"This is Yanagi. My squad is in position."

"Control is yours, First Lieutenant. Give them hell."

Upon the words of his commanding officer for this operation, Yanagi Muraji led his squad and charged into the building said to conduct illegal magical experimentation on children. They stormed through the defences within minutes, not allowing their targets any time to respond.

Magical experimentation is a phenomenon that is accepted by the public. By everyone turning a blind eye, that is. It is something that everybody knows is going on behind the scenes, but no one will point it out. A dirty little secret hidden away in the little trapdoor under their mat. It is a phenomenon born from the current state of the world.

After all, magic is crucial in a nation's defence. As a member of the newly formed 101 Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion, all the soldiers there are on some levels considered lab rats for magical experimentation, including Yanagi himself.

However, doing it on children is a new low.

The news of it got him and his comrades burning in fury. It was an innocent looking case at first, where someone had reported to the police that more and more children had been noticed to go missing, children who have close to no relatives left. Most of them were orphans, kids that no one will miss if they never turn up for a few days. Upon further investigation, the case turned out to be way bigger than it seems given the number of children abducted without anyone the wiser. When there were concrete evidences that magic was involved and the confirmed presence of spells which are illegal or classified for military use, the newly christened battalion Yanagi is now in was called in for their debut. The higher-ups are using this chance to test if setting up the 101 is truly worth the time and effort.

The 101's chase led them here, in this seemingly run-down building which was once a chemical processing factory. Given how the interior is newly refurbished and equipped with state-of-the-art magic equipment, it is the stronghold of the abductors.

The scene is revolting.

Children of various ages were kept in glass tanks, left on surgery tables, dissected and kept in jars, body parts strewn about with blood still dripping out of it. Even for seasoned veterans like them, they have to use every ounce of their willpower to not retch at the gory sight.

Their captives not included, the 101 hasn't found a single survivor in the fifteen minutes they have been here. Not a single one.

Leaving the captured scientists and guards to another squad, Yanagi led his squad further in and bust open a heavy door. He immediately fired a bullet at a scientist about to kill and silence the child on the surgery table. He doesn't know why the scientist deems erasing all evidence about their experimentations a priority when they could have used this time to escape, but he doesn't care right now.

"Sir! This kid is alive!"

Yanagi quickly ran over to where the child is. A boy around five years of age has his eyes shut and is lying weakly on the table.

"He is going into cardiac arrest! Get the medic!"

"No time! I am administering CPR! Move it! And get the medic to hurry!"

Yanagi shoved his Corporal aside and quickly removed his combat mask. He positioned his hands over the boy's chest and interlocked his fingers.

"One, two, three, four, five."

Yanagi began to count the number of chest compressions he did while making sure the entire time that the boy's airway is open, something easily done by tilting the boy's head backwards and making sure his mouth is open from where he lay.

"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!"

After every thirty compressions Yanagi quickly performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before going back to the chest compression. The count of every single compression got Yanagi more and more desperate. This is the only child they found alive and he will be damned if he dies on his watch!

Come on! Breathe! Open your eyes!

"Where's the medic?!"

"He's on the way, sir!" One of his men shouted as they stood by him protectively in a circle facing outwards the moment they spotted their officer giving the boy emergency treatment. The building might have been cleared, but there's no telling when unexpected enemies may pop up on the battlefield.

"Where is he?!"

The presence of Yamanaka Kousuke, the best healer the battalion has to offer, gave Yanagi a sense of relief as the experienced doctor immediately took over with his equipment in hand.

"I can only temporarily stabilise his vitals! We need to move him into our hospital asap! There's something within the boy that is interfering with the healing process!"

Yanagi's squad quickly reacted as two soldiers lifted the surgery table as a makeshift stretcher, using magic to temporarily increase their muscle strength which made their work easier. Kousuke stayed by the side of the boy the entire duration as he continues with his field treatment while Yanagi and the rest of his squad surround them in a defensive formation, moving out of the building at record speed.

Yanagi became a soldier to help defend nations and save lives. He will not allow the child to die.


"So, if I add five apples to the three apples that I already have, I would have-"

The boy gave Yanagi the most unimpressed look the young soldier had ever seen before holding up eight fingers.

"Wow, you sure are smart, aren't you?"

The boy gave him an eyeroll. For someone so small, the boy sure does have sass the size of Mt Fuji.

