Luo Lan awakens as the Baron of Frostcold Ridge, a nearly forgotten name in the empire’s noble lineage.
Here, magic is a matter of talent and bloodline, the measure of all worth.
Yet this baron, judged to be “mediocre at magic,” takes apart magic and turns it into energy, then encodes runes into programs inside his crumbling castle.
While the viscount next door boasts about his newly hired mage advisor, Luo Lan’s golem farming crews are making green shoots grow in frozen soil.
When the earl’s arrogant envoy arrives to collect “vassal taxes,” he finds rows of rune-powered blast furnaces and the muzzles of arcane cannons pointed right at him.
Alongside a resilient local girl, Luo Lan plans a city. He discusses the underlying logic of the world with a scholarly female mage, forms an alliance with a fallen noblewoman, and navigates the schemes of a cunning marquis and a greedy bishop.
Starting with a baron’s territory, he uses machine tools to cut precision standards, railways to span the realm, and radio to transmit ideas.
He puts magic on the assembly line and treats divine arts as a subject to be studied.
When the empire’s dragon-knight order darkens the sky and the Inquisition of the Church of Light unleashes its judgment,
Luo Lan stands before his throne of steel, with a fully formed industrial behemoth roaring behind him.
“Your Majesty, the arcane sequence is online. Target: the Old Gods.”
He gives a slight nod:
