September 2, 1613 Central Calendar, 22:30

Runepolis, Holy Milishial Empire

After receiving the invitation letters from the Runepolis Magic Academy (RMA) at Robin’s recommendation, both Meteos Roguerider and Walman Falkenhausen were transferred from their junior high school in their hometown of Leiden to the capital city, enrolling in their new school as Student Mages. Aside from taking classes, they sometimes will be called upon as assistants by Robin, who worked in the RMA as a Mage, technician, and a professor sent by the Ministry of Ancient Sorcerous Empire Countermeasures (MOASEC or Ancient Ministry). In other words, Meteos and Walman are unofficially Robin’s apprentices.

As for housing, they rented an apartment close to RMA’s building complex, next to Robin’s, and the three quickly become friends. She is energetic and can be pretty quirky and strange at times, but she is a genuinely good person.

Meteos decided to leave the conductive magnetic radar they built and the knowledge of building it to the RMA’s staff to learn until they can produce a perfect copy of it for now, and is busy tinkering with a so-called state-of-the-art calculator recently developed by the Holy Milishial Empire in his apartment room. It’s that thing that’s as big as a PC and weighed nearly 14 kilograms, yet can only perform simple functions of a pocket calculator. It was expensive, too.

This is a product of Holy Milishial Empire’s take of one of the Ravernal Empire’s excavated technologies. What should be able to come out as a slim, handheld device, ended up becoming extremely bulky due to too many additional components in an attempt to achieve the original calculator’s performance. Sure, with magic and Ravernal technology, the HME can produce fancy and futuristic-looking technology, but they are underpowered and when you take away all that, all that remain is a level of understanding barely better than Mu’s, or even worse.

“*sigh* …this is the worst.” Meteos complained while holding his head. “If I can’t simplify and improve this thing’s performance, I can’t proceed with more advanced stuff.”

Probably it took a great effort for the Japanese not to laugh when Fearm gave this thing to them during their diplomatic meeting.

Robin, who was hanging out in their apartment, came over and take a look at the notes and blueprints scattered across the table.

“I think this one is acceptable enough for now. Let’s take this to the lab tomorrow for building and testing.”

“It’s still too bulky…”

“One thing at a time, kid. Besides, it looks like it can already be held in your palm.”

Walman from the far side of the room choose to comment, “Yeah, and you can throw it at someone like a brick.”

Meteos stared at his friend, unamused. Walman just shrugged.

“Fine. Let’s bring it to the lab tomorrow.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to finish it, by the way?”

“Miss Robin, Milishial is supposed to be the defender of all races, right? We don’t know when the Ancient Sorcerous Empire will finally return, and we barely understood their relic. Imagine when a light-winged man takes a look at us and he was like…”

Meteos then made an exaggerated frown before continuing.

“…you dare use my own spells against me?”

The other two looked at each other for a moment before burst in laughter.

“Bahahahahahaha! I can’t believe I’m laughing at the Ancient Sorcerous Empire of all things!” Robin cackled.

“I’m serious!”

“Sorry… but seriously, kid, you don’t have to bear everything alone.” Robin’s face turned serious. “You have us, for starters,” she then gestured to herself and to Walman, who made a thumbs up, “I don’t know about Walman…”

“Hey!”

“…but I will more than happy to help with your projects. Just tell me what are you going to make, and I will do my best to help. Heck, I can even find people if you need! Trust me, you don’t want to be overworked. I’m telling you this before you overexert yourself.”

At Robin’s words, Meteos paused and pondered.

‘…She’s right, maybe I have the knowledge from the future, but I can’t do everything alone… I guess I’m still too prideful for my own good as I was in my past life…’ he grimaced while running a hand over his hair.

“All right, Miss Robin, thanks for the advice.”

The brunette grinned at his words, “Good boy! I think we should call it a night, it’s getting late.” She continued while glancing at the wall clock.

And thus, the three went to rest and prepare for tomorrow.

