Improving Magical ACs in a Fantasy World

On the day I nearly died, I was twenty-eight floors up, fixing an AC unit on an outside wall. My hand slipped as I was securing my safety line. All of a sudden, I had been pulled into a fantasy world. When I opened my eyes again, I was in a cave that was more like an ice box. There was an old man in a white robe next to me, poking me in the face. “Awake? Good. You’ll be one of the new students here at Icicle Mountain. You’ll get an allowance of two magic stones a month for sweeping up the cave.” “Wait, where am I?” “Icicle Mountain of Crylestia School.” “Can I make a suggestion? Your cave system has a ventilation problem. The cold air can’t escape and just keeps on making the place colder. I’ll get joint pains if I stay here too long,” I said. He looked at me like I was crazy. Chapter 1 My name was Wisteria Summers. Before being pulled into this fantasy world, I had been an air conditioning unit repairwoman with ten years of working experience. Ever since starting that job, I had fixed nearly 1,000 air conditioning units. From split AC units to central ones, from home-use units to commercial ones, I had done it all. I thought that my life as I knew it would be over. I did not expect fate to give me a whole new project in life: becoming the general contractor for HVAC systems in this fantasy world. There were seven mountains in Crylestia School, and Icicle Mountain was the one people least wanted to go to. The reason for that was very simple: It was simply too cold. The interior of the mountain caves had a temperature of about -22 degrees Fahrenheit. If one simply stood there and breathed, one’s eyebrows would frost over. It was supposedly the ideal place to train ice magic. However, to a new student doing chores, it was a workplace nightmare. On my first day on the job, I was so cold that my nose was constantly running. I could not even hold a broom steady. I looked at the snow and frost collected on the rock walls of the cave, and knowledge from my previous job as an AC repairman flooded into my mind. There simply was something wrong with the ventilation flow in this place. What came in had to go out, forming a cycle. The way this cave system was set up locked the cold air inside, and cold air kept coming in without going out. If one turned the AC on and set it to cool the room and then stopped up all the ways the cold air could escape, preventing air from going out, the air quality in the room would become so bad that one would suffocate. The temperature inside would be uneven, too. The middle of the cave was -58 degrees Fahrenheit, but the edges were -14 degrees Fahrenheit. This was not a setup for magical training. It was a death trap. I knelt in the middle of the cave and sketched out a draft on the ground with a finger. If one followed the layout of a ventilation system, the “locked-in” ventilation system of the cold air should be changed to a half-recycling one. That way, one could maintain the coldness of the central training area but increase the ventilation and temperature of the living areas. Simply put, there should be a central air conditioning unit installed. I looked at the magical arrays on the walls. More simply put, the magical arrays of this world were like pipe systems. Magical energy was a medium, and the arrays were pipes. The fulcrum of the array was the engine. The principles behind magic were exactly like the ones I had followed fixing AC units for a decade. The only difference was that one dealt with air and the other with magical energy. Also, whoever had designed these “pipes” was an idiot. I spent three days erasing all the arrays in the cave. Then, I stole some magic ink from the store room and redid the arrays with changes in only three places. In one, I added a “diverter valve” in the fulcrum of the array, allowing the flow of the cold air to split. I added two “return air vents” in the corners of one of the living areas, giving warm air a chance to be cycled into the cave. In the last spot, I added an “air curtain,” preventing the cold air from escaping but letting in fresh air. After making these changes, I stood in the middle of the cave and enjoyed the fruits of my labor. The central training area was -22 degrees Fahrenheit. That had not changed. However, the living areas were now 47 degrees Fahrenheit, and the hallways were 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Walking in from the entrance to the cave, the temperature went down in steps, and every zone had the right temperature for its purposes. It felt so good! Chapter 2 I cleaned off the magic ink from my hands and looked around in satisfaction. After a decade on the job, this was my biggest project yet, even though I was the only client for this one. The next day, the master of Icicle Mountain returned. Bear Windom was one of the three God-tier practitioners of Crylestia School. He practiced Deep Freeze