July 21, 625
“Sir, you’ve received another letter.”
“Of course I have.”
I sighed and turned away from my workstation, glancing at my new assistant.
Sawn had gotten me one after our showcasing. At first I had thought the idea was stupid but I was quickly proven wrong. I thanked the man for his great idea after I got swamped with correspondence.
Boris Mago was an Authority 9 warlock who, while not quite bright enough to be one of Sawn’s premiere enchanters, was a hard worker who was good at staying on task. He was eventually moved up to a managerial position before getting on the roster for enchanters who had a chance to get cycled into an apprenticeship with the big time enchanters in Sawn’s Office, the big brains who innovated.
I was now one of those big brains and so he got moved into a spot next to me. He wasn’t an apprentice since I had precisely zero time to teach, but he was close enough to learn some things as my assistant. He had gladly taken the position so both of us were happy.
Although, the main reason he had been assigned to me was because he was a particularly powerful warlock who specialized in earth magic. He had served out the duration of his 12 year contract in the military after graduating from the Magisterium, climbing to the rank of First Commander and leaving, using connections to get into Sawn Industries.
This was all to say that he’d be able to follow me when I went back to the Treehouse. I wasn’t expecting him to fight alongside me but General Viskar had agreed to it easily. I’d have to talk to Nonnen but I didn’t think he’d reject a free Chief-level warlock.
Those were bridges to cross when I got there though. For now, I had enough on my plate.
Boris handed me the letter, which I tore open and read with a few glances. I could take in a full page now with a single look. Even books stood no chance.
I rolled my eyes at the contents.
“That’s the sixth noble party I’ve been invited to, and they had their fucking daughter write it. Could you be more obvious?”
“You’re famous now, sir, and you turned down that title. They’ll do whatever they can to get their hands on you.”
“Yeah, well, they can shove their fancy parties up where the sun don’t shine. If they want planes they can give me their money. Go through my letters from now on. If it's from a Duke, hand it to me. If not, toss it. The only Marquess I’ll tolerate is Choron since he’s my friend’s father.”
“Understood.”
He nodded and took the letter back, the parchment igniting above his palm before he started inscribing things into a personal Orb of his. Although he specialized in Earth magic, he also had a perfect affinity for water and a partial affinity for fire. He knew some basic healing spells, making him even more valuable.
Black hair, pale skin, just slightly shorter than me and somewhat lanky, Boris was a no-nonsense individual, very pragmatic. We got along well because I didn’t demand much from him and he got what I did ask of him done perfectly. And when he wasn’t catering to my few needs I let him peruse enchantments and study advanced material. I’d also answer any questions he had, which he asked infrequently so as to not disturb me.
He was a good assistant. It was nice having him around since he was also an ear I could complain to. Not only that, but he was capable enough to enchant small things if I needed him to on the fly. I had gotten involved with many experiments and sometimes I just needed a quick test.
Even something as simple as knowing whether or not an enchantment could be created by someone of his level was enough.
“Hey Boris.”
“Yes sir.”
“Come here. I need you to enchant this onto this.”
I brought up a small enchantment, something for the Mana Engine. He put away his things and walked over, taking a serious look at the enchantment.
He was silent as I plopped down in my seat. I watched him, his hand taking the small disc I had set down.
The main enchanting tool was already running, a pen with a tube attached to it that fed the pen liquid White Crystal, allowing it to engrave an object and inscribe conduits.
He took the pen and started writing into the disk, using his Mana to guide the Crystal and channel the energy according to my schematic. The enchantment slowly took shape, taking about 5 minutes to create despite its relative simplicity.
Once he was done, he slot the pen back into the Crystal melter and raised the disk.
“It is done. I didn’t have any problems.”
“Good. Place it inside those metal prongs sticking out of the base plate.”
He did as I said and set the disk down. Once he did, I hit a button, Magika streaming through the baseplate.
Then, the disk started levitating and spinning, getting faster and faster with no end to its acceleration in sight.
I put my finger on a lever before elbowing Boris, “Raise a barrier.”
He did as I asked, a barrier manifesting around us. Then I flicked the lever all the way up.
