Father would no doubt be expecting a child’s drawing, some scribbles on a paper based on wild imaginations, detailing a crude and sloppy design that wouldn’t even make the slightest logical sense even if there were enough details on the paper to explain it. That, to put it simply, wasn’t what I planned to provide.

 

My newfound photographic memory provided me with quite a few things; one of them was a perfect memory of what the mechanics of a car looked like in my previous life. I had never had even the slightest interest in how they worked before, however seeing even a single glance at it in my past was enough for me to remember it vividly. From there it was a simple guessing game to figure out how it worked.

 

The most complex part of a car, and the one part there was no way in hell I could ever hope to explain, was the engine. Fortunately for me, the use of magic outright negated any need for it. While I wasn’t sure how to make it do so, magical crystals with the right enchantments could easily be applied to do quite a bit. From the contraptions that I've seen, I knew for a fact that on a larger scale, it had all the functionalities needed to properly power and operate a truck-like vehicle, meaning I could leave it to my father.

 

The next step was designing the truck itself. For the sake of simplicity, sticking with the design most often used by the military of her last life was probably for the best. It was simple, yet sturdy, and with magic being used instead of engines it would likely be far more silent too. It could also be easily mass-produced and stored, given its box-like structure

 

All that was left was really designing a proper steering system, wheel base, and other much-needed features for driving. It was to an extent a glorified self-driving carriage, but it needed to be far more flexible in its steering, thus the wheels needed to turn, and they needed to turn in unison with the other wheel on the axle. Fortunately, a bit of examining my own memories led me to generally figure out how the more basic functions of how vehicles worked. It was lucky that the most complex part wasn’t needed, or else this entire design would fall short of practicality.

 

The car wouldn’t have any complicated or fancy driving modes or features, those were generally within the realm of stuff I didn’t understand. It would have forward, reverse, braking, and acceleration. Hell, a steering wheel wasn’t even necessary, a lever that adjusted wheel angle based on its own would do just fine. Why complicate it, after all? Besides, modern steering wheels from my first life had some features that I didn’t understand the functions of. A lever may be easier to explain to the people of this world anyways. If someone wants a steering wheel, they can make it themselves, I can’t be bothered for now.

 

After what was easily three hours of time spent drawing an in-depth schematic of a truck design, I was finally content with the final product. Normally I wouldn’t have even dreamed of being able to draw a truck in such detail, however, my photographic memory seemed to aid me in this aspect, enabling me to draw it down to a perfect ratio of proportions. If I had more paper I could’ve easily made a dozen different blueprints for each part, however, father would just have to be content with this. If he wanted more I’d be glad to give it, so long as it helped accelerate my future career. I may not be able to accelerate my magic just yet, but there was no reason to wait on innovation.

 

Grabbing the paper and looking over it one last time, I returned to my father’s office where the papers had only piled up with a few more designs. Some of the designs were abandoned in their infancy, barely being more than crude sketches. Some were abandoned even after full details were made. There were a small number of designs placed upon the board as well, though again they failed to seem all too practical without a great number of shortcomings.

 

It was by no reason due to any incompetence from my father, far from it actually. My father was a brilliant man, but it was pretty clear that this demand just wasn’t part of his specialty. I’ll give him credit though, he was certainly trying his hardest. If only I had to deal with him in my last life instead of that Being X-enthralled maniac who made the glorified bomb he called the Type 95…

 

Walking up to his desk I slightly reached up to place the paper on it. He made a smile as he took the paper, though that smile immediately turned to confusion and a few seconds later into shock. It was pretty obvious that it was not what he had expected from me, which was certainly what I was going for. If I can get my name out now as a child prodigy, there would be no doubt that I would have a stable life ahead of me making all sorts of technology for the military.

 

Of course, I can only rely on my memories for so long, I need to learn to innovate on my own even without the need for remembering my last lives’ concepts. It would take some time, but I have my whole childhood ahead of me. If there was anything I had an abundance of, it seemed to be time.

 

He placed the paper down and scratched his head as he spoke, “W-Well this is great, Tanya! Where did you learn about all this stuff?”

 

I made the best five-year-old cute face I could as I replied, “I learned it from you, father.”

 

Flattery will get you everywhere. Also, I could hardly explain that I have two lives’ worth of innovative and technological knowledge, either.