magic. Supposedly, his body temperature was always under freezing, and touching him could freeze your finger. Rumor had it that he was 300 years old, though he looked to be under 250. His expression was always icy, and he did not speak much. The school’s students nicknamed him the Ice Cube. Pushing open the door to the main cave and feeling the temperature gradation, Bear looked like his family jewels had been stolen. “Who messed with my arrays?” Everyone in Icicle Mountain shook in their boots. Meanwhile, I was in a living area eating a cold pastry. When I heard Bear’s voice, I looked up and found a silver-haired man at the cave entrance. Cold air swirled around him, and he seemed like a man-shaped AC unit to me. “I did it,” I said. “The original design made no sense. Cold air could only ever come in and not go out. The living areas were too cold and ate up our energy. “I changed it so there’s some temperature gradation. The living areas are actually habitable now.” Bear looked at me. I looked at him. “Do you know who had set up these arrays?” he asked. “I don’t know. Who?” “Me.” I nodded. “Alright. Your skills are subpar.” In an instant, everything went quiet. The new students beside me were scared stiff, but I was not afraid at all. I had been doing AC repair for ten years. I had met too many clients who thought they knew everything. I was not worried about fixing something that did not work. I was more worried about people who could not admit that they had made mistakes. Besides, I really did think that the array design had been awful. “Your array was flawed.” I stood up and started counting the problems off on my fingers. “Firstly, the cold air had no circuit to follow. Everything hinges upon the fulcrum. The load of the fulcrum was three times what was normal, so its longevity was at least halved. “Secondly, you relied on the students’ own magic to forcefully maintain their body temperature. You’re making the clients do the work, and that doesn’t make sense. “Thirdly, you put the training and living areas in the same temperature zone. Don’t you find it too cold to sleep in an ice box?” Bear did not speak. He only stared at me, looking like he was going to explode. After a long time, he finally said, “It’s cold.” I kept hounding him. “Then what do you think of my changes?” Bear kept staring at me. After a while, he came further into the cave, reached the living area, and stopped. It was 47 degrees Fahrenheit. “It’s decent.” His tone was slightly warm. Just then, the system popped up. [User has completed an S-tier array improvement task. Reward: Magical XP +500; Array Blueprints: Level 1 unlocked.] S-tier? Fixing the central AC system was an S-tier task? The system replied, [The array was the design of a God-tier practitioner. No one had changed it in 300 years.] [The user has not only changed it but also gained the approval of the master of the mountain. Difficulty magnifier was 10x.] Well, alright. I watched Bear in the living area, standing there like a normal person without shivering. I thought to myself that my future was set. I could keep doing this. News traveled quickly. Everyone soon found out that a new student at Icicle Mountain had changed the master’s array and was not frozen to death. Instead, she had won the master’s approval. The speed with which this news traveled was akin to the speed of the cold air in Icicle Mountain. The next day, someone came looking for me. It was the assistant principal of Medici Mountain. She was a white-haired old woman. She had been practicing her craft for fifty years, and her temper was hotter than the ovens she used. “You’re the student who fixed the arrays of Icicle Mountain?” She looked me up and down. “You know about arrays?” “No,” I answered. “Then what did you fix?” “Ventilation.” “What?” “Ventilation, the system of air flow and warmth, along with air conditioning engineering,” I explained. “To me, the magic in this world works like a heating system. Magical energy is the medium, arrays are the pipes, and the array fulcrums are the compressor. It’s all the same.” She did not understand, but she was very straightforward. “There are some temperature issues in the oven room of Medici Mountain. High-level magical pills require precise temperatures in the ovens. “I’ve tried to fix it for the past thirty years, but the temperature’s always off by about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Can you fix it?” There was a temperature difference of 68 degrees Fahrenheit? In my field, that was a matter of temperature control. It was a classic problem of bad ventilation. “Let me see.” In the oven room of Medici Mountain, I understood the issue at first glance. The issue was the manner of supplying magical energy, which was “fixed frequency.” Magical energy was supplied at a fixed rate to the oven, but the oven required different temperatures during different phases. It was like needing an AC unit to