September 3, 1613 Central Calendar, 19:00

Runepolis

The next day, the three of them brought Meteos’ new calculator design to RMA’s manufacturing department for building and testing. The process took longer than they expected, so Robin offered to go buy them some food in downtown Runepolis. As she walked down the sidewalk carrying shopping bags, she heard the sound of footsteps when she passed an alleyway on her left. The sound became closer and closer to her until something suddenly bumped into her.

“Oof!”

She managed not to fall and turned to look at the thing that just suddenly came out of nowhere… no, it’s a person.

“P-Professor Calvello!?”

The person’s voice called out. A girl with a back-length blonde hair tied in a low ponytail, with a fringe that ends in the middle of her eyebrows and shoulder-length bangs that frame her face. Her large blue eyes and facial features made Robin think of a porcelain doll. She was wearing a white dress with a blue jacket over it. This girl’s breathing is ragged, as she was the one who had just run from the alleyway. The fact that this girl just called Robin professor means that she must be from the Runepolis Magic Academy.

“Oho? An RMA student? Why are you running—oh.”

Robin trailed off and her eyes narrowed as she turned to look at the alleyway. From the darkness, she can hear multiple footsteps approaching, revealing themselves to be three menacing-looking men.

There are criminals in every city, and Runepolis, the Sleepless Magical City, was no exception.

“Well, well, well, what a lucky day! That brat led us to another one!” The lead thug smirked.

“Stay behind me, and hold these.” Robin whispered to the girl who nodded and took her bags, then put a fake smile. “Oh, hello there. I didn’t notice you coming, can I help you with something?”

“I’ll make this quick, hand over your money. All of them.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, we’re both hungry and we would like to come home quickly so—”

“I don’t give a damn! Stop playing around and give me your money, now!” The lead robber growled dangerously as he pulled out a gun from his pocket and pointed it at the two girls.

Robin’s fake smile fell and replaced by a flat look mixed with annoyance. Meanwhile, the girl behind her half whispered, half yelled, “Professor, what are you doing!?”

“Don’t worry, I got this.” She reassured, pulling out something from her longcoat’s left pocket, before revealing it to be a coin.

“Tch… You want my money, then let’s see if you can handle THIS!”

For a moment, it seemed that Robin’s left hand was glowing, before flicking the coin with such a great force that it broke the finger of the thug holding the gun.

Crack!

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! Y-YOU BITCH! GET HER!”

The other two robbers are now a bit hesitant knowing they’re trying to rob a mage, but nevertheless did as the leader told and tried to charge at her with weapons drawn.

“Alright, now is a perfect time to test this, here goes nothing… Lightning Creation Magic: Snake Lightning!!!”

From Robin’s outstretched hand, a discharge of yellow electricity took the form of three snakes and shot towards the charging thugs, wrapping themselves around them, then electrocuted the thugs making them pass out.

While that scene was unfolded in front of her, the blonde girl couldn’t help but stare in awe.

‘She just cast a magic without chanting the spell!’

Even among magic-inclined races, casting magic spell is a slow and lengthy process, and humans can never able to perform magic without chanting. And yet, the woman in front of her not only defy that rule, but did so easily. Satisfied with her work, Robin turned to the girl.

“Next you’re going to say, ‘Professor, how did you perform magic without spell?’”

“Professor, how did you perform magic without—HUH!?”

Robin laughed a little and patted the girl’s head. “I’ll answer that. But for now, let’s hand these creeps to the police first.”

After handing over the thugs to the police, with the blonde girl giving a testimony that Robin performed a magic spell in self-defense, the two boarded a tram on their way back to RMA.

“So, kid, I know you’re an RMA student, but I didn’t know your name. Who are you?”

“My name is Nadia Smirnova, second-grade at Junior High School Department.” The blonde girl, Nadia, answered.

“Hm… so you’re like Meteos and Walman.”

“Meteos and Walman, Professor?”

“They’re my assistants, second grader just like you. And by the way, we’re not at school right now, so feel free to call me Robin.”

“Alright… Prof—I mean, Miss Robin.”

