"Kouryakubon" wo Kushi Suru Saikyou no Mahoutsukai - Vol. 4 Ch. 16

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@Vincentius TL:DR
People are both inquisitive and always looking to make things better for themselves. If they live within their means they'll probably be easily bored and looking for something to do once they have done what they need to in order for their continued survival. They will try to figure out how the things around them work and use that to make their own lives easier. This leads to technology being invented and society progressing forward regardless of what other things exist around them.
The creation of one technology did not negate the advancement of another more "outdated" one. Take for example the bow and the crossbow. Sure, crossbows have only been around for like the past 3000 years and bows existed long before the invention of the crossbow but that didnt mean people stopped using crossbows. In a lot of cases a bow was preferable to a crossbow, it's why the English longbows became so famous even though crossbows were widely used at that point. War bows took a lot of time to train with compared to a war crossbow which is why they were used. The Cannon and later hand cannon were not developed to replace the crossbow or bow and it took centuries after the creation. The earliest firearm that you could consider even remotely close to how muskets work is the matchlock. And the matchlock wasn't seen as a long range weapon such as a bow or crossbow, more of a close range weapon that would let the user, more often than not, puncture even the most sturdy plate armours at the time, something bows and crossbows had trouble with.

The reason I bring all that up is because it isnt like playing something like civ where you need to unlock previous technologies. If your bows and crossbows cant pierce armour then you either make better ones or if something with promise comes along (such at black powder) you can make an entirely new weapon to deal with your problem. Now if you apply that to a world where magic exists, if in war people come up with more and more ways to defend effectively against magic then it would make sense that both stronger magic and alternative (possibly more effective) ways to wage war would come about. If that fireball you can throw is easily blocked or deflected by who ever you're fighting, why not try to hit them really, really hard with something (which might evolve into hitting them with swords, axes and any other melee weapon you can think of) or throw something really, really hard (then they'd probably figure out how to throw stuff really, really hard, such as slingshots, bows, crossbows and eventually guns). Once those ideas form people will realize that such tools are helpful in not just fighting as well, and if a tool can do it why learn how to use magic when using the tool could just be as effective if not more so.

You'll still have people trying to figure out how the world works so the sciences will develop, technology will develop on both the knowledge the scientists discover as well as the natural tendency of humans to make stuff easier and easier, since why waste magic power (thus your energy) on something when you could develop a way to do it with very little input like the time people made water wheels or windmills to help make flour. This is all assuming everyone can even use magic in the first place, let alone if they can all use it equally well as each other and as @twinklecake said that they've spent the time and effort into being able to use it. That's another thing technology has done, it allows people to live equal lives regardless of physical capability. You would assume that should a society be allowed to progress for 50000 years the people of that nation would move to make life easier for themselves, allowing them to start to specialize (like how most modern society works) and that even without the magic the technology developed would be stuff we today could never imagine as being possible.
 
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@Vincentius Yeah, you're only describing one specific version of how magic works.

Also, even just mundane muscle training has a shitton of technology and science that goes into it, so even the most simplistic and instinctive spellcasting rules would have increasingly intricate ways to train and utilize them as you move forward through history.
 
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50000 years old empire. I guess that's fantasy world for you.

@Vincentius Magic is simply another set of laws - this time supernatural, rather than natural - which people would need to figure out. Fire, electricity, and so on - magic would be the same. Humans discovered effects of electricity in ancient egypt. But it took thosuands of years to build what we can do with it now.

In a world with mana and magic, magical effects those would be scrutinized, codified, optimized, turned into disciplines, automated, and then converted into some sort of "magicraft", which will be another technology. And that is pretty much inevitable.

However, there are scenarios where this would not occur. And that's when gods are involved.
A will of god or gods can stall civilization indefinitely on a specific technological stage, because gods are omnipotent or at least nigh-omnipotent.
Likewise, if magic works because gods will it, then gods can forbid specific applications of it.