cool and heat at different times, but the unit only had an on switch. The solution was simple. It had to be changed into a variable frequency system. I added some adjustment symbols to the magical supply array, making it so that the flow of magical energy could adjust itself according to the oven’s needs. The mechanism worked exactly like a compressor. It would provide exactly how much was needed, not more and not less. After making this change, I had one of the practitioners try the oven. The temperature fluctuation changed from 68 degrees Fahrenheit to 7 degrees Fahrenheit. The old woman stared at the oven for two seconds before becoming exceedingly impressed with me. Chapter 3 “What’s your name?” “Wisteria Summers.” “Wisteria Summers.” The woman took my hand. “You can change any of Medici Mountain’s arrays however you want. I’ll pay you whatever you want in magical stones.” I agreed, but I set my fee at ten magical stones for each small job, fifty for medium-sized jobs, and at least 100 for big jobs. Central systems would require different pricing. She agreed. The system popped up. [User has completed an A-tier array improvement project. Reward: Magical XP +300, Array Blueprints: Level 2 unlocked.] I looked at the display of the system and the many blueprints populating on it. Suddenly, I realized something. These blueprints held designs for this fantasy world’s most powerful arrays. Rewarding me with these was pretty much giving me cheat codes. However, I did not rely on cheat codes. All I needed to modify these arrays was my HVAC experience of ten years. The cheat codes only gave me this world’s modification specifications. The true skill came from me. That night, I returned to Icicle Mountain and found Bear standing in the living area. “Master Windom?” I was surprised by his presence there. “Don’t you need to train?” “The temperature here is nice,” he said. To a normal person, this temperature was somewhat chilly, though it could be the best temperature for him. “What temperature is the best for you?” I asked perfunctorily. He thought about it before saying, “I don’t know. It’s never been right for me.” “I can tweak it for you.” I took out some magical ink. These days, I brought some with me everywhere I went, just like I used to with a spanner. I walked to the array and made a few minor changes. The temperature of the living area slowly went up to 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Bear stood there, his body relaxing minutely. “Is this good?” “Yes.” I looked at him and thought, ‘This man really wasted his 300 years of life. He hasn’t even enjoyed the right temperature for himself.’ But in the HVAC business, making your client happy was a big deal. “Master Windom,” I said, “I’ll handle the temperature control in your caves from now on for free.” Bear eyed me. “Why?” “You’re my first client. The first client always gets free service.” Bear looked at me for a moment before laughing. My reputation in Crylestia School only got better and better. First, it had been Medici Mountain. Next, the people at Swordpoint Mountain thought the magical flows in their training room were poor. It was easy for the magical energy inside to get mixed up, and someone could get injured. I added a “deflector,” letting the magical energy flow in set directions. The effect of training increased by 30%. After that, Sylvan Mountain’s herb garden had a temperature control problem. Some of their magical herbs preferred shade and others sun, and so they had to move things around manually. I added a zoned temperature control system, giving every section its own temperature zone. The efficacy of the magical herbs shot up. Within a month, I had fixed the arrays of six of the mountains. My starting fee was hiked up from ten magical stones to fifty. However, I had gotten too busy, and there was a waitlist. I had even hired two beginner students as assistants and runners to buy me more magic ink. The true change was not in my reputation. Rather, it was with Bear. He started making me change the temperature of the living area every day. He was not training or anything, just sitting there. Sometimes, he would be having tea or looking out the window. Sometimes, he was not even doing anything. Once, when I returned to the cave to get some tools, he was sitting and having tea, steam wafting from the cup. In Icicle Mountain, it was practically a miracle for tea to maintain its temperature. “Master Windom, your tea,” I said. “You said you could change the temperature so that the tea would keep warm.” Bear picked up his teacup. “I tried it out.” “Is the tea good?” “I don’t know.” Bear looked down into his drink. “It’s been 300 years since I’ve had hot tea. I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.” Bear took a sip and fell quiet for a long time. “It’s hot,” he said softly. I stood to the side and suddenly felt like crying. Chapter 4 Just think about it. Someone