Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School Chapter 50: Radio Killed the Magic Star

My question didn’t linger in the air for long.

In fact, it was almost imdiately reciprocated, but not by the owl, Buddy, nor any other voice. Instead, it was reciprocated by a long, dull droning sound; one that shook the entire building to its core. A sound that was as otherworldly as the noise generated by a warp drive revving up to full power.

This was soon followed by thousands of distinct large thumps, as heavy, leather bound books smacked across an untold number of desks, tables, and plush leather armchairs not too dissimilar to the ones found in Mal’tory’s office.

Except instead of the dark, brooding, and foreboding atmosphere of that Victorian-thed nightmare, there was a certain magical nature to the whole scene. The presence of a thousand or so foxes flipping through untold pages at blistering speeds definitely helped to offset the otherwise bizarre and ominous nature of it all.

“Radio.” The owl parroted back, in exactly the sa tone and enunciation I’d used.

“Radio.” The room of foxes responded back in unison, their page-flipping continuing for a solid few minutes before it all inexplicably ca to a stop as suddenly as it began.

With a resounding thump of tens of thousands of books closing all at once.

The veritable army of foxes would co to et the owl’s questioning gaze, each and every one resolving to a pout and a shake of their heads as soon as their eyes t the owl’s.

The whole library began producing another long, dull droning. As the foxes that had appeared with books in tow, all ran off back into unseen and unknown corners and crevices, completely disappearing from even the EVI’s sensor feeds.

It was now just Buddy and the owl resting atop his head that remained. The owl in particular quickly took charge once more. “Radio.” He repeated. “Subject matter classification-”

“-Communication.” I quickly interjected, taking literally no one except for Buddy completely off guard, the armored fox cocking his head from side to side; his face locked in a perpetual expression of confusion and curiosity.

“That’s what this whole trade boils down to, doesn’t it?” I asked rhetorically, garnering a tentative nod from the owl in response. “An artificial ans of augnting communication, all in an attempt to address a problem that plagues all civilizations. A problem that becos all but a guaranteed issue for any would-be organized group wishing to maintain any hope of cohesion beyond the sight lines of a town or village. Because the mont when you set your sights on organizing, controlling, and maintaining people and lands beyond the sight lines of your hall, keep, or castle, is the mont when you realize that we’re all fundantally limited by the sa thing… our ability to get information from one place to another. For the greater the extent of your claims, and the further you expand your reach, the more difficult this task becos. So for an empire as expansive and as grand as the Nexus-” I spoke in a half-condescending, sowhat sarcastic tone, realizing well that doing so wouldn’t incur any faux pas’ with the library. “-this becos a pertinent issue.” I paused, taking a mont to regard all eyes in the room before continuing. “I know this… we know this… because we’ve experienced the sa growing pains back ho.”

There were no gasps of surprise this ti around, as the captive audience of foxes and the lone owl seed captivated rather than shocked.

In fact, even Thacea’s expression remained similar enough to the owl in composure. Though I knew that was more than likely the result of her stoic poker face, and was most definitely not representative of what was probably brewing underneath the surface.

“I’m sure we had so parallels in this regard, I’m sure the Nexus wasn’t always capable of long distance communication using crystals. I’m sure soone had to have had the brilliant idea of running the distance between two towns. And I’m sure this eventually evolved into relying on the endurance of a horse, the speed of a pigeon, and the skill of a courier as ti progressed. However, there had to have been a breaking point. A point where your ambitions grow beyond the limitations of these crude, analog, and primitive ans of addressing the physical information gap. A point where these systems beco fundantally inadequate if you wish, hope, and desire for more. So whilst the Nexus dabbled in solutions to this issue utilizing magic, with their crystals and teleportation spells, we instead branched off into a completely different path; a road less taken.”

“A road not defined or limited by the skills of a mage, but created, maintained, and refined by the sacrifices of generations of scholars and researchers.”

