The low hum of mana resonators filled the air aboard the E.W.S. Sovereign, vibrating ever so faintly through the crystalline walls of Elara's mobile laboratory. Suspended above the clouds, the flagship hovered with tranquil dominance, a leviathan of the skies bearing the weight of a war-torn future upon its hull. Deep within its belly, Elara stood hunched over a glowing worktable strewn with rune-carved plates, micro-crystal arrays, and shards of etched diamond.
She squinted through her magnifying lenses, hands steady as her fingers danced across the surface of a mana circuit prototype. The concept had eluded her for weeks: constructing a logical chain of arcane runes, one that didn't simply channel mana but interpreted it. In her past life, she'd worked with silicon and binary logic. Here, the rules were more fluid—and far less forgiving.
"Come on... just trigger," she murmured.
She touched the mana input node and waited. Nothing happened. Again.
With a sigh, Elara set her tools down and leaned back, exhaling slowly. Her once-crisp blouse now had ink stains on the cuffs, and her hair was tied up in a chaotic bun. She wore her usual high-collared lab coat over a soft undershirt and a pair of magically reinforced leggings that helped reduce mana leakage from her legs during intense crafting sessions. Her boots, though elegant and heeled, were surprisingly comfortable—a new design from Mira's boutique that Elara had reluctantly admitted worked beautifully with hover-platforms.
Kael watched from the corner of the lab, arms crossed. "You know, some people would kill for a nap. You haven't slept in two days."
"And I will nap once magic finally learns to behave logically," Elara said flatly.
Kael raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Logic isn't how this world works. You're forcing a square rune into a circular glyph."
"And yet," Elara said with a grin, "I'm about to square the circle."
Two Days Earlier
Tolan's voice crackled over the messenger crystal. Elara had been adjusting a set of floating welders when the voice broke through.
"Elara. Situation update."
"Go ahead," she said, gesturing to Kael to mute the forge equipment.
"It's worse than we feared. The Church of the Old Order has ramped up their demonification campaigns. Propaganda is flooding every street. They're preaching that death is preferable to surrender. It's... zealotry at apocalyptic levels."
Elara clenched her jaw. "Meaning what, tactically?"
"Meaning that millions of their citizens are volunteering to be used as cannon fodder. They're not retreating anymore. They charge until they're ash."
Elara said nothing for a long time. Finally: "Understood."
She closed the connection.
Kael stepped beside her. "They're calling us demons."
"Let them," Elara said. "If it means they empty their arsenals and waste their numbers for nothing. We just need to hold."
Legend of the Skies
Since the emergence of the fleet, Elara's name had risen to near-divine status within the Kingdom of Aldemar. Songs were sung. Effigies were raised. Children in villages waved makeshift hover-wands pretending to blast the heavens. On the ground, not a single soldier had perished since the skyfleet began its campaign—save one elder knight who passed peacefully in his sleep.
The psychological impact alone was worth its weight in gold. Morale soared. Recruits lined up willingly. Nobles invested in mana supply lines. Merchants flooded forward zones with supplies, knowing the fleet would protect them.
Elara, meanwhile, hated every second of the fame.
In a private conference with King Aldemar, she had made her stance clear.
"I help because I can," she told him, "not because I want to rule. I have no interest in titles, courts, or crowns."
The king had nodded thoughtfully. "And yet, we must reward the savior of our people. When this war is over, you will be granted the title of Grand Archon, second only to the royal family. And a parcel of land of your choosing."
Elara sighed. "Symbolic gestures. Fine. But no statues."
Two Months Later
The front had shifted forward by sixty kilometers. Not because the fleet couldn't move faster, but because Elara insisted that every mile gained should be fortified. Using her Arcane Cement—a self-hardening, mana-infused binding solution—she and her engineering corps created impregnable fortresses with healing stations, storage hubs. Every stronghold built with this enchanted substance hummed faintly, pulsing with subtle mana patterns. Automated defense runes, atmospheric wards, and glyph-traps were integrated into their walls.
Between campaigns, Elara spent hours perfecting new design iterations within her lab aboard the Sovereign. She tested self-assembling rune matrices and proximity-reactive shielding—a concept derived from dragon-scale layering.
Late one evening, just as the last sunray kissed the horizon, Kael was relaxing in the lounge when the lab door burst open.
"KAEL!" Elara screamed, barreling through. "IT WORKS!"
Kael blinked. "What?"
Elara grabbed her arm and dragged her into the lab, barely able to contain herself.
"LOOK!" she said, pointing to a stone plate covered in glowing micro-runes. Nearby, one of the cadet engineers stood awkwardly with a shallow cut on his arm.
"Watch this."
The cadet stepped forward, and as soon as he entered a one-meter radius of the plate, the glyphs pulsed. A gentle green aura emerged, and the wound began to knit itself closed.
Kael's eyes widened. "You didn't activate it manually."
"No. The plate reads proximity and identifies biological stress signals. If both are met, it triggers a healing pulse. It doesn't need a mage. It doesn't drain until it's needed. It's REACTIVE MAGIC."
Kael grinned. "You just invented autonomous spellcasting."
"I invented programmable logic gates for magic," Elara whispered, almost giddy. "This changes everything."
She pulled out a fresh schematic from under her table—one with multiple logic plates daisy-chained through mana-conductive threads. "Now imagine this in a battlefield triage unit. Or a combat golem. Or a flying drone that can assess and heal wounded without orders."
Kael's grin widened. "You're building the future."
Elara turned to her crystal console and began recording every detail of the configuration. Her hands trembled—not from exhaustion, but from the adrenaline of discovery.
Outside, the fleet hovered like sentinels of a new age. And far below, the Kingdom's slow, inexorable advance continued—backed by the genius of a woman who refused to stop.