 

Immediately he began to tear up as it looked as though he might cry. Perhaps I had pushed him too far? Was he insulted? Shit, I better fix this.

 

“Father I-m-”

 

“I’ll use this right away! It needs some work in regards to incorporating magic, but apart from that it’s wonderful, Tanya!” He exclaimed in vivid joy, startling me as I momentarily backed up.

 

Did I do well then? What’s with the tears? Ah, whatever, I can hardly understand the inner workings of this man’s mind, best to leave it be. 

 

I happily left the room after that, satisfied with the first step I had taken toward the future. The industrial revolution was still a great many steps away, but I would lay the foundation. I was born into this world for a reason. Even if I don’t like how I was being used around by greater powers, at the very least this time it’s for my benefit as well as theirs; a mutually beneficial arrangement was one I could agree to.

 

My next goal was to lay the foundation for my future projects. There were three projects that were of urgent need to myself in particular, though they could certainly become powerful assets for the military if I can get them made well enough.

 

The first one is the aerial flight gear used by mages in my last life, to increase mobility and agility of those out in the field. This would be fairly simple to make compared to the other two, however, the problem lies with people besides myself using it. Flight wasn’t an easy thing, and without many of the formulas that helped to simplify control and maintenance during the flight, it would take a lot more than just simple training to get mages in the air. 

 

The next design, and probably the one I would make first, was a rifle. Though it will likely start much closer to its counterparts in my last two worlds, with how advanced magi-tech is in this world, it's inevitable that I eventually upgrade many of its functions over time. The main features I hope to include are basically meant to simplify much of the process. The creation of metal bullets in the rifle itself would prevent the need to reload, the use of magic to artificially create a launching force would negate the need for complex bullets, making the former concept easier. With various other possible additions, though still in the debatable possibility category due to my lack of extensive knowledge on magi-tech, I could easily upgrade my planned rifle into the ultimate weapon of war. Rapid-fire, endless-ammo, ridiculous range, I would reign over the others in raw firepower and precision.

 

The last idea was no doubt going to be the hardest, and though I’m determined to do it all on my own, for the sake of keeping it hidden, it would take me months - if not years - to make due to that fact. And even then, with my limited knowledge of magi-tech, it would likely take years of research into the subject before I could even hope to make it. The item in question was a Computation Jewel, an item so essential in my last life that a mage was nearly useless without it. There were few mages, such as myself, who could cast formulas without it. However, even those that could would struggle and find themselves severely weakened without their jewel, heavily reliant on its assistant abilities.

 

If I could remake and adjust a functional Computation Jewel into this world, who knows the possibilities it would bring? Of course, due to the nature of magic in this world, there was a good chance its original function would be altered quite a bit, but so long as it brought me more power, it was worth my time. This is a world where power determines one’s status, so if I need more power to determine my place in the world, then I’ll get some.

 

Eventually deciding to focus on the simplest of the designs for me, I began to draw up the first drafts of a functioning rifle design after borrowing some more paper from a nearby maid. Due to how much I took apart my gun and cleaned it, I knew it inside and out, and generally knew the functions of each part. The first designs will have very little magic involved, however, once I can start infusing mana into things, that will change very rapidly.

 

Though ‘very rapidly’ wasn’t going to begin anytime soon, it was good to have an idea mapped out for the future. When it’s complete, the Scourge will learn the meaning behind the name ‘the Great Equalizer.’

 

[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]-[]

 

It was a few days after I had handed in the design for a functioning truck to my father that he decided to take me out to get sweets out in the city, all but skipping in excitement. The city was frankly massive, though that was expected for a capital. The most impressive aspect was honestly how they managed to keep it looking so nice when humanity’s supposed to be on its last legs. I suppose even in the most dire of situations there will be those that prioritize less important things. And given that I lived in the noble’s section, I suppose this was only to be expected. We were as far back from the frontlines as we could get, after all.

 

Where my father took me seemed to be the plaza, a central hub for the entire city. However, due to its immense size, I doubted this was the only plaza the city had, far from it. In fact, due to the luxury of the buildings in the immediate area around it compared to further into the city, it was easy to assume that this plaza was considered more ‘upper class’ in nature. This was ever more obvious by the auras of everyone around. My ability to sense auras is vague, however, I can easily tell someone on their first or second Authority from someone on their eighth or ninth. Though if I were to try to specify which specific authority they were, I would largely have to guess. An estimate was the best I could pull off with my current skill, and even then it would be far from accurate due to lack of gathered and interpolated data.

