Also known as The Heretic's Genesis and I Once Pondered Life in Jail
When someone is five or ten years ahead of everyone else, they become a genius spoken of by all.
Twenty years ahead, and they will illuminate an entire age.
Two hundred or five hundred years ahead
"Without a doubt, I'm a madwoman, a heretic."
In Guihai Province, a remote corner of the continent, a new era began after humanity mastered the secrets of steam. Humans without magical aptitude gained a voice through steam and steel, and their interests increasingly clashed with those of the magicians. In barely ten years, the two sides had become bitter enemies.
Gu Guang, an underage witch still at school, insisted on combining steam technology with alchemy. The Fellowship had issued twenty-seven documents over three years forbidding such practices, yet she remained stubborn and unrepentant. On the night she came of age, the Fellowship finally arrested and put her on trial.
Gu Guang: I did it, and I have nothing to say in my defense.
Gu Guang: But doing it doesn't mean I was wrong. I'll prove I'm right in the proper way.
Gu Guang admitted to every charge, but refused to accept punishment.
She submitted her evidence to the Fellowship in the most direct way possible.
A steel behemoth smashed through the Black Prison and overturned the courtroom. Sick of the black-and-white thinking of the human assembly and the Magicians' Fellowship, Gu Guang fled aboard a flying vessel powered by both magic and steam.
A ferocious beast that blew up everything in its path had escaped the savage backwater of Guihai Province.
Meanwhile, the outside world was undergoing its own shift from the old era to the new.
Seeing a world just as chaotic as Guihai, with rampaging beasts, rival races, and fallen gods, Gu Guang decided that leaving had been the right choice.
Follow her feelings, study what she likes, and blow things up as needed.
Slay the black dragon, raise the heavenly pillar, strike down the gods, seal the sea's eye... She creates legends, leaves her mark, and moves on. A true witch never looks back at an explosion.
In the original timeline, she created an isolated sanctuary surrounded by the gods of the new era, a steel city no human or god could breach even five hundred years later.
In the altered timeline, she is a heretic, but will ultimately become a god.
A fusion of Eastern and Western styles, with both magic and engineering.
Theme: Walk your own path and blow up the bridge to fools
