Chapter 12
“Woo! Woo! Woo!”
“Force! Force! Force!”
The grand auditorium on the first floor of the Ridasid Mage Tower.
Since it was opened only for official Mage Tower events, it should have been quiet on ordinary days.
“I never even considered it!! To think all states could be explained by grouping them together as a single form called energy!!”
“In the end, that means even losses lost to friction are conserved in another form!! Ahh!!! How astonishing!!!”
Yet today, despite it being a weekday, every seat in the grand auditorium was packed with mages affiliated with the Mage Tower.
“Haaaa… I feel like I can advance to the next tier.”
“Me toooo… Hngh, I feel like my whole body’s heating up…!”
All of them were worked up like monkeys, or like couples in love spending their first night together.
The problem was that this applied to everyone, regardless of age or gender.
Indeed. Even the Mage Tower’s elders in their sixties, both men and women, had flushed cheeks as they listened to Akion’s lecture.
“Akion, dear…! Let’s connect our minds…!”
“Thanks to Young Master’s knowledge, my long-cold passion! It’s leaping and bounding like a pole from my youth~! Leaping~ and bounding~~~! Ho ho ho~!”
“Tsk……”
They were saying this while gazing at Akion on the stage.
Akion wanted to run away right then and there.
“Young Master Akion must awaken! Stop monopolizing magi-engineering knowledge!”
“Instead, let’s make Young Master Akion an elder of the Mage Tower!! Then he’ll be obligated to give lectures every week!!”
“That sounds great!”
“Not for me.”
Why had he come up here again?
Akion began recalling what had happened a few hours earlier.
* * *
- Fwoosh!
“Magic is the discipline of recreating natural phenomena with one’s hands.”
It looked plain, but the Tower Master’s carriage was actually a sophisticated marvel.
The orange flame blooming above her hand was a phenomenon that Akion’s knowledge of science could not explain at all.
“To do that, one must understand nature, and your science is the discipline of turning that understanding into laws.”
- Snap!
The flame crumbled the instant she clenched her fist.
“That is why magi-engineering may perhaps be the discipline that combines your science with magic.”
“I keep telling you, it’s just engineering.”
“Now, now! Young Master, magi-engineering!”
Akion felt as if his mental state were crumbling just like that flame.
It was because everyone kept dismissing it as magi-engineering even whenever he corrected them and called it engineering.
How could he possibly know magi-engineering from the distant ancient past, something even the Tower Master herself barely understood?!
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“Hehe, Young Master is so modest.”
“Ho ho, perhaps you are merely embarrassed. Magic also began with accidental discoveries and has developed ever since. As the creator of an artifact, you may be proud of yourself.”
“Ugh.”
Akion resolved that someday, he would definitely examine the artifact they claimed had been made through magi-engineering.
That way, he could prove that it was an entirely different field from the engineering he knew.
- Creak!
“We have arrived, sir!”
Thus, while Akion was being tormented by Goldie and the Tower Master,
“Come to think of it… Akion. I understand you have visited the Mage Tower often. You used the alchemy shop, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then have you ever seen the true Mage Tower of Ridasid?”
“The true Mage Tower?”
Akion could not understand why the Tower Master had suddenly asked about the tower’s true nature.
“Ho ho ho… The alchemy shop is in the Mage Tower’s area for outsiders, so you have never seen the real tower, have you?”
“Heehee, you’re going to be amazed!”
With Goldie telling him to look forward to it as well, Akion only became more puzzled.
What on earth was the true Mage Tower supposed to be?
Grumbling to himself, Akion got out of the carriage and—
“…Wow.”
A gigantic, super-tall tower that pierced the heavens stood right before his eyes, leaving him frozen in place.
“Ho ho ho, what do you think? This is the Tower of Knowledge that I built here using every kind of magic when I founded the Mage Tower.”
“Hehe, amazing, right? Right?”
Had Akion ever seen a building this tall?
In his previous life, he had seen Lotte X Tower in person. And this tower was comparable to it in height, thickness, and sheer size.
There was no reinforced concrete or architectural engineering in this world. How had they built it over a thousand years ago?
“Along with my close friend, of course.”
And at the Mage Tower’s main entrance stood two gigantic statues.
[Teacher of All Mages, and Great Mage of Parma]
One of them was the Tower Master who stood beside Akion now.
The other was his distant ancestor.
“The Great Mage of the Hero’s Party….”
“Mm.”
Elena Enersis.
The First Hero’s companion and the great mage who had served as the party’s adviser.
They said that no fewer than ten ‘named’ demons had vanished at her hands.
