2 "Magical system"
"I wasn't expecting a bidet"
"haha that's magic crystal technology for you. one of the biggest problems i had coming back here was the lack of good toilet paper."
"there wasn't much after smell either"
"the aquatic magic tree this city has purifies the water and decomposes excrement really quickly. you can even use the water as drinking water but you won't catch me doing it."
"Gahaha don't worry it'll go away soon with the fever, eat all you want, the price of the food pales in comparison to the debt you owe me."
"Debt?"seina had no idea what he meant, he just got attacked by a chimera and woke up here. he'd just assumed up till now that barigaru was just a nice man who wanted to help. he went along with it anyways.
"... uhm... how much do i owe?"
"you just woke up and you still have a magic fever, it's a bit early to be thinking about paying me back don't you think?..... but it's not too much that an average person wouldn't be able to eventually pay it off."
"heh..."
"but for now we ought to discuss your future, please sit down this will take a while."seina sat down on the couch.
"Not that I don't care about you paying off your debt, but for now your future is more important."
"I understand"
"well like I was going on about earlier it seems like someone has systematic control over magic here... someone who must be higher in power then anyone who runs the magic universities around here that compiles all the knowledge on magic. I don't know exactly how far up this goes but it may go all the way to the top of Renza's government it self."
"you're kidding right?"
"There 's a rumor that the Royal palace on knoxics has been studying demonic magic for a long time.The Masui royal family owns that place, but unlike the other royal palaces, it isn't the center of their politics, rather there are a lot of different royal masui palaces. However, the next queen has a terrible looking beauty, I saw the video that was announced as a successor candidate, but it was still around 14 or so, which made me feel creepy.When that became an adult I can not imagine how much it will be. "
Gyokuren was by no means an ordinary girl and to heat that her family might be involved in demonic magic was quite convincing.
"The next Masui Queen is a terrible beauty. I saw the video of her when she was announced to be candidate for successor, but she was still only around 14 so I feel like a bit of a creep for saying that, but now that she's an adult I can only imagine how beautiful she is."
(seina had never seen pictures of her when she was that age but he had no doubt she was pretty then too)Her beauty was dark and almost magical.
"well lets not get off track, I'm certain they are behind it in some sort of way, I don't know how though, anyways one thing i learned back in the day at school is that magic is a substitute for science, to be honest i always thought it was the other way around, but unlike magic it can be used by anyone and has way more power."
"I can see why you would think that, but i think that magic is a pretty good system."
"how?"
"If what you say is true then it can be easily used to get you all the things you need to live, sure there might be demonic magic but there has to be magic to counter that. but you will always have all the things necessary for life. in other words, if your on your own in the wild or civilization is non-existent with magic you can survive on your own without any problems. wouldn't it make sense for there to be a system like that in early level civilizations?" that was seina's unique opinion as someone who had had to be a survivalist multiple times now.
"gahahaha wow you actually reached the same conclusion I did, even though science and magic aim to fix the same problems the process and speed are different, no rather magic is quick and convenient, but technology can do so much more given time. in order to develop advanced magic, you would need lots of knowledge and a large magic organ to accumulate a large amount of internal magic, but for most that is impossible. with technology its easy, so I think that's half the reason Renza uses the magic plants for planet remodeling."
"What's that?"
"oh...I forgot to tell you about how the magi plant spreads... but before I go into that I have to tell you that your magic organ has great potential, It's massive."
"Wait... so I have an unusually large magic capacity? is there a way to measure it?"
"It's obvious without anything like that, in general usually kids develop the fever before the age of 8, but it only lasts about 5 days for a few, most only two, but you're practically going to be a priest, your fever is still going and it has been over 20 days..."
"so the longer the cold the greater the capacity?"
"when it exceeds 3 days there is a legal obligation to notify the lords of the district."
"why?"
"because that person is highly likely to become a high ranking wizard, so in the future you will serve the lords here, to you may be called whenever one has a child to be arranged marry into the family, it guarantees they will be married to a bread winner."
