29. Item Presentation (1)
Back during the early days after enrollment, I used to get permission slips on weekends and head out to hunting grounds pretty often.
That was because, back then, it was the only way for me to grow stronger.
Now things were different.
I had learned a proper training method I could practice without having to go far, and on top of that, I had also reached the point where I could strengthen my external side through item research.
Thanks to that, whenever I wasn't busy, I was now able to spend my weekends enjoying a bit of personal rest time.
Usually, I would do club activities together with Eizel and Ma Yuseong, but this week I spent the whole day wandering Rodeo Street with Flame, pretending to be on a date.
As far as rest went, it was rest.
Compared to putting my body through hell every day with stressful training, or risking my life in battle, spending time watching movies, drinking coffee, and playing whack-a-mole was actually pretty fun and good for stress relief.
We only meant to pretend to be on a date, but it felt like we'd ended up half-genuinely going out and having fun.
…Though what the hell I was doing, being nearly thirty damn years old, I had no idea.
Anyway, after successfully finishing the date act, I headed straight for Alchemy Castle.
I visited Alterisha's school at Alchemy Castle fairly often.
Recently there had been all sorts of noisy incidents, but that didn't mean I could put off what needed to be done.
"Yuseol! You're here?"
It looked like she'd been deep in the middle of alchemy work with the doctors, because Alterisha—her white coat stained all over with reagents—welcomed me warmly.
"How have you been lately?"
I placed a box of stamina tonics I'd bought on the way over onto the table and asked, and she smiled as if to say she was exhausted but still enjoying herself.
"Don't even ask. I feel like I'm going to die from how busy I am. We've decided to hold an 'Item Presentation' soon. Since it's going to be an announcement for major figures in the grand hall, I am a little nervous, but…"
"You'll do well."
"Mm. I hope so."
Items really could do anything and make anything.
But if you revealed too many different things to the world all at once, people might actually respond with resistance instead.
Things like accessory-type items or consumable items wouldn't be easy for ordinary people to accept right away.
'You see only as much as you know.'
That didn't mean ordinary people were ignorant.
It meant that if you suddenly unveiled something the world had never seen before, people would be more likely to react with confusion than with cheers.
So Alterisha had decided to first present people with familiar objects.
The easiest way to explain just how incredible items were…
wouldn't it be to make them directly comparable to things that already existed?
The objects most familiar to mages.
Things so universal that everyone used them.
Mage robes and staffs.
Until now, mage robes and staffs had merely been products of magitech.
But once alchemical magitech got involved, they underwent a genuinely revolutionary transformation.
To explain it in a way a modern twenty-first-century person could easily understand…
Imagine an old-era mobile phone.
It can make calls, but unless you pull out the antenna, the signal is terrible. Calls don't even go through in rural areas. And internet features? Forget that—it can't even play music.
Then one day, all of a sudden—
the smartphone is revealed to the world.
A miraculous all-purpose smartphone that lets you check your location on a map in real time, chat with anyone whenever you want, and even comes with a camera and internet access.
That was the level of revolution items represented.
There was no need to clumsily reveal every other item technology all at once.
It was enough to present improvements to staffs and robes.
If that much alone was shown, people would naturally shiver at the technology behind items.
"Yuseol, aren't you busy lately too? I heard the news. Apparently you're attending the Aslan Seminar."
"Well, that's just how it turned out."
"That's amazing… Not only did you solve the Yeonggong Random-Number Cross Formula, but before I knew it, you'd already written another paper and are attending Aslan…"
"I just got lucky."
I took off my Stella coat and hung it on the rack, then changed into a pure white gown.
This gown too was a test item, durable enough to withstand even a fairly large explosion.
"Holding the Item Presentation is good and all, but you're properly preparing the investor briefing too, right?"
"Mm. Want to check?"
An investor briefing meant for just one person:
Chairman Melian of the Starcloud Merchant Company.
As part of the project to luxury-brand items, they were developing products somewhat different from what would be shown at the main presentation.
"Please show me right now."
Even though I had no mana inside my body and couldn't perform alchemy myself, at the very least, I could observe the process and point things out.
The alchemists of Alterisha's school were actually rather fond of my comments.
I was always catching sharp little points and suggesting changes to them.
"Wow…"
At this point, you'd think I'd be getting tired of being surprised every time I came here, but once again, I was impressed.
The pace of technological development was insane.
"This is the item we're currently pushing for the 'luxury branding.' It's still unfinished, but what do you think? Want to try it on?"
"Yes."
At that, two alchemy assistants who had been waiting in the back approached and held out a box toward me.
Inside were a bracelet and a choker.
At a glance they just looked like those accessories, but in truth, they were actually a staff and a robe.
They had simply been miniaturized.
Earlier, I had once received a bracelet-form item from Alterisha—an item that activated and expanded to cover the entire wrist.
These were refined, improved versions of that.
Equipment items that enhanced portability, even if their raw stats were slightly lower than those of other items in the same grade.
The moment I put on the thin bracelet and activated it, particles of mana flowed out, solidified into shape, and instantly transformed into a long staff.
"Oh…"
It was light in weight, and the stats weren't bad either.
If one gave up portability, it would be possible to get much better stats, but just like on Earth, the mages of Aiter World preferred portability even if it meant reducing performance somewhat, which was why products like this came into being.
Accessories that let you bring out and equip a robe and a staff anytime, anywhere.
How attractive was that?
The catch, of course, was that they were absurdly expensive.
The technology to miniaturize particles and matter into something this small was beyond even modern Earth's nanotechnology, and on top of that, it required loads of special and expensive materials, so it couldn't be helped.
Later, once subspace became widespread, people would eventually return to prioritizing performance again, but that was still a very distant future.