who had lived 300 years had actually forgotten what having hot tea was like. What kind of a life was that? I bent down to meet Bear’s gaze. “Master Windom, you won’t just be having hot tea now. You can have hot stew.” “Hot stew?” “That’s right. You can have a huge pot of hot water and put all sorts of things in there to cook up the perfect stew for yourself. I’ll think about how to make it work. “Once the temperature control in Icicle Mountain is fixed, you can control the temperature of the whole cave system. Then, we can have a warm room where we can cook and eat stew.” Bear looked at me. His expression did not change much, but I noticed that his grip on his teacup had loosened. “Why are you so nice to me?” he asked. “Because I’m your HVAC engineer. Satisfying my clients is my duty.” He looked at me with a complicated look in his eyes. From that day onward, he started speaking to me. It was only a handful of sentences every day, but we were like friends. The system notified, [+10 Friendliness; Current friendliness: 15/100.] It was a low level, but that was fine. When it came to HVAC, one could not rush. I had to get the client to trust me and find me reliable. From there, I would be able to do bigger projects. Bear’s projects were the biggest. The School Tournament had begun, and Bear had me watch the proceedings. “It helps to see how others fight.” I was confused by this. “Master Windom, I fix the temperature. I don’t fight.” Bear replied, “The principles behind the arrays used in fighting and the ones used in constructing a ventilation system are the same.” I gave it some thought, and it sounded quite right. The core function of a temperature system was control, putting energy in the right place in the right way. Fighting was the same. I went to watch the tournament. In the arena, I saw all sorts of fancy magical tricks and arrays. However, to me, they were all HVAC systems with an acceleration array underneath. It was just a booster system to improve the flow of magical energy. When someone laid a protection array around them, that was an insulation layer that reduced energy consumption. When someone laid a trap array, that was a valve that cut off the opponent’s flow of magical energy. As I watched, I noticed a problem. Everyone used arrays that were “fixed frequency.” No one used “variable frequency” arrays. No one used arrays that could change based on the changing rhythms of the fight. Everyone laid their arrays, fed in magical energy, and powered through. It was as if everyone in this world had decided to use fixed frequency AC but not variable frequency AC. The more I watched, the more I wanted to try something. On the third day of the tournament, my chance came. One of the beginner students had set up an ice trap array in the arena. The student’s opponent was trapped inside and was about to yield. However, the array fulcrum was suddenly overloaded, and cold air blew in the opposite direction, sealing the student in ice. The audience erupted into a furor. The judge was about to call the match to a stop when I stood up and yelled, “Hold it right there!” Everyone looked at me. I did not pause to think about it. Racing to the arena, I knelt by the array fulcrum and took a look. It had overloaded. The flow of magical energy was too much, and the array fulcrum could not handle it. It was just like an AC compressor being overloaded. What came next was either a power trip or the thing would simply break. I got some magic ink out and added an adjustment by the fulcrum that gave it a distribution node. The audience was completely silent. Everyone was scared that any sound would disturb my array-laying. Three seconds later, the cold air flowed in the new direction it was given, and the fulcrum was not overloaded anymore. The frozen student slowly moved their limbs and came out of danger. Everyone sighed in relief. Then, there was a passionate burst of discussion. The student I had saved looked at me and asked, “How did you do that?” “Distribution,” I said. “Your fulcrum was overheating, so I just let it breathe.” The student blinked at me, expression still confused. Clearly, the student had no clue what I was talking about, but that did not matter. Bear understood. From his seat, he looked at me with something in his gaze that I had never seen before. After the tournament, Bear came looking for me. “Wisteria, I have a task for you,” he said. “What task?” “There’s an ice dungeon under Icicle Mountain.” His tone was bland, but his fingers twitched. “I sealed something inside 300 years ago. The seal is weakening.” “What’s inside?” “An ice wyvern.” I was stunned. Ice wyverns were old and formidable beasts in this world. Supposedly, one icy breath could freeze and crack mountain ranges. “What will happen if the seal weakens?” “The ice wyvern will break the seal and escape.” Bear looked at me. “If that happens, Icicle Mountain will be buried under its icy