House of the Wolves

"Someone who is ignorant of something might be stupid, but one who is arrogant about their ignorance is definitely an imbecile. The former will be solved with study and encouragement while the latter deserves nothing but a thorough lobotomy no different from a hapless primate."

- Professor Sofia Merias E. Alexandria

The Wisest woman in history and the mother of surgery.

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Before written history and in some cases, even the extent of mythological history, humanity has been able to make use of the world's extraordinary power referred to as "Magic".

In the world of Promethea, this power manifests itself almost equally across the world in the form of natural phenomena, living creatures, spatial abnormalities and many more forms and functions.

From storms caused by irregularities in magic energy that takes the form of certain natural elements, to normal animals adapting to concentrated amounts of magic energy in natural pooling points of magic power, the flow of magic in the world is no different from that of the other natural cycles of the world.

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The Biology of Promethea with Regards to Magic

Because of this magic power, history talks about the adaptations to the human physiology that led to the creation of other subspecies that once diversely populated the world.

These subspecies are as follows, alongside a brief explanation of their form and the reason why they have either been wiped out or have lessened in numbers nowadays:

Elves – Elves are the nearest subspecies to humans, believed to have branched off from the human genome due to the extended exposure of multiple generations to pure mana pools that exists in the Yvrani forests of Yropa. They are native to these dense forests which they hail as their shared ancestral lands alongside the Dwarves.

Sporting no largely different physical differences in comparison to humans other than their pointy ears and slender figure (no excess fat or bulged muscles), they are instead specifically distinguished with their larger internal magic power capacity as well as being more sensitive towards magic power and its elemental forms.

The history of elves is largely entwined with myths and legends from the early history of mankind wherein their compatibility for copulation and more similar and agreeable nature (in comparison to other human subspecies) are seen as a great advantage as allies and kinsmen. In one well-known legend from the Helena Empire, it was said that "so little were the difference between men and elves that not many even mention it unless one is being very specific about the subject". Historical records detail how the interbreeding between the two races led to the creation of "Half-elves" as a hybrid between the two.

However, all of this would one day be undone after the fall of the Helena Empire due to a racial supremacist coup, wherein much of the elven population would be driven out and forced to retreat back to the Yvrani Cradle woods where they formed tribes surrounding the forests' many mana pools. While for several decades, they will be largely left untouched alongside the Dwarfs that also inhabit the forests, a large-scale genocidal war would be waged by the Helenas Brotherhood against the two races that ended with the total eradication of the Elves 8000 years ago.

Dwarves – Dwarves are another subspecies of humans that are nearest to the human physiology but doesn't have any compatibility for interbreeding. They share the Yvrani Cradle woods as an ancestral domain with the Elves but instead of the mana pools in the forest, they branched off from the human genome due to the stagnant ambrosia pools found in the caves that they used to inhabit.

Both genders share the same small stature that only reaches four feet at most. For males, they exhibit a stocky figure mostly made up of bulky muscles and potbellies, which is believed to be a physical adaptation brought by the narrow spaces of their caves and the need to have sufficient bodily fat to facilitate their labor-intensive lifestyles. As for the females, they have the same stocky figure albeit leaner in both body muscle and fat than their male counterparts. Additionally, it is easier to ascertain the age of a female dwarf unlike a male dwarf as the males would likely already have a thick beard at the age of ten years old, making guesswork of age difficult.

Unlike the elves, the dwarves didn't integrate much with humans during the era of the Helenas Empire, mostly because they preferred to live in isolation within ore-rich caves and valleys, only making human contact for the sake of trading their mineral goods and handicrafts for food, clothing and their favorite liquors.

Like the elves though, the fall of the Helena Empire to a racial supremacist coup forced them back to their homelands where several decades later, they would join forces with the elves to fight against the Helenas Brotherhood who intended to eradicate them. At the tail-end of the war, the remaining 300 dwarven warriors would take their last stand in a cave called "Fredo's Point" where they caved themselves in with 15,500 human troops to a battle that ended with everyone's death regardless of whether they survived the last battle or not. Like the elves, the Dwarves would be eradicated 8000 years ago.

Beastfolk – Beastfolk are any humanoid-species that inhabit greater likeness with their animal namesake than human traits. Some of these races include Lycans, Gorgons, Minotaurs and many more races that have long been attached to myths and legends.