"so this will bring me money?"
(when you think about it i was made a member of the GP for similar economic reasons.)
"Well family clan ties are an important thing here, this is not an individualist society especially for those in business here, well the reason your valuable is... well.. look at this." barigaru showed him a ring on his finger.
"I've never seen that kind of jewel before."
it looked like polished brilliant coral it was about 3 millimeters and was sealed in a thin transparent crystal about a centimeter thick with a yellow tint.
This comes from a magic organ, its a crystallized magic liquid crystal, what is it made of, the red was different then that of blood.
"to be exact the crystal is the thing inside the transparent part is a solidified thing called magic liquid.
the crystals are extracted from the blood of magic users magic organs, they form when one uses magic, it can be a big problem if they clog up the blood stream, but luckily wearing one like this can help suppress that even enhance your compatibility with magic, it can be used as a tool and is an indispensable transmitter, but sometimes there can be great resistance between your magic and the crystal and it can get hot and even ignite if your not careful. but back on subject, it can be dangerous to directly use magic, a clot with the crystal is the same as an embolism, if you don't know what you are doing every time you use magic can be a count down to your death. but luckily these crystals can accumulate and memorize magic, to some extent they've become a mainstream way to use magic,"
"so it's mainstream now... that's a bit disappointing."
"gahahahaah i can understand why you would feel that way but high ranking magic, long lasting magic, and other special kinds are limited to only people who can use magic naturally, in your case though you have a huge capacity so you can probably make some giant ones, its quite frightening to think about, normal people who can only use little amounts of magic can over time get one of these and use it to extend their capacity."
"So why is it so important to declare people with a large capacity?"
military affairs, ext, if there's a battle its necessary to know where they are and if they need to make crystals quickly, they need people who can make the crystals and those who can use copy magic.
Even so there still quite expensive, most are used as weapons, mostly for military use but the demand for private use is increasing, but its mostly limited to nobles and merchants, i bet in the future they will be used for home appliances, but supply is far too low to meet the demand for that, as of now its only used for by some aristocrats for basic luxuries like hot water and lighting, like if they were going to have a night time dinner party and wanted to lighten up the place, businesses too. some use them for signs, you can see some out the window at night. theirs also a large magic team that for maintaining barriers an and even a power station but how they made it is kept secret, even if you can pay to use it it costs an astronomical figure. as such the crystals are actually a preferred payment for taxes and just as valuable as money. not everyone can make them though, those people tend to become hunters and adventurers they just cultivate monsters instead to get them.
"wait isn't that dangerous?"
it is but since they have magic organs its a lot like farming livestock. goblins farming is pretty popular, its kind of like cockroach farming there meat is smelly, most of it is unusable, but they produce liquid crystals efficiently, and they breed quickly and in a large number, and they will eat just about anything gahahahaa.
is there a difference in crystals... like grades?"
"yes actually, bigger ones can be made from smaller ones and they aren't that great, but a pure big one also are rare and exist, but they mostly go to royalty and aristocrats"
"has anyone ever examined them like at the school you went to?"
"obviously but its totally unknown what they are , it wont respond to most inspection equipment,whenever we thought we sensed trace things... it turned out to be dust in the equipment.
"so no luck synthesizing them with technology?"
"no the only consensus it that they are made out of a magic element, it's also not easy to study magic users magic organs cause often times they disappear in those who leave magic planets all together. but they come back when they return... but anyways since you have the power you do I have no doubt many will be coming to seek you soon"
"what do you think they will want from me?" seina was worried he thought about his previous encounters with people like washu and airi...... and airi.... and that other time with airi... and also that one time she did that thing... oh and that other time when she... he was worried about becoming a guinea pig.
(but neither of them would kill me, I might end up being autopsied here)
at least airi and washu had kiriko and tenchi to reel them in and keep them from going overboard.. but what ever the equivalent of a philosopher was here they would have no such limiter.
barigaru took a deep breath
sorry I've talked way too much please forgive me, but it's probable the people here will want to study you to learn the secrets of your body."