breath. Nothing will be able to survive in a 30-mile radius.” I inhaled deeply. “So you want me to fix the seal?” “Not fix,” he said, “I want you to redesign it.” Bear looked into my eyes. “All the current seals are ‘fixed frequency,’ using the same amount of power to control the ice wyvern. However, the ice wyvern is growing in power. The seal won’t become more powerful and will be broken sooner or later.” I understood. “You want me to make it ‘variable frequency’ and vary the amount of power used to seal the ice wyvern. You want it to automatically get more powerful and save energy when needed.” Bear looked at me with shining eyes. “That’s right.” I was quiet as I thought about it for a while. Then, I said, “Alright, but I have some conditions.” Chapter 5 “Tell me.” “Firstly, I want a copy of all the array blueprints involved in this project. I need to study the underlying logic of the ice arrays. “Secondly, I want to stay in the central area of Icicle Mountain during the project. The living area will need to be maintained at a temperature above 59 degrees Fahrenheit. “Anything below 50 degrees Fahrenheit makes my hands shake. Thirdly…” I paused. “You will have to be here every day during the project work. You won’t be there to monitor me, but I need you to help with testing. “Your cold is a natural source, like a ‘compressor.’ Without a compressor, I can’t modify the temperature.” Bear glanced at me for three seconds before agreeing. “That can be done.” “Then let’s sign a contract.” “What’s a contract?” “It’s… A verbal agreement is fine, too. You’re the boss.” Bear looked at me again. “Wisteria,” he started, “you’re the strangest person I’ve ever met.” “Thank you. You’re also the first client I’ve met who most needs to have floor heating installed.” Bear chuckled but did not correct me. The ice dungeon was 300 feet below Icicle Mountain. Its entrance was a stone door perpetually sealed in ice. When Bear opened the door, a blast of ice assaulted us. It was not the typical kind of chill but rather the kind of cold that struck the bones. Frost covered my eyebrows in about three seconds, and I was cold all over. “Can you withstand it?” Bear asked, his voice threaded with worry I had never heard before as he stood beside me. The interior of the ice dungeon was a lot bigger than I had expected. It was like a giant underground dome. In the middle was an ice-covered lump. It was the ice wyvern. It was curled up in the ice and looked as though it was sleeping. However, I could sense movement under the ice. It was like a heartbeat. The heartbeat was very slow and seemed to pump once every thirty seconds. However, every time it did, the layer of ice would tremble minutely. I bent down and checked the seal array. The more I saw, the more worried I got. The intricacy of the array design was very high, but the problem was that it relied too much on brute force. It was like using a commercial AC unit to cool down a room. Its efficacy was set at 100% and ran twenty-four hours a day without end. In this way, it forcefully froze the ice wyvern in place. This method worked in the short term, but in the long term, the AC would break as the compressor could not handle the strain. I walked in a circle, following the array, and found three critical issues. Firstly, all the power of the seal came from Bear’s own ice energy. No external energy supplemented it. It was akin to an AC unit that only used electricity. Without a new source, it would give out sooner or later. Secondly, the ice energy of the seal was perpetual. However, the ice wyvern’s power was fluctuating. When the ice wyvern was weak, the array was wasting power; when the ice wyvern was strong, the array could not handle it. Thirdly, the most critical aspect of the array, the fulcrum, was Bear himself. He had put in his own core as the fulcrum, acting as the seal’s “compressor.” What did this all mean? It meant that Bear’s core would always be incomplete as long as the seal existed. He could never achieve his ultimate goal of becoming a deity through his training. It had been 300 years, and Bear could not complete himself. Instead, he used his core to seal an ice wyvern. I stood up and looked at Bear. “Master Windom,” I said, “this seal can’t be changed into a variable frequency one.” Bear’s expression did not change. “Why not?” “Because you used part of your core as the fulcrum. If you take it out, the array will collapse immediately. If you don’t take it out, you will never regain it. This is a closed cycle.” Bear was quiet. “I know,” he admitted. “Why did you ask me to modify it then?” Bear stared at me. The look in his eyes still held that something that I could not parse. “Because you’re the first person who could see this problem. Everyone else either thinks this seal is ingenious or dangerous. Only you could tell that it’s killing me.” My heart thumped loudly in my chest. Bear knew what I was talking about!