Nexus University; Student Accommodation

Two months ago

For several hours now, the Polish exchange student Leonardo Darwinzki, shortened by his friends to Leo, had been hunched over his workbench, delicately fitting tiny electronic components into holders never intended for them. Once again, he cursed silently, wishing he could afford proper components instead of having to salvage scraps. Exhausted, he wiped the sweat from his brow, straightened his tense back, and surveyed the pile of disassembled old computers, VCRs, microwave ovens, and toy cars. The shelves of his small student apartment were overflowing with countless components, electronic junk, small pieces of wire, and light bulbs. At first glance, the room resembled an electronics store that had been devastated by a whirlwind, looted, and then hastily tidied up. Without his absolutely photographic memory, even Leo wouldn't stand a chance of finding anything here. But with it, he navigated the chaos with sleepwalking certainty, grabbing a broken LCD screen from behind, something from the shelf there, and then retrieving a brand-new fuse from a drawer. As he mentally reviewed his inventory, he painfully realized once again that his supply of the more expensive electronic components was slowly but surely running out. In the beginning, he could still order plenty of them directly from manufacturers as "samples" for "quality testing purposes for a planned production run," but by now, they all had his name and "company addresses" in their database.

Just as he was about to lean back over his small workbench, there was a knock on the door. Was it already so late? He had arranged to play chess with his buddy Archeron at 5:00 p.m. But now, it was at most... His gaze fell on the wristwatch he had pinned to the wall with a pushpin through the strap. 5:09 p.m.? Sighing, he turned to the door without letting go of the tiny components he had just painstakingly maneuvered around some other components on the now completely overcrowded circuit board. "Is that you, Arch?"

"No, it's Santa Claus!" Archeron's unshakably cheerful voice echoed through the door.

"Come on in."

Leo had, of course, locked the door to avoid being disturbed, but that had never stopped his friend before. A brief murmur was heard outside the door, then the lock glowed briefly greenish, clicking open quietly. The door swung open with a flourish.

"Ah! Back to tinkering, eh?" The young student who casually sauntered in wore sneakers, a black T-shirt with the bright inscription "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son," and a black pointed hat with silver and gold stars, which looked like a talented four-year-old had crafted it in kindergarten.

Leo stared at the strange headwear and then raised an eyebrow questioningly. The eternal cheerful smile on the face of the magic student flickered for a moment. "Don't ask!"

"But what..." Leo was confused.

"Just don't ask... Oh, forget it, you won't leave me alone until I tell you anyway. I was entertaining a school class with magic tricks in the city park... No, not what you're thinking! Sleight of hand tricks! Card tricks, pulling coins from behind ears, and stuff like that. Only... at the end, I couldn't think of anything for a closing gag, so I just conjured up a light orb."

Leo could barely restrain himself from dropping the components he was still fiddling with. "Are you crazy?!? Magic in front of witnesses? The Veil is powerful, but it also has its limits!"

"I thought everyone would just take it as a trick. Nobody suspected anything. But someone must have squealed on me. Probably one of the other students in the park. If I catch him... Anyway, Professor Majere summoned me to his office and then chewed me out. He said if I want to show everyone that I'm a magician, then I should do it properly. And then he conjured up this thing on my head."

The last two wires finally found their position, and Leo quickly soldered them in place before they dangled somewhere else on the board again. He shook his cramped hands in relief and said, "Isn't that somewhat counterproductive?"

Archeron shook his head. "Only people with magical talent can see the hat. Everyone else... Hey! Wait a minute! You're at the Faculty of Unusual Sciences! How can you see it?"

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The young inventor waved it off. "During the usual aptitude test, they also found a strong magical talent in me. But I'm a scientist, not a trickster. No offense."

"If you ever want to learn a few basics, I'd be happy to teach you."

"Alright. I'll get back to you on that. But for now, I need to test this." Leo grinned expectantly and moved the device he had been working on from the workbench to a somewhat free table in the middle of the room. The contraption looked like it had begun its existence as a slide projector, only to be crossed with a fan wrapped in cables and something resembling an exploded telephone. Excitedly, Leo pressed a few buttons and then stepped back expectantly.

