The windows cracked as the protective barrier shattered to the sharp luminescent bolts bolting out of the tall rectangular construct in the center. Its metal hubris began to melt, pressurized steam burst out of the pipes, temperature rose and fell at rapid intervals with the arrows on the panel endlessly spinning around nonstop. Alarms blared and the people within the experimental room quickly evacuated. Their escape path protected by the Fifth Division mages stationed, each conjuring a barrier to absorb and reflect the incoming bolts.

“Shut the breakers—the fuse! HURRY!”

“It’s not working. The cables are fried!”

“Energy level breaching the limit. The pipes are leaking!”

Panic ensued within the control room. The researcher’s in white coats found themselves at a bind as to how to suppress the growing hazard of their experiment. Even Yukina herself struggled to find an immediate solution.

“Onodera-sama!” she shouted at the silver-haired woman standing close to the windows, staring blindly upon the raging bolts as if it was the most mesmerizing thing she’d ever seen. Unable to get through her, Yukina decided to take matters into her own hand. “Set the warning to red. HURRY!”

“On it!” a researcher pulled up a lever on the wall, setting it up to the highest caution level. But nothing happened. He pulled the lever up and down, yet had it work then power should be directed to the experimental room and compress the entire thing into void. “It’s not working! The magions must’ve fried the warning system too!”

“Tsk! Onodera-sama, we have to go. If we can find a mage expert at destruction then—”

“Why would you want to destroy it?” she calmly said. “Why do you want to destroy our magnum opus? We’ve successfully synthesized magion and soon we should be able to replicate the ‘calculation’ mages do to conjure ‘creations’ through machinery.”

There was no use. Nothing could stop her if she was like this. Yukina knew this all too well. What can I do?

Suddenly the ground quaked. Not from the experimental room, but from outside. The bolts of synthetic magion began converging toward a corner. The metal wall crumpled, suctioned in by vacuum. A tear opened and a giant spear pierced through, obliterating the bolts and crushing the construct into smithereens. Once the danger subsided, the spear’s form receded into lunar winds that subsided the panic within their hearts.

I can always count on you, Fenghuo-sama, Yukina thought, then glancing at her superior, whose eyes squinted in frustration, as she bit her lip and broke off her pen. It seemed that even death would deter her from her research. What a scary person Ren Onodera was.

* * *

Yukina walked along the hallway with her two dog automatons accompanying her, the three taking a bit of caution while greeting various researchers of all sorts. Chemists mixing reactions and melted up walls, ecologists fleeing from their mutated carnivorous plants, historians and archaeologists pushed their trolleys of ancient history books and artifacts like a train down the clean white halls. It didn’t matter whether they came from the Ecology Research Sector (EcoRS), Energy Research Sector (EneRS), Engineering Research Sector (EngRS), Chemical Research Sector (CheRS), Medicinal Research Sector (MeRS), Historical Research Sector (HiRS), Weapon Research Sector (WeRS) Prima Research Sector (PiRS). There was never a day of tranquility or serenity. in the Kagemusha Research Institute (KRI).

You either blow something up or become the catalyst to a nation-wide crisis. Like that one incident two years ago, when the HiRs recovered an ancient tablet from the bottom of the Zagirin and accidentally summoned a giant nine-headed serpent within one of the many large experimental rooms of the KRI. Thankfully, the overseer a.k.a. The Second Seat managed to protect the staff and destroy the tablet, causing the havoc-wrecking creature to vanish into nonexistence.

Speaking of the Second Seat, Yukina wondered about what he’d have to say about her senior and mentor, Ren Onodera. Going by his personality, Yukina could see a long list of scolding, further embellished by his secretary’s voice, followed by a warning, remunerations, and maybe a pay cut. It might not look much on paper, but to KRI researchers, funding was essential to the point where they would be willing to get loans or use their entire life savings, or both. And due to Onodera’s somewhat radical experiments, it’d be tough for her to get sponsors.

