It was a cool spring night when disaster struck. The newly formed apprentice division of the Royal Innovation Corps had taken to working overtime. They were devoted, sometimes recklessly so. One trainee, a bright but impulsive lad named Eren, was hunched over a table late into the night, sketching designs by candlelight. In a sudden gust of wind, the candle tipped, igniting the corner of his paper and, horrifically, his hair.
The shouts, the smell of burnt hair, and the ensuing panic woke Sharath Virayan Darsha from his slumber in the Inventor's Wing. He rushed barefoot, half-dressed, into the hall. Guards were already there, dousing the smoldering table with water from a bucket.
Eren was safe, save for a scorched patch on his head and a bruised ego, but the incident shook the entire corps. Sharath stood in the aftermath, quiet and unmoving, staring at the smudged blueprints and blackened wax.
"We still rely on fire," he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. "In a world of magic. In a world with rivers and storms and winds. Fire. Still."
He returned to his chambers that night, not to rest, but to think. Pacing in front of a blackboard, he began to write ideas furiously.
**Why has no one yet built a sustained source of light?**
**Why are we still bound by candle and lantern, when storms surge with power?**
He was so caught up in chemistry, mechanics, logistics, he had forgotten that this was not Earth.
This world had magic.
---
The next morning, the Innovation Hall was abuzz with a new directive. Sharath summoned every enchanter, elemental, mechanic, and alchemist available to the capital.
"I have three tasks," he announced. "We are going to bottle light, harness nature, and wield it without fire."
First came the **Magestone Battery**. Drawing from raw aether harvested from leyline intersections beneath the castle, Sharath worked with Runemistress Vallina to etch containment glyphs into specially mined amethysts. Each stone, when activated, radiated a soft, pale glow — harmless, but not bright enough for practical use.
"We need more," Sharath insisted. "Magic needs to be channeled, not just captured."
The design evolved. Copper and silver spirals were embedded around the magestone, bound with conductive spellwire—metal fused with elemental runes. These were then installed in a casing surrounded by coiled obsidian for grounding.
The result: **The MageCore Battery**.
It could power a small bulb — a clear crystal orb etched with light runes — for up to three days before needing a recharge.
---
But Sharath wasn't done. He was determined to bring non-magical alternatives as well. For what if magic was suppressed? Or denied?
**The Hydraulic Dynamo** came next. Using the city's underground aqueducts, he designed a waterwheel system linked to copper-wound rotors. Every turn of the wheel produced a charge, stored in a crystalline capacitor laced with graphite and sealed in rubber casing.
Next came the **Wind Cell** — a vertical windmill made of thin, enchanted iron, balanced to rotate even in light breezes. Lightning magic, bound into the turbine's heart, gave the rotation an amplification, doubling its yield.
**"Light from the wind, power from the river,"** Sharath declared in his next demonstration before the court.
In the grand chamber, before nobles and scholars and craftsmen, Sharath stood with soot on his cheek and a half-burned glove, holding a glowing bulb overhead.
"Let no child burn for light again. Let no scholar strain in the dark. This is not the end. This is the spark."
The bulb pulsed in his hand, clear and warm — and brighter than any fire.
The hall erupted into applause. Princess Elina, now often seen beside Sharath, squeezed his hand and whispered, "You've brought a second sun into our halls."
But it wasn't the applause Sharath listened to.
It was the silence between — the sound of a new age breathing to life.
And deep in his heart, he whispered, "Never again will we be bound by the dark."