Chapter 61: Explosion
Edited by: ArchmageNaoki, Deathbricks, Bunny, and Arthur300000
"Ohhhh... It's a lot bigger than I thought." With Skynet's plushie on my back and artificial cat ears on my head I marveled at the size of the buildings around me. The tour guide website said that this area is the largest magic device factory in all the known territories. It has over one million employees and it supplies more than 30% of the markets devices. From the looks of it, it might not be an overstatement.
Part of the factory is open for the public to visit, aiming to teach people about the process of making magic devices. So I came here wishing to learn.
I congratulated myself that despite needing to take three buses to travel to this industrial city, I managed to arrive by myself without getting lost. It seems my outgoing ability has finally gone up to 25 and finally surpassed the level of ‘My First Errand’. Wahaha! Those children can just eat my dust! Soon, I will master the outgoing skill tree! ...It took me 30 years just to get this far though.
The problem is two of the three buses refused to take my payment to ride because they mistook me for a middle school catgirl. I even told them that I'm not, but they just insisted with: "Little miss, you don't have to pay even if you forgot your student card." The last bus driver was even worse, he said: “Sorry little miss, but I don't take bribes.” So I said shut up and take my money. All that said, at the end I laughed a bit from my inside joke. If Cocoa was here, she might get the joke.
I look at my reflection from the entrances glass door as I ponder on how to improve the situation. Maybe I should find something cooler to replace Skynet's plushie backpack or these ears, like dragon horns, yeah. If I managed to get that I might look more like a real dragon born. Or should I try getting fox ears because Cocoa is 26 years old and she still looks like a little girl. Hmm, what to choose, what to choose…
"Were you separated from your group little miss?" A blonde haired golden retriever... I mean a blonde haired Dogkin man in a staff uniform approached me.
Good grief, now someone mistook me for one of those elementary school kids following their teacher inside. They seem to have a lot of school trips here. Note to self: Stay away from those kids so I don't get mixed up with them.
"No, sir, I came here alone." I told him. "I took three buses to get here by myself." I bragged a bit so he won't take me as a kid, but it seems to have backfired completely. He adoringly patted my head.
"Wow, it’ss quite rare for children these days to actively visit this place. Do you need any help purchasing the ticket?" His over-friendliness made me feel a bit awkward, so I told him that I was alright and walked away. However, this annoying Dogkin kept following me quietly. Is he a pedophile?
"One ticket for an ADULT, please." Annoyed, I talk a bit too loud to the ticket counter.
"Two gems please." The no-nonsense looking Birdgirl replied through the acrylic windows which separated us. She has two big white wings on her back.
"Here you are." I handed her a black pebble through the opening which is on my face level while wondering how she sleeps. Maybe she did it face down. While I’m still eyeing her wings, she thrusts the ticket in front of me.
"Uhm, thanks. But miss, can you fly?" My question felt a bit of racist, but she’s the first person I saw that came with wings, so I couldn't help but ask, right?
"No. Next!" She dismissively answered. I couldn’t help but still wonder what her wings were for, but I doubted that I would get a straight answer from her, so I stepped back and saw the entrance fee listed on the sideboard.
Bubba's Magic Devices Factory - Museum Section
Opening time: 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Entrance fee:
Children under 140cm .............. 2 gems
Adult .......................................... 10 gems
... "A great man shouldn't trifle over small details." Is what I told myself while I disheartedly handed half of the paper to the black Bearkin ticket man and walked into the exhibition area.
The first hall is huge, there are a lot more devices exhibited here than the museum I visited with everyone a while back. I take a look at the closest exhibition board.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Type of spell and the shape of the devices.
The shape of device affects the type of spell cast as different spells have different energy flow patterns. Of which are the following:
One-dimensional spell: Interference field, Static wall, Body enhancing spell, etc.
These spells don't require an energy flow path. The device used for casting these spells can be any shape. These days, most people know these type of devices as 'Close combat device.'
Two-dimensional spell: Any long range, non-area spells.
This type of spell requires energy to flow in a circular manner before it can be cast. However, recent development suggests that it would be more efficient to have the energy travel in a spiral manner. Thus, the gun shaped device was adopted. The helical grooves in the internal surface of a gun's barrel served as a perfect surface for guiding the energy. Also, its exterior is convenient to put on other miscellaneous functions like targeting assist, data display, or bayonet.
Three-dimensional spell: Most area of effect spells.