I probably should’ve declined her offer from the start.

Yukina climbed up the next few floors, and on the floor leading to her office, a horde of young researchers ambushed heartfelt messages like ‘Glad you’re alright’, ‘We’ll support you!’, or ‘Yukina-san, we love you!’ both in speech and signs. They chased her along a corridor, and Yukina, being unathletic, was forced to stop after a meter. But then, a strike of fortune came when she met a chemist friend pushing a trolley of vials.

“Huang-san, quick, do you have an invisibility potion!”

“Sure, but—”

Yukina instantly swiped the potion from the trolley and poured it over her head, turning herself invisible. “Sorry, Huang-san. It’s an emergency. Inu One, Inu Two, GO!” with her order, Yukina’s automatons ran ahead, while she leaned on the wall, waiting for the crowd to pass before heading in the opposite direction to her office door. Good, no one’s there. She opened the door, entered, and fell exhausted and took a break catching some breaths.

Looking at her office, it was filled with papers upon papers stamped on the walls and boards, filled with dozens of blueprints of past and future projects. Some had even been partially constructed, as prototypes of automatons moved about in directions both intended and unintended. Like the mechanical ballet dancer she’d been working on recently, who appeared to have stuck their heads on the ceiling, still dancing albeit disjointedly. Once she got back up, Yukina went and tried to bring it down, but instead got kicked in the face. She was about to fall, but someone caught her. A man with maroon hair and brown eyes.

“Oki-san,” Yukina stood back up and faced her colleague. “Thanks a lot. You really saved me there.”

Oki took a moment to look at her surroundings and came back with a sour look, placing his hand on his temple followed by a long sigh. “You always get into trouble. Always like this. It seems as if nothing has changed since you …”

“I’m sorry, Oki-san,” she bowed her head. “I know that I’ve made you and everyone worry, and I’ll make sure to be extra careful next—”

“It’s fine,” he sighed once more. “No one blames you. The one to blame is that mentor of yours. How can she dare not to shut the project off when knowing the scale it’d reached. At this point, I sincerely hoped that bastard of an overseer decided to fire her or something.”

“Don’t say that about Fenghuo-sama!” she bellowed. “Also, don’t say that about Onodera-sama. She’s given me a lot of opportunities that I couldn’t possibly have been able to repay.”

“Yukina-san, she’s using you as a cash cow.”

“Masaki said the same thing …”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he’s right,” he said, begrudgingly.

“Yeah, so I was thinking—”

“Yukina-san, do you have any idea how many sponsors are currently lined up to meet you? Not one. Not two. But seven as of now. Seven sponsors! Just because you’re not a leading researcher or Head of EgRS, it doesn’t change that your name is widespread thanks to the automatons you’ve built.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I understand, Oki-san, so I’m—”

“I mean, Juryokaku,” he referred to the government castle in Tenshudo, where the Ten Seats and Hoshikuni’s parliament worked. “finished its renovation under two months thanks to those constructors you made. I’m very well amazed that you could even think of making a human-sized automaton crane to carry and fly those materials ten-feet into the air. You are truly amazing.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“You really are so amazing, Yukina-san. Far too amazing for the likes of Ren-san. So, as your friend, I ask that you quit this project.”

“But I’ve already done that.”

“Yes, you—wait, what?” his face bewildered.

“I’ve already quitted the project,” Yukina said with a straight face, having already gone through the procedures to remove herself from the list of participating researchers ahead of time. Today was her last day. “You know, Oki-san, you’re the type to worry about others a lot. I know very well of my own limits when it comes to research. Just because Onodera-sama asked me to join, it wasn’t out of obligation as her pupil. I joined because I truly wanted to see the ‘new heights’ she wished to set out for Antryion.”

“And the reason you quit was because …”

“Because I no longer see this ‘new heights’ which she promised. I mean, it’d be great if us ordinaries can fully acquire magion through synthesizing it, but after these past months, I realize that magic is much more complicated.”