Robin then reached under her longcoat and pulled a book from a holster hanging from the belt on her waist. It is yellow in color with ornate geometric design as covers. She showed it to Nadia.

“This is a prototype of the tool that I’m currently working on. A Personnel-Type Chant Accelerator, or for simplicity’s sake, I’m calling it a ‘grimoire.’”

“Ooh…”

“This grimoire contains a fixed number of spells that when mana channeled into it, it can be used to instantly perform a magic spell without me needing to chant. But I still have to pinpoint the mana into the spell I’m going to use, that’s why I called out the name of my attack.” Robin explained as she showed the contents of the grimoire to Nadia. It is full of runes.

The explanation continued.

“But this prototype is limited to only five spells. Adding one more will make it as heavy as a brick!” She snorted.

“That looks like something out of Agartha Kingdom, Miss Robin.”

“Hm? Yeah, you’re right. But by the time I’m done with this, even the Agarthan Grand Mages will be envious! If you’re interested, I’ll show it to you.”

Nadia giggled at Robin’s enthusiasm and answered, “I’d love that. Thank you for your offer, Miss.”

The tram reached the stop in front of the RMA’s building complex and the two disembarked, heading to their own destinations, Nadia to a dormitory, while Robin went to the manufacturing department’s lab to check on Meteos and Walman.

20:00

“Boys! I’m back! How’s it going?”

Meteos looked up from his notebook at Robin’s voice, while Walman waved at her while playing around with a square-shaped device in his palm.

“Miss Robin! Look, it’s already completed!”

“Really!? Lemme see!”

Robin examined the calculator shown by Walman. Aside from number and arithmetic calculation buttons, the calculator also has additional buttons such as a ‘log’ button that Robin assumed to be a logarithm function and trigonometric functions such as ‘sin’, ‘cos’, and ‘tan’ buttons. After pressing random buttons, she learned how to use the calculator in no time at all.

“How do you like it, Miss Robin?” Meteos asked while rummaging through the shopping bag that Robin just brought.

“This is great! This is a big leap forward than that brick in performance! Not only I can do basic math, it can perform complex calculations too. Such a device will greatly help everyone complicated solve problems quickly, and you can carry it around, too.”

“It’s cheap, too.” Walman added.

And thus, the first handheld calculator was born in the Holy Milishial Empire. With the three’s research in portable calculators (especially Meteos), the RMA was granted master patents on portable calculators. It was soon available for commercial use in the year 1614, and development of a more advanced computing devices carried on.

By the way, development of computing devices and Robin’s grimoire project overlap at some point, resulting in grimoire’s transformation from a book-like item to a calculator-like magic technology with pre-installed spells and the ability to compute the mana channeled into it, allowing the mage to cast a wider variety of spells without the need of chanting, and it can be stored in a pocket.

This drew interest from the Army, who led to the revival of frontline mage units. Since the invention of firearms, the Holy Milishial Empire limit mages as technicians and engineers behind the front line as support, since the inherent weakness of magic casting process made them impractical in modern warfare. They also studied new doctrine for mage units, such as using them as a rapid response force as well as the formation of HME’s equivalent to paratroopers, the 1st Aerial Mage Brigade. The Navy and Air Force followed later with the creation of their own special forces units centered around mages.

On the other hand, the term ‘grimoire’ will be used by Milishians to refer to what the Earthlings know as ‘smartphone’ in the future.

Currently Publicly Available Information

DIFFERENT WAYS OF DEVELOPING MAGIC

While the countries in the First Civilization Area are all magical civilizations, how they advance their country is different with each other.

The Holy Milishial Empire studies the ruins of the Ravernal Empire to advance their magic-based technologies, while Central Kingdom focuses on the research and use of ancient magic spells. Both are looking to the past to further the development of their civilization.

The Emor Kingdom is inhabited by the dragonfolk, an inherently magically powerful race, and uses their ability to ally themselves with the Wind Dragons.

The Agartha Kingdom, on the other hand, focuses on individual-based magic without relying much on magic technologies.