Over time, I came to learn many things.
The land that had been my entire world until now was, in the grand scheme of the world, just a tiny fragment.
This boundless expanse of land was but a colossal island, a small strip attached to the continent’s edge.
It was a barren land, lacking resources, so much so that no one coveted it.
The moment I understood how vast the world was, desire welled up within me. ‘I want to go out into that world.
This cramped place doesn’t suit me anymore,’ I thought.
However, there was only one way to leave the island.
Although it was near the mainland, the island was still isolated by a stretch of open sea.
I had to board an airship that came once every twenty years.
Swimming or launching a boat was out of the question.
The sea was teeming with all sorts of bizarre creatures, many of which considered humans their prey.
My nanny’s husband, for instance, had disappeared after being dragged away by some unknown sea creature.
“Of course, I could cross it.”
Ojo claimed that with his magical artifacts and power, he could easily fly across the sea.
But he laughed, saying that for me to reach his level of expertise would take a lifetime of effort.
It was beyond my capability.
I searched desperately for other means, but no viable solution emerged.
In the end, the airship was the only option.
Ojo mentioned that a ticket cost around 5,000 gold coins.
Five thousand gold coins? It was an amount I couldn’t even fathom.
My entire clan earned about 500 gold coins in a year.
That meant the ticket cost the equivalent of ten years of my clan’s income—an unimaginable sum.
“Still, it would be better for you to leave this place. You might even get into the university.”
Seeing my frustration, Ojo spoke.
The university—that was the reason I so desperately wanted to escape the island.
If not for that, I wouldn’t even be considering such a dilemma.
It was the gateway for all mages.
A colossal magical institution that had existed since before the empire was formed, created by a grand mage who taught countless others.
When I first heard of it, I spent sleepless nights out of sheer curiosity.
“I graduated from the university too. It took me about 100 years to complete the basic courses.”
Ojo stared into the distance, reminiscing about those days.
A hundred years.
For someone not even twenty yet, it was an unimaginable stretch of time.
Shocked, I asked, “Is it really that difficult?”
“Talking about the university is forbidden, so I can’t go into detail,” Ojo replied, tapping his wrist. ‘Is that some kind of contract too?’ I wondered.
“Still, a hundred years is considered relatively quick. Some mages fail to complete it before they die of old age. And getting admitted to the university itself is no trivial feat. Forget graduating—only a handful even make it in.”
The dreams Ojo spoke of regarding the university inflated my hopes.
The university—what a place. A realm of learning open to any capable mage, regardless of origin or status, where only skill mattered.
My heart was already set on the university.
But my body remained tethered to this island.
Ultimately, it all came down to money.
About five years remained until the airship’s next arrival.
Five thousand gold coins—where could I possibly earn such an enormous sum? I wasn’t even confident I could earn that much in twenty-five years, let alone five.
Money—it was the most critical problem.
As I racked my brain, memories from a previous life surfaced.
In those hazy, dreamlike recollections, I saw a drone—an insect? No, calling it an insect was too simplistic.
Peering deeper into my memories, I realized it was a type of puppet.
Either way, I had controlled that flying steel puppet.
‘What if I created something like that?’ Though my memories weren’t entirely clear, the vivid image of using those steel puppets to eliminate enemies was deeply imprinted in my mind.
And somehow, I felt it was possible.
When learning magic, I often lacked confidence.
Spells involving fire or water rarely produced any significant effect.
Even Ojo had remarked that I had no talent for such magic.
But the thought of creating puppets gave me an inexplicable sense of certainty.
Ojo once said that this kind of instinct was the mark of a gifted mage.
‘Does that mean I have a talent for puppetry?’
I immediately began crafting puppets from wooden blocks, experimenting with controlling them.
Creating something as advanced as a drone was still far beyond me.
For now, I made wooden puppets resembling humans and infused their joints with magic.
They managed to rise and move.
However, these simple magic-infused puppets broke down after only a short time.
Next, I extracted magic in the form of threads and tried controlling the puppets as though they were marionettes. This method was certainly convenient, but the manipulation was quite difficult.
Through these trials and errors, I eventually discovered the most efficient method: creating a “core” for the puppet, much like the magical core within my own body.
It took me about three years to achieve this result.
The model was crude, but for someone of my level, it represented the pinnacle of my abilities.
I brought the puppet to Ojo.
He examined it carefully and burst into laughter.
“Oh, you’ve got a natural talent. I’m glad you’ve found magic that suits you. Puppetry depends heavily on innate ability,” he said.
Then, Ojo infused the puppet with his magic.
The puppet took a step or two before collapsing. ‘Did it break?’ I hurriedly checked, but there was nothing wrong with it.
“I lack the talent for puppetry. Without the proper sense, even the finest puppet can’t be controlled.”
Ojo seemed quite fascinated by the puppet, fiddling with it as he spoke.
