Magi-Tech! reverberated in William’s mind as a slew of possible opportunities stretched out before him. Excitement and eagerness gripped him as he dragged his vision away from the expanded mana construct and refocused on Nurrim.
“So, what’s the plan Uncle? I imagine if you’ve gone to all this trouble, it’s not as easy as it sounds, or you wouldn’t have involved me.”
“Before I answer that Will, why don’t you take a shot at answering your second question: Why all the secrecy?”
Will sat chewing on his sandwich and thinking. This new method of manipulating mana, which if I know Nurrim, he’s already successfully tried, would seem to allow even low-level mages to create truly impressive effects. The image of a first level mage throwing the equivalent of a fireball at someone who annoyed him popped into his head. Well, I see why we don’t just want to toss out the knowledge of how to do things. We want people who are trustworthy and emotionally stable. But how can we make the tech widely available if we do that? He went over to get a glass of juice out of the cold box and sat down to think some more.
I guess that’s why whoever first taught a mage the Unseen Servant spell, put in restrictions. They wanted something useful, but not dangerous, that would get people interested in using magic for things other than brute force. How can we do better? The image of a set of tools popped into his head. Maybe just as magical creatures have imbedded spell structures and some spells such as teleport circle can eventually become permanent, we can craft spell structures into useful items with built in fail safes. As only we would know how to link the patterns of power together, stealing our technology and trying to recreate it just wouldn’t work. First, because thieves wouldn’t be able to see the mana constructs embedded in our items. Second because even if they could see mana, they would have no idea of what they were looking at or how it worked.
Will glanced over at Nurrim who was staring at him intently with a smile on his face. He looks like he’s reading my mind. Wait, he’s Nurrim. Of course, he’s reading my mind. His curiosity wouldn’t allow him not to. Nurrim gave a mental “That’s for sure!” confirming Will’s suspicions.
“Any other thoughts?” Nurrim asked aloud.
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“I imagine clerics and the like were the first given spells by their patrons to make them more useful to the community. One of the clerics with a penchant for knowledge, I imagine, was the first to find a way to record a spell pattern on parchment and make the first scroll. Once people with innate magical talent saw how useful scrolls were and how spells allowed them to wield their power more easily, there was a large demand for scrolls and the like. The patrons taught the first spellcasters most of what we consider level 1 spells, just to make sure that the spells mages learned weren’t too powerful.”
As Will considered the sheer complexity of the actual mana constructs in the Unseen Servant spell, another idea popped up. “Because the mana pattern of what we consider low level spells is both complex and hidden from a spellcaster’s view and erased from their minds every time they use it, spellcasters have never really understood or felt how mana affects the world. Like a crossbowman loading a quarrel into his weapon, they have only a surface view of the spell the quarrel represents. This would make it difficult for spellcasters to find out how to truly manipulate mana and this limitation would make it easy, if needed, for the higher powers to wipe out an upstart mage who was causing trouble.”
Will looked over at Nurrim, whom many on both sides might consider such an upstart mage and commented, “I see why you wanted to do this research in secret. But how are you going to continue it without drawing unwanted attention?”
“That’s where you and those like you whom I deem moral, wise, and trustworthy come in. I will do the basic research here. Then I will teach you how to do not quite as deep, but still significant research on your own back home. I figure we’ll start with you introducing only a few simple and limited spell constructs at first, embedded in various materials and only activatable by Blurs. Due to your well-known brilliance and being a young man at that, it will not seem surprising if you start your career with a series of what will seem at first minor breakthroughs as this is a common pattern for geniuses everywhere and will divert attention from me. This will lead to others joining you in your research and people learning to responsibly share knowledge while replacing the older spells and items with better, more useful, and safer spell constructs.”
Nurrim went to the cold box for a juice for himself and then continued. “Eventually I want us to use the advantage that Magi-Tech provides to make its use widespread and raise the standard of living for all people. When other nations see how useful Magi-Tech is and how much better it makes life for those who use it, I expect it will become socially unpopular to backtrack and descend to our society’s current level where most people are poor and life is cheap.”
Will considered all the angles he could think of and then made his decision. “I’m in! When do we start?”