A conference of eastern nations was convened to discuss major events that had occurred recently. The participants were all countries that were outside the civilized areas. Since the one proposing the conference was a "barbarian country", the superpower Parpaldia Empire and other Third Civilization countries declined to attend, calling it unnecessary and meaningless. Because of a lack of representation from the civilized countries, the participating nations talked more freely about their intentions. Normally, the discussions centered around Parpaldia, but this time, the focus was on the rise of the new country "The Unified States of Eastern Eurasia" or "Usea".

"We shall now begin the Great Eastern Conference."

Representatives from each country contributed what they knew about Usea. These were the main points of interest:

- Usea is an emerging country that suddenly appeared in the Great East. By their own claims, they were suddenly transported to this world from another one. However, there were no historical examples of this occurring, only myths and legends

- They were first encountered by a Rodenian farming nation, the Principality of Qua Toyne, when one of their wyvern riders spotted an Usean iron dragon, or plane as they called it.

- Usea requested a large amount of food as well as magic knowledge in exchange for massive infrastructure development and a military defense pact.

- The then-strongest Rodenian nation at the time, the Kingdom of Louria, declared war on Qua Toyne.

- Usea fought to defend Qua Toyne, likely because of both their defense treaty and their food imports.

- At The Great Naval Massacre of Rodenius, the Eurasian/Usean Navy sent only 8 ships but annihilated the Lourian fleet as well as a large wing of wyverns.

- In the ground war, there was a battle west of the Qua Toynian fortress town of Ejei where Usea completely annihilated Louria's attack force, using fearsome long-range explosion magic that they called "thermobaric rockets". According to Qua Toynian citizens, it was as if fire and brimstone were being poured from the heavens. Shortly after, their iron dragons attacked and destroyed the Lourian army command and their ground dragons forced the rest of the army to surrender.

- During the Parpaldian attack at the Kingdom of Fenn's Military Festival a short while ago, Usea eliminated a wyvern lord squadron and then defeated the entire Parpaldian imperial oversight fleet without causing or incurring a single casualty.

By the time this information was compiled, the absurd stories of Usea's feats were gradually becoming acknowledged as fact and not just hearsay.

"Because so many of the countries in attendance have already formed or are negotiating diplomatic ties with Usea, we believe we have established a common perception that the nation of Usea is tremendously strong."

"We would now like to confirm each country's views on the topic."

A representative from the Mao Kingdom raised his hand to speak. "My country has not opened diplomatic relations with Usea, but we believe they are a threat. It is a fact that they defeated the Kingdom of Louria. Not only that, but it was an overwhelming victory; they wiped out Louria's main forces in a single battle. We have no idea when this destructive force will be turned toward our own countries. That makes them incredibly dangerous."

"I am from the Topa Kingdom. We do not believe Usea is dangerous. If their people are not harmed, they do not seek to fight. Furthermore, books about their advanced technology are being sold in various normal bookstores all over Rodenius, and while there are restrictions on purchasing them, they did not stop anyone from browsing through the books. Simply by associating with Usea, one can easily raise their country's technology. They are even more advanced than the Parpaldia Empire."

"I represent the Sios Kingdom. We agree with the Topa Kingdom. We have not attacked Usea, and they in kind have not attacked us. In fact, they were cordial with meeting us, not treating us as beneath them despite their overwhelming technological superiority. While they do not share their more recently-developed technology, with everyone they claim, they were willing to help us develop in return for very little. As for their aggression, they seem to only retaliate when they are threatened."

"The other day, one of our diplomats was perusing an Usean bookstore in the former Kingdom of Louria and found a book called 'The History of Weapons.' I would like to submit it for reference. In it, there are detailed descriptions of the 'flintlock musket' that is a cutting-edge weapon in the Parpaldia Empire. The book claimed that it was developed three hundred and fifty years ago in Usea's world and is considered an antique by Useans. While I do not know the structure of Usea's military force, if we only look at technology, they must be terribly advanced to consider superpower weapons to be antiques."

The talks continued.

The main conclusions of the conference were:

- Do not be hostile with Usea, form friendly relations if possible.