Among the beastfolk, three races would form tribal kingdoms across both the Yropa and Ost continents, namely: the Fenrir, Felicitus and Foxian races. These three kingdoms would be the bane of mankind in its early years as the beastfolks' animalistic natures would have them see humans are "weak prey" fit only for slavery and as a source of food.

All of this would change 10,000 years ago, after a massive scheme led by the coordinated efforts of humans in both Yropa and Ost would spark the beginning of the Fenrir-Felicitus-Foxian Great War where almost the entirety of Promethea would be covered by their blood wars that lasted for over 200 years.

This would only end after Ericas Helenas, the legendary founder of the Helena Empire, would lead his fellow humans in Yropa to finally wipe out the remaining and weakened Beastfolk, and several uncoordinated wars in Ost would do the same in their continent. This uprising is held by the denizens of the Helenas Brotherhood that the prime mission of their group is to secure Promethea for mankind and mankind alone.

Demi-humans – Demi-humans are the physiological opposite of beastmen wherein they exhibit more human likeness than animalistic traits that mostly only appear as ears, tails and sometimes, behaviors. Their common animalistic appearance is mostly based on domesticated animals such as dogs, cats, bunnies, etc. which is greatly less diverse than their beastfolk counterparts.

Not much is known about the origins of demi-humans as they are known to inhabit only a few places in the world and unlike elves and dwarves, it doesn't seem to involve an environmental adaptation. There had been theories that they are the product of beastfolk forcing themselves onto human captives during the ancient days, but it has been widely noted that unlike Half-elves, interbreeding is impossible between humans and beastfolk due to the difference in their biological genetics and physiology.

While the fall of the Helena Empire is the catalyst the drove the other species away from humanity and into seclusion, the demi-humans that inhabit the continent of Yropa have all lived in the Albion Isles where the Kingdom of Albion gave them citizenship and safeguarded them from the attempts of the Brotherhood to wipe them out, an action that remains to this day and has spread as well to the Kaiser Reichdom of Eisen and the Republic of Francois. Meanwhile, the demi-human population that exists in Ost lives in secluded territories in the Empire of Tenka, the Monarchical Republic of Marl Kah and the Boreas Dukedom where they are citizens marked as a protected class due to their small population and various beliefs linked to them through myths and legends.

As for the other places in both Yropa and Atlanterra, the widespread influence and power of the Helenas Brotherhood had the demi-human populations eradicated, making their presence outside of said protected countries non-existent.

Half-elves – Half-elves are, as stated earlier, a hybrid race between humans and elves, that emerged from prehistoric times. Records say that they originated from the original interbred species in Yropa and travelled towards Ost where they further proliferated with the local populace but with lesser inherited traits than their Yropan relatives.

As for their appearance, Half-elves are almost indistinguishable from humans to the point that even a trained eye can be easily deceived. Two physical traits do exist such as having attached ear lobes and body that has better metabolism which leads it to becoming leaner. However, such traits can also exist with humans which makes these traits to become an unreliable metric.

Half-elves are known to have an internal magic power capacity greater than a human, affording them greater efficacy in magic. However, unlike their elven ancestors, they are not sensitive enough with magic and their elemental forms.

Half-elves exist across the world in an almost invisible manner, mostly because most people don't even know that they have such an ancestry or because they live in a place where racial purity is a big deal, making them hide such a fact in fear of being discriminated.

The Deprived – these are normal humans that do not have the capability to store and make use of magic. The reason why is still not known as many ancestral belief systems and even the four major faiths of the modern times hold them as "subhuman beings rejected by the world" and promptly execute or discriminate them upon the discovery of their status.

The Deprived are physically the same as humans and exhibit no difference as well in their physiology, save for the lack of a special region in their brain called a "manasphere", a finding brought by the hundreds of lobotomy experiments performed by Professor Sofia Alexandria to both normal human and Deprived individuals.

While many Deprived exist in the world while keeping their status a secret, with Promethea being a world built for those who can wield magic, this existence is almost always easily discovered, leading many to live the life of a recluse or true to their namesake, deprived of sympathy and belongingness.

Magic Beings – Magic beings are any magic-based beings that exist throughout Promethea that is outside of the normal biological make-up of the world. They are broken into three major branches as follows: Magic beasts, Monsters and Demonic beasts.

