[This prologue kinda sucks. I will come back and edit it eventually. Once I have enough chapters typed up. It may also have a few inconsistencies.]
Magical technology, usually shortened to magi-tech, is the very basis of the modern world. With it we can do what is otherwise deemed impossible by magic or technology alone. Long range communication that can be used perfectly no matter the distance or location, clothing that can adjust size and repair itself, and even instant movement by means of disassembling the object and resembling it at the destination. But even with all of the advancements that have been made in magi-tech there is still one thing that eludes even the most brilliant of minds. The creation of artificial life.
Ever since the dawn of magi-tech it has been every magi-technician's dream to create an artificial being that is in itself an entity capable of sapient thought and smart enough to learn and evolve just like a human would. And thanks to modern advancements we can create an entirely synthetic human body with all the functions of one born through biological means, all the way down to the very fiber of their beings. So what held them back from creating a fully synthetic human? That would be the very thing that makes up a human's personality and ego. Their soul.
Much research has been done on the soul to see just what makes it tick. It has been found that all beings born through biological means have a soul, just as beings born through mana are but empty husks doing only what they were born to do. But just like all things there are exceptions. Such as the mana beasts. Mana beasts, unlike the magically created monsters possess a soul and are highly intelligent and capable of abstract thought. It is unknown exactly how they came about but it is believed they are the result of the absorption of mana by the native animals without the ability to use magic. To support this claim researchers have published papers that speak of things such as mana beasts with an affinity to water appearing near water mana dense areas, or beasts that go well with heat in fire mana dense areas like volcanos. But what makes the soul so hard to recreate?
That is unfortunately still unknown to all of the residents of the planet of Aegis. But it may not be long until the secrets of the source of all life are uncovered. And a young teen gets wrapped up in the world's greatest secrets and sought out by the most powerful forces. We now go to the very beginning of a journey of death and sorrow, of knowledge and wisdom, of hope and despair. How it all turns out depends only on the choices made by our young hero And now it is time to sit back and watch the world turn and work its magic.
*Clang* *Clang* Standing alone in a large building on the outskirts of town is a young boy, hammering away at a piece of metal, creating an object that would forever change history.
Why is it that a young boy such as he is working on a project that even the brightest of minds in the magi-tech industry fail to complete. That would be because he finds it is his passion. Ever since a young age he has been quite different from all of his peers. He was born with a special skill that allows him to memorize anything after even just one look. When he was around the age of five, just after he learned to read, he found a book in his fathers workshop talking about magi-tech how it has changed the world and how it can do so further. After that one book the boy became so enamored and kept reading and reading about magi-tech and its uses. That was until there was nothing left to read.
At the age of seven the boy decided to ask his father to help him in his work and teach him about the process of creating magi-tech. And of course knowing his son's passion for the subject he agreed. The boy's father was the lead engineer for the largest magi-tech producer in the country, Crystware, thus he was quite knowledgeable about the subject and hands on experience helped to bring his knowledge and skills to the forefront. The boy’s life continued on as normal with him using all his time to work on his skills at magi-tech only stopping to eat and sleep for the next three years until disaster struck.
One day while the boy was working late into the night his mother came in to find him with tears streaming from her eyes. She went up to her son and hugged him tightly for a long while and eventually let go and looked her son in the eyes and said, “Son, I..I have something I need to tell you” and then she went on to tell her son about what has happend to his father. While the boy’s father was working into the night finishing up the project he had been working on for the last decade a terrorist group known as the Shadow Templars attacked his fathers workplace killing all who were inside. While not much is known about the Shadow Templars they claim they work for the good of humanity striking down all that can pose a risk to the developing humanity. An informant from the Templars said that if the project that was being developed in Crystware made it to the outside world it would spell the end of the human race as we know it. Of course, just like any other supposedly good natured terrorist group, this was just seen as a group of fanatics rambling about things they have no knowledge of.
The news that his father was never coming home had a great effect on the boy. After the death of his father the boy stopped working on his magi-tech and started to distance himself from anything that reminded him of his old man. After a few months of wallowing in sorrow he worked up enough courage to look through his fathers old office. The boy had never been inside of it before due to all the wards protecting it from and unauthorized visitors. He was now able to enter it thanks to the soul object left to him in his inheritance, a one time use bio register that would set him as the owner of the wards allowing him access. Once he entered and looked around he found many different papers on different experimental magi-tech ideas and just as many prototypes. And with his finds in the office he had a new goal. He was going to finish all the projects his father never could. In his own way, he saw this as a way to carry on his fathers legacy, a way to make an impact on the world that he father so dreamed of. No that he had a way to finish and spread his ideas, he was going to do everything in his power to do just that.
And just like that the boy spen many days looking through the research memorizing all he could then practicing the skills he needed to complete it. It took only a year for the boy to obtain the skill level of a professional that has been working in the field for decades. One more and he was already closing in on the skills of the top magi-technician in the world. And after one last year he reached a level even the most skilled at the profession strive for. Of course this was not known to him at the time, and will not be known by him for quite a while, but that did not stop him from continuing to advance.And finally it was time for him to start on one of the projects he has been eyeing. The first of the projects he set out to finish was the one that piqued his interest the most, an implantable status plate. In the world of Aegis everybody has their own status from the moment they are born that tells you their physical and magical capabilities in a numerical form. At the age of ten human children unlock the level feature. Levels are quantifiable power boosts obtained from the absorption of a creature's soul after you slay it. Most people who do not have a fighting based job, which is mostly made up of adventures and soldiers, don't make it past level 10 by the end of their lives with a level of 15 being seen as high for an average citizen. There is one major problem with the status in the world, and that is that it can only be viewed using monuments found right before the entrance to large living structures known as dungeons or a man made tower in churches and large cities. The goal of this project was to spread knowledge of their own status when they had no way to reach a status stone and thus never know the contents of their status.
It only took a week for the boy to finish the status implant. The first day of working on it he needed to gather information on how to connect the person who uses it, that way it can show their status. The day after he started to develop the base structure for the implant. After one more day he had a finished prototype for the implant. But he knew that he could go further. He developed the status implant into small nanobots that could upgrade themselves when fed enough information and materials. The only problem with his completed status plate was that since it was inside the nanobots and thus needed to be tested on something living to check whether they work. The boy was not going to test it on himself or so he thought at first, but after many hours of wondering how his first project turned out, he did the unthinkable and tested it on himself. The nanobots would take about a year to fully integrate so he had to do something else to occupy his time. And so he spent his time doing many more projects, and after four months he finished over forty separate ones. As he was looking for the next project to begin he found a paper underneath his fathers desk. It had the least amount of information out of every other project in the room with only theoretical information. But this project was one the boy was set on and would spend the next few years working tirelessly on. The creation of an artificial life. The creation of an android.
[I have no idea how to actually write a book. In school all they really teach us is the bear basics and how to write essays. So any tips would be appreciated. Spent a while trying to figure out how to put this in the spoiler tag and if I'm giving up.]
