Our Research Team is the Best
The four new materials Yuria had selected for Earth’s scientists to replicate were Ultra-High Molecular Weight White Silver Steel, Orichalcum—a metal capable of absorbing mana and converting it into thermal energy—Peshka Fabric, prized for its extraordinary fire resistance and breathability, and Nebula Stone Powder, the glowing cosmic mineral used as a base ingredient in potions and alchemical compounds.
Studying all of them at once would take far too long, so the team decided to pick just one and focus their efforts there first.
Two days later I was riding in the passenger seat of a car Serin was driving, heading toward Daejeon and the temporary research institute where the Magic Technology Research Temporary Task Force was based.
“Thank you for driving.”
When I thanked her for the ride, she reached for the briefcase in my hands.
“Let me carry that for you.”
“Whoa, it’s really heavy—”
—Thud!
“Ghk.”
The case wasn’t just full of paper. Inside were two ingots of Ultra-High Molecular Weight White Silver Steel, each the size of my palm and nearly twice as dense as gold.
“Aigoo. Are you all right?”
The moment the handle left my fingers, the weight-reduction and strength-assist spells I had been maintaining cut off. Roughly fifty kilograms of sudden load slammed into Serin’s arms.
Even if she was a hardened government agent who trained regularly, fifty kilograms was nothing to scoff at. Try lifting a fifty-kilogram dumbbell at any gym; most adult men find their grip trembling from the strain alone.
“I’m fine… I just didn’t expect the weight.”
Serin shook her hands lightly, then gripped the handle with both hands and lifted the case. She wobbled a little as she fell into step beside me.
“Eighth, Mana Fixation. Weight Reduction.”
“Oh.”
I simply cast the spells on the briefcase itself. I eased the weight off gradually so she wouldn’t lose her balance, and her expression filled with fresh astonishment.
“I always find it fascinating.”
“Right? Hehe.”
Nothing beat surprising people.
***
The room looked like it had once been a lecture hall. Standing on the wooden dais, I handed out the simple briefing materials I had prepared the night before and continued my explanation.
“This ingot is called Ultra-High Molecular Weight White Silver Steel. Its specific gravity is 39.2—roughly twice that of gold. The small piece I’m holding weighs over twenty kilograms.”
The audience consisted of the researchers from the Magic Technology Research Temporary Task Force. Even though I had only summoned those from physics and chemistry backgrounds, nearly fifty people had gathered, every single one of them a PhD. That alone was a shock.
Did Korea really have this many doctors?
“In the other world, advanced materials engineering handled this substance. It saw the most use in military applications—drill bits, blades, high-end kitchen knives, anywhere extreme hardness and rigidity were required.”
I held up a thin white rod a little under two hand-spans long, then set it on the desk of the researcher sitting in the front row.
“Be careful not to hurt yourself. It’s heavy, remember?”
—Thud.
The middle-aged researcher gripping the ingot broke into a sweat and finally gave up. Imagine trying to deadlift an empty barbell while seated at a table—especially when your body had long since parted ways with exercise.
“The weight… whoa.”
After that came a long list of explanations about the material’s properties, the characteristics and uses of mithril and hexorion, and the manufacturing processes I had adapted for modern Earth. More than eighty major unsolved problems were listed along the way, yet the professors looked positively delighted at the sheer volume of research ahead.
“…So the first long-term goal is to reproduce this metal ingot using only Earth’s technology.”
The research outcomes and data accumulated while developing Ultra-High Molecular Weight White Silver Steel would greatly accelerate work on the other new materials. Naturally, the timeline for everything after the first would shorten considerably, so there was no issue designating it the long-term project.
I swept my gaze across the room and moved on to the future plan.
“I’ll leave the overall direction of the research to the task force leader. Dr. Kim Hanjung? I’d like to receive the detailed research plan by next week. Is that possible?”
“Of course.”
The task force leader, Dr. Kim Hanjung, was a sixty-eight-year-old elder who had refused retirement and remained a tenured professor for life. Even post-retirement professorships have already been approved.
What does that mean?
It’s a lifetime appointment. I intend to pursue scholarship until the day I close my eyes.
Good heavens.
He hadn’t earned the position through age alone. It wasn’t an honorary post; he maintained both research output and authority. He was also a physics professor at Korea’s most prestigious technology research institute.
Apparently his heart had raced at the very existence of magic. He wanted to spend the rest of his life studying this new discipline and new knowledge. I understood the sentiment completely.
His research prowess was so high that scholars abroad in famous academic organizations recognized his name not only in physics but also in mathematics, chemistry, and computer engineering. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how exceptional he truly was.
And now such a person was leading a research team under me. I had to make good use of this talent.
“How is the introductory magic textbook coming along? Are you making progress?”
“Of course. I’ve set the younger researchers in the lab to work on it. It shouldn’t take long to formalize the theory.”
I hadn’t asked them to practice magic from the textbook. Instead, I had tasked them with turning the knowledge and phenomena described in it into an academic field.
“How are you handling mana? It has no form and isn’t electromagnetic radiation, so it must be rather ambiguous.”
“…”
Had my words triggered something? Suddenly Dr. Kim Hanjung’s eyes began to sparkle. I had the distinct feeling I had poked something I shouldn’t have.