"..... please help me." seina sighed.
"I will, this situation could be worse than i think it will be, but I'll help you it's just my way, and besides it'll be more interesting than anything else i can do instead."
"thank you!"
"you're just going to have to owe me an even bigger debt in exchange! gahahahaha in any case I'll need to take you to see some people, there are going to be friends of mine who will want to meet you.... but before i get into that I have more to explain to you.
although magic here has only manifested things found in an early civilization, it's clearly a high level technology itself, and conversion and formation of any material is possible. so in a way our perception of it is kind of distorted. not only can it produce anything made by higher civilizations, but well it can make things we can't even begin to imagine yet. since people usually get magic as a child, there have been times in the past where they have managed to imagine some pretty interesting and terrifying things, but for the most part people here never manage to manifest high tech things because simply, they don't even know such things exist.
"but what about those like you who went to an outside school?"
"i learned about a lot of new materials but i wasn't able to reproduce some minerals, they require high temperatures and pressure and It just took too much magic for me to be able to produce them. but in theory if you have enough magic and the right materials it should be possible, but even if it's not practically doable you always just summon the metal as long as it exists somewhere, more then often then not though it comes in a raw and unprocessed form. the major hurdle is still magic capacity, with enough even alchemy is possible. actually you could probably use that much magic with an external magic element to channel it into, but that's hard to control and a delicate process, but well have you seen one of those force field covered plants?
"yeah i saw one once" actually the force field around it reminded seina of the field surrounding zinv when zinv regenerated.
"in theory its possible to be able to create a plant like that and use it to channel the magic, but most of our magical capacities prevent that, luckily for what we cant do with magic we have furnaces for smelting so we can make alloys as strong as orihalcum."
"wait is that a real thing?"
"it is and it's the strongest we have but it comes with some downsides, it's almost incompatible with magic enhancements besides elemental enhancement."
"but without magic how is it still viable in combat."
"it depends on the situation really, its better then iron and a bit magic resistant so unless your fighting a high level magician it's a very strong material for hunting equipment."
"so what would you use ideally if you wanted high magic compatibility."
"the metallic rocks here have been exposed to magic for a long time and have high compatibility but they gradually lose that in the purification process and most alloys lose almost all of it, but we don't know why."
"by the way what happens to orihalcum when you use it in technology?"
"I don't know i've never tried ghahahaha it's not easy to use fancy materials like that for such experiments the price is high, besides it's just cheaper to use mithril silver. sometimes we use an alloy for the sword itself but the blade part will be made of mithril silver. there are some magic blades with self healing abilities, but they will drain most people of their magic to fix them, using only one swords is typically reserved to nobility usually people carry many at once in a magic bag... a sort of subspace box, they differ in price based on capacity i have one for you if you want to buy it."
"I'll have to see about that debt first..." seina wanted magic more then anything
"I also have many prototype weapons here. if you want an orihalcum one i can sell that to you too"
"I don't want to be in debt the rest of my life, I'll take something in mythril silver if you got it."
"weapons made with mithril are going to be expensive in general, there relatively delicate and repair is specialized, I think you're going to need something made of iron more people can fix it easily if it breaks. but i've gotten off track again."
"well it was interesting hearing about mithril and orihalcum."
"I should have told you all that while showing you my collection , anyways what is your impression of this world?"
"it seems like a storybook world to me honestly."
"a lot of outsiders say that. especially those who's planet was seeded by the prehistory civilization, most of those planets have legends of this kind of stuff don't you think that's odd?"
"that is odd... do you know why?"
"I think it may have to do with how the magic system spreads, it's been described as a pandemic before. "
"like a virus?"
"something close to that, the magic plants come from primitive microorganisms, we've discovered them in rocks and even ice drifting in space."
"so you mean it can come on a meteor to a planet?