Magic beasts are creatures found outside of the vicinity of a dungeon and are mostly made up of animal species that adapted to nearby elemental magic phenomena or are hybrids created through human means. Some examples are Floof lambs which grew thicker and more wool due to their exposure to cold temperatures, Beef Boars which produces beef with none of the toughness and gamy aftertaste, and Chick-coos which are chickens that lay more eggs in one day than what one normal chicken can lay in its entire lifetime.

On the other hand, Monsters are either creatures that come from and linger around dungeons, or those that naturally manifest around areas with a great concentration of magic power such as forests and deep seas. Whether they come from dungeons or not, the unifying trait between the two is that they have manastones that act as their body's core. Taking out our destroying this manastone would instantly kill a monster. Some of these monsters are Giant Grizzlies, Rampage Boars, Rush Rhinos, Sling Serpents and Direwolves.

Lastly, Demonic beasts are creatures that can be found in places severely lacking in atmospheric magic energy or be brought from said places through summoning magic. Unlike magic beasts and monsters that are either completely docile or are neutral unless intimidated, demonic beasts are extremely aggressive and would actively destroy their surroundings and cause harm to any nearby life. Some of these examples are Undead, Orcs, Goblins, Bio-insectoids and Demons.

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Magic System with Regards to Promethea's History

Magic manifests throughout the world in various forms in its base level but can only be sent as an output in a few methods, namely:

Innate powers Spirit magic MagiTech

Innate powers are seen from magic beings such as monsters and demon beasts. These can vary from physical enhancements to elemental magic casted by the magic being by utilizing the power of the manastone within their body. Demon beasts with a certain degree of consciousness are the ones most adept with this kind of power, making use of these powers in order to further enhance their destructive actions.

Spirit magic, although it may sound like it utilizes supernatural beings, are simply magic power that far exceeds the capability of magic casted by humans without the aid of magic tools. The name of this type of magic is inherently linked with the human subspecies of elves, dwarves and beastfolk, wherein their closer relationship with natural sources of magic power allows them to make use of magic better and more efficiently. Unfortunately, Spirit magic has disappeared alongside its practitioners and only scant records of the incantations required to use these spells survive in the form of ancient scrolls and clay tablets.

Lastly, and the most important of the magic systems, is MagiTech. This form of magic originated far into pre-historic times with the earliest evidence of magic being conducted with technological aid is an ancient staff in the Kingdom of Ildria which is made with the heartwood of a gopher tree where traces of magic particles turned into healing magic was found.

Throughout history, magic tools in the form of staves, wands, accessories and even armor has been used as a conduit where a person can funnel their magic power to either focus or enhance it. Fossilized human remains would usually be found alongside a wand or staff that they have used during their life to use magic. Even ancient Kemetian mummies are found to be covered with magic tools that are believed to be placed there to help the deceased to fight off monsters in the afterlife. For thousands of years, magic tools would remain as such, objects that amplify the user's magic power to either be more effective or efficient.

The only changes that would happen to magic tools is during year 6072 when the Francois Bourbon Kingdom's court mages would conduct a study regarding magic tools in preparation for a war against the Kingdom of Albion who has previously defeated them using mass longbowmen tactics.

Wishing to find out a way to outrange their opponent when it comes to magic, the court mages would perform a comprehensive research into not only magic tools, but the use of magic itself. They would delve into many forms of magic across the world and eventually form a hypothesis that certain materials conduct magic better and there is a way to quantifiably measure it.

While ultimately, the Bourbon Kingdom of Francois will lose the war and the western coast of their lands to the Kingdom of Albion's new weapon, stone-slinging trebuchets that outranged even their extended magic casting range, the research study of the court mages would be copied and proliferate across Yropa and into Ost where Turkman tribes would adapt the knowledge which allowed them to conquer and secure the Great Donos Steppes for themselves. The same would happen in the Kingdom of Qima and Empire of Tenka where the adaptation and further refinement of the study's findings led to a boost in their local military power which strengthened these nations.

No major improvement would happen in MagiTech for a long while, although minor improvements would occur such as a transition from wood staves and wands into magisteel which is more durable, conductive to magic and less prone to misfires. There is also the creation of inscriptions that etched magic incantations into objects, allowing them to use one specific spell as long as a magic power is supplied into them. These magically enchanted objects would be called as "Artifacts".