The boy continues to fiddle with his old phone by taking it apart before putting it back again with various tools, trying to see if he can get it to start up once more. Major Yamanaka had said that other than having an extremely high Psion count, the boy's innate magic is also powerful, almost to the point of Superpower. Usually, that would be good news.

However, this was a result brought about by horrific experimentations that Yanagi couldn't even begin to imagine. An irreversible price the boy had paid against his will. The scars on his chest and back isn't even the start of what he had been through if Major Yamanaka's assessment and what they found from the hideout are accurate.

A Human Casting Assistant Device. The HCAD project.

For modern magic, a Casting Assistant Device, or CAD in short, is just a tool. Like how ancient magicians needed spell chants, talisman, or magic staves to help them invoke their magic, modern magicians need CADs to cast their spells. A CAD is able to drastically shorten the casting time and is hence an important and compulsory tool for magicians to be able to do what they can do. Hence, there are also sayings that all you need to do to defeat a magician in combat is to take away their CAD. It is not an entirely accurate statement, since most magicians still can use magic proficiently to some extent even without their CAD. His battalion is proof of that. Every single soldier here is able to fight effectively even without their magic. Still, for most other magicians, taking away their CAD does reduce their casting speed drastically, and thereby their combat prowess.

However, what if magicians do not need a CAD? What if the magician is the CAD? There wouldn't be a need for a magician to have a magic tool because the magician is the tool itself.

It was this line of thinking that led to this horrible experimentation. It was this experimentation that led to the deaths of so many young children.

Except the boy.

The boy who has no memories whatsoever during his time there. A boy who doesn't seem to understand where he is at nor know how to speak their language, only able to understand some basic words. A boy who doesn't even know he can use magic, screaming his lungs out when he accidentally exploded a medical equipment nearby when his Psions were leaking out uncontrollably from his body. It took them a few hours to calm him down even after the sedation had worn off.

Yanagi isn't sure if it is a good thing, but the experimentation seems to be somewhat of a success for the boy. The boy's heart had stopped beating for a while on the way to the hospital and they had all thought that was the end for him. Major Yamanaka didn't give up and managed to forcefully restart the boy's heart with his Healing Magic, buying just enough time for them to get him into their battalion's hospital via helicopter. An eight-hour long surgery followed suit.

The Human CAD. That is what the soldiers in the battalion had taken to calling the boy now.

From what Major Yamanaka had found out during the surgery, there are many CAD components implanted into the boy in various parts of his body. These are state-of-the-art technology procured from all over the world, not just Japan. He would have removed them, only to realise that by doing so would probably lead to one of two consequences for the boy. Permanent disability for life, or death.

The CADs implanted into the boy is too intricately meshed with his nervous network and other body systems needed to keep him alive. It is so well-designed and connected to the boy that his body itself is able to power the CADs inside his body. With the help of magic to kickstart the process, the cells in his body had merged with the CAD components using the advancements made in biotechnology, allowing for self-repair and omitting the need for equipment maintenance. His nervous network is now part of the CAD system just as the CAD is now a part of his mental capabilities, giving the boy the ability to store a large amount of data and activation sequences. The boy is basically a walking encyclopaedia of spells, both of the common spells you see in your everyday life and the destructive ones you only use in war. He is a supercomputer, able to process and compute things faster than you can snap your finger. Privacy and data security means nothing to him as his innate ability to manipulate electrons allows him to manipulate electricity, and then in turn electromagnetism, a crucial component that allows computers to even work in the first place, granting him the power to hack into the cyberspace without anyone the wiser. All he needs is an access point to find out everything from your blood type to your bank account number.

An access point is all he needs to start learning your secrets. Like his old phone that the boy is fiddling now, for example.

The boy had learnt the Japanese language when he accidentally touches his phone when Yanagi was visiting the boy in his bed. The boy was making a speedy recovery and everyone on that mission had took turns to visit him, something that had scare the boy out of his wits initially. The boy seems fine with Yanagi and was interested in his phone, so Yanagi let him touch it.

He wasn't expecting the boy's magic to activate immediately upon contact. The boy had gone into a trance as Psions leaked from his body like a tidal wave. It was only through a forceful suppression procedure that they managed to prevent the boy from experiencing a case of severe depletion of Psions.

What surprised them was the boy learnt how to speak their language right after that. That was how they found out about the boy's magical ability, one that was gifted to him thanks to the experimentation. Whether it stays as a gift or turns to be a curse remains to be seen.

