Nihonkoku Shoukan: Beyond

Chapter 49: Magic Application

Tokyo Magic Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan, 14th March 1640 CCY

With the transference of Japan to the world of Elysia, for the first time ever, a new branch of research that used to only exist in the fantastical worlds has become a reality for the people of Japan. Magic... a thing that has never been real is now a real thing with practical application throughout the world.

Here at the Tokyo Magic Research Institute, extensive research into magic has not yielded much in explaining its existence and origin. However, the basics of using magic have been extensively established by researching it with scientific processes, aid, and knowledge from the mages from allied countries. A person who is important in this process is the Grand Mage Yamirei, the former chief royal court mage of the Louria Kingdom, now the United Presidia.

Fundamentally, magic in Elysia is the control of mana energy, dubbed psion by the lead researcher Ayanokouji, with the user's imagination and mental capacity. The process of casting magic, while complicated, can be broken down into three basic parts: psion activation, ritual casting, and magic deployment. In other words, three parts of the Magic Casting consist of channeling the psionic energy inside your body while performing a ritual by either chanting the activation sequence or projecting the magic circles, and the psionic energy will be deployed based on the activation sequence that you have cast.

Psion, or psionic energy is an innate form of energy tied to the constitution of one's physical body and mental capacity. Due to unknown reasons, back in Terra, there is no way to access such energy normally. But in Elysia, it is a part of all living creatures in this world, therefore all creatures can access and use their psion, with some being better adapted to use them than others, even in the same species. This explains how some people are more talented than others in the use of magic.

Just like the physical world, Psionic energy obeys the law of conservation of energy. Any psionic energy discharged will return to the world, and the body will be able to recoup that lost amount through environmental mana absorption or consuming mana potion. Psionic energy cannot be created or destroyed, but the activation sequence can be disrupted. As such, there's a set amount of psionic energy possessed by a person. But that amount can be increased through training... or temporarily through the use of mana potion but with some drawbacks.

What the Tokyo Magic Research Institute is working on at the moment is the compression of the whole process to make it easier for soldiers on the front line to use them. One drawback of the magic system used by the people of Elysia is the activation time. A mage typically needs a few seconds to channel their mana, then some more times incantation, and deploy their magic. This makes mages solely a backline unit for supporting the frontline on a tactical scale. With Japanese service members often playing fast and loose in the eyes of Elysian's standard of engagement, the time that a standard mage take to cast magic is deemed too long for the mediocre range that magic often offers.

Of course, that time could be decreased significantly if the mages have trained for a long time, but that'd be too little result for too little reward in the eyes of the Japanese Military. As such, the TMRI has been trying to develop a faster method of casting spells to integrate magic into Japan. The secondary objective of this research is to make this technology widely available and find the civilian use case for them. As of this day... perhaps the first part of this research has finally borne some fruits.

"Magic Activation Compression device... test number 76... Niflheim." – Ayanokouji

Inside the large underground testing area, the lead researcher Saya Ayanokouji, an orphan of Captain Ayanokouji, one of the UN's most brilliant and ruthless military officers who were unceremoniously killed during the Garmillas war, is now testing one of her newest inventions. The Magic Activation Compression device, or MAC. The principle of the device is pre-loading a magic activation sequence or ritual in this case, then injecting the psionic energy from the users. With the first two conditions fulfilled, the MAC will deploy the magic the users want. It is more or less a magic tool, just more advanced than just some magic staff engraved with runes.