January 17, 1615 Central Calendar, 06:20

San Redentore District, Ministry of Ancient Sorcerous Empire Countermeasures

“…let’s carry our birthright and set it free.”

With a slowly widening smile, Robin reached for one of the devices—Second-Generation Manadrivers, that Fiolina Bucciarati, a secretary from the Aikon Corporation, had shown them. Picking up the one in the middle with one hand, her other hand reached for a yellow-colored large magic circuit.

“What great timing! We’re just about to practice our magic when you come.”

The new Manadriver is twice as large and is slightly heavier than the one in her possession. Its gleaming exterior—metallic, Robin noted, is colored a fierce combination of dark red and gold, while the other two in the briefcase are painted in regal gold and white. The lower part has a single large crystal lamp in the middle and two smaller lamps on its side, colored red and green. Meanwhile, on the top part, it sports wing-like protrusions with a black-colored handle equipped with a trigger at the end. It is asymmetrical, as on one side there is an opening to a slot that is precisely the size of the magic circuit she is holding.

Flipping the back and forth to examine it, Robin’s eyes were gleaming like a child’s as she felt herself extremely giddy at the prospect of testing it. Following her, Robin’s apprentices stepped forward and picked up the other two Manadrivers and circuits.

“Hee… this baby looks badass, so this is the Second-Generation Manadriver, huh?” Robin whistled.

“But… to ‘carry our birthright and set it free,’ you say? That’s quite a bold claim. What makes these different from the one invented by Miss Robin?”

The Daby beastwoman Fiolina turned her gaze toward the direction where that voice came from, a young man with hair as white as the snow that covered this entire Training Ground. At his question, Fiolina closed the briefcase and proceeded to explain the devices with a hint of smugness in her eyes.

“The one that Professor Calvello is holding right now is the prototype Unit 00, the A.M. Revolution, and the other two are the Unit 01, or BIRTH-DAY, as Mister President named it. The Second-Generation Manadriver of our company is a system made up of two parts, the Runite Redoublizer and the Runite Charger. Take a look at the Manadriver, press the trigger on that handle and you can separate them into two.”

“Huh? Is that so?” Robin asked and did as Fiolina say.

When she pressed the trigger on the handle and pulled it, the Manadriver beeped once and the magical mechanism that magnetically held the two parts together disengaged, ejecting the Charger from the Redoublizer.

“Uwoooah! It splits!!” she exclaimed.

Following her, Meteos and Walman did the same thing with the BIRTH-DAYs. They repeated the process several times, splitting and combining the devices. They also held it in one hand and shook it wildly to see if the combined parts will fall off, but the magnetic magic that held the device together securely clamped the Redoublizer and the Charger in place. As she looked on, Fiolina cringed at how rough they handled the devices, but since they belonged to the elite Ancient Ministry, they should know what they are doing.

Right?

“Amazing, it looks like it’s very high-tech!” Walman said in wonder.

“Intriguing. Then? What can these two parts do?”

Fiolina nodded shakily and continued her explanation.

“Let me start with the Runite Redoublizer. It fulfills the same function as Professor Calvello’s Manadriver. It is equipped with a component that we call a ‘Hard-Drive’ to store three medium-length spells—”

“What? Only three? Miss Robin’s Manadriver can store fi—YOW!” Walman whined before he yelped as Robin elbowed him.

“Sorry, let’s continue,” the bespectacled brunette apologized, shooting Walman a scolding look after that.

Fiolina’s left eye twitched, but she carried on, “…The reason why the storage capacity is less than five is to give room to a Processor, an advanced calculator, to pick these spells, break them down into components, and rearrange them to produce a new sequence of spells to match what the user desires to project into reality. Of course, we are currently working to improve the Manadriver so that the future models will be capable of even better performance!”

Mulling over the explanation, Meteos hummed and walked away, “Hmm… I get the gist of it.”

As they watched him walked to a nearby tree and picked up a branch, Fiolina muttered in confusion, “What is he doing?”

His teacher, Robin, only gave her a knowing smile. When Meteos returned, he used the tree branch he just picked up as a makeshift stick and began to draw on the snow. They listened to him as he spoke up, pointing at his drawing.

