In my fantasy WIP, the world I am making is a world where magic (in the form of ki/chi) exists but science (alchemy) is pretty big as well. Ki is very limited to humans, only very devout can gain access to it and that's after proving their submission to the will of the Gods. So with magic all but cut off to them, humans have turned to science to power themselves. My question is, how advanced should the science be? The world is Feudal Japan based with aspects of tribal Africa and the Caribbean mixed in. I have my main character run into several people who have used alchemy to give themselves abilities. I.E. he runs to into a guy who is all but invulnerable because of a potion he took that makes his bones as hard as metal. Is something like that too advanced? Or is it fine as long I explain it properly and consistent with it?
Since it's a universe where magic exists things having magical properties should not be seen as too hard of a stretch. Presumably natural things have some sort of magical energy too and so you can explain potions with magical effects that way.
You should look into Voodoo and the a-cult. That would explain away some of the things you are trying to do.
The existence of magic in your world would make science a lot more effective--new machines and scientific laws and methods could be created that could never exist in the real world. I'm sure magic is limited--but machines that USE a bit of magic could do all sorts of incredible things. And if you're using science AND magic, there must be science behind magic--so scientists could study magic to uncover the scientific laws of science and exploit them.
Oh okay, I fess up. The Jasper-Wollensberg scale is from the studies performed by Drs. Christophe Jasper and Levina Wollensberg ca. 2341 AD. Their work has been criticized for its overly Terran biases in the assignment of weighting factors, yet it remained the principal scale for xenocultural ratings of technological advancement well into the 25th century.
I think this is something important for you to determine for yourself, as the writer. The level of advancement in science will have a big impact on the state of the world and would, I imagine, impact the story line as well. It should be wherever you want it to be in the course of your world building.
