What you had to understand about mages in Mythilia was that they disdained humans and everything related to them. It seemed to be something natural, as if they were born with this superiority complex. But the reality was, most mages had never really met a human.
Being born to a human mother, I had the unique opportunity to understand human technology, and I could only say, that in some ways, they were light-years ahead of magicians. That is why my mother's smartphone was one of my most prized possessions. Because it allowed me to be anonymous.
Anonymity was a concept that was known to few upstanding mages in this godforsaken country. And I marveled at the brainwashing the government of this country had conducted to make people believe that if you desired to be anonymous, you were involved in something unethical. The Big Brother had eyes everywhere and evaluated your every move.
Now, I would be the first one to denounce and condemn the country I was born in, Xenria, but I did know this - even as slaves, in some ways, people were more free there. And I would know since I was born as one.
But me and my fellow human-technology admirers had indeed found a way to be anonymous - it was called 'the forums'. These were not much different from the boards that mages used via their portals - except nobody knew who you are and you required a human device to access them.
In real life, I might have been a loser who quit his minimum wage mining job today and was temporarily homeless, but on the forums, I was somewhat of a legend. And this time, I had managed to procure a supply of what could only be considered premium quality contraband - information from the National Institute of Magic.
Magic power is inherent to an individual and cannot be increased. According to every text I had read, every stream I'd watched, every person I had talked to, this was a fact. But I didn't believe so. Why was that then, that humans could be fitted with artificial magic cores? How could you shut down the body's production of magic energy and inject it with artificial boosters like they did in those death squad soldiers?
So, this fact, in fact, was not a fact. And the information that would soon arrive from moped629 would prove it.
moped629: I have delivered the parcel.
moped629: Your turn
I looked at the messages and my heartbeat increased sharply.
Kirin82: [attachment.pdf]
The price was schematics of my latest design of the magic charger. Procuring original chargers for human technology were a pain as you had to import them and mages in Mythilia did not like to trade with humans. In the Nico islands, I could still get my hands on one of them but in the mainlands, it was near impossible. The various types of cables also did not help.
The magic charger, originally developed by the user 'seank', used magic energy instead of electricity and was easy to put together using a couple of household items. It was later adapted by a number of users to fit their device. I had released a couple of versions for the devices created by fruit company, as they did not use the other standard cables. And apparently, moped629 was a devout follower of the fruit company.
I went to the drop site, which was an old building that was empty for the moment. Very few people would send physical packages these days, so I could have used any random building, really. But it was still better to find an empty one. There was indeed a gray-colored bag by the entrance, just as we had agreed.
moped629: How do I see this?
As I read this message, I realized that this guy was a fucking noob. He did not even know how to open pdf files. Was he really a Postgraduate student at NIM? Moreover, how did he send me the information then?
I opened the package and found some sort of a chip in it. It looked different from the ones I had been using. Fuck, these guys and their chips, why couldn't all their chips be one size? Now I had to figure out how to connect this one to the smartphone.
moped629: ?
Kirin82: How do you use this chip?
moped629: You don't know how to use an SD Card?
Please, people who don't know what pdfs are shouldn't talk.
moped629: How do I open this file???
Kirin82: You need a pdf reader
After four hours of messing around, finally, the moment of truth arrived. I extracted the files from the chip. It seems like those were videos. I crossed my fingers and played the first one.
Looked like it was a recording of text from his portal. Okay, it was a bit blurry, but I'd be able to decode this. I skipped ahead. Further. Further again. Nothing changed, it was just a paragraph. Could have just sent a picture, you know?
Played the second video. Different paragraph.
Third video, another paragraph.
That's it.
Fuck. What the fuck is this?
Three paragraphs? All this for three paragraphs?
moped629: How do I get that?
moped629: ??
moped629: There?
moped629: ???
Kirin82: Fuck you
These three videos took him two months to make. I only had 45 days left until the practical examination. Couldn't teach him how to use a camera. Now I could only hope that my backup plan worked.
I had to get my hands on a magic radiation blocker. These blockers were part of protective equipment that was given to the miners. The problem was, they were highly regulated and it was impossible to get your hands on them without any connections. If I could figure out how they block magic energy, I might get a clue on how to increase mine.
So I published my pre-prepared post designed to incite a flame war, which was my specialty. There was an art to trolling, and I had spent a long time to master it. This time though, I had a purpose, so I had limited material to work with. Anyways, I knew that there were only two major corporations that made these blockers. There was a third organization, but it was the military- and there was no way I could get my hands on that.
So all I had to do was to cherry-pick a few negatives from Armeda's blockers, which were the ones I was given to use and make a really big deal out of them. Hopefully, someone would send me either the design of the blocker or even better, the blocker itself.
Coincidentally, this was also the time when most users were active on the forums, so my attempt was successful. I had to do very little before the situation got heated:
ProfessorSheb:
[attachment.png]
Here, in block 23, it is obvious that they slant the slab to 37 degrees to make sure the angle of reflection is optimal. Not like your shitty Defentec's blockers which just splash glue around and pray it hits the right angle.
CoolDoode43:
@ProfessorSheb, do you even math bro? Defentec's slabs are perfectly aligned together to maximize the surface area. How does tilting it even make sense?
You know what, ProfessorSheb? You're a great guy. You back up your theories with evidence, unlike this CoolDoode43, who couldn't even spell properly.
Now let's see the block 23 you're talking about...
The plan turned out to be a massive success. I think I hit a nerve with the topic. It was still going on after a week:
CoolDoode43:
[attachment.jpg]
Here, open your cloudy eyes and bask in the glory of the block 38. Can your Armeda's concentrator still dare to show its ugly face after seeing this?
LaskaJunior:
@CoolDoode43 preach brother
..I think I misunderstood you earlier, CoolDoode43. You're pretty cool.