The door opened and, as if right on cue, her two automaton dogs returned, having escaped the fan crowd. “Thank you, you two,” she said, retrieving her stuff from their backs, in which she selected several research papers and gave them to Oki.

“Onodera-sama’s research on magion showed that it’s a particle unlike any other, having no particular fixed form apart, composed as a series of numbers rather than actual atoms. It aligns with how young mages see magion upon their ‘blooming’,” Yukina explained. “What Onodera-sama wondered is how these numbers can be constructed into ‘creations’ which mages can seemingly whip up in a prick of a finger.”

“I assume she is talking about the ‘calculation’ which goes on a mage’s head,” Oki added, while turning up the pages. “A mage determines the ‘equation’ to construct a ‘creation’ and calculate the necessary resources for its production, which is magion. Sort of like a processor.”

“‘Mages are living machines’, but a machine follows the laws by logic. Ice once melted becomes water and vice versa,” she explained The term certainly explains when it comes to mages whose spellification involves the natural elements and gravity. Those laws have long been discovered. But what about oddities like stopping time or looking into the future, which the Tenth Seat specialized in? Also, why is it that once a mage determined a spellification, they could not do other types?”

“The First Seat is able to do that,” Oki corrected. “Although it would be more sense to consider The Sage as an oddity amongst oddities … Perhaps these oddities aren’t based on logic at all. Maybe what mages use is simply pure imagination. Wait, but that doesn’t explain the initial assessment. Mages calculate based on logic, yet create through imagination. I must say, this is truly perplexing.”

“Wouldn’t you know more about this though? You’re part of PiRS!”

“Truth be told, researching Prima is to pursue an impossibility. Four years have I worked in the section and I have yet to find any substantial findings apart from what everyone already knows. The same goes for its head, who for some reason has been absent this past year, and it appears no one is willing to take up his position.

“Still, for Onodera-san, the head of another section to be researching on magion and actually making strides is fascinating. Then again, magion can be considered as another form of energy, just one that we haven’t fully utilized due to the leylines being very hazardous when acquired in its purest form. You could say that the magions used and self-produced by mages are in their diluted form so as to not destroy their own bodies.

“What Onodera-san is seeking, to synthesize magion like how CeRS first synthesized Urea, an organic compound, three years ago out of inorganic compounds, but there’s just one problem. Magion is neither organic nor inorganic. It is something else outside the realm of science and mortals, almost divine, yet more so grounded to reality,” Oki took another look at the documents before finding something that peeked his eyes. “What is this page of ones and zeros?”

“That’s magion,” Yukina’s revelation utterly baffled Oki as she was when her mentor showed her this. “Rather than analyzing magion as a particle, Onodera-sama analyzed it as a sequence, with each sequence representing both the elements and amount needed to become the ‘equation’ which mages ‘calculate’ to become a ‘creation’.”

“Then this is huge. This would change everything we know about the Prima of Creation and possibly the other Primas as well.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. The other Primas far differ from Creation both in process, concept, and philosophy. Just because Onodera-sama discovered the truth behind Creation, doesn’t mean it applies to the others.”

“Still I-I am speechless! But wait, you said you didn’t see any potential in this though.”

“I never said there wasn’t any potential. Clearly there is indeed potential drawn from this knowledge, but the repercussions are far too great. You’ve heard what happened in the experimental room. Plus, think about it. It would be amazing for everyone to be capable of using magic and I fully support the idea. Magic has made many dreams come true, however …”

“You worry if they’re going to be misused,” Oki guessed correctly, as Yukina nodded in response. “Listen Yukina. Technology will be misused regardless of its intended purposes. Like the automatons you’ve invented for example. I’m sure you’ve heard about the case one year ago, when an A-12 Cooker suddenly went berserk and set fire to a house.”