“So, it’s adding the capability to do permutation and combination. Miss Robin’s Manadriver can be installed with five spells with sequences made up for example, ‘ABC,’ ‘DEF,’ ‘GHI,’ ‘JKL,’ and ‘MNO,’ but since they are fixed, those five are the only spells that the user can cast instantly. But with the Second-Generation Manadriver, if the spells installed are made up of sequences for example, ‘ABC,’ ‘DEF,’ and ‘GHI,’ the Processor can process the spells, taking their components to create a new sequence to match what the user desires, such as ‘ABD,’ ‘ABE,’ ‘ADC,’ ‘AHG,’ before instantly casting it. That is, if none of the three spells have the same components. Without a Manadriver, a Mage must be specific and detailed in their desire, doing the calculations and then chanting the spell. With Miss Robin’s Manadriver, the user can use magic by simply desiring to use the name of a spell installed in it. Meanwhile, with this new Manadriver, the user can be more flexible in preparing the spell, as they could just desire something simple where the Manadriver will interpret that desire with the spells installed inside the Hard-Drive, process it, and instantly cast it.”

“………Wow, that’s a pretty good explanation,” Fiolina muttered in response to Meteos’ explanation.

She did not expect this boy to pull out a lengthy explanation about the Second-Generation Manadriver’s mechanism mere moments after encountering it, neither she expected him to do so in a manner that is fairly easy to understand. Of course, he greatly simplified its capabilities with his explanation.

“But there is no spell made up with only three components,” Fiolina pointed out, “The shortest spell known to man is made up of five.”

Meteos nodded, “That’s right. But imagine, if nine non-repeatable components can create 60.480 possible combinations of a nonexistent three-sequence spell, what a Mage can do with three spells, each spell is made up of at least ten components, and there will be certainly repetitions. How many millions of combinations the Manadriver can create…?”

“………”

From this point onward, the only one that can limit it is the Mage’s own imagination. Now what if there are four or more installed spells, or if the Manadriver can process a very long spell. It’s both very amazing and terrifying to think about.

“That’s crazy…” Walman stared at the Unit 01 BIRTH-DAY like some sort of holy artifact, realizing the potential held by this device.

Fiolina huffed, pleased that the elites at the Ancient Ministry are more than impressed with her company’s product.

On the other hand…

“Millions……!? HOOOOLY SHIEEEET!!” Robin shrieked, causing Walman and Fiolina to jump at how sudden and loud she was.

“Language—” Meteos deadpanned, but his teacher ignored him and babbled away.

“COL CAVOLO! *1 I can’t believe it! Is this even my invention!? I can’t believe I’m about to see this much improvement in less than five years!”

Meteos and Walman who knew her find that Robin is a fairly easy person to impress with something new. But to make her so thrilled that she momentarily reverted to her native southern language? Not even the Heavenly Vessel can do that as far as they remembered. To be fair, Manadrivers are her invention, to see it improve so much in a very short time is like a mother seeing her own child grow up to be a successful person in life. Robin even looked like she was going to have a seizure from pure joy.

“Erm, Professor—” Fiolina began.

“HNGGGG! MY PRECIOUS! MY PRECIOUS MANADRIVER! UWOOOAAH!”

The beastwoman was feeling weirded out by Robin that she backed away with her apprentices.

“E-excuse me, should we snap her out of it?” Fiolina whispered to the two boys, fearing that any more absurdity could break the professional air that she had already struggled to maintain ever since arriving at this Training Ground.

“Let’s wait for one or two minutes. I’ve never seen her like this before, it’s so funny,” Meteos laughed.

“Eeh? Are you kidding me?”

Fiolina looked aghast. When she set out to do the assignment given by her boss, she tried her best to maintain a perfect mannerism and knowledge about the Manadriver so that she won’t be an embarrassment to the Aikon Corporation in the face of the Ancient Ministry, the people whose occupation is to find ways to protect humanity. However, what did she encounter?

An immature kid, a creepy, overly mature kid, and a weirdo. Worse, these three are supposed to be the benefactors that helped the Aikon Corporation in the research that culminated in the birth of the Second-Generation Manadriver.

‘Why are they so carefree…?’ she thought, feeling conflicted. It’s hard to take them seriously after seeing their behavior so far.