And only in those kinds of scenarios a civilization can get stuck without advancing. Not because magic makes life easy. But because gods prevent ascent to the next civilization stage.

This was turned into a plot device in some book. Basically as soon as some civilization becomes sufficiently technologically advanced, an army of nigh-indestructible angels descends from the sky, and wipes it out. Thus the world remains unchanged.
 
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@DeathDonut
I would like to point out the chance that their calendar isn’t set up the same as ours and that their planets orbit around the sun is different thus changing the meaning of “year”. It is unlikely that the author had thoughts about this so I do agree with what you said
 
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That princess sure is shiny.

Also it's not really a "shock". Aren't loyalists those who support the nobility? So prince being in charge of "loyalists" is perfectly logical.
 
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What, I guess next chapter will explain how he knows that the prince is the leader of the thief group.
 
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@Vincentius As others have already elaborated upon before, you're making arguments that have no substantive value; you're taking "what if" scenarios about a completely fictional and broad concept [magic] and using assumptions as fact to support a leap in logic [that greater innate ability leads to the perpetual stagnation of human society]. I don't think you understand that though, so let's break it down:

Fundamentally what we are debating is the nature of humanity and whether humans would continue to improve past a "pseudo-medieval" society with the existence of "magic", a completely undefined and nebulous termed that we are loosely using to describe "anything humans can't do currently". Basically, by using magic to do things like cast fireball or whatever, we negate the need for post-medieval technologies for the rest of time. Your arguments don't hold water here because they rely completely on hasty generalizations that twist facts for the purposes of making your argument right. For example:
"If we can fly with wind magic, why would we build an airplane? "
"Maybe because we want multiple people to fly at the same time."
"Magic can do that."
"But we have to take into account the age and status of passengers, general comfort, etc."
"Magic can do that."
"There's also safety concerns, distance, and-"
"Magic can do that."
And so on.

Magic has no inherent definition in your argument, so you are basically saying anything that supports your argument. It's a completely invalid way to prove your point. You have no substantive way to support your claim other than a bunch of fantasy manga that utilize a medieval fantasy background. In essence, fiction.

On the other hand, as others have elaborated, we are using the literal history of humanity as evidence that humanity does *not* stagnate and would continue to innovate and create new technologies even with the existence of magic. Our reasoning does not rely on the specifics of magic but on humans themselves, which exist in the real world and therefor have defined characteristics. Humans have never stopped improving our tools and methods to make life easier. Through internal stimuli (i.e. talent, desire to learn, etc.) and external stimuli (i.e. war, competition, etc.) humans created a huge number inventions and innovations that led to today's society. The existence of magic does not in and of itself negate any of these factors. Your argument that the additional ease of life obtained by magic would leave us in a stagnated state is unsubstantiated.
 
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That princess is hot!!!
Also looks like the prince has some hot assistants in that last panel.
 
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@Thunderbrownie "I would like to point out the chance that their calendar isn’t set up the same as ours”.

That is true, but normally if a world has humans and resembles medieval times, authors would use a year that is roughly as long as earth year. This way it is easier for people to relate to ages and time spans. So it would mean you'll still have civilization's age in ballpark of 40..60 thousand earth years. That's a lot. We do not know of any human civilziation that exxisted that long on Earth. The oldest civilization with continuously recorded history is chinese one, and it is 3500 years old.

The oldest known Civilization existed roughly 5500 years ago. Those were sumerians, their Mesopotamian civilization existed since 3500 BC till 500 BC, meaning they lasted 3000 years.

Honestly, very old civilizations beyond earth timespans is an intersting topic to explore, and they make me think about Lovecraft. It is a pity that in this case the author likely just threw a random big number.
 
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@Manga-Titan You finding this manga hard to follow bud? I mean the core concept is that he has a magic book that tells him anything he needs to know so of course it is completely out of the realm of possibility that he would know the Prince secretly the leader of a thief group.
 
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This relationship that the sorcerer has, it was quite disappointing how it started and the outcome
 

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