The next revolutionary leap in MagiTech would occur at year 8419 when an Eisen nobleman and mathematician by the name of Wilhelm von Blumenthal would see and study the invention of Sir Charles I. Lancelot while visiting the Royal Albion Research Institute. The invention is called the "Arithmetic Anchor", a mechanical computer that makes use of hundreds of gears and switches to automate the computations required by the institute's astronomy, applied mathematics and alchemy departments.

Upon returning to the Eisen Reichdom, Blumenthal would commission a group of watchmakers and metalsmiths to create a replica of the mechanical computer and after a year, it would be built with all of the functions and features of the original. For the next 5 years, Blumenthal would pour all of his attention to the machine, swapping out components that either limited the speed and efficiency of the computer. He would even sometimes create from scratch the components that the metalsmiths found too complex to be handmade.

By the fifth and final year of his research, he found the steam piston that powers the computer to be too bulky, wasteful and unfit for indoor use. Inspired by the small motors powered by electric magic stones on his son's toy carriage, he created an electric motor sufficient to power the gears and switches of the computer which is smaller, more efficient and can be used indoors.

At year 8427, Wilhelm would present his computer "Stein der Weisen" (Philosopher's Stone) to the Eisen Kaiser and his court ministers. After explaining where he got the idea and its various components and functions, he asked the Kaiser to give him the most complicated mathematical problem that he can conceive and pitted his machine against several national champions of mathematics tournaments.

While the math problem given by the Kaiser has been lost, the computer would beat all of the math champions in both speed and accuracy. Compared to the humans who took 43 minutes to solve the problem and giving varying answers after using different patterns to solve it, the computer would solve it in 10 minutes with both the correct answer and the step-by-step solution it used to arrive to that answer in the form of a paper strip with holes.

This amazed the Kaiser and many of the ministers that by the end of the week, a royal decree would be released, announcing the royal family's support to the newly established Blumenthal Works company and tasked them with both supplying computers to the kingdom and conducting further research on the new field of computer engineering. On a side note, as a sign of his appreciation to the Royal Albion Research Institute, Wilhelm would gift a replica of his computer to the institute and form a tight bond with its leadership and members, a move that further cemented the good relationship between the Kingdoms of Albion and Eisen.

Fifty years after the creation of the Stein der Weisen machine, a pair of MagiTech professors in the Francois Bourbon Kingdom's Royal College of Sciences named Jacques du Archambeau and Josephine Aubert, would turn the field on its head after they created an entirely new system of casting magic by turning the long incantations required to form the spells, into equations pertaining to certain values of the elemental and alchemical reactions, as well as the changes in the states of matter involved that is then fed to a computer. Here is an example in the form of the basic fireball spell:

Incantation – "Fire from the ancients, cinders of life. Warmth to the marrow, blood to thrive. Form by my call, serve my cause. To tame this world which is your purpose."

Formula – (500 volts of power from an electric magic gem) + (concentration of pure oxygen in the surrounding air) x (enhancement by alchemical Phlogiston) + (enhancement by lightning magic formula) ÷ (pressurization of the combusted gas) x (concentration into a controllable form) = Fireball

Both of these methods would produce the same fireball spell. While the incantation method would require about 100 lumieres of magic power from the user and would sometimes have inconsistent results due to the variance of the user's mental image of the fireball and various interruptions to the incantation, the formula only takes 25 lumieres of magic power and paired with the semi-autonomous computation done by a mechanical computer, it produces a fireball with a consistent amount of power and no interruptions or human errors.

In the span of a year, the entirety of Yropa would be taken over by the research paper of the two Francois professors. Whether they are high-class magicians or pedestrian spellcasters, anyone who read, understood and applied this new way of using magic had a massive boost in their efficiency and effectiveness. Suddenly, spells became stronger and can be casted further as long as the user can properly perform the required computations.

On that note, while this had many upsides, there were also some downsides, the years following the proliferation of this new magic system saw the rise of many cases of "catastrophic failures" wherein casted magic spells and Artifacts inscribed with spells that has improperly computed magic formulas or insufficient magic controllers caused "runaway magic reactions" that ended with explosions, sometimes with people that either die or required amputations. For a while, MagiTech departments of universities and research institutes were filled with people with missing limbs or are blind and deaf. However, despite these casualties and injuries, MagiTech reached a sizeable milestone that has haunted its ancient practitioners for millennia which is the need for Standardization in magic.