The ability to hack into cyberspace and learn from there. The ability to access and download data into his body like a cyber phantom. The boy is more like an A.I. than a human at this point given his rate of learning. For now, Major Yamanaka had documented his magic as "Archive Magic" until the boy's magic can be clarified and investigated further.

The best theory that explains his magic right now is that the boy is able to instinctually manipulate electrons, which in turn manipulates electricity. Almost everything uses electricity nowadays, which makes the boy's magic a scary one. He can explode electronic equipment at will. He can hack it. He can even use it to generate electromagnetism and severely hamper all electronics in the vicinity, making them go haywire. It is the foundation of his Archive magic, as his manipulation of electronic waves allows him to simply walk through the most secure of doors and tap into any wireless communication device. The manipulation of electrons is what allows him to use his Archive magic in the first place.

To think that the simple ability to manipulate electrons can evolve into powering magic capable of taking down most databases given time. If it wasn't for the fact that the boy is still too young to be downing the world's cybernetwork and that the amount of energy needed is too ridiculously huge in the first place (and by that Yanagi means ten nuclear power plants will be needed to even invoke his Archive magic on such a large scale), the boy might be the most powerful existence on Earth in a unique way. The power to access, utilise, and learn any information in the span of a second is a mighty tool to have.

Right now, the boy had already learnt seventeen different languages. His mind is still too young and undeveloped to be learning at the rate of a supercomputer, but that doesn't change the fact that his learning rate is supernatural. Every use of the boy's Archive magic takes a lot out of him, leaving him an exhausted mess and bedridden for days. If it wasn't for Human Right Laws, Yanagi is sure that the boy would have been whisked away for another round of experimentation by the military given how unique and valuable the boy's power are. If it wasn't for the fact that the experimentation is so inhumane with an extremely low success rate, Yanagi is sure that the military will do all they can to replicate the success of the experiment.

And isn't that a sickening thought in itself? The things one will do to achieve power? However, it is necessary. World War Three had only ended slightly more than a decade ago, the world is still turbulent. Japan needs as much firepower as it can possibly amass to defend itself should a World War Four break out.

War is not kind. Yanagi had not been in one, but he had experienced one. He was only seven when the war ended, but he learnt enough to know that it is horrible.

The boy had successfully repaired his old phone by now. The same phone that the boy had accidentally destroyed and the reason behind how the boy's powers were found out. Yanagi was laughed by his colleagues for days after that for having his phone destroyed by a single touch, by a five-year-old boy no less.

The phone is still cracked in many places, but it is able to start. Yanagi decided that the boy must have somehow downloaded information from the internet with his magic on how to properly repair a phone. There's no other explanation on how he got so good at it in a single day.

"Here." The boy said as he passed back the tattered phone to Yanagi.

"Thanks, although there's no need for it. I already bought a new one." Yanagi said as he accepted his old phone back from the boy's hands. The boy was insistent on helping to repair his busted phone, so Yanagi allowed him to have fun with it.

"You need to change your bank account password. Using your birthday is a bad idea."

"Oi! You are not supposed to know that!" Yanagi said in a loud whisper as he immediately covered the boy's mouth with a hand and looked around frantically. Thankfully, it seems that no one is around to hear it.

"The information just flows into my mind, I can't help it. And you have bad taste in porn-"

"SHHHHHHH!" Yanagi shushed the young boy before he spilled his dirty secrets out into the open. It is a bad idea to let the boy play with his phone! What was he thinking?! His comrades will skin him alive if they knew he was the reason the five-year-old boy knows what pornography is!

"I want ice-cream." The boy blackmailed with an evil grin on his face. He is banned from eating too much of the sweet stuffs by Major Yamanaka, who has a strict view on healthy living.

Yanagi's eyes narrowed. The boy sure knows how to put him in a difficult position.

"Only one."

The boy turned his head away and sucked in a deep breath in an exaggerated manner, no doubt preparing for a loud bellow that can be heard across the entire base of the 101.

"Fine! Two!"

The boy raised a single finger.

"Unlimited ice-creams for a month, or no deal."

Yanagi can feel himself gritting his teeth. Why did he save this annoying little brat in the first place?!

"Deal." Yanagi said in the most unwilling tone he had ever found himself using. It feels like he had just signed a pact with the devil itself.

"A pleasure to do business with you." The voice that the boy spoke in nearly made Yanagi lose control right on the spot as the boy took his hand and shook it in a business-like manner.

The little brat!


"Is this the right way to do so?"