- Watch the Parpaldia Empire carefully as circumstances develop.

Usea, Ukraine, Uzhhorod

Usean Prisoner Camp

Special Class A Dragon Knight Reckmeyer was puzzled.

During the failed punitive strike on the Kingdom of Fenn, his wyvern was shot down and he fell into the ocean and was taken into custody by the Usean navy destroyer Vechny. Afterward, he was taken to one of the newly-arrived giant ships along with other Parpaldian soldiers who were captured with the immobilization of the fleet. Once aboard, he was taken to be interrogated. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he was the only dragon knight who had survived.

The interrogation officer wore bland clothes and just listened to him idly. Damn barbarians. He tried to promote the empire's wonderful technology and convince them how much more advanced they were than other civilized countries. Not to mention, for countries outside the civilized areas, their technology and the might of their military were unreachable, and the empire could easily defeat all of them at once. Sometimes, emerging countries did not know the ways of the world, so telling them all this could improve the way they treated him. However, the Usean interrogation officer did nothing but continued listening with a blank face. The dumb barbarian probably didn't understand the compassion he was being shown by an educated imperial elite soldier.

His attitude towards the Useans began to change as they got closer to their mainland, which had largely been a mystery due to the distance and unsafe waters, as well as Usea being closed off regarding access to their mainland. People went to Rodenius and usually, only diplomats from uncivilized nations went from there to the Usean mainland. The first surprise was when an iron dragon flew past insanely quickly some distance away from the ship, a bone-rattling BOOM following shortly after. The iron dragon was clearly far faster than the empire's wyvern lords, and would easily dispatch them if they fought. Next, they passed another ship where a pair of iron dragons were taking off from. It was a never-seen-before sight; an uncivilized country possessing a dragon carrier. The dragon carrier compounded with the iron dragon began to cause doubts in Reckmeyer. Could the empire win if they fought Usea?

When they reached land, his fears were confirmed. The city on the shore was unbelievable. It was huge and it was neatly arranged buildings as far as the eyes could see. There were some gigantic iron-and-glass towers, iron land dragons moving throughout the city, bright lights, and more iron dragons, some like the ones seen earlier, others much larger but still clearly faster than wyverns. The city was far superior to Parpaldia's capital, Esthirant. And he was told that it was just one of their smaller cities that had begun growing recently.

His opinions were completely reversed. It was definitely a civilized country, just located outside the zones. How a country like this suddenly appeared, he did not know. He could imagine Parpaldian foreign affairs officials yelling contemptuously at Usean diplomats like they would with regular countries outside of the civilized zones. In this case, the government would definitely not stay quiet about their oversight fleet being destroyed. In any case, if Parpaldia declared war on this country, they would suffer devastating losses and possibly even lose superpower status. And he knew Parpaldia would do it eventually.

"This planet is so strange…"

Professor Krasnov sighed in frustration. Apparently, magic existed in this world and was generated using a source of energy called "mana". Magic gems and tools could provide it. But the scientific basis behind it was unknown. How was it generated? How could it be detected? What was it capable of? It couldn't come from nothing, so there was some kind of logic behind it, but he didn't know. It also appeared that only some humans could make use of it, and none of the Earth humans tested so far were capable. As for the gems themselves, depending on the quality of the rune etching on it, it was more effective. As such, they started producing machine-cut gems to sell to the magic-capable countries. The stones were also found to be very explosive, about 14 times that of an equal mass block of regular TNT, so despite the Earth humans' inability to draw on the mana within, new weapons that included magic gems were in development now.

Whatever it was, this planet was very strange. It was much larger, yet retained similar characteristics, particularly strangely, the gravitational force was still 9.81 m/s2. Was the planet hollow? Atmospheric pressure was still 101 kPa, though oxygen concentration was a little higher. The length of a day was still 24 hours but one year was 365.5 days. The distance from the host star was roughly the same as with Earth. As far as satellite images could show, the vast majority of the planet was ocean, assuming magic wasn't hiding things. And there was also the presence of a wide variety of animals and humanoid races that used to only exist in fantasy stories. It was a very strange and interesting planet, he thought.