understand—”
"What Demacia hates is not mages, but uncontrolled folk mages. What they ban is not magic, but the unstable factors that threaten the rule of the old aristocracy. Of course..."
"What they protected from the 'evil wizard' was never human civilization or the people of Demacia, but the power and interests that they absolutely would not share, let alone give up."