Sanada Shigeru, Second Lieutenant of the 101 Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion and the main designer behind the CADs and other equipment used by the battalion, received the assembled CAD from the boy's hands. He gave the device a thorough look over and what he saw met his expectations.

"Well done, Chad." Shigeru said with a smile on his face as he patted the boy on the head, who tried to get the hand away from him to no avail. Despite his young age, Chad does not like to be treated like a child. Funnily enough, this very action encourages more of the soldiers in the battalion to coo over him, which serves to irritate the boy even further.

"You sure you don't want to pick your own name?" Shigeru asked the same question he has been asking the boy for days. The boy doesn't have a known name as far as they can find out and he has no prior memories before his rescue. Given his unique circumstances and the modifications done on his body, there is nowhere else he can go.

The Human CAD is too big an asset and a possible threat to be let go just like that. Hence, it falls upon the 101 to properly care for the child until a suitable arrangement can be made. However, they cannot keep calling the boy as "The Human CAD", or "that", or "boy", or whatever words he responded to. He is not a tool that he is made to be, but a human just like anyone else.

So the next problem after the boy's condition had stabilised is what to name the boy.

Since the Human CAD project was abbreviated as HCAD, the boy simply rearranged the alphabets and told people to call him "Chad" until a suitable name is picked for him. The soldiers here all encouraged the Chad to pick his own name, but Chad had said that he has no idea what a good name would be and had thrown the problem right back into their hands.

In the end, Major General Saeki Hiromi had decided to just name him after where their battalion is located at Tsuchiura in the old Ibaraki Prefecture. Chiura Ibuki, that would be Chad's new name if the paperwork passed without complications. There were people who pushed for naming Chad as Ibarai, but Ibarai is more commonly used as a name for females, so the final agreement for those who were interested in naming Chad somehow turned out to be Ibuki after many sporadic discussions that lasted for days.

Chiura Ibuki, written as 千浦勇吹 in kanji. If you want to take the meaning of the words separately Chi (千) would mean a thousand, ura (浦) would mean seashore, Ibu (勇) would mean brave and Ki (吹) would mean breath. It is not exactly an impressive or nice sounding name, but an ordinary enough name nonetheless.

"Too lazy to pick one." The boy yawned in reply to Shigeru's question. As of now, every major use of his Archive magic puts a strain on Chad. There is a limit to how much data he can store in his mind and how fast he can access, process, and download said data. The boy would get much better in time, but he is still not good enough at it for now.

It is also impossible for the boy to store every single known data known on the internet even if he can download them all. To put it in simpler perspective, a human brain is estimated to be able to hold about 10 terabytes to 100 terabytes of data, while the internet is estimated to hold almost 2 million terabytes of data as of recent years. Upon further investigation, the Archive magic the boy possesses seems to be an artificial magic created and implanted into the boy through the various CADs in him. There are many modifications done to his brain, and these modifications increases his mental storage capacity a few times more than an average human, but it still pales in comparison to the amount of information the world holds.

Hence, Chad merely uses his ability to access information. He only downloads them into his mind if he deems that he truly needs it. He can even delete specific information in his mind using Archive magic, something that is not yet seen among the known spells and magics in the magician community. Needless to say, this information is kept under lock-and-key due to its uniqueness.

Well, Chad's existence itself is unique and hence a highly guarded secret. A magician who doesn't need a CAD and is a CAD in itself. Chad is someone who can grow into a deadly presence due to his abilities to access and manipulate information, and also the ability to use magic without needing to hold a physical weapon.

Shigeru's personal opinion is that the military would want to keep Chad by their side and groom him to eventually be one of their soldiers. However, from a standpoint with a higher moral ground, it would be better if Chad can be raised by a loving family instead of soldiers who barely have time for him.

But what other family can keep a highly confidential secret, also well-equipped and magically strong enough to suppress Chad should his magic lose control, and not undermine the 101's hold on Chad while giving him the love and care only a family can provide?

The Ten Master Clans were the first group of people who came to mind and is also the first option to be strike out. The 101 was formed in the first place to have a magic-equipped military force independent of the Ten Master Clans, and thus they do not have a favourable impression of their battalion since it serves to undermine their existence. It is more likely they will try and get their hands on Chad for their own use should they learn of his existence.

