Chapter Text
Do highbeasts care about air drag, or doesn't it matter “because magic”?
That’s something I’ve wondered when I first acquired my highbeast, but for some reason, I never experimented further after creating my drivable shumil. Sure, it pops up in my mind occasionally, but I always get distracted by other things on my palette and put it off.
As I was flying towards Joisontak in my shumil with Caroline in tow for my vacation from work, that idea occurred to me again. This time, I decided to try it out and look for possible improvements for my highbeast. More time and mana saved during travel means more of them for other fun stuff, right?
“Caroline, I would like to grab some stuff and do a few tests after we arrive at the summer mansion.”
“Is that something involving dangerous feybeasts, illegal activities or strange ancient rituals?” Caroline raised her eyebrow.
Wow, she really has a lot of faith in me. “No, not at all. I’m only planning to test something with my highbeast.” I smiled innocently.
Caroline gave me an incredulous glare, but she didn’t question further. As we arrived at the mansion, we visited my chamber and picked up a few things that I think would be useful.
“So, where are we going and what are you going to do with your highbeast?” Caroline asked while packing the stuff I prepared.
“The flat plain nearby. I’m going to try figuring out a more efficient design for my highbeast.” I answered nonchalantly.
“Is that even possible? Your shumil looks pretty good as of now.” Caroline asked curiously.
“That will depend on several factors that we’re going to find out.” I shrugged.
We arrived at the aforementioned place in my shumil. It is a flat plain that stretches all the way to the horizon, with some trees, bushes and rocks littered sparsely in the field.
“OK, we shall start here.” I said as we landed beside a bigger tree. I needed some landmark easily visible from above, and it’s not nice to have Caroline stand under the sun for bells.
So, how should I approach this? I begin recalling some characteristics that I knew about a highbeast:
- It doesn’t need wings to fly.
- The mana cost to maintain the shape is proportionate to the total volume, but not the complexity. Complex shapes are mentally more taxing to maintain, unless my brain is already familiar with the shape.
- The mana consumption to fly it increases proportionately according to the weight carried.
- The faster it flies, the greater the mana consumption.
- It can accelerate or decelerate in any direction, including vertically up.
- It is affected by gravity – diving consumes much less mana than climbing in altitude.
- It can be near-weightless or have enough weight to crush a person beneath, depending on my imagination.
- I won’t fall from my highbeast unless I want to, even when it’s upside down.
- Any damage or physical strain to the body will consume extra mana.
- The texture and hardness of each part depend on my imagination, but there’s a limit of how hard it can get.
- The whole highbeast must be of the same colour, but the shade and transparency can be adjusted for individual portions. That’s how Rozemyne’s Lessy got its tail stripes and windows.
OK, the last point is probably not relevant for my intended test, but it’s good to take note of. Can I make a totally transparent highbeast that way?
Nah, better not. I’m not keen to let people on the ground have a peek at my bottoms or under my skirt, even when there’s nothing much worth seeing.
To reliably measure efficiency, I need reliable ways to measure time and distance. Here comes the first problem: there’s no instrument to measure time down to seconds in Yurgenschmidt yet. The official unit for time here is bells, not very helpful. However, I already have an idea for that.
“Caroline, can you feel your pulse on your wrist? Can you count them?” I asked.
Caroline gave me a confused look while placing her fingers on her wrist. “Yes, I can feel and count them, why?”
“Good, may I check your pulse for a while?” I made another request absentmindedly.
Now she looked even more confused. “I don’t really mind, but why? I’m not sick.” She furrowed her brows.
Oops, nobles are not supposed to get touchy-feely. “Apologies, I don’t mean anything weird. I just wanna know how fast it is.” I placed my fingers on her wrist with an awkward smile.
Hmm, the interval between pulses felt a bit shorter than a second that I remember. I guess her pulse is similar to adults on Earth, like 70-80 beats per minute.
“Alright, we can use your pulse to measure time.” I remarked and removed my fingers. Yes, I’m going to use the most primitive form of stopwatch built into our body. It can’t compare to modern timekeeping tools, but the best tool is the one you have.