Nevertheless, the utilization of computers into magic formulas became so intertwined that it brought to existence the new field of "Magic Computational Sciences". This new field distinguished itself from Computer Engineering by focusing on the science of computations regarding magic formulas instead of the science of how computers work and are made.

To further distance itself from its predecessor field, computers purpose-built for magic computations began to be called as "Logical Calculators" or in short, "LogiCals". Unlike their predecessors which are heavy and bulky mechanical computers requiring large rooms to contain, Logical Calculators can be made smaller due to their more specific purpose and simpler computation requirements that are mostly confined to the four arithmetic operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). While mechanical computers have gears as large as a dinner plate, a Logical Calculator can have a gear that is the size of a spoonhead.

As the technology spread eastward during the beginning of the Yropan Colonial era at year 8900, rapid advancements took place as new materials including alloys of metals and magisteel were used to make gears and switches for LogiCals that can be made smaller without sacrificing strength and reliability. There is also the switch from using electric motors with electric magic gems to power the movement of the components, towards simple magic formulas that can precisely move the gears and switches after being casted by the user. By this time, LogiCals are about the same size as a wardrobe closet, making it not portable.

At year 9331, a MagiTech researcher in Marl Kah during its colonial occupation under the Kingdom of Cattleya named Crisostomo B. Flores, invented an entirely new method of creating LogiCals. Unlike the old method wherein the gears and switches are connected in a series loop where computations are done one by one in a step-by-step process, making computations slow and inefficient, Flores created a compartmentalized loop where the sets of gears and switches are contained in their own sections, allowing them to do their own calculations independently, only combining them later in the end result.

This computer architecture that he named "Bayanihan" that in the Marl Kahn tongue means "communal unity", also fits the combined and coordinated work of these separate computing sections. This was another milestone in the field of Magic Computational Sciences that advanced it not by an individual step but with a giant leap. Using this new computer architecture, computations that require whole minutes to do can be done in under a minute. Although this also means that the LogiCal requires a burst of magic power being drained from the user instead of the steady stream of magic used by the previous computer architectures, it was a small price to pay for the speed and efficiency boost.

Sadly, Crisostomo B. Flores would never be credited nor compensated for his invention during his lifetime. The Cattleyan Governor-general ordered for all his LogiCal prototypes, blueprints and research papers to be seized on trumped-up charges of inciting rebellion, of which he would be charged and immediately sent on a prison in a floating isle where he would later die from hard labor and abject disregard. Worse, the Cattleyan friar of the prison island would refuse to bless his body before it was buried despite his family's pleas, saying that "a disgusting rebel does not deserve the mercy of the Lunarian goddesses". This forced the family to bury him in an isolated and unmarked grave as any other cemeteries required said blessings.

Thankfully, Crisostomo B. Flores would receive the credit that he deserved three decades after his death, after the Kingdom of Marl Kah rebelled and successfully drove out the Cattleyan colonists. His children and grandchildren would acquire the company used by the former conquerors to produce LogiCals according to his designs, and rename it as the Flores Corporation, the first company in the world to produce "multi-layer processing" computers and Logical Calculators. Today, the land where his isolated and unmarked grave is located at, is the heart of the Marl Kah National Institute of Technology, the place where the first man-portable LogiCal was made which is a large, rectangular box the size and weight of a human torso.

For another one and a half millennia, nothing much would change save for the replacement of more durable materials for the components as well as new tweaks to the Bayanihan architecture that allowed it to compute more complex formulas and coordinate better with the other computation sections.

Many would say that this is the end of any further improvement for the Logical Calculator's technology, a sentiment that would only grow more and more amongst the leading experts in the world as it became clear that computers have reached the physical and mathematical summit of their existence, where there is no possible way to improve the craft further without breaking the rules of reality by creating "gears the size of a pinhead that can tolerate the basic command spells of the user" and "switches that facilitate computations with near-instant speed and less than 0.000001% chance of error".