The disk suddenly shot into the air before hitting the ceiling and sparking, flying off in a random direction and bouncing around the room, leaving scars in the walls and destroying one of my chairs.
It eventually calmed down in a corner somewhere. I nodded, thinking.
Boris looked at me, the barrier going down, “Was it supposed to do that?”
“No, it wasn’t. The spinning yes, but it was not supposed to elevate like that.”
“So it was only supposed to spin faster?”
“For the most part, yes. I’m attempting to create a repulsive force that turns the repelling momentum into rotational momentum as the power throughput increases, shifting from one to the other at an exponential rate. The end goal is a disk that spins while locking its own position, taking the stress off the structural Crystal. Unfortunately, it seems like I’ll have to invent the enchantments for that entirely. There’s nothing to go off of, as this experiment just proved.”
“...You’ve already done amazing work, sir. I’m confused though.”
“Shoot.”
I walked over to the disk and picked it up, tossing it back onto the desk.
Boris looked at the baseplate.
“If this was based on your Mana Engine design, wasn’t there supposed to be another Crystal in the disk?”
“Normally, yes, but what you just enchanted got rid of the necessity for a secondary Crystal. That right there was the very first MonoCrystal Mana Engine.”
“...I’m honored to be a part of such a monumental development.”
“Eh.”
I shrugged, not impressed. After having the time to give it thought, I was able to churn out a half decent enchantment for it. The important part was that it halved the amount of Crystals necessary for a Mana Engine. It would be huge for small-scale low-power applications, like wagons and the like. Slightly wealthy ordinary people would probably be able to afford things that used this tech.
All this was just a distraction though. My main concern was with three other projects.
First, I had to develop bombs. Not physical ones, but magic ones.
Second, I had discovered an interesting property regarding the forces White Crystals exerted. Sawn had a team on that project.
Third was a project that utilized the new discoveries of the second project. All three were rather important because they would change a lot of things for a lot of people.
What had me stumped, for now, was the issue with bombs. What I just did with the MonoCrystal Mana Engine gave me time away from the bomb issue.
Now though, I decided to get back to work. I walked out of my office, Boris following and locking the door behind me. The two of us started heading to the testing range.
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To get there, we went to the 83rd floor where Sawn had built a large helipad that hung off the side of the Magic Spire. He was raking in so much money that a quick addition like this was cheap.
Boris and I jumped into the helicopter there and I spun it up. Before long we were lifting off and flying, aimed toward the airfield.
Just outside the airfield was a large swath of land fenced off for our use. There were craters dotting some parts but they were small. The mere sight of their inadequacy pissed me off.
We landed on top of the development center where a helipad had been placed. I flicked everything off before jumping out of the helicopter and walking off, the blades still spinning down.
Once inside, I saw a dozen different summoners and two dozen enchanters all working away. Sawn was here, apparently, so I walked up to him.
“Any changes?”
“Not really. Explosions are slowly getting bigger but its nothing close to what you want.”
“No, it’s not.”
I crossed my arms, the two of us overlooking all the busy workers in front of us.
There were plenty of spells that could create explosions, just like warlocks could with fire magic. Sawn was the manufacturer of the turrets commonly found on Steeds or walls, so he had a whole arsenal of those spells. What I wanted was different though. I wanted an explosion of pure magic that came from the detonation of White Crystals. The key word there was detonation. All of Sawn’s spells were closer to a fire burning than a substance exploding.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling that a part of making that tech real would require us to figure out that new discovery I had made.
While I was thinking, a warlock came running out from another room.
“Sirs! We’ve made a development with Project Circle.”
I turned around, glancing at Sawn before following the warlock back into that room.
It was a massive warehouse, technically a part of the development center but devoted entirely to a seemingly useless project.
Project Circle was named such because I had discovered an interesting property regarding the field of power that White Crystals produced.
There was a circular field, similar to a magnetic field, that bloomed from a White Crystal at a distance proportional to the power density of the White Crystal. That knowledge alone was already known about, but I figured out something different.