“You should’ve said that earlier.” Caroline sighed in exasperation.
We took out the chairs that I brought along and placed them under the tree. Now she could observe me in relative comfort.
The next problem is distance. Highbeasts can be as fast as a speeding car, and I was probably travelling at around 100km/h during long-distance flights, based on my subjective observation. A kilometer will be passed in less than a minute at that speed. If I managed to improve the design, I would be even faster.
Whatever, I’ll just repeat what I’ve done before on a larger scale.
“Linalmesn,” I chanted and produced a tape measure like the one used by seamstresses, but being 5 meters long. I then produced a wheel with one of the grey morphing tools and adjusted its size so the circumference would fit the length of my ruler. Next, I added one protrusion to the side of the wheel, and then a gear with 20 teeth. Each time the wheel rotated in full, the protrusion would move the gear one bit. The gear had one protrusion as well, and I added a second gear with 10 teeth, which moved one bit for every rotation of the first one. Now I have the means to accurately measure 100 meters and 1 kilometer.
Bah, this wheel is even taller than me. I created a handle and mounted the wheel on the side of my one-person shumil and flew straight ahead slightly above ground, with the wheel touching the ground and rolling. I made a landmark every 100m by searing a black line on the ground, while making a double line with the distance written for every 500m. The process is repeated until I got a 5km long straight track. Delightfully, there is a large rock taller than me right at the 5km mark, a perfect finishing point.
Maintaining 2 tools and searing 50 distance markings took quite a bit of mana. I kept the morphing tool, drank a potion and sent an ordonnanz to Caroline, “Get your fingers ready on your wrist, and start counting pulses once you see a green light pillar at the direction I flew. Count until the point I pass the tree you’re sitting under. Reply me when you’re ready.” I planned to get my usual cruising speed measured first on my way back.
“OK, I’m ready.” Once I received the reply, I fired a green signal light like rott to the sky and started flying back. After passing the tree, I asked Caroline the number of pulses she got and did my calculation on a board. Apparently, I was flying at slightly above 100km/h, which isn’t bad at all.
Now here comes the real test. I flattened the head of my shumil and made the ears stand up straight, while making the body blocky, to ensure the maximum air drag without changing the overall size. I then took off while trying to reach the same speed.
The difference is immediately felt. Not only did I find it harder to accelerate, but it also burns more mana to maintain the same speed! I recalled the chapter where Angelica was training with Eckhart in the blizzard, where she struggled to stay still against the strong wind. That should be a huge clue that highbeasts are affected by aerodynamics! I wanna facepalm myself for not recalling this earlier. Since I didn’t even have to fly for more than a few hundred meters to make the conclusion, I just morphed my shumil back to the usual shape and flew back to the starting point.
Hmm, now we know that aerodynamics matter, how should I improve my highbeast? First of all, the legs must go except for landing or walking on the ground. Aircraft retract their landing gears while flying for obvious reasons. What else then? I’ve already made the shumil pretty streamlined. Should I add a ramp on the shumil head like a truck to improve airflow? But that will obstruct my vision…
Imagine Lessy with this on its head
Wait, is it even necessary to be in the shape of an animal to fly? I thought it’s a must because of the name highBEAST, but is that really true? With that in mind, I alighted from the highbeast and morphed it into a basketball, trying to manipulate it with my hand gestures.
It actually floated and flew around! Not having to be tied to the shape of an animal opens a lot of possibilities. I mean, a shumil is cute and all, but it is certainly not the most aerodynamic shape. Goodbye shumil then, you’ll be missed.
I morphed the ball into an American football big enough for me to sit in, while leaving a window cutout in front for views. A seat and my usual control resembling a car is added inside. I opened a “door” and hopped into it excitedly, eager to find out how much mana savings I can get.
“Can this even fly properly?” Caroline looked at my high “beast” incredulously.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.” I grinned and took off.
Again, the difference is clear. It’s easier to accelerate, and the mana cost at my usual cruising speed was significantly reduced. I was elated to achieve such a significant gain.