“Because we didn’t have the abundance of mana to work with, nor were we born with the innate gift of mana-manipulation. Heck, our world doesn’t even have any mana to begin with. We were, and still are, a mana-less people, with no less of a desire to expand, progress, and push forward our reach as the Nexus clearly did. Our ambitions could not be tempered by the supposed reality of our situation. Our sights were always set upon the next hill. Our hearts were always drawn to the next horizon. Our destiny was always to cross the distance of oceans. Regardless of if they were oceans of water or oceans of stars. It’s not in our nature to sit idly by, and we definitely were not willing to accept the limitations imposed upon us by the natural world. So we pushed forward. Each generation dedicating their lives to the observation and study of reality, and each generation making gradual, consistent improvents by harnessing everything from the world around us, using our understanding of its rules to construct a reality we wanted to see, all in service of our own aims.”

I took a deep breath at the end of my preamble, just in ti for the building around us to once again drone and creak loudly, giving the owl pause as he addressed just as the noises settled.

“So in a similar vein to how magic and the magical arts were constructed to observe, understand, and to eventually manipulate the fundantal forces of the universe, so too did Earthrealm do this with another set of fundantal cosmic paradigms?” The owl shot back questioningly, his eyes burrowing through my opaque lenses not with predisposed doubt and scrutiny, but with a fiery curiosity barely contained behind those spheres of amber.

“Correct.”

“And you do not call this magic?”

“No, in fact, that term is exclusively used for impossible flights of fantasy; reserved for the realm of fiction and the imagination. Only now are we seeing that it is, in fact, a very real reality. A reality that we were not able to actualize, for reasons that are now very clear to us.”

“So if not magic, then what? What is the na of your systematic study of the fundantal forces?”

“We call this discipline: science.” I began, accentuating that last word in particular. “And we call the practical application of the principles derived from its scholarly endeavors: technology.”

A long drone punctuated that answer, the owl purposefully pausing as if to seemingly listen to it.

“And this is how you discovered and harnessed the radio.” The owl tentatively responded. “It is another one of your systems of technology, derived from these roundabout observations founded in your science.” He concluded.

To which I could only nod in reply. “Correct. So in a similar manner to how the Nexus has uncovered the secrets of magic utilizing their innate gifts, so too have we uncovered the fundantal principles which govern our own reality, using tools and ingenuity to bridge the gap where our physiologies could no longer take us. We discovered that reality can be broken down further than the observable world, and that anything and everything is composed of constituents imperceptible to the senses. Senses which evolved only to be good enough, imbuing us with as much fidelity that was needed to facilitate our physical survival and nothing more. Yet we, as sapient beings, could never be satiated with just good enough. We discovered proof of a reality beneath the one we see, the building blocks of the world we touch, feel, and interact with on a daily basis. We discovered the microcosmos, the constituents of the world on a scale so small that a single grain of sand’s basic components can be counted in the quintillions.”

I took a mont to breathe, before slowly and thodically, I began shaking my head.

"But that wasn’t good enough for us. That just wasn’t enough.” I continued, my voice carrying with it the bottled up passion and excitent of five thousand years of unrepentant progress. “We were hungry, ravenous, and above all else furiously curious for more. So we kept digging down, deeper and deeper, smaller and smaller still, because we knew above all else that if the microcosmos was real, then it had to end sowhere.”

“And eventually, after centuries of searching, we finally found it. Within the science we dub physics, we discovered what we call the fundantal forces. The basic fundantals that could not be broken down into further constituents except by virtue of mathematical extrapolation. This handful of fundantals, which I shall be sparse on for now, act as laws determining how the fundantal building blocks of reality itself interact and decay. And it was within one of these fundantals, what we refer to as electromagnetism, that we unlocked the ultimate potential of communication… the radio.”

I paused once more, as I rummaged through one of my pouches in preparation of what was to co. “For within electromagnetism, we learned that there existed invisible and imperceptible… waves of energy. Waves of energy derived from and emitted as a result of other properties of the fundantal physical building blocks of the microcosmos. Suffice it to say, we harnessed these invisible waves of energy. We learned to imbue them with information using tools and machines capable of sending and receiving these waves of energy. These… radio waves as we call them.”

