Orianna and the Shrinking Charm

Ye Ting held the kitten as he sat half-reclined on the soft bed, reading a book while his thoughts wandered.

It had been eleven years in the blink of an eye since he came to this world. He had gone from an utterly ordinary mortal to a wizard just beginning to explore magic. The doors to mystery were about to open before him in earnest.

Starting tomorrow, he would be able to study the mysteries of magic within this castle and explore the truth of the world.

Even with the soul of an adult, he was still too excited to fall asleep.

Only after all three of his roommates had fallen asleep did Ye Ting climb out of bed and walk over to the fireplace.

Himari curiously followed him. She too remembered that her master's monthly "summoning" was about to begin.

This was an ability Ye Ting had awakened when he was six. As his perception of space and time continued to improve, he would often feel a flutter in his heart.

Then, at the age of six, he finally gained enough mental strength to follow that feeling, connect with other worlds, and perform summons.

However, most of the time, his summons yielded nothing. The occasional items he did summon were ordinary things with nothing special about them, such as food, sand and stones, and daily necessities.

Fortunately, he would sometimes obtain "specialties" from other worlds. Some of those specialties even possessed unique powers. Doran's Ring and the Konoha Forehead Protector were examples of this, though most specialties went no further than that. Summoning Himari had been purely an outrageous stroke of luck.

And this time, his luck had come again.

A silent rift opened in the void and, as expected, spat out something large.

It was a metal sphere in a steampunk style, roughly one meter in diameter. It landed on the floor with a dull thud and looked quite heavy.

He reached out to touch it, but before he could react, the sphere opened on its own.

Like a lotus blooming from its bud, the sphere's shell unfolded neatly, revealing everything it had held within.

Curled up inside was a beautiful girl whose entire body was made of springs and gears. She had golden hair and a silvery-white shell—or perhaps skin?

A huge winding key was embedded in the girl's back.

There was no need to read the information transmitted by the summoning. From her appearance alone, Ye Ting could tell who she was.

Valoran, the Clockwork Automaton, Orianna.

Riot Games had offered two explanations for the origins of the Clockwork Automaton Orianna.

According to the first, the Clockwork Automaton's creator had built this robot in the image of his daughter Orianna after she died in an accident.

In the second account, Orianna had once been a girl of flesh and blood. However, an accident in Zaun's undercity indirectly left her gravely ill. Her steadily failing body had to be replaced with precise artificial organs, one after another, until no human flesh remained anywhere on her body.

Orianna herself was skilled in precision mechanical engineering. Her mechanical heart and spherical automaton had both been made by her own hands. And judging by the nature of Valoran's so-called scientists, their "science" was not the same as Earth's science at all. It was a form of magitech unique to Valoran.

In other words, Orianna's mastery of "precision mechanical engineering" also included some of Valoran's magical knowledge.

A collision between Valoran's magic and the magic of the Harry Potter world? That was certainly an interesting idea, but the priority was to figure out Orianna's condition.

But how was he supposed to "awaken"—or rather, activate—the mechanical girl before him?

Ye Ting studied her for quite a while before finally coming up with the most obvious solution—wind her up.

What else could the conspicuous, enormous winding key on Orianna's back be for?

Perhaps it could also serve as Orianna's starter.

He walked behind the Clockwork Automaton and tried turning her winding key.

Turning it was even easier than he had imagined. Ye Ting only needed to apply a little force to move it. Springs and gears clicked as the shaft rotated, but the sound soon quieted, as though a machine that had been unused for a long time had shaken off its initial stiffness after restarting and begun to run smoothly. Only the sensation in his hand as he turned the key constantly reminded Ye Ting that the thing before him was a mechanical creation.

Ye Ting turned the key counterclockwise about three and a half times before it reached its limit. Once he released it, it began to rotate clockwise at a slow, steady pace. Following that rhythm, Ye Ting felt a tremor in his soul—one soul was awakening within the mechanical body before him and forming a contract-like connection with his own soul. He had experienced the same feeling when he summoned Himari.

This was probably the contract his summoning spell formed between a summoned creature and its summoner after the creature was summoned.

He could feel that he held control over the contract. Orianna's and Himari's souls held no secrets from him.

As the winding key continued to turn, the patterns across Orianna's mechanical shell began to glow with magical light.

Ye Ting glanced at his three roommates. They had not been awakened.

After several dozen seconds, the glow gradually faded. Then Orianna suddenly opened her eyes. Those crystal-like—no, crystal-made—pupils emitted a faint golden light.

She sat curled up on the floor, her little face hidden behind her knees, revealing only her sparkling eyes as she watched Ye Ting. There was a liveliness in her gaze that no machine should have possessed.