“She was a human who reached the sixteenth tier. A genius who could rival me.”
Sorrow filled the Tower Master’s eyes as she gazed at Elena’s statue.
It was so obvious that Akion noticed and quietly waited for her.
“She was also a foolish one. She couldn’t even take care of herself and died young at the age of forty.”
The Tower Master also turned away, out of consideration for Akion and Goldie.
- Sniffle.
The two of them decided to pretend they had not heard that sniffle.
“I have kept you waiting too long.”
Even so, the Tower Master quickly returned to her usual self.
“As promised, I shall introduce you to my workshop today. Follow me!”
Wanting to shake off the gloomy mood from earlier, she took the initiative and decided to show Akion around the Mage Tower in earnest.
*
“First, this is my alchemy workshop.”
- Boom! Kaboom!
- Crackle….
“W-wow…!”
The alchemy workshop she brought him to was somewhat similar to Akion’s workshop.
Numerous mages affiliated with the workshop were conducting research with experimental equipment familiar to Akion.
Of course, every one of them wore things like safety goggles and waterproof gloves.
“It’s more systematic than I expected.”
“Many alchemical ingredients are dangerous. More importantly, don’t magical accidents happen anywhere and at any time?”
Akion had experienced all sorts of things in the lab himself, so he naturally nodded at the Tower Master’s opinion.
It had happened during an experiment. An undergraduate conducting the experiment had mishandled the temperature control, and the chemicals caught fire in an instant, nearly causing a disaster.
It was a past life now, but even thinking about it made Akion break out in a cold sweat.
If the fire had spread to the chemical storage cabinet….
“If it exploded, it would be an accident powerful enough to bring down the Mage Tower.”
“Mm. As expected of the genius who devised MSDS.”
That was why, as soon as he had set up his workshop, he had written up MSDS and posted it on the wall for everyone to read.
They needed to conduct research happily for a long, long time, and they could not do that if they died.
“After applying it to my workshop as well, experimental accidents fell to less than one-tenth of what they had been. At the Millennium Festival to be held soon, I intend to propose to the Emperor that workshop safety training be made mandatory.”
“Exactly, exactly. Researchers shouldn’t die.”
“Mm-hmm. That is true. In addition, everyone working here is also a candidate for becoming a Mage Tower elder.”
“Oh, it’s a kind of academy degree, then? Sounds good. There aren’t many jobs these days, and they’d gain professional qualifications too—.”
While Akion and the Tower Master were agreeing with each other for the first time in a long while,
“Sob, sob….”
“…”
Goldie noticed that the research-specialist mages listening nearby were quietly crying.
“Goldie didn’t see a thing.”
And she pretended not to notice.
Because she was not a slave with a degree at stake. Anyway.
* * *
Besides this, there’s the forge inside the Mage Tower.
And countless magical laboratories.
“As expected… this is impressive.”
Akion marveled at how advanced the technology here was, more than he had expected.
“And yet, it’s disappointing. Why don’t they apply this to everyday life…?”
“The world remains in turmoil because of the remnants left behind by the demons. Manpower is limited, so survival required us to choose and concentrate our efforts.”
Yet remnants of the demons remained even after they had been wiped out.
Goblins, orcs, kobolds, harpies, wyrms, and countless others—monsters, or beasts, as they were called.
No matter how many times they were killed, even the tiniest remnants multiplied again, constantly throwing the Empire and the entire continent of Ilias into chaos.
And it was not as though humans did not fight among themselves.
It was as if they had to prepare for war in order to maintain peace. The Tower Master also found that unfortunate, but….
“Yet thanks to your magi-engineering, we can see a way forward.”
“Not magi-engineering. Engineering.”
Akion always insisted that it was simply engineering, but regardless, he had restored magi-engineering.
And the science that served as its foundation—the discipline of understanding nature.
Thanks to those two things, perhaps they could end the war with the monsters sooner and enjoy peaceful daily lives.
“U-um, Tower Master.”
“The person beside you… could it possibly be…?”
And the Tower Master was not the only one thinking that way.
Incandescent bulbs and motors.
The Mage Tower mages who held those two things in their hands and understood their structure and operating principles were struck by an enormous shock, as if they had been hit on the head with a hammer.
“Ah, she’s my disciple.”
“As expected! So you are Young Master Akion!”
“I’m not.”
They wanted to meet Akion right away and have a profound discussion about how these things worked!
“I apologize for interrupting you during your tour, but, if it would not be too much of an imposition, might I ask once more whether you could spare us some time to explain the operating principle of this incandescent bulb?!”