“I can appreciate a straightforward system of etymology.” The owl finally responded, adding his two cents after intensely scrutinizing every word that had co out of my mouth thus far.

“Yeah, our scientists tend to be a lot more… on the nose when it cos to naming conventions.”

“With all of this being said, Cadet Emma Booker, I do require proof of this concept. Do you have anything which we may observe which could serve as evidence to these claims?”

I grinned excitedly, before pulling out the sa earpiece I’d given to Thalmin earlier. “I thought you’d never ask.”

I outstretched my hand towards both Buddy and the Librarian, revealing an unassuming device that the pair looked at with varying levels of scrutiny. Buddy in particular was practically shaking with excitent, though it was clear the owl was holding him back from going all in.

“This is the most straightforward example I can co up with on short notice.” I began. “It’s a two-way variable-range transceiver. Now, I want you to try…” I paused, before using one of my other hands to vaguely gesture at the air around it. “... sensing for its mana-streams, or lack thereof. As far as I know, everything magical in the Nexus requires mana to function right?” I recalled my back and forths with Sorecar, and all of the artifices and magical implents the Nexus was capable of producing en masse.

“Correct, Cadet Emma Booker.”

“It’s logical then to assu that a communications device such as the minor shard of impart or anything within the status communicatia would likewise require mana to function. Either in the form of a-”

I paused, turning to the EVI for support.

“EVI, what were the mana battery things Sorecar ntioned?”

“Mana Ducts for the siphoning of ambient mana, Mana Ampoules as a portable mana-battery analogue, and enchanted cores.”

“Thanks.” I spoke internally, before continuing on seamlessly with the owl.

“-mana duct, mana ampoule, or so form of enchantnt, correct?”

“Correct.” The owl nodded in response.

“So with all that being said, I’d like Buddy to take a good sniff of this, see if there’s any mana trickery or magical shenanigans going on. I want to prove that this tool of communication, this Radio, can work without mana.” I offered, causing Buddy to crane his eyes up towards the Librarian expectantly, just waiting for the go-ahead.

A nod of approval from the Librarian was all that was needed for Buddy to absolutely go nuts, as all that pent-up energy went towards his more than eager attempts at data-collection.

Though to be fair, data-collection was probably the last word I’d use to describe the fox’s antics, because in truth all this really amounted to was copious amounts of sniffing, and the occasional gentle booping.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringent.

Given the reality of the situation... I think I'd rather stick with data-collection when describing the scene in my report.

The auditors could watch the vid-logs for themselves if they wanted to dispute that.

“NO MANA FOUND! SO MANY UNKNOWN MATERIALS! TAL AND NOT-TAL! CERAMIC AND NOT-CERAMIC! AND A SQUISHY!” Buddy exclaid, panting excitedly as his forepaws buzzed in a little dance that caused the owl to clack his talons hard against his helted head, bringing him down from that overexcitable high.

“You’ve proven your point, Cadet Emma Booker. The artifice in your palm is indeed not imbued with mana, but is in fact, constructed of a great number of other unknown materials.” The Librarian nodded approvingly. “So how do you wish to use this artifice to provide proof to your claims?” He just as quickly threw the ball back to my court.

“By simply demonstrating that it works without mana.” I answered with a shrug. “And if Buddy’s willing, by using him as the other end of the receiving signal.”

No sooner did I say that did Buddy react imdiately, vibrating in place, causing his platemail armor to once again generate that distinctive rattling noise.

