Gunpowder Plate Armor and the Magic Revolution

Federal Calendar Year 45 [Imperial Calendar Year 473]

Federal Republic of Eternity, Province of Flourish, City of Herb, Federal Military Academy.

North Stella yawned during a magic class, nearly dislocating her jaw.

Just two weeks ago, Norse Stella was a miserable college student who spent his days working "007" to write his graduation thesis on the development of gunpowder and the collapse of chivalry.

Two weeks later, my heart, which was often teased for "resting on its own when it's tired," actually did rest on its own.

Of course, the owner of the heart also went to enjoy the good life.

"...As we discussed before, in General Parnil Rich's book, *Introduction to Magic Measurement and Basic Standardization*, we can clearly see the definition of a standard mana unit [SMU]..."

On the podium, Lieutenant Colonel Christian Hoffmann's voice, crisp and clear like a soldier's, echoed in the not-so-large classroom.

He was dressed in a crisp army uniform, with his top button fastened to his chin. Two medals for major battles were pinned to his left breast. His large, knuckled hands were tapping chalk on the blackboard, writing down dense formulas.

There were only thirty tables and chairs in the classroom, and twenty-three students were sitting inside. They were all the young people in the entire province of Fries who had passed the magic affinity test and were selected for the infantry course this year.

Of course, some people also come up through preparatory courses.

This number may seem meager, but it represents the best harvest for Herbert Army Academy in the past three years. After all, those who can sense magic are extremely rare, and after weeding out those who are physically unqualified, the remaining individuals are enough for the academy's quartermaster to enjoy a couple more beers and boast in the tavern.

What? You're saying there aren't any magic-loving individuals who don't want to join the army?

Sorry, but every magic-affinity user is an important asset to the national army. If you're unwilling to volunteer, there are plenty of people who will "volunteer" for you.

Noze Stella's fingertips casually traced the open hardcover book in front of him.

The dark gray cover was worn and frayed, the corners were worn shiny, and most of the gold-stamped title on the cover had fallen off.

It's not that Norzer doesn't cherish books, but rather that this textbook has been used by countless previous students.

He casually flipped open the title page, where the author's photo had been worn smooth from being touched by previous students.

The man in the photo, dressed in military uniform, is thin and wears a monocle. Below the monogram is a line of small print: Panil Rich, Army General of the Federal Republic of Itnity, Founder of the Magic Strategy Bureau, and the founder of the Magic Law Standardization System.

"...Andrew Hart, please answer how SMU is defined in the book."

Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman glanced around and called out to Andrew Hart, who was sitting not far from Knozer.

Noze subconsciously turned his head to glance at it.

When he first heard the name, he automatically pictured a tall, burly man with a long beard, carrying two swords and charging at the forefront of the infantry line.

The boy who could stand up had soft, light blonde hair, pale skin from spending most of his time indoors, was not tall, rather thin, and stood straight, like a neatly pruned ash tree branch.

However, this impression is due to some preconceived notions from Norze. According to the average male physique in the Federation, Andrew's build is very standard.

"Under standard conditions, the minimum amount of magic required to heat 1 kilogram of pure water to 2.5°C is 1 standard magic unit."

Andrew's answer was impeccable.

"Okay, please sit down. Your answer is very comprehensive."

A slight smile appeared on Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman's usually stern face.

Noze snapped out of his reverie and continued to drift off into daydreams in class, processing what he had seen and heard over the past two weeks.

As you can see, magic in this world isn't something only witches with eccentric minds or white-bearded old men wielding strange, crooked sticks can use.

Magic in this world has become somewhat standardized and industrialized. Norze even thinks that in a few decades, magicians will likely be mass-produced like cars on an assembly line.

However, before the Federation was officially established—or more accurately, before 5 years into the Federation calendar—magicians were always mysterious beings who rarely appeared. They were few in number, and most of them served various feudal empires in exchange for extremely high status.

These magicians who served the emperor were generally respectfully called "Royal Sorcerers," while the people of the Federal Republic of Itniti preferred to call them "the emperor's lackeys."

Although their reputation is unpleasant, it also demonstrates their formidable abilities, making the citizens of the Federal Republic of Itniti wish they could tear them apart.

This reputation is even said to have a miraculous effect in some areas, such as stopping children from crying at night, though it's unclear whether it's true or not.

As a history student, Nozer understood all too well what this kind of monopoly meant.

Just as the medieval church monopolized the right to interpret the Bible, and just as guilds monopolized handicraft technology, as long as the barrier that "only a few people can master" is not broken, the allies will always be passively attacked.

During the Thirty Years' War, countless Allied soldiers perished under the spells created by the royal sorcerers of the Valencia Empire.

Creating fire tornadoes and producing dense fog to gain an offensive advantage were commonplace. Some veterans of the Allied Forces even swore that they had seen sorcerers summon meteorites from the sky to attack, turning the entire legion into a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, with piles of white bones.