Two minutes later, as Meteos had promised, they brought Robin back to reality and continued with the briefing.

…………

Fiolina stared at the assembled representatives of the Ancient Ministry holding the Manadrivers in their hands and took a deep breath after finishing her explanation about the Runite Redoublizer.

“Okay, are there any questions at this point?”

Meteos raised his hand, “Right. Using my earlier explanation, I would like to raise two points of concern. First, if the user desires to cast an ‘ABJ,’ what will happen since the ‘J’ component does not exist in the Hard-Drive? And the second, can the Manadriver’s Processor really process that many components at once? I am not doubting the Aikon Corporation, but I just wanted an assurance.”

Meteos’ tone caused Fiolina to swallow involuntarily. Composing herself, she answered his question according to what she knows about the device. The first question is not that hard to answer since as an Apprentice Mage, Fiolina had learned it in the magology classes.

“For the first question… well, without something to fill the missing components like a magic stone, an incomplete spell cannot be used to perform magic no matter how the user desired it, right? So I think the answer is quite obvious.”

Just after she answered the question, Walman quickly raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Then, what would happen if we use the Manadriver like what Meteos just described? Instead of desiring… err… ah, like this, ‘I want to destroy that rock with a Thunderbolt,’ or ‘I want to destroy that rock with a bullet of air compressed and spun by mana, et cetera, et cetera,’ I only desire ‘I want to destroy that rock.’ If we used the Manadriver in that way, what would happen?”

“There is a possibility… that the Manadriver will try to interpret that rather vague desire with the closest thing it had in its Hard-Drive and produce random magic to fulfill that goal. Either way, the desire will still be projected into reality, it’s just it might not fit with what the user envisions. That’s what I think.”

“Huh,” Walman looked thoughtful.

‘Did I nail it?’ Fiolina muttered in her mind.

To use an analogy, using magic is like painting. The ‘painter,’ or the wielder of magic, who desires something, projected that desire into the ‘canvas’ that is the reality using the ‘paint’ (mana) through a series of ‘brush strokes’ (spellcasting). However, the user’s desire must change something into reality, like conjuring fire or creating a gust of wind. Simply unleashing mana aimlessly will result in an ‘abstract painting’ that cannot exist in the real world. It will do nothing other than making yourself more noticeable to a detector because of the flash of mana.

The more complex the desire, the more effort the user has to exert in order to produce it, the more paint the user has to use and the more strokes of the brush they must do to paint the reality and realize their desire. Of course, the knowledge of what their desire will become is also required in order to produce a ‘good painting.’

The Manadriver, a very new technology in the Holy Milishial Empire, is touted to tear down the common sense of using magic.

Robin’s Manadriver works like a stamp. There are already fixed patterns that just waited to be drenched in mana to ‘stamp’ the reality using the Manadriver, instantly casting certain magic spells that are installed within the Manadriver.

Now, using painting as an analogy, what does the Second-Generation Manadriver do?

It’s like telling someone else to do your painting. You can either tell them as detailed as possible or just the general idea and left the person to paint your desire to their interpretation. Of course, the person doesn’t always know things that you know and maybe they will take several liberties in the painting process. On the other hand, too vague instructions can cause the person to turn back at you and say, “I don’t know.” In other words, there is also a possibility that the Second-Generation Manadriver with its still limited storage will suffer an error when it is inputted with a desire that is too broad for interpretation.

“As for your second question… to answer that question is our purpose today, we will test the capabilities of the Second-Generation Manadriver to its limit…”

Looking at Robin, who shrugged, Meteos smiled at Fiolina.

“Fair enough.”

Fiolina resisted the urge to smile back. However, Walman raised his hand again.

“What is the purpose of the slot in this part?” he questioned, pointing to the opening on the Redoublizer.

“That is called the Core Circuit Loader. I will explain that later, now, let’s move to the second part of the device.”

“Ah, yes, Runite Charger,” Walman nodded.

“Now, take a look at the Charger. What do you think it looks like?” Fiolina began.

As the three held the Charger’s grip and looked at it closely, they realized that it looked like a thick knuckle duster.

“So, can we punch people with this?” Robin chortled.

“Well, yes, but actually no,” the beastwoman retorted flatly. “It is not advisable to directly strike other people or objects with it, because it has several sensitive components inside.”