Small LEDs blinked rapidly and then went out. For a moment, the device lay motionless on the table, then sparks crackled all over the surface, and a smell of burnt plastic filled the room. Under a faint, strained crackling, the thing suddenly folded up as if pressed together by an invisible fist like a paper ball and then lay still, smoking quietly. Leo looked briefly disappointed at his friend and then slumped dejectedly into a chair. "Six weeks. Six damned weeks I've been working on this thing. And nothing again. And this time, there's not even enough left to figure out what went wrong. How I envy you magicians!" He theatrically raised his hands and then reached into a drawer to grab a chocolate bar to calm himself down.

Archeron gratefully took a piece too and then asked curiously, "Why envy? My spells also go wrong more often than not."

"But you don't have to tinker in the workshop for weeks every time to try again. You speak your formula, and poof! Done or not. You don't have to create construction sketches and circuit diagrams. No building prototypes and testing and rebuilding and testing again. Over and over again until it works."

"Hey, it's not that simple! It takes a lot of study and practice to finally get a spell right. And all we do is learn old spells. You invent new things. Things that have never existed before! It would take years to develop a completely new spell. Most magicians spend their whole lives without ever inventing anything new."

"Really? That wouldn't be for me. Just learning old stuff..." He looked at the table. "Let me just adjust and test the 3D scanner. Maybe I can still get a simulation to find out what went wrong this time." He grabbed one of the many unidentifiable devices, plugged the connection to the computer it had out, and opened a cover. While he was already looking into the electronic guts, he absentmindedly pointed to one of the shelves. "I just need to reattach the cable connection that came loose last week. Can you pass me a screwdriver?"

Archeron grinned. Finally, an opportunity to try out his latest spell. "No problem." Instead of turning around, he reached out his hand and exclaimed, "Create screwdriver!" Under a pale green glow, a screwdriver appeared in his hand, which he immediately handed to his friend. "There you go."

Leo looked amazed from his work to the screwdriver. "Wow! New spell? I always thought magicians could only create lumps of earth or something like that?"

"Technically, I didn't create anything. It's just a material illusion. As soon as it no longer touches a living body, it dissolves again. But until then, it works perfectly."

Leo, examining the screwdriver beside him on the desk, took his hand away, and it dissolved again in a renewed pale green shimmer. "Really convenient. One would just need to..." Thoughtfully, his gaze slid to the cage with his two lab mice. "Does it have to be a human touching the thing, or does it work for all living beings?"

"It doesn't matter. As long as it's alive and bigger than an insect. Why?"

"Oh, just a thought." He unscrewed a cover and looked inside. "Can you also make a soldering iron?"

"Sure can. Create soldering iron!" A soldering iron appeared, which he promptly plugged into an outlet on the wall and handed to Leo. "The power supply is always external or through highly complicated special spells. And chemical reactions like gunpowder don't work either. But otherwise, it's like the real stuff."

"Thanks!" The young inventor turned back to his housing and carefully touched a delicate circuit board with the soldering iron. Immediately, a bright flash zapped through the sensitive apparatus, destroying electronic components and scorching an ugly hole in the housing. The screen on the desk went black, and the computer shut down seamlessly as the fuse finally tripped, albeit belatedly. Startled, Leo dropped the hot soldering iron, which dissolved in mid-air. A small column of smoke rose above the housing, spreading a smell of burnt plastic. More startled than angry, he turned to his friend. "Were you trying to kill me? That was just a piece of metal directly connected to the 220V socket! The scanner can now be converted into a toaster at best!"

"Does it need more?!" Archeron looked concerned at the destroyed device. "Sorry. I really thought that's how it works. I didn't know that there were more parts to it. You can only create things with the spell that you know how to build otherwise."

Leo's expression, which had just oscillated between shock and anger, visibly relaxed. His pensive gaze slid to a whole shelf of folders with ideas and construction sketches for inventions that he hadn't been able to build yet due to lack of time and components. "Can the spell create anything the corresponding magician could build themselves?"

"Of course. Why?"

A broad grin spread across Leo's face. "Where can I enroll with you guys again?"