[Book 1 Completed] Industrial Mage: Modernizing a Magical World [Kingdom Building LitRPG]
B2 | Chapter 35 – What is that?

Theodore thought Jack would be impressed by the revelation of the rune inscription, but instead he saw the total mental breakdown of a man who had just realized that everything he had assumed about magic was essentially incorrect.

Well, mental breakdown was a strong word, given that Jake was anything but a man stuck in his ways.

However, Jack was undoubtedly shaken.

Theodore thought it humorous and a little unsettling that Jack's mouth had actually dropped open, as the guy was typically calm enough to have basic facial control even when talking about groundbreaking magical notions. Though he did get excited usually.

Jack's face had gone through what Theodore could only describe as the five stages of grief, but condensed into about thirty seconds and with significantly more staring involved. First came denial, which manifested as Jack blinking rapidly and asking Theodore to repeat himself three times. Then anger, though that was more of a quiet fury directed at the universe rather than at Theodore specifically. Bargaining followed quickly—Jack had actually tried to negotiate with reality by suggesting that maybe Theodore was mistaken about what his skill actually did.

Depression had been brief but intense, with Jack sitting down heavily and staring at his hands like they'd personally betrayed him. And finally, resignation. The man had simply accepted that Theodore could do something that made every enchanter in the kingdom look like a child playing with toys.

Theodore understood the reaction, honestly.

Even if it was a mere ghost of what true runic writing might do, Theodore had to agree that it was honestly astounding that enchantment existed at all in this world. Through trial and error, humans had effectively reverse-engineered bits of runic language.

Humanity's effort to comprehend runic language was enchantment, and although enchanters had advanced significantly over the ages, they were still only using 1% of the true knowledge. That was with him being generous. And it wasn't like Theodore knew all the knowledge, but he certainly would be better than them eventually, but for now he probably needed lots of experimentation and training with this stuff though.

If nothing else, enchanting was like attempting to fell a mountain with only a hammer and good intentions—impressive that they had made it this far, but ultimately constrained by their basic ignorance of the situation they were in.

Direct runic inscription was the real thing, so it was no wonder Jack looked like someone had just told him that his entire profession was based on a misunderstanding.

Theodore watched Jack silently.

The waving followed. Jack's wild, flailing hand motions gave the impression that he was attempting to use interpretive dance to call forth a demon or scare away unseen bees. Jack seemed to want to say something but was at a loss for words, so he decided on something straightforward:

"Don't tell anyone. Absolutely not! Not until you have sufficient power and backing to survive the consequences. But god fucking damnit, Theodore! You—you can… inscribe runes! You can actually inscribe them! Not enchant. Not simulate. Not mimic with ink and chalk. But real. Actual. Fucking. Runes!"

Yes. That was what he'd said. And now it was becoming a whole ordeal.

Jack was not going to relax on his own, so Theodore leaned against the table and folded his arms. The man looked like someone had just handed him the bones of a dead god and told him, good luck, now build a church.

Jack paced. Back and forth. Then paused. Then paced again. Then clutched his head with both hands like it would keep his brain from leaking out his ears.

"Do you understand what this means?"

Of course he did. Theodore had been dealing with the consequences of it since the very moment the skill clicked into place.

"Enchantment," Jack said, almost spitting the word out like it offended him now, "is pretend. It's a child's drawing of a language. It's like trying to write poetry with kitchen utensils. We always knew it was derivative. And now—now there's proof of how inferior it is. Because you can write them. Have you tried it on stone? What about living tissue? Do they stick to magical constructs, or is it only physical mediums? What if you tried combinations? What if—"

Jack simply sank into the closest chair as if he had aged twenty years in ten seconds, staring into the distance with blank eyes.

Theodore waited.

Jack sighed.

"Okay. Okay. Right. Don't tell anyone. Not yet. Not until you have some real power. People will kill for this."

"Yes. Obviously."

Theodore gave him a slow nod.

As though the warning had simply been a hiccup in the road to happy thinking, Jack immediately brightened up again after taking another breath. And suddenly the flood arrived:

"Do you have any idea what we can DO with this? Agriculture! Infrastructure! We could create heating systems for the entire town that would eliminate fuel costs, develop water purification methods that would prevent disease, establish communication networks that could connect us to other cities instantaneously, and design transportation systems that would make travel faster and safer than anyone has ever imagined!

