Irina gave Ye Xu a quick overview of the lab’s daily schedule, then led him over to the rows of precision instruments.
“Since you’ve already reached medium-tier professional level, I probably don’t need to explain what these do. You should be able to figure them out yourself after playing around with them a bit.”
The first time they met, she had been wearing oil-stained work clothes and looked very grounded. Today, however, she was properly dressed in a custom school uniform: a brown-yellow JK-style short skirt underneath, thick black over-the-knee stockings paired with short boots, and a dark school robe with a faint yellow tint on the outside.
Seeing this properly attired Irina felt refreshingly new to Ye Xu.
She placed her hand on each instrument in turn and began introducing them…
“This is the casting machine, this is the mana flow monitor, and this is the inscription device.”
Crafting a magitech device was undoubtedly a complex and precise process.
First, you had to design the overall device, including the initial overall rune layout.
Then you cast the raw materials into the required components one by one, inscribed runes on both the interior and exterior, and assembled or welded them together.
Every single rune required a mage to use specialized tools and carefully control their own mana to carve it in.
After all, runes were derived from the “incantations” mages used for chanting, yet they were not entirely the same.
To put it simply:
If you released a fireball spell, the incantation translated into human language would be “convert mana into fire attribute, condense and shape it, control and release.” Whether you chanted quickly or slowly, or the method varied slightly, as long as the general meaning was correct, you could still release it.
But if you directly inscribed those words onto an object and then injected mana, would it work? Of course not.
In essence, the human body—or rather, any life form containing mana within its body—had a soul that itself served as a platform capable of releasing magic and controlling mana. When you spoke the incantation, your soul automatically translated it, consumed mana to communicate with the laws of the world, and produced the result.
If you wanted to turn an incantation into a rune, you first had to design an entire platform for it—so that simply injecting mana would automatically translate it, communicate with the laws, and achieve the same effect as the original incantation. Then you had to design specialized control and release mechanisms to manipulate the generated magic and launch it outward.
Take Ye Xu’s armor-piercing bullet, for example. On the surface it only needed mana injection, launching, followed by automatic heating of the tip and spiraling acceleration to increase power—four simple steps.
Yet Ye Xu first had to lay down a foundational rune system across the entire bullet body that could function like a soul, translating rune effects and communicating with the laws.
Then he inscribed the fire runes for heating and the wind runes for spiraling acceleration on top of that foundation.
After that, he added a top-level unified control and management layer—an entire output system that handled everything from mana injection to launching and all the processes in mid-air.
This massive workflow was collectively called the “system layer,” “operation layer,” and “output layer” by magitech masters.
And that didn’t even include choices such as whether the mana powering the device came from the user’s body or from embedding a small attribute-matched magic stone as an energy source, plus the necessary adjustments to the system and output layers.
Therefore, even a magitech device inscribed with nothing more than fireball runes would be at least ten times longer than the original fireball incantation. For an inexperienced magitech master, it could easily balloon to dozens of times longer just to ensure stable release.
The workload was unimaginably enormous.
The advantage, however, was that magitech devices required no chanting—simply inject enough mana and the magic would activate directly.
Basic magitech devices were manageable, but high-tier, precision ones—such as the magitech core inside a Magitech Knight, the most intricate magitech component in the world—were composed of hundreds of parts. Each part contained thousands upon thousands of runes, and the slightest mistake in any step could paralyze the entire massive system.
Human power alone could hardly accomplish it; specialized magitech tools were essential.
The three machines before them were perfect examples.
The casting machine shaped raw materials into the required forms, the mana flow monitor could peer into the internal rune operation and mana flow of a magitech device to detect which part had failed when it wouldn’t activate, and the inscription device—as the name suggested—assisted in precisely carving highly integrated runes onto component surfaces.
The three machines occupied three corners of the spacious lab, each taking up several square meters. In the center stood a large iron table for research, discussion, and exchange.
It naturally couldn’t compare to the empire’s Machine Research Institute, but these were still quite high-end professional instruments. While they couldn’t build a full Magitech Knight, manufacturing large-scale magitech armaments would be no problem at all.
Ye Xu stroked his chin. His original maintenance plan for Anlor’s Infernal Prison instantly became bolder.
Previously he had planned to improvise with the simple equipment in his dormitory basement. Now, with these tools available, he could start planning for precision components.
Once school let out today, he would go find Anlor, thoroughly inspect her machine, gather all the detailed data, and begin preparations.
“What do you usually do around school, Senior?”
After finishing the tour of the lab, Irina pulled Ye Xu over to a few chairs inside the room and enthusiastically began sharing stories about her time in the lab and her earlier days at the academy.
Looking at the energetic Irina beside him, Ye Xu grew curious about what students like her—who had already exempted most classes—actually did on a normal day. Did they really just bury themselves in research in the lab or hangar all the time?
“Well, how should I put it…”
Hearing his question, Irina started counting on her fingers.
“Besides the times the professor calls us to the lab to help, it’s basically just the three-point line: dormitory, hangar, dining area.”
Irina was a special case, after all—she managed an entire hangar.
She could accept missions from the task department or directly coordinate with people inside or outside the school to maintain their Magitech Knights or customize magitech devices.
Not only did she earn payment, but reporting to the school’s task department also granted extra credits based on difficulty.
“Besides that, there are the monthly exams, the mid-term and final practical combat exams…”
“Oh, right, right! And the Degree Battles!”
Suddenly remembering, Irina clapped her hands and added quickly, her whole demeanor turning a little tense.
“Degree Battles?”
Hearing the name, Ye Xu immediately grew curious.