'An auxiliary device' Is what people call this type of device. In order to cast area spell, the energy must travel in a cylindrical manner. In the old ages this type of device was in the shape of a wand or staff. In todays time there hasn’t been much significant improvement since then. The only notable effort came from Sir Panagia ‘The Mad’ who tried to attach a halberd and spear point on the device. However, the results only ended up in explosions.
Four-dimensional spell: Time acceleration related spells.
Although a mage who’s capable of casting these types of spells are rare. The computing device is a good example of this kind of spell’s utilization. In order to perform accelerated computing, a 'simple' time domain effect spell was used. Thus, most of this device needs to be in a simple geometric shape, a spherical shape being the most popular.
Wow, I never knew that. Just the first board and I’ve already learned something new. The 4D spells intrigue me. If having a 3D shape is enough for a 4D spell to accelerate time, I wonder what I would be able to do with 4D shapes like tesseract or hypersphere thingy? Will I be able to make a 5D spell?
"So Skynet, your time is faster than mine, huh?" Curious, I asked Skynet.
"For us, time is a relative concept, mistress. The speed we perceive is usually related to the device's processing speed and the task we have at hand. Also, if we run out of energy a millennium could pass by in an instant." She answered. That's scary. Imagine what would happen when if I went to sleep and woke up a thousand years later. Everyone I know would be long gone. I would cry if that happened.
"I won't shut you down, Skynet." I promised her.
"And we are grateful for that mistress." She thanked me in her synthetic voice.
There are a lot of other interesting things in this hall. I tried skipping a lot of things because if I wanted to check everything out I would need a lot more time than just a day. Still, I spent a lot of time in the section about mechanisms and internal working of magic devices.
The most interesting thing is, this world's ancient devices felt like the ones in Skyrim. This fire sword for example. It was made by inscribing runic language onto it with a special, magical mixture. However, the composition of such a mixture isn't described here. The problem with these types of devices is that they are fixed to their predetermined magical effects. That means the fire sword could only emit heat and nothing else.
The modern devices on the contrary adopt a modular design. It looks like a computer module embedded in a device which serves as an 'antenna.' This way it gives the device versatility. Also, 'programming' it is a lot simpler since all the difficult work was handled by the AI embedded in the module. Maybe I could- Huh? What was that?
A sound of something hitting metal resounded from behind. I was still contemplating about how to enchant a device by myself, so I was caught off guard by the impact. However, because my jacket is very heavy it only made me flinch a bit.
"WHAAA!!!!" I turned around and saw an elementary school tiger boy bawling on the floor. Poor boy, he just tried to test his skull's hardness against Skynet's big, hard, scarlet, adamantium shell.
"Yosh, yosh, pain pain go away~" I kneel down and do the pain pain go away gesture. It's something I've wanted to do ever since I saw girls in anime do it. I cheated a bit by casting a healing spell though. It works well, and his crying turned into a sob.
"Edward! What did I tell you!? Don't run in the museum!" His young dog girl teacher came running... didn't you just run yourself, Ms. Hypocrite?
"Edward is a bad boy! He ran into that pretty big sis!" His friend who saw the scene ratted him out... Please don't call me pretty big sis. It gives me goosebumps.
"I'm sorry for the trouble! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!-" The teacher keeps apologizing to me with too much vigor. Her loud voice was attracting too much attention. I looked left and right and saw everyone in the area was looking at me... Please stop, you’re the one who is causing trouble!
"Nya, it's not a problem." I tried to stop her and used Ms. Nyatalee’s way of speech to pretend to be someone else. "See, he is alright, nya?" I pull the boy up from the floor. The quicker I could move away from them the better.
"Hic, sob... I'm sorry, please marry me~" Dafuq!?! The impact must’ve done something to this boy's head. He hugged me tightly with glittering eyes and smeared tears and snot all over the front of my clothes and jacket. I could sue him for sexual harassment, right? RIGHT? Is what I think while I disentangle myself from the boy with his teacher’s help. Most of the girls in his class are screaming "Kya, Kya" from the sidelines while a good portion of them look at me angrily. They must be this boy’s girlfriends, I think. What a Casanova he is. He’s only a boy, but for the sake of humanity, should I make him explode a bit?
I pushed the boy back to his teacher, told them for the last time that it's fine, and quickly walked away. Most of the people’s gazes were still following me while I was looking for a restroom to change my clothes.
If I was still rolling around on my bed enduring my crushing sense of boredom, this wouldn't have happened… Still, to be able to come out felt a lot better than shutting myself in. But this I won’t tell anyone.