The Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart was founded in tandem with the development of "Machinart," machine magic capable of giving life and intelligence to mechanical dolls subsequently referred to as "automatons," with the goal of training skilled puppeteers to control the automatons as militaries around the world have begun to incorporate Machinart into their armies. After failing the academy's admission tests, Raishin Akabane and his humanoid automaton Yaya must defeat one of the top one hundred students in order to compete in the Evening Party, a battle for dominance between puppeteers and their automatons. The last man standing is given the title of "Wiseman" and access to the great forbidden arts.