“I’m going to take that as a yes?” I shot back, not so much towards Buddy, but towards the owl who nodded once in reply. Taking that as a yes, I continued. “Right, so, the earpiece has an effective range of about… four miles, five if we’re pushing it. Though I’d prefer if we found a space where there’s no obstacles in the way in order to maximize the-”

That low dulcet rumbling returned, as the whole room once again began shaking to its core. This ti, the very atrium we were standing in suddenly expanded, stretching impossibly long to the point where I actually felt nauseous and disoriented by the sudden shift in perspective. I felt like I was in one of those weird reality-bending VR sims, or one of those MC Escher paintings where the geotry and architecture of a room was just wrong. Before laid an atrium that was now stretched about five miles in a single direction, with a mysterious shadowy fog artificially obstructing the render distance in any direction but forward.

“Will this distance be sufficient?” The owl asked, pulling right out of my brain fog.

“Erm, yeah, that’ll do.” I managed out, before kneeling down to Buddy’s height. “So here’s my plan, I’ll affix the device to Buddy’s ear, and he’ll go down five miles in that direction.” I pointed down the impossibly long hall. “Then, I’ll speak into my own internal radio.” I pointed at my helt’s mouthpiece. “And if everything works well, then you’ll have your proof.”

The owl nodded once, before taking off, pulling with him Buddy’s helt, giving full access to his furred head.

The excitable fox was barely capable of holding still as I began the awkward process of putting the device onto an anatomy it wasn’t ant for. However, with a bit of effort, and a lot of finagling with the excess silicone straps, it finally fit snugly in place.

Taking a step back, I couldn’t help but to smile as the little thing looked like he’d just walked straight out of a Space Vulpine ga. All he needed now was a single eyepiece to complete the look.

“Alright. Ready?” I asked, to which Buddy nodded eagerly, before turning to the owl for final approval.

With a nod from the librarian, the little thing zipped to my right, going behind a bunch of bookshelves, before suddenly, and without warning, appearing right down the newly elongated hall.

“Did he just teleport-”

“That is outside the scope of this discussion, Cadet Emma Booker. Now, please proceed with the demonstration.” The owl spoke with more than a hint of eagerness.

“Alright.” I let out a breath. “Here goes nothing.”

I blinked towards my right, the gesture being enough to activate a secure channel. A stylized image of an earpiece popped onto my HUD completely green and with full bars.

“Hello Buddy, can you hear ?” I spoke, as to my horror and dread I realized I suddenly blew it again. The first words through a radio in the Nexus… or more accurately, in the library… would now forever be recorded as Hello Buddy…

Buddy, however, almost imdiately defused that train of thought with a series of excitable cackles that ca in loud and clear over the airwaves.

“I CAN HEAR! I CAN HEAR IN MY RIGHT EAR! THE VOICE IS COMING FROM THE ARTIFICE ITSELF! LIBRARIAN! LIBRARIAN! EMMA WAS RIGHT! THIS IS A COMPLETELY NOVEL FORM OF MANA-LESS COMMUNICATION! AHAHAHAHA!” The rest of Buddy’s rambles were a collection of indistinguishable noises that ranged between outright cackles and pure unadulterated wheezes of excitent.

“So it would seem.” The Librarian spoke with a surprising degree of composure, though his eyes betrayed a look of a 20th century entrepreneur having discovered yet another marketable discovery. “Now, I must clarify a few things, Cadet Emma Booker. For the purposes of Category, and not so much Weight.”

“Alright. I’m all ears.”

“Is this… communication, limited to a realm? I ask for the sake of categorical consistency. For you ask for information on the minor shards of impart and the status communicatia, both of which are inter-realm communication thods. As I see it, this radio, whilst impressive, may be lacking in that regards.”

I couldn’t help but to grin underneath my helt, for the final play I had stored for this eventuality. “What do you define as a realm?”

“For the purposes of this exchange, it is a plane of existence bounded by earth and sky.”

“Then, no.” I grinned. “Radio waves travel way beyond the confines of earth and sky.”

The owl, for the first ti, visibly shifted at this. Sothing was happening behind its eyes. As its head began tilting ninety degrees from side to side.

“Purposely, or as a result of its natural characteristics?” The owl questioned sharply.

“Both. But nowadays, we intentionally beam these waves of energy back and forth, not just within the confines of our sky, but to bodies beyond its reach.”

