James’s Big Reveal
It was an uncompromising answer, but Colt, who had watched James’s magic longer than anyone else, had a feeling there had to be a way.
“Let’s talk for a minute.”
Team Leader Park bowed deeply. “Please call me as soon as you’ve settled on a direction.”
“……”
After Park left, Colt gestured with his hands and asked, “You know—something like this. You draw circles and stars and all that with your hands……”
“A magic circle?”
“Oh! Right! That. What if you just leave behind the magic circle without actually casting the spell yourself?”
“...Then what about the mana? It won’t work without mana.”
“What if you just keep the mana in there like a battery?”
It was the kind of thought only Colt, who had watched James’s magic from up close, could have had. But the moment he heard it, James’s eyes lit up with an idea.
“Oh... that’s actually a great idea. Hang on a second.”
James reached into the air, spread out his mana, and conjured a makeshift board. Then he began inscribing a magical formula on it and drawing an amplifying magic circle that would expand frequencies in a Fractal Structure.
“This part... and this part... the source of the mana... yeah, this should work.”
“……”
To Colt, it was just a jumble of drawings and shapes he couldn’t understand at all, but James was steadily closing in on a solution.
“So, bottom line?”
“Possible!”
“It works? Really?”
James looked at the magic circle he had rushed together, and, to his own surprise, it came out better than expected. A small smile touched his lips.
“The only downside is that it’ll use a little more electricity. I added a magic circle that draws in mana, but since I’m using electricity instead of mana for that part……”
“How much more?”
“About five percent more than before. Maybe even less……”
Because it had been thrown together in a hurry, the figure was five percent. If he refined it a little more, he probably could make it use slightly less electricity.
“Hah.”
But a five percent increase in power consumption was negligible. The final frequency range multiplication factor they had checked was a staggering 170 times.
“James. The maximum range earlier was 5.1 kilometers.”
“A little short, wasn’t it?”
Colt, suddenly impatient, thought of Korea’s base stations.
“Then we should start with the existing base stations, right?”
“Of course.”
“Should I call Team Leader Park?”
“...No. Don’t. We need to go over this with you first.”
“Wouldn’t the magic circle you just made be enough?”
“The magic circle is only meant to be mass-produced and applied uniformly to the base stations. If I’m going to explain frequency expansion to Team Leader Park, then he’ll inevitably have to understand mana, which has never been scientifically proven.”
Colt put himself in Park’s shoes.
An expert’s being told that some device he doesn’t even understand can expand frequencies more than a hundredfold... could he really accept that? Without even knowing why?
If it were him, he’d probably charge straight in, determined to figure out the principle behind it.
“Damn.”
“Is Team Leader Park good at keeping his mouth shut?”
“...You want to tell him?”
“We have no choice. At the very least, someone who understands the field has to know what’s going on before we can apply it to our base stations. Or are you and I supposed to go around installing it ourselves? Not just the tens of thousands of base stations here in Korea, but all the overseas ones we’re expanding into?”
“...That would be insane.”
“Then isn’t it better to tell him?”
Colt remained deeply wary of James’s magic becoming public knowledge.
“But don’t tell him everything... let’s work around it a little.”
“Huh? How?”
“So, this device was developed recently by Vice President James, but……”
Team Leader Park Seong-tae tilted his head, listening closely as Colt explained.
James, just as they had agreed, went on with the story.
“I’ve been interested in this field since before I started working at TY Telecom. I’d already figured out that my invention could expand frequencies, but I couldn’t identify the exact principle, so I ran the first test here.”
Team Leader Park pointed at the small disc that made the frequency expansion possible through a Fractal Structure. It had been something James had pulled out of his inventory and hastily assembled. He’d found a coin of the right size, flattened it by pressing both sides, and then engraved a magic circle on it, so it was quite small.
“So... this small disc isn’t made of some special alloy or a metal containing rare earth elements……”
“It’s an ordinary metal plate. It can be found anywhere, and the composition ratio of the metal isn’t related to performance……”
Whether it was related or not was still unknown.
“...at least, that’s what I think. We’d have to run experiments to determine whether performance changes depending on the plate’s composition, right?”
“What about this device that connects to the power line?”
“That’s the same. It doesn’t contain any special material or anything like that. The second device draws a small amount of power and sends it to the first device, where frequency is expanded and transformed to create an explosive maximum range. The two devices have to be connected for the performance to show.”
“……”
It was obvious Team Leader Park had just slammed into the edge of the incomprehensible. No matter how closely he examined the two devices in his hands, he couldn’t make sense of them.
A metal plate with no electronic components in it... expands frequencies with some unknown circuit drawn on it? And not random expansion, either, but a frequency transformed into a precise fractal structure that can penetrate even the inside of buildings?
“...This is driving me crazy.”
It was technology that couldn’t even be explained at the most basic level.
Because it’s magic......
“Uh... to add a little more detail, then……”
Just as James was about to open his mouth, wondering if he should explain a little about magic and mana, Colt hurriedly stepped in.
“That’s why we couldn’t explain it to you, Team Leader Park. You can understand that part, right?”
“...Of course. If it’s technology whose cause-and-effect relationship can’t be explained, then it needs to be verified more thoroughly through experiments.”
Colt was certain that no matter how many experiments they ran in the lab, they would never get a meaningful result.
“Team Leader Park. Experiments aren’t important right now.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s just a frequency that doesn’t affect the human body, after all. Shouldn’t we install it in our base stations right away and expand customer service? We can apply it to Data Sharing 5G too.”