When I returned to the start, I made the highbeast grow 4 legs beneath to land. It must’ve looked really strange, as Caroline was giving me a weird look.
“How was it?” She asked wearily.
“It’s awesome! You should try it out.” I replied in excitement.
“I’m not sure if I want to fly in that…” She shook her head and mumbled.
Well, it doesn’t matter. I can definitely appreciate the improvement. Now let’s look for other ways to improve it further.
Hmm, I’ve solved the problem of aerodynamics working against me, but what if I made it work FOR me? I’ve long been a proponent of wingless highbeasts, as those aesthetic wings are simply a waste of mana if you don’t need the mental crutch. They even add more air drag, making them really useless additions. But what if I added wings that are actually functional, like those on an aircraft?
With that in mind, I started morphing the highbeast into a simple single-seat aircraft. It’s about 3 meters long, with a pair of straight wings and the standard tail “fins” attached. The major differences being it has no propeller and is equipped with a much bigger canopy window, because there’s no need to worry about structural integrity. I know almost nothing about aircraft engineering, so it should be safe to start from something tried and true?
MilaJet Mk-1 "Minijet"
Hehehe, I’m going to fly an aircraft both underage and without a license. I grinned stupidly. It drains almost twice as much mana to maintain compared to the simple American football, so it better be worthwhile.
While I was admiring my piece of work, Caroline seemed really weirded out. “Lady Mila, what is this?” She asked in an exasperated tone.
How should I answer this? A machine from a different world? Yeah, right.
“…An ancient flying magic tool design before the invention of highbeasts that I read from a book.” There’s no way out except spouting some lies. “There are several different designs that I wanted to try, so bear with me for a while.”
Caroline sighed and shook her head a bit, but didn’t inquire further.
The control was still the good old steering wheel and pedals, because I just don’t know how aircraft control works, nor tried one. I had driven my shumil this long without any issue, so I didn’t see anything wrong with it staying the same. I hopped into the cockpit and took off for a test flight.
Hey, why was I gaining altitude even when I just willed to fly straight ahead? Oh right, the wings were supposed to generate lift. I was just flying according to old habits of leaving all levitation to magic, so the lift generated was added on top of it, causing the highbeast to climb.
To actually utilize the lift, I needed to hand the vertical levitation to the lift and just use magic to stabilize the highbeast. I also wished to try disabling or at least turning down the auto-stabilization function. Stabilizing the highbeast costs mana too, so I wanted to find out the most inherently stable structure, to spend the least mana on stabilization.
Come think of it, the auto-stabilization function of the highbeast must be really effective, otherwise most first-year students would just topple and fall off their highbeasts during their first flight. Animal-shaped highbeasts should be really hard to balance in the air due to their irregular shape, compared to the car or airplane-shaped highbeast I was using.
Bah! It’s not even a “beast” now, calling it a highbeast sounds really weird. I’ll just call it a plane or an airplane from now on.
To manipulate the levitation and stabilization, I needed to separate the feelings of operating them, kinda like how I split my own coloured mana. I started with levitation first, by moving up and down vertically while not moving or turning in other directions. I then turned the airplane upside down and flew straight forward, so that the force generated by the wings pushed me down instead, forcing me to counter it with magic levitation. With these exercises, I managed to single out the levitation mechanism.
Neither manoeuvre should be possible with regular planes. I love cheating with magic, heh.
Stabilization is a bit trickier, but it’s still possible. I just need to perform some moves that would definitely destabilize the airplane, so that I can feel the exertion from stabilization. I made both wings mismatched in size and shape, flew in a zigzag line and even rolled a few times on axis. It’s quite straining, but I got the gist somehow. I cannot disable it totally, but it can be weakened.
After some practice to properly master these two mechanisms and some tests, I figured out a few properties about wing lifts that I had been unaware of:
- The greater the speed, the stronger the lift.
- Tilting the nose up results in more lift, but also more drag.
- Tilting upwards beyond a certain angle results in a rapid loss of lift, like the wings just stopped working suddenly.