That field of Magika that came out of the Crystals was monomagnetic in nature. That is, unlike normal magnetics, there wasn’t a north or south pole. It was like its power simply radiated out in all directions, like it was a light source. However, the reason I still likened it to magnetics was because of how the field acted when it came into contact with other fields.
Normally, the fields did nothing to each other. In order for them to affect each other, a warlock would have to tune them. That’s why every magic device had to be tuned to the Crystal that was used to power it. Even when they were tuned to the same frequency though, they wouldn’t interfere.
It was only when the identical frequencies were resonated that they would amplify each other. That was the basis for Rails, and what I pulled inspiration from to create the Mana Engine.
What I had found in the midst of all this was something I coined the “Magnitude Frequency”. I discovered that if you took Crystals of two neighboring Authorities, like an Authority 5 and 6, and you resonated them at two different frequencies that differed from each other by a magnitude, they would start to fight against each other. I had done this while attempting to use Crystals of different levels for my Mana Engine.
Well, the Crystals really didn’t like it when I did that. Their powers wouldn’t repel, but they would get chaotic and reduce efficiencies to nothing. More than that, they would begin to disintegrate at a noticeable rate.
White Crystals normally disintegrated over time and with excessive use. I had never heard of them disintegrating after making their powers fight each other. It was like they were trying to destroy the other when I tuned them to the Magnitude Frequency.
Well, this naturally provided me with ideas, and I started playing with them and their fields.
That’s when, finally, I found a phenomenon.
If you took two Crystals tuned to the Magnitude Frequency and placed the secondary Crystal at a distance away from the dominant Crystal equal to the square root of the radius of the dominant Crystal’s Goldilocks Zone, and then you started shooting mana at it, they would lock each other up with that mana. The kicker was that they would continue to disintegrate each other, but those particles from the Crystal would coalesce around them in an orbit equal to the square radius of the combined Crystals’ Goldilocks Zone
My issue was finding that Goldilocks Zone. It could be done, but if it wasn’t perfect, if it wasn’t reliable, it couldn’t be used on a mass scale. Unfortunately, the only time I had managed to get it to work was on a fluke, and it soon fell apart because I stopped feeding it energy. Thus, Sawn assigned a team to brute force the issue.
It seems they were onto something.
We walked into the warehouse where there were dozens of circular tables holding crystals of all different levels. Warlocks and summoners were all trying to figure out the Goldilocks Zone using various measurement devices and mechanisms.
The warlock who led us arrived at one particular table that was using repulsion enchantments to lift Crystal cradles into the air. These ones were angled toward each other though, with tools I had never seen before being used to guide energy to the Crystals that would lock them.
The two crystals we saw were already locked, which made me immediately optimistic. A big indicator of a successful lock was the fact that one could actually see the mana that was being locked. The disintegrated particles that entered the orbit would be colored according to the element infused to lock them. Green for Earth, Blue for Water, Red for Fire, and weirdly enough, Black for Air.
When I looked at the locked Crystals though, floating in mid air with a sphere of particles around them, I saw White. I was confused until I looked at the knight standing to the side. I didn’t know where these people had gotten a knight but I didn’t care.
The warlock explained, “We decided to go outside the norm here and use a knight to infuse Vigor into the lock, thinking it would bring more stability, perhaps even the ability to manipulate the separation during locking. While that happened, we noticed that when the Knight infused Vigor, the Crystals refused to move from their positions, locking, but only artificially. As soon as he removed his Vigor it was free to move again.”
“Interesting,” I rubbed my chin, smiling.
He continued, “Then, we thought we should try to use a summoner, thinking it would have a different effect. When Carlen here infused Psyka, he was able to understand and highlight where the Goldilocks Point was. Then, he guided the knight, the two adjusting the lock with the table here until it was at the required separation distance. When they were done with adjustments, I was able to lock it easily with Mana.”
“...”
I looked at Sawn, brows raised, before looking back at the table.
“Do it again.”
“Of course.”
The warlock smiled and then removed the locked pair of Crystals from their levitation platforms. The cradles the Crystals were held in were easy to grab and stayed locked in place, and even the sphere of particles orbiting them did nothing to hinder the warlock’s hands. They simply phased through, the particles intangible despite being visible. It looked unreal.