Of course, Team Leader Park also thought it would be a waste of time to drag this out with unnecessary tests.
“...That’s not all, though.”
He began pointing out another area of application Colt and James had not considered.
“At this level of frequency expansion, we should also install it in individual cell phones and use it there.”
“What?”
If a phone’s receiving range expanded more than a hundredfold, it could create a synergy with the frequency expansion of the base stations.
“Not just phones, but Wi-Fi devices used in homes and companies too. No, we don’t even need to stop there. If we apply it to the network equipment TY Telecom installs……”
If James’s amplifier were installed in the Wi-Fi device of an apartment building, a single access point could cover the entire complex. TY Telecom wouldn’t need to install Wi-Fi in every household, and the resulting cost savings would be enormous.
“All we’d have to do is launch a TY Telecom Wi-Fi plan. The installation cost for the Wi-Fi equipment would disappear, and the monthly fee would go down. TY Telecom subscribers would be able to connect to the network in the highest quality, anytime and anywhere.”
“……”
“……”
“This can be applied to every wireless device, not just phones. The device Vice President James invented is going to become essential technology in the era of home networking.”
“There are going to be a ridiculous number of applications.”
Team Leader Park kept coming up with more and more ideas.
“The aerospace industry will be drooling over this.”
“Whoa, hold on. That’s a bit……”
“Start with satellites. Will we even need to install base stations in the future? A few satellites in orbit could cover the entire world, couldn’t they?”
“!”
“!”
As expected, the expert’s vision was on a different level.
“Of course, satellites are too far in the future, so we can set that aside for later... but we need to secure the technology now, and that brings us to the patent issue.”
“It’s a little hard to move forward without a patent, isn’t it……”
But a patent was impossible. Magic could not be patented.
“Team Leader Park.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s keep it secure and apply it to all our existing equipment.”
“...If security is breached, a competitor could patent it first. It may look like a complicated circuit at a glance, but scanning and copying it wouldn’t be difficult.”
Colt trusted James and his magic.
“No. That won’t be possible at all.”
Colt turned to James and asked, “James. If someone drew the exact same circuit somewhere else, would it have the same performance?”
“No. As Team Leader Park will find out if he runs experiments at the lab, it can’t be copied. I have a special technique that no one else has.”
Merely drawing the same magic circle would not make it function. The magic circle could only be activated when there was an understanding of mana, and the only mage currently on Earth was James.
“See, Team Leader Park?”
“...Then how are we supposed to produce it?”
If drawing the circuit alone didn’t produce the same performance, mass production would be impossible. But even now, Colt placed his complete trust in James as he asked, “For the first batch to be installed in the existing base stations—50,000 units. How long until you can produce them?”
“Uh……”
Since all I have to do is copy them onto prepared materials......
If the basic materials, including steel plates, were ready, James could stamp out 50,000 magic circles in a single day.
“A week, give or take?”
“I knew it! Our James!”
“……”
Team Leader Park concluded that Vice President James was running a separate company on the side.
It was all planned from the beginning.
“Then... are you saying our side won’t be able to secure the patent for this technology? And even the amplifying device itself will be supplied from outside?”
He assumed the company James had prepared would supply the amplifiers, and TY Telecom would purchase them and install them in the base stations.
“...No. The preparation and supply of materials will all be handled internally at TY Telecom.”
“Then at least the outsourcing fees and the cost of using the latest technology……”
“We won’t be able to patent the technology itself, but I think we can patent the design. We should be able to file based on the external design alone.”
“Ah. Then we can just pay the money to Vice President James’s company.”
“Huh? What company do I have?”
“You don’t have one?”
“No. I don’t.”
There was bound to be a communication problem. They had never imagined that James, as vice president, would personally fabricate 50,000 amplifiers.
“...Then who’s supplying the 50,000 amplifiers and the 50,000 power-supply adapters that come with them?”
“I already told you. I’m the one making them.”
“...Oh.”
The conversation kept veering off course.
“You handle the materials, Team Leader Park. I’ll just draw the circuitry onto them.”
“...You’re doing it yourself?”
“Haven’t I already told you that I’m the only one who can?”
“50,000 amplifiers and 50,000 amplifier adapters, all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“...And you’re saying you’ll finish that in a week?”
“Yes.”
“So you realize that means producing 20,000 units a day, right?”
“This is exhausting.”
James could not endure the endless questioning any longer. He placed his palm on the booth table.
“Watch this carefully.”
“Hey! Wait—”
Before Colt could stop him, James’s magic activated.
Fwoosh.
A complex magic circle was carved in an instant onto the table’s white plastic surface.
“James. What do you think you’re doing showing him this? I said let’s work around it……”
“You said Team Leader Park keeps his mouth shut, right? Let’s trust him.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s that I’m being careful just in case! What was the point of consulting me beforehand if you were going to do this?”
“……”
The mouth that Team Leader Park Seong-tae had supposedly kept tightly shut was now hanging open so far his jaw might as well have hit the floor.
“W-what... what is this... just now? How did you do that?”
At Colt’s firm reaction, James decided to stay quiet again.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t try to figure it out, Team Leader Park!”
But Park was not the kind of person who would keep his mouth shut under that much pressure.
“Let me understand this too!”
“……”
“……”
“Why show me already and then say that? Come on!”
That day, Team Leader Park learned that there was a force in this world unknown even to science.
“Mana? Are you saying Vice President James is a wizard?”