As stated earlier, many already believe the idea that the mechanical nature of contemporary computers and how it can be further improved has reached its logical end. Gears have reached the minimum size of an adult person' pinky fingernail and switches have changed forms to facilitate more computations especially with the Bayanihan architecture, and that is their practical and mathematical limit. Making the gears smaller would make them too brittle to withstand the command spells used to move them, and changing the form of the switches in order to let them compute more equations would be an engineering and mathematical impossibility.

So for the next two millennia, as the Colonial Age slowed down, the colonies in the continent of Atla rebelled from their Yropan conquerors and formed the Atlanterran Confederation, the Francois Bourbon Kingdom fell to the Francois Revolution and spawned the First Francois Republic, the Yropan colonies in Ost rebelled and repelled their conquerors with the aid of the Alliance of Five which started the formation of the Empire of Ostadonia, and the countries of Yropa formed a loose coalition that united their countries under the United Kingdoms of Erica, the LogiCal and the study of MagiTech remained the same with little to no improvements even with the constant demand of it during the many wars throughout the world.

Instead of being towards improving the hardware of the LogiCal, the attention of researchers was turned to the spells and formulas that go into the computers which has taken the backburner for a few thousand years as everyone raced to improve the LogiCal's computational power. Unlike the archaic formulas written by Archambeau and Aubert that was based on antiquated alchemical concepts such as Phlogiston and Red Earth, and roughly estimated numerical values such as the abundance of pure oxygen and pressure of the combusted gas, the new spells are more in-line with numerical values that can be logically defined and alchemical knowledge that is more scientifically proven.

One of these spells is the Flight magic formula, a spell with 20 layers of wind magic formulas sandwiched on regular intervals with 10 gravitational reduction magic formulas. This spell, alongside the creation of magic muskets that can be used for the same purpose as wands and staves, spawned the newest type of soldier in the battlefields of Promethea: Wizards.

Unlike previous revolutionary improvements in MagiTech, the first use of Wizards didn't come from Yropa or Ost but instead, in Atlanterra during the First Atla Civil War when the Confederation forces would send three Wizards to assault Fort Monterey, a strategic base of the Commune forces. These three Wizards, despite only contributing close air support to the Confederation infantry that followed them, was hailed in the war as heroes and the pride of their nation.

After the observers from Albion and Tenka that was sent to watch this battle reported back to their nations, the two countries tasked their local industries to emulate the technology and soon enough, Wizards began to proliferate across the world or at least, at the countries that can afford the mass production of the devilishly complex Logical Calculators that can handle computing multiple spells simultaneously, as well as providing training to candidates that are tailor-made to their magic capabilities to make standardization among the ranks possible, making the training of Wizards a difficult and costly process.

Nowadays, MagiTech has been so deeply intwined with the military and Wizards to the point that they are interchangeable to some degree. Among the three superstates, the Ostadonian empire stands as the one who has the most Wizards mostly due to the sheer mass production capability of the Shinomiya Armaments factory complex in the Empire of Tenka, and the cutting-edge research provided by the Flores corporation in the Republic of Marl Kah.

Second would be the United Kingdoms of Erica that has the most advanced LogiCals due to their more superior metal fabricator machinery that can process higher purity magisteel and mana quartz, and their longer history with mechanical computers. Much of this advancement is driven by the Royal Albion Academy, a descendant of the Albion Research Institute, and the Von Blumenthal armory mega factory in the Kaiser Reichdom of Eisen.

Last but not the least is the Militant Confederation of Atlanterra that boast itself as the one with the best magic formulas not only in its conciseness and simplicity, but also its compatibility with a wider range of LogiCals given the fact that many of the servicemen in Atlanterra's Federal Wizard Corps make use of captured or smuggled Ostadonian LogiCals or unlicensed, knockoff Yropan LogiCals. The reason for this lack of indigenously developed and manufactured Atlanterran Logical Calculators is not just because of the barely 400-year-old age of the Confederate States, but also the enormously diverse pool of prospective Wizards who come from different ethnicities and lineages and thus, have different capacities and sensitivity for magic.

While all of this are said and done, much of the knowledge about magic in Promethea is still largely unknown to the point that even the book that is meant to be the comprehensive guide to what little is understood about it reaches more than 700 pages.

One thing that is for sure is that if the field of Magic Computational Science is to evolve further, it would require abandoning the mechanical nature of computers to not only eliminate the functional downsides but also usher in the improvements of whatever the new style of computer it would be.