After setting everything down he brought together another two Crystals at Authority 3 and 4.
They slotted them into the cradles, placed them on the platforms, levitated them, and then began the process. It was almost too easy. The summoner was able to literally highlight the correct distance away, the fields around the crystals turning visible, the most concentrated orbits of power being highlighted the most. That was the Goldilocks Zone, and under his guidance the knight was able to lock the distance of the Crystals after the warlock had simply shifted the platforms holding the Crystals away from each other.
Finally, the knight locked it, allowing the warlock to easily stream his mana in and complete the lock, his blue water mana streaming into orbits around the Crystals as they progressively disintegrated.
I nodded, asking, “Now why is the knight necessary for the artificial lock when you can adjust it yourself?”
“For some reason, the lock is far easier to achieve them he’s using his Vigor on it. Without him, it takes a long time and hundreds of lock attempts to get it right. I don’t know why.”
“That’s fine. We know it works though. That’s all that matters for now. As for this…”
I turned around, looking at the first pair of locked Crystals. They were also at Authority 3 and 4, and they sat about a foot away from each other. The Crystals were already half disintegrated, a visible white and blue sphere forming around them about 2 feet in diameter.
I rubbed my chin, “Infuse as much mana into that as you can. Sawn, if you could help him. Water mana only.”
“Very well.”
Sawn stepped up with the other warlock, the two of them infusing mana into the locked crystals. Blue color saturated the ring, and the disintegration progressed even faster.
At some point, the sphere turned solid blue, and the Authority 3 Crystal disintegrated fully, leaving just a bit of the Authority 4 Crystal. The cradles fell to the table and suddenly, the sphere collapsed in on the remaining Crystal, releasing a blinding flash of white.
I was momentarily blinded, but my eyes recovered faster than everyone else’s. Soon, I was able to see the object born from this new phenomenon.
A solid blue Crystal, no longer intangible. It was an Elemental Crystal, slightly bigger than the Authority 4 White Crystal that went into this. It seemed that the power of the Authority 3 Crystal had been added to its greater counterpart.
I don’t know why, nor how, but I knew we had just discovered something massive.
Sawn recovered next, his eyes bulging when he saw the Elemental crystal.
“It’s nothing but Water Mana.”
He muttered and grabbed the thing, holding it carefully in his hands.
Then, he suddenly ran out.
“Follow, John!”
I didn’t respond, simply sprinting after him. Several other people came with us as we left the warehouse to reach the open world.
We saw Sawn stop before casting a simple single circle spell and chucking the new Water Crystal into the air.
After a few seconds, the crystal exploded, releasing a massive amount of water all at once. It blanketed the entire area in water, mist forming into raindrops before falling down on us.
Several seconds passed, rain falling on a sunny day, as a few people behind me yelled in achievement, cheering their hearts out.
I, on the other hand, saw the future of magical warfare in that explosion. It almost felt like visions flashed through my mind, visions of what was soon to befall not just the Scourge, but all of humanity in this world.
The ability to detonate the entirety of a White Crystal’s power, customized with mana and a spell. Given enough fuel, it was a recipe for the greatest level of devastation this world will ever conceive.
With that realization came a wave of desolation that quickly flooded my mind. I understood, very intimately, that I had just changed this world in a way that no plane could ever compare to. I understood the scale of this magitech in a way that not even Sawn could fathom.
This was something that could scale to the level of nuclear weapons. I didn’t know how many Authority 12 or 11 Crystals the Kingdom possessed, but even a single one of those, charged with the power of this elemental conversion, could result in devastation greater than a nuclear bomb given the right spell.
Sawn had no idea of the scale. All he saw was a little explosion of water. I saw the destruction of the entire Capital City in the blink of an eye.
After a handful of seconds I zoned back in, the thought of traitors making my anxiety soar. This method of elemental conversion couldn’t get out, and unfortunately, every single person in that warehouse was someone who understood the general method to make this work.
I muttered under my breath, feeling like an idiot for not thinking this through sooner, and then daring to feel shocked when I saw the power.
“What have I done.”