Tales of the Legendary Magus

Chapter 62: Technology in a Nutshell

Villin was the first to wake up. He was sitting in a hard wooden chair, there was a thick rope that tied him to the chair, this rope also made sure his hands were tied properly and lastly, it connected to a metal beam behind him.

Other than this Villin was also in handcuffs. To his right, he noticed Rein and Kayley had received a similar treatment, but Amelia was nowhere to be seen.

Before anything else, Villin closed his eyes again and tried to recall the memories of this body's previous owner. Thus far he hadn't really been interested in anything non-magical so he hadn't paid much attention to it.

He recalled this world had taken a few different paths when looking at scientific development. For one, the people here never went into the sky. Airplanes weren't invented as people simply kept working on better cars to drive around farther. As for boats, even though they were there they were very behind the times. The three continents were very far away from each other if you wanted to traverse the sea and the current boats weren't able to go so far.

Other than transportation mainly staying on the ground, there were two other big technologies that were lacking behind compared to earth. The first was communication, there was no way to communicate from long distances. Radios were invented but they were more like record players compared to anything else. You would have to go to the store every week to get 'last week's broadcasts'.

The second piece of technology that was far behind was mass-production. Compared to earth's modern society creating something here was a very long process. Metal objects still got made by smiths instead of machines which slowed things down a lot, if it wasn't for plastic being a thing the society here would probably be very different compared to earth.

Plastic replaced a lot of things. Showerheads, pipes, machines, most things generally made out of metal were actually made from plastic here. Most of the factories also took plastic as a base for the products they would produce.

Metal was expensive and high-class. For example, the metal radio at Silver's house would cost over fifty times more compared to a regular one.

There were also a number of smaller things that weren't invented. The biggest one of these was the lack of gunpowder. They didn't have the materials here for gunpowder but they had found something with somewhat similar effects, called blaston. This was used for the creation of fireworks and guns.

Guns were very, very quick to improve compared to earth. As a regular person, the previous Villin didn't know much. But the fact was that blaston wasn't a commonly known thing to make. It was a tightly guarded secret of Vermina, one of the three nations in the central continent and the one he lived in.

He had seen a gun three times thus far. The first time was in a museum. It was a museum showing some of the specialties Vermina was known for and blaston was in one of the exhibitions together with the first-ever gun.

This was a very new invention. Blaston was invented fifty years ago and the first gun, which was an old-looking rifle without a magazine or anything of the like, was only forty years old.

The second time he saw a gun was when he was listening to a speech of the governor on tv. Tensions were somewhat high at the moment so there were a couple of guards that had guns. With the knowledge he had now he recognized them to be modern pistols.

The third time he saw a gun was just before he got put to sleep. They looked like modern rifles and the soldiers seemed to be highly trained. There also seemed to be proper sniper rifles. Compared to earth guns were made a lot better a lot faster.

Of Course, Villin knew they should be in very limited supply. Making a metal contraption as complicated as a modern gun wouldn't be an easy thing, especially since it was such a new invention.

Most other technologies were very similar compared to earth though. Even though there weren't any true skyscrapers the buildings were still mostly tall and sturdy, made very well.

Cars, even though made mostly of plastic, weren't much worse compared to the modern-day ones. The only place they were somewhat lacking were safety precautions, and as for education, it seemed to be even better compared to earth. About twenty percent of the jobs were teaching ones, good education was extremely valued.

Now that he recalled all of this information Villin fell into deep thought again. The people that took them had proper rifles and currently the rope he was bound with connected to a metal pipe properly attached to the wall. This meant this should be some sort of government base.

Even though Villin wanted to wake up Rein and Kayley, he didn't want to raise his voice, after all, he didn't know if there might be some of those soldiers trying to listen in through the door a few meters in front of them.

Just then he realized something and if he could've he would've slapped his forehead right there. Why was he trying to find a way to contact them properly when he had magic. Mentallage was very easy to cast and it worked with or without a wand. You didn't even need eye contact to cast it so why was he stressing.

After casting the spell he connected himself to Kayley and Rein. "WAKE UP!"

He screamed into their minds causing both of them to instantly wake up, They looked around in bewilderment for a few seconds before properly realizing what had happened.

"Alright guys, I think it's best if you stay quiet for now, we don't know if someone might be listening in. These people looked like professionals there might be someone trying to listen in beneath the floorboards or something of the like."

Rein and Kayley felt weird when he heard Villin's voice in his head but they nodded nonetheless.

"They seemed to have taken away our wands but luckily they didn't seem to have searched us too thoroughly. They didn't take my coin pouch so there are some spare wands in there. As for getting out of this situation, they didn't seem to have cared about my gloves all too much."

The two others looked at him with an odd expression, why would he bring up his gloves?

Villin caught this and smiled slightly "Wands can come in all shapes and sizes you know."