“I know. I know it very well,” Yukina didn’t want to remember. All the cameras took pictures at her, as the press demanded for answers which she couldn’t at the time give, followed by the endless blames and hate messages that had her curl up at home alone. Masaki had to stop working in order to take care of her, and Akito, her dear sweet son, Akito … Yukina barely saw him during those days. She would shut the doors, not listening to his pleas nor cries for her attention.

Fortunately, the issue was cleared up. The automaton did go berserk, but it was due to third-party maintenance. Such an intricate piece of technology couldn’t be handled by amateurs who knew only the surface behind its inner mechanism. Things went back to normal and Yukina was able to step back into the public again. However, she could never forget their faces. Those faces of relief born out of worry and guilt which should never have come to be in the first place, nor should have been the still aching heart beating within her when everything was resolved.

I can’t let it happen again.

Yukina took a deep breath and put back on her smile. “I’m not budging on this one. Everything has its limits. Even science. There’s just some lines better to not be crossed.”

Oki looked hesitant at first, but seemed to have accepted her decision. “Alright. I’ll back off, but not everyone will feel the same way. Onodera-san may not be well-liked, but she definitely ain’t the type to keep her discoveries secret. Her research will get out one way or another,” he gave her back the research papers. “What are you going to do when that happens?”

“I’m not really sure. Actually, there might not be much I could do,” Yukina’s gaze fell for a moment. “but I’ll do my best to make sure it does not happen. I’ll convince them and if that doesn’t work I’ll … I’ll walk into the overseer’s office and ask Fenghuo-sama for guidance!”

“I … wouldn’t recommend that,” he said.

“You’re right. Fenghuo-sama is already busy as it is and my sign language is a bit rusty … Maybe I can ask the Head of Security!”

“Do you even know who the head is?”

“No, but I have an acquaintance who might know. Then again, he’s also very busy. Man, everyone’s very busy these days. It feels as if time has stopped and the only thing in people’s minds are work, work, work. Why can’t they just take a break?”

“Because they’re not like you, who finish her work in time and thus could balance both work and private life.”

“But shouldn’t everyone like that? Shouldn’t everyone—,” and just right there and then, an idea popped out of Yukina’s head, as she immediately sprinted into an empty chalkboard and drew a whole new draft of a whole new automaton serviced to take simple tasks and ease a person’s workload. “Add this here, add an upgraded command cube … My, my, this is going to be evolutionary! Cannot forget the safety features. Oh, should I add customization options too? No, that may be too much and will add more to the cost, but would people be more interested if they can buy another arm? What do you think, Oki-san?”

Right as Yukina turned around, her fellow colleague was no longer there, and the research papers were placed neatly upon her desk.

Ah, I did it again, Yukina thought, feeling bad at how she basically faded out his presence inside her mind. Meanwhile, her automaton dogs came up to her and acted like actual dogs, hugging her legs as if to comfort her. Not exactly comfortable due to them being made of metal, but comfortable in heart.

Really wasn’t my moment, hehe … Masaki will scold me if he knows this.

Still, it really felt strange. Once Oki left, it seemed as if Yukina regained the normality of her life. He reminded her so much about her brother due to that overprotective personality of his. Didn’t help the fact that he too had scarlet hair, albeit darker. Her elder brother had lighter red that looked almost orange when in contact with the sun. However, it would be discourteous to think of such. The loving memories of her family was something Yukina wasn’t willing to disrespect.

At the same time, Yukina wondered if this normality was something she deserved. Yukina tried her best to hide the conflict wrestling within her, particularly the feeling of uselessness when it came to present dangers. Especially with Zhiyuan and all those other children scattered around Hoshikuni missing. Xiaodan asked her not to worry because he would find him and Yukina believed him. If there was one thing she knew about that sweet stoic-faced boy from Lanting was that he always kept his promises. But the feeling of discomfort persisted.

Still, there must be something I can do to help.

Yukina had an idea. A machine that might aid in his investigation. She didn’t know it would work or if the current technology could support it, but she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try.