“Well, that’s disappointing,” the older woman said with a faux-downcast look.

Fiolina facepalmed. ‘What is wrong with you, crazy woman!?’

“Well… you can just punch the air in the general direction of someone while casting magic… Anyway! Because the system is now able to realize desire, in order to prevent accidental spell casting, our company designed the Runite Charger as the control unit for the Second-Generation Manadriver. Right now, the Manadriver is in a deactivated state called the ‘Save Mode.’ In that mode, no matter how much mana you channel into the device to activate magic, it will not cast anything. In order to activate the system and enter the ‘Operation Mode,’ channel mana in your body part and press the Charger against it.”

The three brought their palms close to the knuckle-like device and pressed it, but since they themselves did not channel mana to their palms, there is no change on the device.

“Like this?”

“Yes, that’s right. Another feature of the Charger is that it is equipped with its own processing unit to double the output of any magic’s power. It is designed to reduce a user’s exhaustion when using magic. Any spells unleashed from the Charger are supposed to be more controlled and cost less mana to use.”

“I see, there are so many features in this one device. The Aikon Corporation likes to outdo themselves these days, don’t they?” Meteos commented.

“Alright. Now, since the Manadrivers are still not installed with any spells, you can use the Core Circuits as a substitute. Those are installed with three magic spells, insert it to the Core Circuit Loader in order for the Manadriver to read.”

“Then, what would happen if a Core Circuit is inserted into a fully installed Manadriver?” Robin asked.

“That is a function still under development,” Fiolina responded curtly.

“I see.”

Robin glanced at the Core Circuit in her hand. It is a transparent yellow-colored rectangular device one and a half times larger than the magic circuits used in the magic turbojet engine’s enchanter. The ones held by Meteos and Walman are colored green and red, respectively.

“What spells are contained within this?”

Fiolina nodded, “The yellow one is installed with lightning elemental spells, Snake Lightning, Full Charge, and Thunderbolt. The green one is a wind elemental Core Circuit: Gale, Great Breakthrough, and Wind Protective Wall. The red one is a fire elemental: Fireball, Exploding Flame Shot, and Running Fire.”

“Oh, so it’s color-coded for convenience, nice.”

Basic techniques, Meteos noted. Although from doing a brief mental calculation based on the components that make up those spells, there are so many things he can do. In addition, there’s one spell from his past life that he would like to try with this.

“Are there any questions?”

Robin looked at her two apprentices, and after receiving a nod in return, she turned to Fiolina.

“I think that’s all. Now can we proceed to the testing part? I can’t wait to see how this can keep up with us!”

“Yes. Then that concludes my explanation, everyone, thank you for your attention. While you are making your preparations, I will retrieve the recording equipment.”

As Fiolina walked away to her autobike, the eager Robin practically pushed Meteos and Walman to the warehouse and got ready for the testing, which was originally their magic training session before things have taken an interesting turn.

“This will be an interesting sideshow both for us and for the King of the Condor Tower,” Meteos mused as he shrugged off Robin’s hand who pushed his shoulder, mentioning the moniker of the Aikon Corporation’s CEO, Victor, who hailed from the House of Legendorga, a noble family whose insignia is a phoenix, the king of birds. However, the residents of Runepolis often call him the ‘King of the Condor Tower’ because of the animal’s association with wealth and power in the northwestern Milishial culture.

Robin laughed, “Haha. You bet.”

AIKON CORPORATION Research Data

The Personal-Type Chant Accelerator or Manadriver (Generation 2) (afterward referred to as the Second-Generation Manadriver) is intended to be a significant improvement over the Manadriver invented by Professor Robin Calvello of the Ministry of Ancient Sorcerous Empire Countermeasures. Utilizing the next-generation computer, the Second-Generation Manadriver is able to read the installed spells, break them down into spell components, and rearrange them to produce new effects of magic. This allows the user a wider range of effects they can produce as the Manadriver can now process the spell components to match the user’s desire and project said desire into reality. However, since it still requires spells to be installed into the Manadriver, the range of effects it can produce is still within the limitations of those installed spells.

VARIANTS

Just a note regarding language:

*1: NO WAY! (lit. “with the cabbage!”, southern mainland HME native language (Carthinian))