"Storage systems that could preserve food indefinitely, construction materials that would make buildings stronger and more durable than anything currently available, security measures that could detect threats from miles away, and manufacturing processes that could produce goods with precision and speed that would revolutionize every industry!

"God, can you imagine teleportation? That's possible now! And what about heat transfer? You could inscribe containment fields into furnaces. Or—wait, no, better: forge heat retention directly into brickwork! You could transform building integrity! Sewage filtration! Waste-to-mana conversions! And the security applications—"

There it was. Jack, fully activated. The man was a theorist first, always had been, and now his brain had been set on fire with possibilities.

There was no stopping him now.

All Theodore could do was watch him ramble off idea after idea, his mind moving at a nearly insane pace. That manic edge of genius that was honestly kind of terrifying when you really thought about what someone like Jack might cook up if you just left him alone in a room with materials and no supervision.

Jack had done precisely what Theodore had expected him to do once the immediate shock had subsided. At his core, the guy was a mage, and his passion for knowledge and discovery had swiftly overtaken his sense of caution.

The ramble was impressive, even by Jack's standards. Theodore had let him to go on, mostly because he had rarely seen Jack so enthusiastic about anything, but also because it was helpful to hear another viewpoint on the possible uses. The man's earlier discomfort had been almost forgotten in the face of sheer intellectual curiosity, and he had been nearly shining with delight.

Jack concluded his tirade with the breathless, strangely earnest, "I have much to think about, Lord Theodore," as if he had already planned half of his thesis and hadn't yet come up with a title.

Theodore gave him a lazy little wave toward the door.

"Feel free."

Theodore stood by himself for a while, breathing into the quiet after Jack accepted that invitation.

Then he returned his attention to the nightmare that was his desk and the pile of papers on top. Gods, it had multiplied like bacteria in his absence. He sorted through the missives, marking new plans onto existing blueprints, trying not to think about how badly everything always fell apart the moment he left for more than three days.

The remainder of the day was devoted to Theodore finishing up the work that had piled up while he was away. The kiln operations needed updating, the bathhouse plans required revision, and there were several new projects that had moved up in priority. All on track. Excellent. That gave him room to draft the next wave of improvements. New sewage was overdue—if he had to hear one more complaint about the smell near the west quarter he was going to set something on fire. New housing? A necessity now with the influx of workers. But more than anything, it was the land that needed attention.

The land was still sick.

Half a year since the incursion, and there were still patches that wouldn't grow. Large areas of the nearby farmland had sustained long-term harm as a result of the incursion. Whatever magical pollution had taken place during that event was still affecting parts of it, and Theodore was growing more and more worried about the long-term agricultural consequences. Although he had always hoped to maximize farming operations, the pollution problem made it a higher priority.

His new [Rune Inscription] skill opened up possibilities he hadn't considered before. If he could understand the nature of the contamination, maybe he could create runes specifically designed to counteract it. It was worth investigating, at least.

The following morning, while Theodore was going over housing plans, Roland showed up at his door wearing an expression that said something interesting was about to happen or had already happened.

"Lord Theodore, there's a commotion in the town square. People are discussing something that appeared overnight in Farmer Jed's field. Thought you might want to investigate."

Theodore instantly put his papers down. Things didn't magically appear overnight in people's fields.

Roland's evaluation was validated throughout the trek to the town square. Everyone was chatting eagerly and gesturing toward the town's outskirts. There was a flurry of chatter, the type that comes from individuals who have seen something truly extraordinary.

They had been told to remain in the town, it seemed, because it didn't matter what world it was; it didn't matter the era. People were always stupid about danger. Back on Earth they'd whip out their phones and sprint toward disasters just to catch it on camera, and here? They want to see it to understand it, ward it off, or gossip about it properly later.

Once near Farmer Jed's field, Theodore could see the object of everyone's attention long before they reached it. There was a structure where no structure had been the day before.

It was a dome-shaped thing that seemed to absorb the morning light.

***

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