I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Magic Year 3253, June 1

This was the fifth year since the founding of the Seris Federation, and June 1 was also the Children’s Day designated by Mitia, with a nationally mandated holiday.

The backbone of the Federation’s populace had originally passed through the baptism of childhood famines and the fires of youth warfare.

They had generally formed families and raised children by now; what they had not enjoyed themselves they wanted their children to enjoy properly. So when Mitia set Children’s Day, merchants keenly sensed a business opportunity and soon turned it into a nationwide carnival.

The Times Square of the federal capital, Sera, had already been surrounded by balloons and cute decorations of all kinds.

At the noon peak of foot traffic, countless commercial posters, large and small, were taken down and replaced with a single new promotional poster.

Young parents walking with their children could not help but stop and stare, their expressions full of excitement.

“Mom, what’s on this? Why is there an uncle on it?”

The woman, patting her daughter’s little head, answered softly, “Mom doesn’t know either, but it says: ‘If birds can fly, so can we!’”

She did not know what the picture showed, but she could read the words, and that sentence gave her infinite room for imagination.

A hint of disappointment flashed across the curious girl’s big eyes as she looked up, but her gaze was soon drawn to a dark shadow far off in the sky; she shook her mother’s hand and shouted:

“Mom, mom! Look at the sky! Something’s flying!”

On the street, a middle-aged man was reading the Federal Daily while eating lunch when sudden exclamations rang out; he looked up in puzzlement.

Following their sightlines, he tilted his head back and saw, at the edge of the capital’s sky, an airborne object so massive that its size was obvious even from that great distance.

Its elliptical blue-and-white hull made it look like a giant whale swimming through the sky.

Speakers scattered around suddenly blared, and Mitia’s gentle voice came through them:

“From the budding of the first life under the water, to the giant beasts of the Stone Age, to the first time humans walked upright.”

“Humans, like children, had a strong thirst for knowledge toward all things, so we explored the seas from the land.”

“Now, we would begin the greatest exploration: from the sea to the sky! And onward to the vast starry cosmos!”

Several dark dots came from the same direction, growing larger as they approached; accompanied by tremendous roaring and trailing colorful smoke, they darted over the heads of the crowd. People could clearly see the metal-framed hulls and several huge propellers.

Countless people looked up at the steel monsters flying overhead, their mouths opening and closing unconsciously. Someone let out a shriek, and the entire city instantly erupted into an indescribable, terrifying roar of cheering.

“Hmm? A tremor? An earthquake!!!”

The wave of intense shouts fused into an earth-shattering tide. Bratt, who had been sleeping soundly in his guest room, was jolted awake; half-opening his eyes, he cast a fire-explosion spell at the wall, blasting a hole and stumbling out.

Only when he stood barefoot on the floor in his sleepwear did he finally clear his head a bit. Following the gaze of those around him, he also looked up at the sky.

With magical augmentation he could see that enormous thing clearly; his mouth involuntarily dropped open: “What the hell is that?”

“I must not be fully awake—woke up and everyone’s flying in the sky now.”

Bratt rubbed his eyes repeatedly and slapped himself twice, then looked up again. Not only had that huge behemoth not disappeared, several small dark dots had appeared around it.

“Your Highness!”

“Your Highness, are you all right!”

Several guards from the United Kingdom of Suria burst out of the hotel in a panic and surrounded Bratt, looking around tensely.

Only then did Bratt finally accept reality; he looked at the sky with a complex expression and at the passersby who had already fallen into revelry.

Ever since the agreement had been confirmed and the Kingdom had officially reached cooperation with the Seris Federation, he had been living in the federal capital for these two years.

Because he had seen things here that he had never seen before—not one or two, but so many he could not count—each one rewired his worldview and knowledge.

But this time was different.

As everyone knew, humans could not remain in the sky for long unless they had risen above human ranks to Saint or higher; otherwise they could at most hover briefly or achieve flight via flying magical beasts.

What magicians could do, ordinary people could now do too—and they did it even better than the magicians! This was, frankly, a bit magical.

The massive flying vehicle drew closer to the city and its towering bulk became increasingly apparent. Amusingly, five large, pink characters were painted on its huge hull: 儿童节快乐！(Happy Children’s Day!)

【Empress Cerys-class Airship.】

Specific technical data were unnecessary to list—one fact alone was enough: its length had reached an astonishing 550 meters, a bona fide aerial behemoth.

This was the Federation’s second prototype vessel developed for future logistics and transport.

Besides the hull’s steel structural framework, the interior housed a set of parallel magitech engines that plated a thin magical shield onto the exterior of the gas chambers, maximizing safety and preventing the kind of engine-driven catastrophe one might mock as a hellish joke in this world.

Around it hovered five smaller airships, each just over 50 meters in diameter, guarding its flanks to prevent any careless flying beasts from slamming into it.

As it passed over the city, a vast number of petals were sown from it and gathered in the air to form a petal-made path.

“Wow!!!”

The children erupted into exclamations at the sight, their eyes bright as they looked, tugging at their parents’ hands to run beneath the petals.

Clearly, this scene would linger in their memories for a long time.

The city street cleaners, who were supposed to be clearing the streets, saw their excited cheers crash like a thunderbolt; they glared angrily at the spectacle. “cnm, which byd thought of this? You sweep this mess?”

With such a huge fall of petals into the city, of course the sewer system would clog!

No, they had to depart immediately, drive after that thing, and once it landed, detain the people on board and drag them to sweep the streets!

“Ha-choo!”

Mitia rubbed her nose, feeling as if someone had been muttering about her.

She rose from her desk and walked to the window to look at the huge airship; a charming smile lifted on her face as she murmured to herself, “This should spark the kids’ curiosity about the sky, right?”

With technological development, the Seris Federation of the future would have an almost insatiable thirst for aeronautical talent, both militarily and for civilian purposes.

So, cultivation had to begin from the cradle.

Most Seris people were ordinary, and the army’s main composition was ordinary people; she had to admit a fact: ordinary people on a small scale could not defeat magicians.

So she chose another path: when poor, use tactics; when wealthy, blow them up!

Why was she vigorously developing air forces?

It was precisely so that against magicians, whether strategically or tactically, whether in large-scale battles or small skirmishes, there would be an air fleet ready at a moment’s notice.

You were individually powerful? She would raise the scale of the air force so that at the squad level one could call in air support, using large airborne gunships to loiter over designated areas and provide lighthouse-like orbital fire support—wouldn’t that solve the problem?