Shigeru watches on as Chad tried to assemble the more complicated CADs and also to understand how they work without relying on Archive to get the knowledge immediately. Chad seems to have a fascination with CADs, which may be a good thing given how many of those micro CADs are implanted into his body. If Chad wants to take proper care of his body with such a unique constitution, then he will need to know how CADs work. Chad already knew quite a lot from the amount of information he learnt on his own with Archive magic but knowing them is never quite the same as applying them. Hands-on experience is always the best teacher when it comes to handling CADs.

"These CADs feel so clunky." Chad complained as he tested out some of the prototypes on display.

"Well, I haven't got around to complete and fine-tune them." Shigeru said as he walked over to the boy.

"Do you mind if I help you test them?"

"By all means."

Shigeru watched as Chad tested out various CADs by utilising some common spells most soldiers in the 101 will use. Chad doesn't seem to like the CADs very much, which is to be expected. Why use external CADs when the ones implanted into your body are so much better?

"Actually, I think the software is fine." Chad said after he finished testing most of them. "But the hardware is the problem."

"Hardware?"

"Yeah. I think the activation sequences work just fine but the way the CAD is physically designed makes it feel…" Chad pondered a short moment as he tried to find the best word to describe his experience. "Like it is lacking. Like something is lacking to make it feel like the CAD is perfect, that it is made for you. Like this one." Chad waved a Generalised CAD in front of Shigeru. "The sensation of holding it in your hands just doesn't feels like it fits."

"So it is the physical design that can be further improved on, huh?" Shigeru asked as he mentally noted it down. It is true that he has been focusing too much on the coding of activation sequences in trying to ensure the CAD casting process runs as smoothly as possible. Maybe he should spend some time on ensuring that the physical design of the CAD itself is able to best support the spells he coded into them to achieve the optimal results.

"Designing CAD looks like a lot of fun." Chad commented as he looked over the various blueprints of CADs strewn about in the room before turning back to look at Shigeru. "I think you said that I should get a Specialised CAD when I'm older?"

"It is because the CADs in your body are Generalised CADs." Shigeru said as he gave another look at the blueprints that he had drawn and discarded. Maybe he can find some new inspirations from the discarded pile. "Generalised CADs can store many types of Activation Sequences but place a larger burden on the user. The advantage Generalised CADs have is in versatility, and hence more often used by magicians capable of wielding different types of magic. You may need to wield Specialised CADs in the future since Specialised CADs has the advantage of speed, something your implanted CADs doesn't have. All you need to do is to store the activation sequences of your most commonly used spells in the Specialised CAD."

And that is why the fact that Chad is able to proficiently use the encyclopaedia of spells stored as activation sequences in his implanted CADs speaks volumes about his potential, potential that he already has even without the modifications to his body. Chad is even able to chain activation sequences after sequences without rest without limit, something that no other magician can do. This may be why Chad was a target to be kidnapped in the first place. Storing the activation sequences of spells in your CAD does not automatically mean that you can use it to its full effect. The CAD only provides the activation sequence, it is the ability of the magician himself to invoke the magic. In all honesty, Shigeru has a feeling that Chad doesn't even need the extra advantage of a Specialised CAD when he grows up. His casting speed and processing power alone is already impressive enough even with a Generalised CAD.

Although when Shigeru thinks about this further, Chad's proficiency in spells reminds him too much about the Saegusa family, which is renown for being versatile and proficient in using a wide range of different magics. Could Chad be a Saegusa?

On second thought, that shouldn't be the case. The Saegusa would have made a din if one of their own went missing.

"And I may need extra CADs just for show, since the fact that I am a living CAD is supposed to be a secret in public. Can't have them spotting me using magic without a CAD, right?"

"Bingo." Shigeru complimented the young boy who is now lying on the floor in boredom. Can't be helped, the military isn't exactly the best place to raise an impressionable child and there is nothing here that he can play. Almost everything here is off-limits to him. Furthermore, he is the only person of his age group in this huge base. It is understandable that he is bored and lonely.

"Urgh, this place is so boring and stuffy." Chad grunted out in frustration as he started to take apart a discarded CAD in an attempt to make time pass faster.

"Sorry about that, Chad." Shigeru apologised sincerely. He would have done something if he could, but as of now Chad is still too young and his existence too unique to be risked being found out.

Chad suddenly took a pause in whatever he was doing before turning to him.

"Do you think the higher-ups will agree if I ask to learn how to fight? It may make time pass faster and I will have something fun to do."

Shigeru blinked in surprise. Well, that is certainly doable, but Chad is only five.

"… I will take it up to the Major General."