“To bodies beyond the sky that binds you?” The owl looked at once more, eyeing my arms, then Thacea’s wings.

“Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

Here was my chance.

“To communicate beyond the confines of what the Nexus might consider a single realm. To communicate with bodies likewise bound by earth and sky, or no sky at all. To communicate with others like that inhabit the heavens and beyond. In short: to communicate to those beyond my realm. And isn’t that what Status Communicatia is all about?”

Buddy at this point had all but stopped moving. His body went rigid, as it looked as if he was about to fall flat on his side. It was only due to the aid of several more foxes that he remained upright, and was promptly carried over to the ever growing congregation of foxes that encircled .

“And your people, inhabiting the heavens, clarify: how, why, and for what purpose?”

“I’m afraid that is beyond the scope of this exchange.” I answered promptly and without a twinge of hesitation.

The owl, instead of seeming offended, hurt, or in any way indignant from that response, rely stared at with respect, before nodding once. “That it is.” It spoke, not pressing the matter further.

“But with all that being said…” The owl continued, edging towards a new point. “There is one discrepancy that delineates this novel thod of communication from the Status Communicatia.”

“And that is?”

“Your thodology, relying on this fundantal force of nature. It is still bound by the limitations of physical distance is it not?”

My heart skipped a beat at that, taken aback by the owl’s comprehension and dissection of the concept he’d just learned. “Any physical force of nature is bound to the limitations of its laws. I observed that there existed a noticeable delay between the mont you spoke and the mont your assistant received those words. A slight delay, but still one that has grave implications. For it establishes the precedent that these waves of energy, these radiowaves, travel at a certain speed, and thus are beholden to the limitations imposed by the infinite nature of physical space. This is in contrast to the Minor Shards of Impart which relies on a thodology that does not necessitate the crossing of physical space, thus making the two thods of communication fundantally incompatible. So as novel as your explanation is, I am afraid that the information I can provide will be limited to thods analogous to your own, of which there are many, including Tethers, Flares, and Puddlejumping for instance.”

“So you want an equivalent of a ans of communication that manages to skirt past the fundantal limitations of physical space as a limiting factor?”

“Correct.” The owl clarified, leading to a silence that even he seed to believe could not be filled.

“We have that too.”

The room audibly buckled at that, as more beady eyes erged from the shadows, each and every one transfixed on my vocoder.

The whole world seed to stop, as even the owl’s beak remained slightly ajar, his feathers even puffing up a bit before receding.

“Explain.” The owl urged.

“In our race to expand across the heavens, we ca across the issue which you speak of. The fundantal limitations of relying on a thodology inherently bound to the rules of the physical space it must physically bridge. This was unacceptable to our governnt, especially given our governing laws on the welfare of the state and its citizenry. A state must be capable of reacting, responding, and reliably administering its reach within its own borders without fail. Traditional communication using radio waves would be insufficient to these ends. We learned that lesson across our tentative first few steps across the stars. Thus, we created another thod. A way of skirting around this physical limitation. We ca across what we refer to as quantum entanglent, and using that principle, created what is now known as the QE Network. A thod of communication that completely circumvents the limitations of space, binding two particles in two points in space together by an unseen tether, whereby the movent of one elicits the movent of another. These small shifts can be manipulated. And thus, like radio, can be used to transmit concepts using encoding and deciphering. All of this, without needing to physically bridge the gap. All of this being instantaneous.” I paused, taking a huge breath after that spiel, turning to the owl expectantly. “Will this be sufficient?”

The whole room, whilst already quiet, seed to grow even quieter as I finished my brief explanation of a concept that would require the EVI to step in to properly explain. Yet despite my surface level understanding and explanation, sothing within the owl’s eyes seed to click, as it ‘smiled’ in a way only a bird could manage. “Yes. Sufficient enough for your query, at the very least.” The owl spoke with a certain satisfaction in its voice. “And your proof?”