“I’ve been wanting to ask a few questions myself. Perfect timing. May I use the whiteboard for a moment?”
“Ah, yes.”
With a slight hunch in his back, he walked steadily up onto the dais.
“Ahem. Ahem-hem. To cut straight to the conclusion, we have hypothesized mana as a new field independent of the four fundamental interactions.”
—Tap, tap-tap.
The marker was running low on ink; four words appeared on the whiteboard in faint black.
[Gravity, Electromagnetism, Weak Force, Strong Force]
“Well, we had no choice but to define it as a field completely separate from those four. An electromagnetic field would interact with charged particles, yet this does not. It cannot be gravity, because we failed to detect any mass. We concluded it is a new kind of field with zero mass that is not a photon.”
It was a good attempt precisely because it refused to force mana into the existing four interactions. The reason the weak and strong forces went unmentioned was that mana and magic exhibited macroscopic interactions.
“After all, one cannot apply the existing yardstick to an interaction that does not obey the laws of thermodynamics, can one?”
“Heh-heh…”
A few professors let out hollow laughs.
“And that is not all. According to Director Yuria’s materials, we cannot detect mana itself directly. Instead, we measure this mana interaction through changes in the energy levels or bonding states of substances that possess mana sensitivity.”
Mana is not a particle. Mm-hmm. At that point I raised my hand and asked a question.
“Then let me ask just one question, Professor.”
“Yes, by all means.”
I spread both hands upward and scattered mana.
“Mana Deployment. Array.”
The scattered mana filled the entire space uniformly. In an instant I clenched it tight.
“Fix.”
“…!”
“…”
The space was now evenly saturated with mana. I connected and anchored every substance within it to that mana.
Everyone probably felt as though they had been completely fixed inside a metal frame.
Desks, the dust on them, people’s skin and the microscopic water vapor on its surface, the fine dust and nitrogen molecules drifting through the air… Oops. Air still had to flow, otherwise no one could hear or breathe.
Since every substance was now under my control, I only allowed the oxygen and nitrogen necessary for breathing to move freely.
“Question.”
In the lecture hall where everything had frozen like a photograph, only my voice filled the space.
“So then, Professor, what do you think the Mana Field is?”
The electromagnetic field explains how electrons and protons attract each other.
The gravitational field explains how masses approach one another through the curvature of space.
Then what does the Mana Field explain?
“Release.”
“—! Hah! Hahh!”
Several professors gasped for breath. Sorry, Professors. I got a little too excited again.
Yet Dr. Kim Hanjung’s eyes, still standing on the podium, continued to shine. It was as though he had been waiting for exactly this question…
The expression was identical to that of a doctoral student who had just received the exact defense question they had anticipated.
“This is merely my own interpretation, so it may be wrong. I would appreciate it if you would point out any errors.”
“…Of course.”
He wrote the word “mana” in large letters on the whiteboard.
“…Mana is a new physical field defined throughout all of space. However, it possesses the unique property of locally altering the coupling constants of the existing four fundamental interactions. Therefore, most of the magic we observe is not the direct effect of mana itself, but the result of other fundamental interactions being modulated… That is the hypothesis we are working with.”
“Oh? Then, if I were to use fire magic like this, what role would mana have played?”
—Fwoosh.
Dr. Kim Hanjung examined the small flame that had risen from the tip of my index finger. Instead of answering immediately, he silently began writing on the board.
—Tap, tap-tap. Tap-tap.
“First, before I answer…”
[Flame Magic]
[Gravity Magic]
[Healing Magic]
[Electric Magic]
“Director, do these four types of magic exist?”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“Excellent. If the assumptions we have made so far are not mistaken…”
—Tap, tap-tap! Tap-tap!
[Flame Magic = Intervention in chemical reactions and electromagnetic interactions]
[Gravity Magic = Intervention in the gravitational field]
[Healing Magic = Complex intervention in molecular bonding and biochemical reactions]
[Electric Magic = Intervention in the α of the electromagnetic field]
“It would be something like this. That α is the constant that determines the strength of the electromagnetic field. By directly intervening in that constant, one can change its intensity. The weak and strong forces each have their own coupling coefficients as well; since those can be manipulated, it would also have been possible to create the earlier nuclear fusion devices.”
“Whoa…”
I couldn’t hold back my admiration.
Just a few books—children’s books that other-worlders were made to read before formally learning magic, books that asked, “What exactly is magic?”—and the brief explanations I had given here and there about magic and its attributes. From only that, he had constructed a hypothesis of this caliber. It was hard to believe.
“That is why the researchers were joking that healing magic must be extremely difficult in terms of difficulty, but…”
“Ha… haha!”
“…Is it really true?”
“It really, really is the best. How on earth…”
Our research team is the best.
Even Dr. Kim Hanjung, slightly hunched though he was, looked to my eyes like someone who could easily live to a hundred. No—every single one of them was the best!
“Our research team is the best!”
—Clap, clap, clap!
The other professors began clapping awkwardly, following my enthusiastic applause.
“Ahem. Ahem-hem. Thank you.”
And there on the dais, Dr. Kim Hanjung smiled brightly as he received the applause.
“The best!”