“I’m not your disciple….”
Caught up in all sorts of slanderous rumors, Akion felt stress building up again, but—
“More importantly, you don’t know how an incandescent bulb works?”
“N-no!”
When he saw the female mage, who looked about middle-school age, burning with curiosity, he felt a swell of pride in his heart.
“Then let’s talk somewhere quiet instead of here.”
“Wow, wow!”
“Oooooh!! The developer himself is going to teach us!!”
How could he refuse to teach them when they were this happy?
Akion gladly decided to share his knowledge.
“Akion. Knowledge such as this is traditionally kept as a family secret.”
“I know that well.”
Of course, as the Tower Master said, it would benefit Akion more to monopolize this knowledge.
“But didn’t you originally tell me to become your disciple and share this knowledge for the sake of magic?”
“Hmph, you are becoming rather informal these days.”
But Akion wanted as many people as possible to know it.
That way, the technology here would advance further, and perhaps it would produce technologies in fields he had never even considered that could enrich his daily life.
Perhaps she had noticed what Akion was thinking, because the Tower Master smiled despite chiding him in half-formal speech.
“Then a place with a blackboard would be best.”
“Oh, really?!”
As she agreed to provide him with the best possible environment for his lecture.
* * *
And returning to the present,
“Is Akion a great mage?!”
“Aaaah! This is so painful!!! I want to learn more! I want to know more!!”
After the knowledge-hungry mages listened to Akion’s lecture on basic science,
“Wait, wait… something is happening in my head, hmmm…!”
- Sparkle!
“H-huh! Did you just break through a tier?!!”
“Good heavens!! You had been stuck for seven years! Congratulations!!”
Some of them broke through their tiers on their own.
“Now that Young Master Akion has shared his knowledge, what reason is there for us to remain in a lower tier?!!”
“I-I see a clue. I need to go back and conduct research right away…!”
“I want to hear more! Aaaah!! Please, Young Master, share just a little more knowledge with us!!!”
Some of them were convulsing like starving ghouls devouring a delicious omakase meal after going hungry for days.
Akion wanted to see his mother.
His mother in this world had already returned to the Heavenly Lord’s embrace, but still.
At that moment,
- Bang!!!
“That’s absurd!!!!”
An old man appeared to put an end to the situation. Namely—
“Energy cannot possibly exist! There is only mana! What other logic could there be besides that which is called the source of every form?!!!”
A Mage Tower elder who looked extremely rigid.
“Oh?”
At that moment, Akion’s eyes lit up, and he asked him in return.
“The opinion you have offered is truly fascinating, Elder. Are you saying that mana is the source of every form?”
“That is correct!”
Although Akion had a huge amount of mana in his body, he could not properly sense or use it.
Even so, after conducting various studies, he had thought about mana….
“What would you say if mana were also a form of energy?”
Mana had aspects that could replace electricity. Its properties were similar as well.
If so, could mana also be a form of energy?
Akion had made that speculation, and he was fine whether it proved right or wrong.
Science was, after all, a discipline that began with doubt!
“Hmph! That’s absurd! How could mana be another form of that thing called energy?! It is merely a concept, something that… that… could possibly….”
The elder began to refute Akion’s opinion, but suddenly fell silent.
“Elder Ben? Why have you suddenly gone quiet?”
“…Heavenly Lord, have mercy.”
He suddenly called upon the Heavenly Lord and began to shed tears.
“I—I, this old fool, had been thinking about it all wrong. If mana is not the source of everything, but one of the forms taken by all things…!!”
- Flash!!!
“Gaaasp!!! Elder Ben has broken through to the tenth tier!!!”
“No, fuck.”
And then he even broke through a tier in a flash.
Akion lost control of his emotions and swore.
“Congratulations, Elder Ben!!!”
“Today is truly a blessed day!! A day when Young Master Akion has bestowed such precious knowledge upon us, and everyone here has advanced enough to glimpse the next tier!!!”
“Tower Master!!! Please make Young Master Akion an elder of our Mage Tower!!”
“Indeed, Akion. You should hurry and complete the Tower admission process, then become my disciple.”
Akion was certain that if he stayed here any longer, he would go insane.
He put his extraordinary mind to work, desperately squeezing out a reason to escape.
“But I’ve been standing for so long that my legs hurt, so I need to return to the estate—.”
“Young Master Akion’s legs hurt!! Telekinetic mage, come out!!!”
“Right here!!”
A Tower admission necklace was shoved into his hands.
Akion really felt like crying.