 

Nonetheless, the large number of individuals with at least a medium level of aura implied that this was certainly a place where the upper-middle and high classes liked to hang out casually. I wasn’t complaining by any means, though. The food in the plaza was some of the best I’ve had in this life. No, it would be more accurate to say it’s the best I’ve had in decades. I haven’t had anything of decent quality in my last life aside from the occasional ‘gifts’ given by the General Staff. Unfortunately, or fortunately I suppose, even the highest quality of these presents seemed to be just above average at best here.

 

By comparison, the chocolate I had gotten from a local sweets shop was legendary. It made sense, this was the noble sector after all. Although I have no good comparison for the value of ‘coins’ which functions as a currency, the luxurious state of the shop itself along with its workers implied that it was not some cheap candy store.

 

In short, the delicious candy I was having now was effectively meant as a snack for the nobility and a rare specialty for the middle class. All that was frankly left to do now was to hunt down coffee if it existed in this world. If it didn’t, then that was just a whole other objective to add onto my list. If Michael wants me to thrive in this world, he’d best make sure I have the coffee needed to do so.

 

After a few minutes of sitting down and eating chocolates, I noticed my father handing me what appeared to be a magical bracelet of some kind over the table. Of course, I have lived with my father for all of my five years of life, so it was pretty easy to identify it as an Aerial.

 

This aerial seemed a bit different, namely in the sense that the crystal it used was a bit larger and the design was slightly different. It was no doubt a better model, but having not really focused on his elaborate wall of design proposals, I had no idea just how powerful this new model was.

 

Placing the bracelet around my arm, the crystal immediately lit up as the Aerial began to calibrate itself to me. Normally one would need a bit of magical power to use it, however, even despite not having access to my first Authority yet, I had enough base magic power for it to at least be functional. Frequent use likely couldn’t be maintained until I was at least Authority One, but at the very least I could send a few messages to father.

 

“I see that you already recognize what it is, Tanya. I shouldn’t be surprised. As you can tell, it's an Aerial, and it's our newest model. It's technically still in the testing phase, but it’s meant to consume less magical power. In fact, it should consume so little power that even someone without an authority should be able to use it for a little bit of time. Of course, one would still at least need a crest to use it, or at least have someone with a crest be willing to charge it all the time. But this improved power consumption should open the door to allow many new features without limiting said features to members of the higher authorities. Optimally, all the features should be usable by someone with only Authority One, but beggars can't be choosers, so at the very least it should be fully open to those of Authority Three or higher. Still, we’re only just now looking into features to add, with all this spare processing power it has there’s a lot we’re considering using with it.”

 

And there he goes again, off into another rambling tangent. Not that I mind, this one was another useful one. It seemed even with an important military commission hounding him, he was still working hard to improve his Aerial. It was certainly a favorite among his inventions. The decreased power usage would most certainly be key, and if done well enough, could open the door for far more than what an Aerial can currently do.

 

Before, the Aerial was largely limited to just sending active calls, as it really didn’t have much in the realm of memory and storage. Calls were deleted not long after they ended for memory-saving purposes, and there was no such thing as texting. If I recall my father’s ideas board correctly, texting seemed to be the logical next step that they were already on the path to take, but considering it used so little magic that even someone who has yet to awaken their Authority can use it, it should be able to do so much more.

 

Once again, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to utilize knowledge of my past lives to my advantage. “Father, may I propose an idea?”

 

Father seemed rather excited, no doubt curious about what I had to think after I had given him a whole in-depth and semi-functional truck design. “Yes dear, what is it?”

 

Firstly I asked, “Well for one, you were planning to add a feature that allows you to send messages, yes?”

 

“Ah right! Almost forgot! Your Aerial is already equipped with the first version of that feature. However, without your first Authority, you don’t have the magical capacity to really run it… Though I see you’ve taken notice of the ideas I plaster around my room.”

 

“Well, how are you currently sending and saving those messages?” I asked, curious to understand the inner functionalities of the messages.