I paused at that, letting out a large sigh in response as I simply shrugged. “Unfortunately, QE systems aren’t as portable nor as readily available as radio. As such, I don’t have one on hand.”

But just as soon as those words left my mouth, did another idea slam against with the force of a truck.

“EVI.”

“Yes, Cadet Booker.”

“Pull up a partial proof of QE. Nothing that can be turned into sothing legitimately useful, nothing that could be used for practical application. Just… proof of it. And maybe not even the whole proof.”

“Purposefully block out vital aspects of the theorem?”

“Correct.”

“Affirmative. Uploading results to DATAPAD01.”

I imdiately unlatched the datapad from my belt, before turning it towards the owl expectantly and with a smirk underneath my helt. “But I do have this.” I quickly corrected my course with the owl.

It was clear the librarian didn’t need any prompting to begin devouring the contents on the screen with his eyes. As he began darting from up and down the light-mode enabled device, prompting his pupils to squint sowhat as he adjusted to the light.

It took about half a minute, but after a solid few monts of deliberation, the owl eventually turned his attention back squarely on .

“Earthrealm… and your kind, are utterly fascinating Cadet Emma Booker.” The owl responded with a certain glee in his voice, as a table was imdiately pulled up in front of us. At around the sa ti, several books began flying from the shelves, landing right in front of Thacea, as if the owl understood what our dynamic was from our first visit here in the library. “Even after all that has transpired, and the trauma that has been incurred upon it, the library wishes to express nothing but adamant appreciation and wishes to reciprocate fairly and accordingly.”

Thacea, to her credit, took only a few monts to readjust to the situation. Despite her frazzled appearance, her thousand-yard stare, and her ruffled feathers, she took to the mission like a trooper. Her hands began flipping through the available pages, but reeled back as a few suddenly were drained of ink just as her hands grazed them.

“To clarify, Cadet Emma Booker. Would you wish to exchange the information of the radio for a Nexian equivalent now, or would you like to incur a deficit from the library, garnering credit on your card for this information later? I wish to ask as your inquiry was focused solely on the Status Communcatia and the Shards of Impart, and not the Tethers, Flares, and so on and so forth.”

I raised my brow at that, seeing that several books around Thaceea had gone blank, save for what was presumably the one on the crystal I requested earlier. “So, I’m assuming that right now the only book that’s readable is the one on the Minor Shard of Impart and the Status Communicatia?” I attempted to clarify.

“Correct, Cadet Emma Booker.”

I took a deep breath, looking at all of the information laid out in front of , and the potential to learn it all now.

“Emma.” Thacea interjected, her voice barely a squeak compared to the vocal range used between and the owl thus far. I turned to her, as she gave a look that I imdiately understood. “These other topics are known to , and thus we may discuss this later.”

And that’s why you always bring an expert to haggle with the locals.

“I’ll hold off on that for now, thanks.” I shot back with a smile towards the owl, but not before giving Thacea an appreciative nod.

“Very well.” The owl nodded, as several books were pulled back for now, leaving just what we were after.

Thacea didn’t need much prompting as she began diving deep into the books in front of her, starting with one that was open to a page that displayed a prominent diagram of what I imdiately recognized as a shard of impart.

The Avinor went to town on reading it imdiately, her eyes darting across the page, as I noticed that the fox crowd had slowly begun pulling back into the shadows from whence they ca.

All, save for one near-catatonic fox, who imdiately booted back to life as soon as I touched him. Without much prompting, Buddy leaped up into my arms, draping across my shoulders, as I made my way towards an armchair imdiately next to Thacea.

Letting out a long, tired sigh, I took a mont to shut my brain off, enjoying the silence of the library, occasionally interrupted by the flipping of pages and the squirming of a fox who had now made my lap his ho.

Twenty minutes passed, as Thacea’s gaze remained transfixed on that first book, flipping back and forth between several pages as if to cross reference what she’d just read.

“Emma.” She finally spoke, her eyes staring right at as she pointed at a diagram of a crystal, before flipping the page to reveal an image of a familiar crystalline dragon.