Then, he pulled a scroll from his belongings.
Placing his hand on his forehead, Ojo let his magic flow, producing a long, thin thread from his hand.
I watched in amazement, my eyes wide.
As the thread touched the scroll, it transformed into text that seemed to dissolve into the material.
The magical words shimmered faintly, as if they might vanish at any moment.
“This scroll will allow you to see the memories I’ve extracted. I’ve stored everything I know about puppets in it, so it should be useful,” Ojo said, handing over the scroll.
I carefully received it and pressed it to my forehead.
The characters on the scroll left its surface and flowed into my mind, as though I had become Ojo and was wandering through his memories.
The memories contained various bits of knowledge: simple methods to create puppets, effective spells for them, materials to use, ways to counter puppets, their prices, and so on.
It felt like scattered keywords related to puppetry had been haphazardly pulled together.
Sorting through and organizing all that information made my head throb.
As Ojo had hinted, his interest in puppetry seemed limited, resulting in shallow knowledge.
Still, there were several useful details.
One of the most valuable insights was about the magical core.
While I had been using wood as a base, inefficiencies had persisted due to my self-taught design.
I hadn’t even realized how inefficient it was until I compared it to the scroll’s basic blueprint.
The foundational puppet designs included in the scroll helped me identify areas for improvement.
While different from my approach, they provided useful reference points.
Even knowledge that initially seemed trivial became valuable when applied to my problems.
Left to my own devices, it might have taken me ten years to discover the same things.
I bowed gratefully to Ojo, who nodded and smiled.
***
Five years passed.
I was now 23 years old.
It had been ten years since I began learning magic under Ojo.
Though ten years felt like a long time in my life, it was still too short to fully master both puppetry and magic.
The airship arrived, but I could only watch from afar.
I couldn’t afford a ticket, nor could I stow away.
Mages who appeared far more skilled than I patrolled the area around the airship, glaring at anyone who dared approach.
Unable to even get close, I watched helplessly as the airship departed, leaving me to wait another twenty years.
When the ten years of Ojo’s teaching ended, he retreated into his workshop.
Though I sought him out with a few lingering questions, he didn’t so much as utter a word.
As he had said when we first began, our contract was complete.
When I announced to the clan that my magical training had concluded, they began flooding me with requests.
As a mage, I was seen as a solution to all sorts of problems.
Needing money, I accepted every single request.
One such request involved eliminating an enemy of the clan.
The target wielded a sword and, to my surprise, managed to cut through a fireball I hurled at him before closing in on me.
Panicked, I fled but was slashed across the waist.
Though I eventually incinerated him, the experience shook me. ‘How could a mere weed like him injure me?’ My pride was wounded.
Another request involved retrieving medicinal herbs from a mysterious location.
An elderly man offered a decent sum of gold, so I eagerly accepted.
What I didn’t expect was a hundred-year-old serpent lurking there.
Its scales deflected my magic, leaving me stunned.
I narrowly escaped being devoured and fled, managing to gather only a few herbs in my haste.
As I continued to struggle through these tasks, I realized how inefficient they were.
‘At this rate, I’ll barely earn 50 gold coins a year. It’ll take me a century to save up enough for a ticket.’
Efficiency became my priority.
That’s when I turned my attention back to puppets.
I had already tried using them for a few requests, but their crude performance left me unsatisfied.
They couldn’t even withstand strikes from those so-called weeds.
But then a thought struck me: ‘Do I really need to perfect their performance?’
The reason I wanted to create puppets in the first place was to use them like drones.
With that in mind, I began producing numerous puppets.
The first ones I made were palm-sized flying insects inspired by drones from my past life.
I remembered attaching explosives to drones and dropping them.
Even if the puppet’s capabilities were lacking, attaching something powerful to them could compensate.
With this idea, I focused on making simple puppets capable of staying in the air for a long time.
They didn’t need any other functions—just to fly high, remain stable, and stay quiet.
Achieving firepower was easy.
All I had to do was soak the puppets in oil or similar substances and detonate them with explosive magic.
Deploying these puppets in large numbers made completing requests significantly easier.
Many of them were destroyed or lost contact, but it didn’t matter.
I could always send more.
Still, this approach had its limits.
Controlling the puppets required immense focus and magical energy.
Even with simple commands, long-distance missions demanded substantial magic reserves.
My shallow understanding wasn’t enough to resolve this immediately.
To overcome this, I had to keep researching and refining my designs.
But it wasn’t enough.
The money I earned was still far from sufficient.
I needed more efficient puppets, a complete overhaul of my existing methods—something revolutionary.
Fueled by this determination, I dove into relentless research on puppetry.
***
Ten years passed.
Through countless trials and years of study, I finally managed to secure an airship ticket.
It was almost absurd. ‘Wait… did I really just do that?’
Regardless, I had succeeded.
It happened when I was 33 years old.