 

Sawn simply explained, “Well it’s pretty straightforward. It takes the message you want to send and sends it over to the desired target.”

 

“Well, how is the message itself sent?”

 

“Well it’s sent over a magical signal which really just says the message along with the recipient, time sent, and a bit of other data,” he explained.

 

So it basically has every letter as an individual signal which it pieces together? I’m starting to see why it uses up as much magic as it does. “Well, what if you compressed it down into two types of signals for the entire message?”

 

“Two types of signals? Well, that would make no sense, you’d basically be limited to two letters,” Sawn muttered as he thought over the idea. On the surface it seemed dumb, after all, how could you type out an entire message with only two letters?

 

The answer is you couldn’t, but also that you didn’t need to.

 

“Well, you wouldn’t be sending the message directly as it is. Right now you’re sending the entire message directly, which, while simple on the processing, is consuming a bit more mana. If you were to condense that signal down to two types of signals, you could create various patterns for each letter. Each letter would be made up of a few of these signals in a specific pattern that defines what the letter is. What you’d need then is just for the Aerial to translate that into readable text.”

 

Father seemed to understand the idea to an extent, or at least the base level of it, but he was still doubtful, “Yes, but wouldn’t that increase the message load? It would take a message with twenty symbols and turn it into one with over a hundred.”

 

“Well only if you keep them at the current size. Currently, each letter is defined by a signal that has a bunch of data in it. If you were to simplify that down to its most basic elements, you’d get something as simple as ‘on’ or ‘off.’ Basically ones and zeroes, or yeses and nos. In short, you’d be able to compress it down to as small as it can possibly go. The amount of magic you’re probably using for just one letter could be enough to send an entire message, heck maybe even an entire conversation!”

 

Father seemed impressed and yet again surprised, rubbing his chin as he muttered, “That… could actually be possible… A bit complicated to set up, sure, but certainly doable… You’re quite the clever girl, Tanya. I’ll see if I can get the Grand Duke to allow you unsupervised access to the various libraries in the tower. I may be too busy with work to take you sometimes, but I don’t want that to hinder your clearly impressive studies. Oh! And before I forget, here!”

 

He suddenly handed me what looked to be a credit card. They have these in this world? Rather impressive, in all honesty, handing a credit card to a child.

 

Before I could ask about it, he quickly explained, “That’s a bank card set up with the Polaris Bank. They’re special because they don’t charge taxes, but don’t tell anyone about that. All the nobility use it anyway, so it's hardly a crime. I’ve connected your account to Sawn Industries and set it up to give you a monthly allowance of 150 thousand coins every month. All you need to do is think of the amount of money you want and it will pull straight from your account!”

 

I stared at this card in shock, less at the magic the card employed and more at the amount he was giving me. I had no real sense of how much money a ‘coin’ was worth compared to my last life, but 150 thousand was no doubt an absurd amount if the reaction of a nearby waiter was anything. The high-quality chocolate he had bought cost only a hundred coins. For me to get that much every month meant that my father was far more rich than I had initially thought, and probably really bad with his expenses. Just how much money did he intend to throw at his child? I was truly spoiled, but I won’t let that go to my head. This money is all going straight into my research projects. I won’t grow passive just because my inheritance is massive.

 

After another moment he finally stood up, his thoughts again returning to the abyss of his mind which I was unable to predict. Although it was likely he was speculating a possible way to implement my suggestion. After a second he looked down to me and stated, “I suppose it’s time we get home. I’ll begin to look into your suggestion immediately. I’m sure your allowance should be about enough for a girl of your age. C’mon now, dear, let's go home.”

“Yeah, it should be…”, I muttered sarcastically.

 

“Oh, is it not enough? I could increase it.” 

 

“What? No, that's way more than enough!” I sighed, exasperated at his reply.

As I began to follow him back to our home I only grew more confused than before. Was this a standard allowance or was my father just that ignorant of his finances? Maybe he just wanted to spoil me? My mother had died during childbirth, so I suppose it’s possible that’s had an effect on his desire to spoil me, though I’m no psychologist.

Nevertheless, as we headed home, my own head filled with thoughts and ideas, already beginning to piece together the foundations of a revolution that would shake the world. I only needed a bit more time.