"yes and in recent times, outsiders have even accidentally brought it to other planets, because it is a primitive tough condition surviving micro-organism, and as long as the conditions are right it evolves rather quickly into the magic plant, and the magic and the plant can't be detected by outside civilization's scientific equipment.
"so it spreading is a pandemic?"
"well not that big of a pandemic, if there is enough of a scientific civilization it won't develop, it only works if the planet meets certain conditions,at first it starts out like a mold then becomes like a moss and finally forms a jungle like what you saw out there, in only 5000 years a planet can be entirely covered in jungle."
"only 5000 years? that is indeed a pandemic"
"but not only that it makes a magic organ in everything there, and causes rapid evolution of living organisms, those small ones are commonly refereed to as goblins, they usually rapidly evolve from small mammals, but they are capable of breeding with a lot of different species, they have a high reproductive rate and easily mutate."
"that includes humans doesn't it?"
"yes and the children are still considered a type of goblin unfortunately, some people call them demigoblins.
usually goblins only seem to have the intelligent of a 3 year old but some become highly intelligent, some of them are subjugated by others, but most people wont even bother it's not easy. I was assigned the job of trying to train one once and I never want that job again it was such a pain."
"is their intelligence passed down?"
"they're not very fertile and they don't reproduce very quickly but our researchers think that there might be a possibility of them evolving to the same level as current humans in less then 10,000 years of breeding, plenty of humans had goblins on their home planets so the researchers have been looking for a common link for a while now."
"wow so only 5000 years to grow that stuff all over a planet and then 10,000 years to evolve humans, that's terribly fast."
There are quite a lot of demons thought to be goblin crossbreeds: Orcs and kobolds to name a few. but we don't know if its from cross breeding evolution or mutation, but there are a tremendous number."
"wow goblins are pretty amazing don't you think?"
"they are awkward and irresponsible monsters, but like i said earlier they have a lot of predators, and there pretty weak, they seem to have a language but no writing system to pass down knowledge, some know how to use weapons just by looking at them but few have that much intelligent, 10,000 years was the shortest estimate... not a rule."
"what will you do if they become intelligent?"
"if there intelligent they will keep away from my town, I don't care what they do out there."
that was a short amount of time in the universe, but seina didn't feel like pushing the issue.
"so what about primitive humans?"
"they also get affected sometimes beyond just getting a magic organ, like the elves in the forest and the dwarves who are adapting to living up here now after along time under ground, there are also theories that they are affected by plants and minerals, some have become mixed with beasts."
"So human genetics are subject to change too?"
"I'd say normal humans like us are the odd ones here. but we all have pretty good ties with one another. the only real humans anyone has to worry about are outsiders who come to hunt for slaves."
"is that a problem here?"
"Well, it's not at common as people coming from the outside and it's not as bad as it used to be, but well it's a bit different, not totally illegal, and there are plenty who want to make it outside this planet at any cost. but basically they are contracted as compulsory indentured workers for a period of time before their let free. say you wouldn't happen to be a runaway slave would you?"
"oh no it's not like that... I don't think..."
well... his mother and sister made him sign away his life in a brochure, and they put him on a ship while he was sleeping without his consent....( when i think about it that way it almost seems like human trafficking..) of course he had the option to go back, but ultimately rejected it.
"well if you cant pay off your debt I'm sad to say you will be in a similar situation"
"hahaha.. well i guess that can't be helped... I think i'll manage some how."
"hey a slave is an asset so you won't be put in danger or hurt if it can be avoided, and your a boy so you'd make a lot of money. don't get me wrong though that is a worst case scenario, with your magic capabilities I doubt it would happen, i just think people are too lazily optimistic sometimes."
"do most people become slaves because of debt?"
some, others are children sold off by their family so at least they know they'll always be fed, others have sold them selves off for the same reason, they mostly work until they repay what is owed and then there released, but there are a few real slaves in the sense that they are bought permanently and rented out to pay for their upkeep.