No one knows how magicians are selected, trained, and passed down their skills; Norze guesses that even the emperors who employed them probably didn't know.

Otherwise, with the Empire's manpower and financial resources, they could definitely mass-produce mages. In that case, what would be the point of the Allied forces fighting? They could just surrender and become slaves and maybe live a few more days.

After the Empire withdrew its troops and the Federation was established, General Panil Rich suggested setting up a special magic agency to study a range of issues related to magicians. The parliament at the time was quite controversial about this, with civil servants feeling that it would be better to use the Federation's budget to produce more matchlock guns instead.

However, the military officers had suffered considerable losses at the hands of the royal sorcerers and were determined to build their own magic force.

After a series of heated debates and political maneuvering, the Magic Strategy Bureau was finally established.

To study magic, you need a magician, right? The Magic Strategy Bureau is dirt poor; how could it possibly afford to hire a royal sorcerer for research? In other words, even if there were enough funds, which magician would participate in this research that could be considered jeopardizing someone's livelihood?

However, General Parnier Ritchie was not only an outstanding artillery expert with distinguished achievements, but also a rigorous and intelligent scholar and scientist who graduated from the Department of Mathematics at the Imperial University of Valencia.

After visiting numerous soldiers and legions who had fought against royal sorcerers, he finally understood what made mages different from ordinary people and quickly designed and implemented testing tools.

Now at least there are magic-affinity individuals, but having only affinity individuals isn't enough. The Magic Strategy Bureau is also completely clueless about how to train magicians.

General Parnil Rich knew perfectly well that if they followed the conventional path of training magicians, even if they had 500 years, let alone 50, they couldn't guarantee that they could train a great magician of strategic value.

Thus, Parniel Richie embarked on a completely different path from traditional royal sorcerers: to thoroughly regulate illusory magic.

In the 7th year of the Commonwealth Calendar, Parniel Richie's "Introduction to Magic Measurement and Basic Standardization" was published, marking a milestone in the standardization of the magical world.

In the 10th year of the Federal Calendar, the Strategic Bureau introduced the first set of "General Specifications for Army Spells", which standardized the casting process for all eight most commonly used spells.

In the 18th year of the Federation calendar, General Parniel Rich divided magic into four major categories: object manipulation, elemental magic, healing magic, and suggestion magic, and expanded the number of commonly used spells from 8 to 17.

In the 22nd year of the Federal Calendar, the Magic Strategy Bureau split off a new department from the original organization in an attempt to promote magic to all walks of life.

Of course, such rapid progress in theoretical foundations is inseparable from the reliable data collected by a large number of magicians and scholars in front-line combat.

It could even be said that behind every theoretical advancement of the Magic Strategy Bureau lies endless sacrifice and bloodshed.

As General Panil Rich famously said, "They died so that we might not die; they died so that the Federation of Itniti might live on forever, so I dare not slacken for a moment."

As for General Parnior Ritchie, he lived up to his promise with his life. Until his death, this most dedicated scholar, scientist, and artillery expert in the Federation was still refining his new theory.

As for his successors... from Nozer's perspective, they are not quite up to par.

After Richie's death, the Federation's magic system was practically living off his legacy.

There has been no breakthrough in theory, the standard spells are still the same few, and there haven't been many optimizations. No wonder the Imperial Royal Sorcerers are still the most troublesome threat on the battlefield.

"...I know that many of you tried to manipulate magic during the affinity test before entering school, but the success rate of spells fluctuated wildly. Sometimes you could release a small spark, and sometimes you couldn't even move the ink, right?"

Lieutenant Colonel Hoffmann's teaching has shifted from theory to practice at some point.

Many trainees in the audience exchanged knowing glances.

"The core of the problem is not whether you have enough magic, but that you don't know how to control it precisely, which is also the final point of this course."

Hoffman slammed the chalk down on the podium with a crisp sound. "Today I'm going to talk about the core foundation of spellcasting, the magical phantom limb, which has been given a nickname by the seniors of the Magic Strategy Bureau: the 'Third Hand'."

"The so-called magical limb is the medium through which we can manipulate magic. Some people think it is a hand, some think it is an opal card, and some think it is a fishing rod... No matter what shape it is, if we want to achieve our goals through magic, we must skillfully manipulate our magical limb."

"Now, everyone, sit up straight, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Focus your attention on the space between your eyebrows or your fingertips, wherever you can feel that faint magic, that's where you should focus your attention."

"Try to feel it, to 'grow' a hand that doesn't belong to your body, or any form you can imagine that you can use to 'grab' things."

"Then, use this 'hand' to control the quill next to you and write your name completely on the papyrus. Then I can give you an A in this course, and you can do whatever you want in the following classes."