The technology to create the Vessel that formed the foundation of subspace wasn't scheduled to be developed until far later.
Next, I tried on the choker.
The moment I pressed the gem hanging at the neck, cloth spread out instantly from the choker and became a robe that covered my entire body.
"Oh… this is pretty good."
"It has a function that automatically activates a level-2 Shield."
Level 2 meant 2-Class.
To think a highly portable choker came with a full-body 2-Class Shield function attached to it.
The world really had become a good place.
"We don't have the technical ability yet to worry about design, so for now, it just ends with covering the body."
"Really?"
"Mm. We're still at the point where even implementing simple sleeves or pockets feels overwhelming."
I thought for a moment, then asked them to bring me a Magic Pen.
The alchemists hurriedly fetched one and handed it to me.
Originally, I hadn't wanted to pay attention to details this far.
But it couldn't be helped.
This item was what they intended to show to Melian as a 'luxury' product, so they couldn't very well leave it plain and featureless, without even a design.
"What if you draw boundary lines along the particle reduction lines here, and then add shape-memory fusion lines? Right now it only stops at simply folding and unfolding, but if you add fusion lines and let it record a rough form, wouldn't it be possible to implement things like sleeves or pockets as long as the particle boundaries are properly drawn?"
"Gasp…!"
One alchemist listening beside me sharply sucked in a breath.
Alterisha's reaction was not much different.
"That… ah… that's not bad…"
With current technology, implementing that would probably require dozens of alchemists working on a single item.
But during a presentation, what mattered was the finished object.
The effort or process that went into making it didn't matter very much.
They only needed to show evidence that this was the kind of thing they would eventually be able to mass-produce.
Naturally, once it entered the proper stages of development and commercialization, that process would have to be reduced dramatically…
but before that, it could at least become a 'luxury item sample' polished enough to show to Melian in advance.
"Then let's all keep it up from here."
After saying that, I left.
No one saw me off.
All the alchemists who might have said goodbye were completely absorbed in the mana lines I had drawn.
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My business at Alchemy Castle was finished, but I didn't return to Stella right away.
The orchard of the Third World Tree, Namuhwaran.
I was planning to stop by Iphanel's garden for a bit.
Whenever I came here, it was usually late at dawn.
Walking up a path with almost no people around always drew too much attention otherwise.
Today it wasn't quite late dawn, but it was evening and the sun had already gone down, so there were fewer eyes on me, and I headed straight for Iphanel's garden.
-Hello!
As expected, Iphanel—who had clearly woken long ago—was energetically darting around inside the garden.
A little while ago I had received a signal in my head telling me that Iphanel's consciousness had awakened, but because I hadn't properly understood what kind of signal it was, I ended up coming a bit late.
"Hey. You look healthy."
-Yeah! Totally healthy!
She answered like that, but I couldn't help feeling bitter.
And that was because…
Iphanel's body had become much, much smaller than before.
Originally, she had possessed the form of an ordinary woman.
Now, she was only a little larger than the palm of a person's hand.
Divine beasts that had lived for long ages came to resemble humans in form, but the current Iphanel had weakened so much that she couldn't even properly maintain that human shape anymore.
-It's okay! I can recover really fast!
"How long does that take?"
-Ummm~ about a thousand years~?
"…Yeah. Really fast."
Even though she had lost most of her power, just being alive and able to move must have made her that happy, because Iphanel was really racing around the garden without resting for a second.
She looked so happy doing it that I was relieved.
-I could recover even faster!
Maybe she had read my expression, because Iphanel said that with a big grin.
"How?"
-A divine beast contract!
"…A divine beast contract?"
Translated into a mage's language, that meant a familiar contract.
-Yeah. A loooong time ago, I was super weak, you know? But after I made a contract with Ha Taeryeong, I got suuuuuuper strong.
"If it was Ha Taeryeong…"
That was the very man who had researched the Mana Leakage Body and created Taeryeong Divine Art.
But something about that was strange.
"You got stronger by making a contract with someone who didn't have mana? What kind of logic is that?"
The reason mages and divine beasts both wanted each other was because each had something to gain.
Mages increased their affinity with attributes through divine beasts, improving the performance of their spells, and divine beasts received mana from mages to nourish and grow their own power.
But Ha Taeryeong had possessed the Mana Leakage Body.
A body with no mana in it at all.
What possible benefit could a divine beast gain from making a contract with a human like that?
-Uh… umm… I dunno.
"You don't know?"
-Yeah. I just did it. And then I got stronger.
"Wow. That sure is a carefree answer."
I didn't understand the reason or the cause, but anyway, the result had apparently been good…
-So, make a contract with me. What do you think?
"That doesn't sound bad, but…"
At present, my affinity with divine beasts was already quite high, yet I still hadn't managed to make a contract with a single one.
In the end, a body with no mana in it at all was simply far less appealing as a contract partner.
It felt like being someone who "wanted to date, but didn't want to get married."
"You really get stronger from doing this…?"
She had lost all her power now, but even so, Iphanel was still once a great divine beast who had reached the threshold of becoming a true divine spirit.
There was absolutely nothing I stood to lose by making a contract with her.
Unless, of course, it meant Iphanel would suffer a tremendous loss instead.
"You really want to do it?"
For some reason, it pricked at my conscience, so I asked again.
But Iphanel did nothing except nod her head up and down vigorously.
-Just trust me!
"All right… you're the one who asked for this, okay? No taking it back later."
-Mhm, mhm.
When I held out a hand toward her, Iphanel flew onto my palm and lightly pressed her lips to it.
At once, a cluster of light like a constellation wrapped around my body, and a brilliant beam of light stretched high up into the heavens.
[You have formed a soul contract with the divine beast Iphanel!]