"kind of like a temp agency?"
"there usually prisoners, slaves who were criminals, there disposable they have a cheap price and a large supply. those people got sentences equivalent to the death penalty, most are ordinary people but a few of them captured are space pirates, we call them sky pirates by the way"
"why don't people just join the army?"
"I don't know about you but i'd rather be a slave then going around harming places where other's live like those fuckers do." barigaru's brows wrinkled.
"isn't there someone to appeal whatever there doing wrong to?"
"hmpf... although it wasn't really seen like that in the past, now most people see the army as the bad guy. Were on the frontier away from the center of renza, they treat us like a developing civilization, so making any appeals to them is like making an appeal to the root of all evil.
"I see..."
" but were getting off topic again, with the species evolving they tend to change the area in ways that make it easier for people to live."
"what if there is no life when it takes over a place?"
"we haven't found any such place like that yet, but i would suspect you would just end up with plant based creatures. there are plants with humanoid appearances, like the dryads, there is also a theory that the magic plants are the ancestors of the original animals on most planets too, in that case things would just take a similar path like our planet and develop an ecosystem."?
"so maybe goblins have a plant ancestor? since they show up on so many planets."
"Scholars have found it's closest ancestor before a half biped called the guremori, but we don't know where that came from."
"don't you think the magic plant seems to be likely since they seem to almost always show up?"
"if magic was made as a life supporting system, it might also have a program to evolve things consistently into things that would serve a certain purpose,; no one knows where the magic system came from, but it''s possible those who created it built up some kind of control center to develop it and the information is stored there. but also the astral sea is a mysterious and powerful thing and can't be counted out."
"but why does magic remain a traditional part of so many planet's histories, there's no trace of it left on my home planet but there are lots of folk traditions left over.:
"who knows... maybe if science can't detect it and there are no signs left of it, then when they start to develop science they won't go back to depending on it and not developing science."
"well my planet is certainly at an early stage of scientific development and there is no clear signs of magic left."
"but what if there's another reason? magic has it's own version of the transfer gate, and super spacial navigation is possible with it, not only between planets but between dimensions."
"YOU CAN GO TO DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS WITH MAGIC?" seina said
"It's actually easier to move between dimensions then to move somewhere in the same dimension. but only in theory, there are no instances we know of people who can do it, but there are legends, and we have discovered signs of it. there are also some monster summons pull from different dimensions and but there is also possibility of it being fixed to another planet from this world. it usual happens when calling upon what we refer to as ancient beasts, like dragons. also if you summon humanoids like elves dwarves and beastmen well there are many here who's ancestors were summoned from different worlds. there are signs of this too, the difference between them and once here is that they were born with magic organs, everyone else here develops one suddenly at an early age with the magic cold. we call them ancient cause we believe there the finished evolutions of the species."
"so do you think it might be possible that some of these creatures use magic to gate to other planets with life and then get stuck there when there's no magic? what would happen if that was the case?"
"their body would strengthen, but they couldn't use any magic, so it would weaken too in a way, they like if they couldn't fly or support their own weight, i would imagine the humanoids would just eventually blend in with other humans and return to their original human shape... just like if there was magic and science developed"
"most of our legends of magic and fairy tale creatures tend to end around the medieval era..."
"so it makes sense that might also be while traditional fokelore of most planets has these creatures."
"by the way, barigaru have you ever summoned people or monsters from other worlds?"
"I'm not that skilled, I can only summon pretty simple things, oh also it's pretty rare to even try... it's possible to call certain things from the astral sea it self, you can converse with them and even give them a sort of force field body.
-----------like ryoko does with the "spirits" she calls--- it can be a bit troublesome when you get a person with multiple memories, you can use it to summon someone with the desired abilities you need right from the astral sea, but a good summoner can do all that and much more."
"well...that's impressive... as far as I know no one else has ever created any system like that..."
seina's stomach began to rumble he was hungry again.
-------end of chapter-------------