The last one actually spooked me. I was experimenting with flying nose up like an airplane taking off or landing, and it suddenly lost most of the lift. Luckily, magic levitation was there to compensate. If I were flying a real plane, I might’ve crashed.
By playing around with levitation force and stabilization, I also realized a surprising truth: the formed highbeast material isn’t truly weightless! It felt so because it could be levitated and moved at will, but it definitely has its own mass even when I willed it to be of minimum weight. The proof is that each part of the plane actually has its own inertia.
Great, now I would have to take things like weight distribution and centre of gravity into account. As if forming the right design for the best aerodynamic profile isn’t complicated enough. I sighed in annoyance. It’s going to be good old trial and error again, but much more complicated than lenses and turbine blades this time.
In hindsight it should be pretty obvious, as the parked highbeasts would’ve been blown away by the slightest breeze if they’re truly weightless. The good news is that it seems to be a really light material.
To test the approximate density, I formed a chair identical to the one Caroline was sitting on, and asked her to try lifting it when I was looking the other way, so that I couldn’t influence it unintentionally when she did so. She told me that it’s less than half the weight of the hardwood chair we brought. For some unknown reason, the density decreases as I made bigger constructs out of it, as if it is partially hollow. My whole airplane construct should’ve weighed not much more than an adult male, since it was mostly hollow without the engine and other parts needed for a real aircraft.
Since I’ve already gotten the hang of how things work, it’s time for the moment of truth: will it be more efficient compared to just an American football? Can I go even faster? With questions in mind, I asked Caroline to count her pulse by doing the opposite: start when I take off, and end when I send out a light signal to the sky. With that all set, I chugged another potion and took off.
It’s a freaking game-changer! Without having to sustain the weight with magic, the mana cost completely collapsed. It more than made up for the extra mana used to maintain the shape. Since so much mana was freed up, I could put them all into speed. The result? The mana cost to fly was still significantly less than my original shumil, even when my speed was more than doubled. No one’s going to beat me in the speed-flying contest ever, bwahahaha!
As I was pushing faster and faster, I noticed a quirk that’s not immediately obvious: when my speed exceeds a certain threshold, I actually have to expend more mana to push my airplane downwards, just to counter the excess lift that overcomes the weight of my whole contraption. Otherwise, I would be continuously gaining altitude. Not a big deal though, I just had to reduce the wing size. It would even create less air drag that way.
How do real aircrafts manage to maintain their altitude when flying at different speeds? Does it have to do with those flaps and moving parts on the wings that I saw on passenger jets? I guess that’s why they always tilt their nose upwards when taking off and landing – to generate more lift at lower speed.
Wing structures on a commercial jet
As I passed the finish line and fired a green light signal to set a time record, I decided to start testing some different designs. First and foremost, I swept the wings back, making them backwards-slanting wings like those on common passenger jets.
The generated lift actually reduced! Why? I even kept the wing length the same. As I experimented further, I found that the closer I swept the wings back, the less lift was generated at the same speed… Oh. I got it. It’s probably because there’s less of the wing facing the incoming air flow? Come to think of it, folding the wings in actually makes the aircraft look narrower if viewed from the front.
Why do commercial jets use swept wings then? What’s the difference between them and those propeller aircraft that use straight or tapered wings? Is it size? Nah, smaller private jets use swept wings too. Ah, I guess it’s speed then. Those commercial jets have their cruising speed above 800km/h, while propeller planes are significantly slower. Swept wings look “sleeker” after all, so they might work better at higher speeds where airflow is stronger. Supersonic aircraft like the famous Concorde have their wings swept at such a high angle that they’re basically a pair of narrow triangles.
As I was playing with different wing sizes and angles, I arrived at our starting point again. If Caroline’s heart didn’t beat faster due to my “adventurous” flying patterns, my previous speed test clocked at around 225-250km/h. She was actually in disbelief that I managed to increase my speed by so much. Awesome, I can get to the capital in less than a quarter bell at this speed, and yet I still have plenty of room to push even further.
Now it’s time to put in the grunt work to optimize further… Wait, is this already the best form factor for my uses? Are there other viable options?