Academic performance is the primary and only measure of an officer's ability. Just as there are KPIs in a job, there are also unique KPIs for officers in military academies.

Academic performance directly impacts the final allocation of students. Simply put, it's a comprehensive assessment of all subjects over three years of study. The better the grades, the greater the chance of being selected by "our own people" upon graduation, and the brighter the future prospects will be.

The term "one of our own" refers to someone who is considered "one of our own" in the province where they were born.

In addition, each province likes to bring its own people back with them and dislikes officers from other provinces getting in the way of their troops. Therefore, "going home" is the wish of every military academy student.

After all, who would willingly abandon their fellow villagers to go to an unfamiliar environment and be treated unfairly?

If, even more unfortunate, one is assigned to a region near the border between the Empire and the Federation, given the current tensions and frequent "minor skirmishes" in the border region...

Whether they can live a peaceful and tranquil life until their peaceful death depends on the whims of the supreme god Alistair.

Upon hearing these tempting conditions, the classroom fell silent instantly. Some students' hands, resting on their knees, were slightly tense, while others' fingertips trembled gently.

Our classmate Noze naturally understands the importance of grades, but the original owner's grades in the first two and a half years can't be described as illustrious; he was basically in the group that was about to fail.

To return to his home province of Storm, he needs to get at least two A grades in his remaining three courses, which means two perfect scores.

As Norze contemplated his bleak future, he was completely unaware that he had been targeted by a lieutenant colonel.

Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman sighed, picked up the chalk, and with a thought, sent it flying, striking Nozer squarely between the eyebrows.

The sudden attack terrified Noze.

"Noze Stella, pay attention in class and close your eyes to carefully feel your magical limbs."

Noze gave an awkward smile, immediately sat up straight, and closed his eyes.

The moment you close your eyes, your surrounding senses are amplified.

The tense breathing of the cadets beside him, the uncontrollable swallowing of someone in the row in front, and the sound of Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman's boots on the wooden floor all clearly reached Nozer's ears.

He first followed Hoffman's instructions and tried to "grow" a hand from his fingertips.

But the faint magical power scattered throughout his limbs was like fine sand in his hand; the harder he tried to gather it, the faster it dispersed. After struggling for half a minute, apart from feeling a little cold at his fingertips, he couldn't touch even a trace of the magical limbs.

Faint noises could be heard from the surroundings.

Some people made a sound of frustration, some dropped their quills on the table with a "thud," and others couldn't help but mutter a curse under their breath before quickly swallowing it back.

Noze's heart also beat faster. In the past two weeks since he transmigrated, he had tried to mobilize his magic, but every time it was the same as now. Either he couldn't grasp it, or he managed to gather a little bit, but it would disappear without a trace in the blink of an eye.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

Why insist on "one hand"?

The skeptical instinct ingrained in history students suddenly surfaced. Since Admiral Richie has already proven that magic is a controllable energy, why confine it to a fixed form?

Nozer changed his approach. Instead of trying to force a specific form, he focused all his attention on capturing the faint magical power within his body.

They were like fine sand scattered in the river. He no longer scooped them up with his hands, but instead built a very thin dam downstream, gathering them little by little, and slowly converging them along his veins to the tip of his right finger.

The process was very slow, so slow that he could clearly perceive the flow of every bit of magic.

They were very light and unruly, and would scatter if you were distracted even slightly, but Noze was not impatient or annoyed. He patiently gathered them together and pressed them down one by one.

Finally, a centimeter away from his fingertips, a sensation that was both incredibly familiar and somewhat strange appeared.

It wasn't flesh and blood, nor did it have any temperature, yet it felt like his own fingers, allowing him to clearly sense the movement of the surrounding air.

It clearly cannot be called a hand, and it doesn't even have a fixed shape.

Nozer can adjust its point of force at will, as if he has an invisible set of highly precise tweezers in his hand, and he can also freely change the size of the tweezers.

"Is this what they call 'the third hand'?"

He opened his eyes, steadied his breathing, and tried to move the "hand" further to touch the quill pen on the table. The pen wobbled slightly.

The commotion around them grew even louder.

Hoffman's footsteps stopped to his left, and Norder remembered that was where Andrew Hart was.

Immediately following was the screeching sound of a quill pen tip scraping against the table, and the boy's frustrated breathing.

Noze had no time to be distracted. He did his best to adjust his grip, holding the pen steadily as he normally would.

The wooden texture was transmitted through magic, incredibly clear; he could even feel the shallow indentations on the pen handle left by previous users.

He controlled his phantom limb, picked up the pen, and cautiously reached for the ink bottle beside him.

The pen tip dipped steadily into the ink, then I lifted it and moved it above the draft paper.

The resistance of the pen tip touching the paper was clearly transmitted back. He controlled his phantom limb and, as if writing by hand, wrote his name stroke by stroke.

