Several people looked at each other, wondering what could be discussed purely from a magic perspective?
The King suddenly felt a bit uneasy: "Could it be that there's something wrong with the Eclipse Magic itself?"
"You could say that." Rhode recounted the creation, preparation, and casting of Eclipse Magic as if narrating a cherished collection, focusing on its foundational magical rules.
Of course, he only explained key parts of it.
Yet even with that, the four couldn't keep pace with his train of thought.
The Knight Captain and the Minister of State were not familiar with the details of Eclipse Magic and had little knowledge of magic itself, so they felt dizzy as soon as the explanation began.
The King and Princess had some research on Eclipse Magic, but their main profession wasn't mage, so they also started getting headaches halfway through.
Rhode paused briefly to let them digest.
Minister Danton took the opportunity to ask: "Why is it that you, Mr. Rhode, have such understanding of the Kingdom's secret forbidden magic?"
Rhode looked at the King: "The Kingdom's secret?"
The King felt a bit ashamed under Rhode's gaze and explained, "Because I had initially promised not to leak it externally, I could only explain it to them as a magic passed down by the royal family through generations. As a matter of fact, the Eclipse Gate has indeed been in our custody."
He then explained on Rhode's behalf: "Fairy Tail has some links with the mages who first used this magic, so it's not surprising they managed to gain access to relevant information."
Danton nodded in understanding; after all, there were secrets in the Kingdom even he couldn't know.
Arcadios, as if fearing Rhode would continue his lecture, immediately asked, "I already know your proficiency in magic is deep and that you understand Eclipse well, but... why tell us all this?"
"'Why?' Didn't you listen when I emphasized the key point earlier?" Rhode looked at the Knight Captain, somewhat empathizing with the feeling of a school teacher.
"This..." Arcadios felt a bit guilty, "Sorry, I just now..."
"Forget it," Rhode sighed, "To put it simply, from the most basic principle, the Eclipse magic does not contain any offensive capabilities. The parts I haven't explained are the same.
"So, it's merely a magic that can achieve spatial transformation. This much you can understand, right?"
Arcadios looked towards Princess Jade; she was the one who understood Eclipse Magic best in the room.
Princess Jade nodded, "What Mr. Rhode explained perfectly aligns with our research on Eclipse and goes even deeper.
"I previously thought it was our lack of understanding of Eclipse that kept us unaware of the 'E·Cannon's' existence, but now it seems that unidentified future person is lying."
Having reached this conclusion, Princess Jade felt a lot more relieved because this meant the slander against Mr. Rhode was also false.
Mr. Rhode was not some 'Dragon Race's envoy' or 'Demon outside of time,' but a trustworthy member of the Ten Wizard Saints.
Danton followed Princess Jade's reasoning:
"If that's the case... that future person's purpose for deceiving us was to hope we wouldn't listen to Mr. Rhode's advice and open the gate his way.
"Then we must not let him succeed, so we absolutely cannot open the Eclipse Gate!"
"No, we can't be so hasty," Arcadios opposed, "Since he is lying, then perhaps the matter of ten thousand dragons won't happen either, so we should continue with the original Eclipse plan."
Danton immediately wanted to argue, but Rhode spoke first: "Regarding the Eclipse Plan, from a magic perspective, it's impossible to achieve."
"What?" Arcadios expressed disbelief, "Why?"
"It's simple, this magic was developed based on Celestial Spirit Magic, and like Celestial Spirit Magic, its basic use lies in 'doors.' Rhode took out a notebook, illustrating as he explained, as if fearing they wouldn't understand,
"Celestial Spirit Magic involves opening a door in both the Human Realm and the Star Spirit Realm. The Star Spirits enter through one door and exit through another, completing their journey between the two realms. Essentially, it uses doors to achieve spatial crossing.
"The activation of Eclipse similarly requires 'two doors,' but the difference is, it's a Time Magic, so these 'two doors' are one in the present, and the other in the past or future.
"Activating Eclipse is entering through the present door and exiting through the past or future door, thus achieving time traversal.
"This means, for traversal via Eclipse, a necessary condition is that the time you want to reach must have a door that allows us to exit."
"What does that mean..." Arcadios looked at the 'timeline' Rhode drew on paper, with two doors representing the present and the past, "Are you saying... when the first Eclipse Gate appeared, Zeref was already..."
Rhode nodded, "Correct, according to our information, at that time, Zeref was already immortal, and Black Dragon Acronologia was also an existence that people of that era couldn't defeat."
"So... so our Eclipse Plan from the beginning... never had a chance of being realized?"
Arcadios was unwilling to accept this fact. To kill Zeref of the past, they had exhausted all efforts in numerous people-finding and assassination plans.
The Knight Order trained tirelessly, practicing tactics, marching over long distances, honing their bodies and willpower...
The Kingdom even specifically held the Great Demon Fighting Martial Arts to gather Magic Power.
If it was an unfeasible plan from the start, wouldn't years of effort be utterly meaningless?
Danton quickly accepted this conclusion, not to mention it was what he had hoped for, as it meant not having to execute such a high-risk plan.
The King and Princess took a little time to think through it, convinced that everything Rhode said made sense, and all the explained magic matched magical principles.
This means the credibility was extremely high.
The King asked, "Then, as long as we don't open the Eclipse Gate, the dragon horde won't come, right?"
"That is something I cannot give you a definite answer for," Rhode said, "because the horde coming from the past is also just our hypothesis, and our 'Future Lucy' is not aware of the dragon's origin.
"What can be confirmed now is that Future Lucy did not lie; she indeed experienced the dragon horde invasion.
"So I have a proposal that can verify this hypothesis without resulting in overly serious consequences, and even if there is an unexpected incident, there's still a chance to remedy it... I wonder if you're willing to cooperate."
After beating around the bush, Rhode finally mentioned his purpose.
By this time, the four senior officials of Fiore, including the King, had almost lost their own opinions.
Since Rhode claimed to offer a perfect option, they were definitely willing to listen carefully.