North Stella

The handwriting was fairly neat, with clear strokes and not too much distortion or trembling. The ink seeped evenly into the paper without spreading.

After writing the last letter, he released his phantom limb, and the quill pen gently fell onto the table with a soft sound.

This soft sound seemed completely out of place in the already chaotic classroom.

In just a few minutes, the entire classroom had become a small disaster site.

Someone's quill rolled to the ground, cracking the pen barrel. Someone else used too much force and crushed the pen barrel to pieces, sending white quills flying across half the table. Another person managed to get the pen off the table but couldn't control its direction, the nib drawing crooked, messy scribbles on the paper, spilling ink all over the paper and even soaking the notebook.

Even Andrew Hart, who had answered the questions flawlessly just now, could only keep the quill pen suspended on the paper. But as soon as he tried to put pen to paper, the quill tip would shake uncontrollably, either spreading a large ink stain on the paper or drawing a long ink line. A thin layer of sweat had already seeped out of his forehead.

Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman's brow furrowed deeper and deeper, his expression growing increasingly grim.

He had long anticipated that practical application of magic would be difficult, but these young people's ability to control magic was still worse than he had expected.

Until he heard the soft sound of a pen falling onto the table not far away.

He turned around and looked at the corner of the last row, at Noze Stella, who had been daydreaming in class and had been hit on the forehead with chalk by him.

Noze Stella was looking down at the name on the draft paper, his face showing a mix of bewilderment from just coming back to his senses and unexpected understanding.

Hoffman stopped in his tracks.

He strode over, the sound of his military boots on the floor causing the trainees who were still struggling with their quill pens to stop instinctively and look in his direction.

Then, some people who were closer to Denoze saw the draft paper.

In the center of the clean paper, a line of clear handwriting lay quietly, almost indistinguishable from handwritten text, except for some places where the pen control was inaccurate.

Hoffman stood in front of Nozer's desk, glanced down at the name on the paper, and then looked up at Nozer.

His face, which was usually taut, was expressionless, but anyone could see the surprise in his eyes.

"Did you write this?"

He spoke, his voice a few decibels lower than when he was lecturing.

"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel."

Noze quickly stood up, still feeling a little unsure, wondering what mistake he had made.

Hoffman said nothing more. He reached out and touched the line of writing with his fingertips. The ink was half-dry and still a little damp, which proved that it had just been written by Nozer.

He had seen many talented students, but to be able to control magical limbs with such precision on the first time was extremely rare, not only in Herber City, but even in the Central Army Academy in the Federal capital.

"Very good, very good."

Hoffman readily agreed, picked up the papyrus, and showed it to all the students in the classroom who were suffering, his voice suddenly rising.

"Did you all see that clearly? This is precise control of magic. What Stella students can do, you must also be able to do. I don't care if you're thinking about your hands or fishing rods. What I want is results, for you to make magic obey you, not for you to run wild with magic."

"Noser Stella".

After Lieutenant Colonel Christian Hoffman finished speaking, he turned to look at Nozer and said, "You can go now."

"Walk?"

Norze looked somewhat bewildered.

"Yes, student Noze Stella, your overall evaluation for this semester's magic courses will be perfect. You are free to arrange your class time as you see fit."

Lieutenant Colonel Hoffman spoke while gesturing to him with his eyes.

Noze instinctively stuffed the textbooks on the table into his pocket, and amidst countless envious and puzzled glances, followed the lieutenant colonel out of the classroom.

The heavy wooden door closed behind him, shutting out the murmurs that suddenly erupted in the classroom.

The corridor had the same dark brown solid wood flooring as the classrooms, which was polished to a shine by the students in charge of cleaning today, so much so that it could even reflect the blurry outlines of two people.

The walls were adorned with the Union Army's honor roll and oil paintings of famous battles from the Thirty Years' War. The wind blew in through the window at the end of the corridor, carrying with it the sounds of commands, running, and the muffled thuds of rifle fire from the training ground in the distance.

Hoffman stopped and turned to look at Nozer.

He was a head taller than Noze, and the imposing presence he had developed on the battlefield made Noze subconsciously tense. He involuntarily straightened his back and maintained a soldier's standing posture.

"Relax, student."

Hoffman's tone was much gentler than in the classroom. He looked into Nozer's eyes and asked, "Tell me, when you were using magic to write your name just now, did you find it difficult?"

"Reporting to the Colonel, it was a bit difficult to gather the magic power at the beginning."

Noze answered honestly, "Later I changed my approach. I didn't stick to a specific shape. Once I gathered the magic, there was no problem controlling it."

"To put it another way, your control over magic is the best I've seen in my seven years of teaching at Herbert Academy."

He paused, as if pondering something, "...So I wanted to ask you, have you ever thought about learning more sophisticated magic?"