Blade Over Magic

In Theory II

After getting rid of the ice, Curtis sat in the corner experimenting with the changes brought about to his mana by the diamond. Since he couldn’t go out to train, the process wouldn’t be as fast as he wanted, but he would make do.

As such, while this happened, Xander was able to shift his attention to Aubrey who, while outwardly calm, was barely restraining her excitement.

One might think that watching your friend nearly freeze themselves to death inside out would be discouraging, but the benefits made the fear inconsequential. As such, Xander smiled.

At this point, the spectators looked on with undisguised interest. It was like watching a lecturer do his work as Xander sat down cross legged with Aubrey.

Xander took a moment to gather his thoughts. After all, unlike Curtis and Falael, whose paths of progression mimicked scientific theories back on earth, Aubrey’s abilities fell around perception, and perception wasn’t really a tangible thing like thermodynamics and fission, so it took him a sizeable amount of time to figure out a way for her own path, but he finally got something he believed would work.

Taking a breath, he turned to her with a smile.

”Alright, your turn.” Aubrey returned the smile and waited, her eyes blazing with determination.

Xander began.

”Your perception magic has always relied on the ’net’ over your eyes. You change the size of the mesh to capture different waves. Basically the thing I taught you early on.” Aubrey nodded at that.

”Yeah. Granted, it’s exhausting to constantly swap between them. It’s a constant trade-off depending on which form of vision I want to use.” She said with a small frown. Even after months of practice, Aubrey wasn’t able to use the different visions in conjunction with each other. When she tried, the meshes just broke apart, so she settled for increasing how fast she could swap between them. But as she said, it’s a tiring process.

”That’s because you’re still looking at the universe as a series of separate visual pictures.” Upon saying this, Xander, who had clearly been prepared, took out a piece of paper and started to draw on it, drawing a straight line with a dot in the center.

”Here’s a question. When you look at a rock in infrared, it looks green or blue due to its temperature. In normal vision, it looks grey. With resonance, you feel its vibrations. Now, are those three different rocks?” Hearing this, Aubrey shook her head.

”No. It’s the same rock.” Xander nodded.

”That’s right. The rock doesn’t change. It’s constantly displaying its existence to the world in multiple languages at the same time. The temperature, color, weight, sound, those aren’t separate things. They are just the words the universe uses go describe that rock. All of those words float together to in a massive...” Xander deliberated for a moment, ten continued. ”A massive, invisible river of information that surrounds us at all times.” As soon as he said that, Mia’s eyes suddenly snapped towards him.

No one noticed except her, but the term ’river of information’ clearly stirred something within her.

”An invisible river...” Aubrey’s brows furrowed, and Xander scratched his head sheepishly.

”Think of it like a grand tapestry, or a book. I’m mostly using analogies here.” He chuckled, unaware of the stir he caused in Mia. Then he continued.

”Right now, your magic is only looking at the color of the ink on the page. What i want is for your mana pool to start reading the story.” He tapped the dot on the line.

”If possible, I don’t want you to build a net over your eyes anymore. Rather, i want you to make your mana pool take a shape that doesn’t just try to capture light in its different forms, but everything. A shape that matches the background noise of the world itself. If you can do this, the ’river’ will flow right through it, and you will be able to ’read’ all the information it carries.” When he finished, Aubrey stared at him, then she coughed.

”This sounds far more complicated than what Curtis and Falael needed to do...” She scratched her head and sighed. ”If I succeed, what will I even see?” Hearing that, Xander rubbed his chin.

”If it works, then you won’t just ’see’. You will be aware. If a creature enters your range, you won’t just see its physical body or heat signature. You’ll know the weight, speed, structure, weaknesses, the trajectory of its movement, and more. You’ll be accessing the raw data of the creature itself.” The room was silent.

Then Xander added helpfully.

”In theory.” Aubrey groaned.

”That’s fine and all, but how exactly do I DO that? I don’t exactly have a frame of reference to replicate what you are describing, let alone make a permanent structure in my mana pool. In the first place, perception is a sense, not an affinity, how do i pull off something like that with my mana?” She pointed out the issues with the approach without hesitation, and Xander grinned.

”Simple, we cheat.” That made Aubrey blink.

”... Cheat?” Expecting her confusion, Xander explained.

”Imagine your three main forms of perception are three different maps to a bunker. One shows the surface roads, another shows the underground mana lines, and the third shows the vibrations in the earth. Individually, you just see lines, but if you take the transparent maps and stack them on each other, the exact point where the roads, magic, and vibrations all cross paths reveal the bunker. You don’t need to look through the earth, the intersecting point does it for you.

I want you to construct the three spells inside your mana pool and let them interact to achieve this effect.” Aubrey blinked, then frowned.

”But if that happens, they are gonna clash and create ’noise’. I can’t process what gets shown as a result. Also it’s mentally exhausting.” Xander nodded.

”What I want isn’t for you to read that, but look for the point where the spells cancel each other out. When you find that point, I want you to compress your mana around it.” After everything Xander said, that part sounded... remarkably simple. So much so that the prior explanations sounded pointless, but Aubrey understood that it was to open up her mind to allow for her to accomplish the task easier.

”So, do you understand?” Xander asked, and Aubrey nodded slowly.

”I think so?” This made Xander let out a relieved sigh.

”Good. Phew, I should start charging y’all a consultation fee for this stuff.” He joked, and Aubrey rolled her eyes.

”You’re the one who volunteered.” She grumbled, then took a deep breath to calm her mental state. After calming down, she closed her eyes.

Soon enough, her mana pool was reflected in her mind’s eye, and after a moment of hesitation, she exhaled.

”Here I go.” And with that, she replicated the framework for Oversight, Source Watch. And Resonance Mapping in her mana pool, and she forced them together.

As soon as she did, her head buzzed, and blood immediately dripped from her nose.

’... Ow.’ Her brows twitched. It wasn’t very painful, not yet anyway. This degree of pain was akin to when she spread the range of her perception above normal and tried to focus on every minute detail. Difficult and uncomfortable, but manageable.

But she knew it was about to get worse.

She observed the chaos that was the three spells interacting with each other for a moment, grimaced, and started looked for the intersecting point Xander described.

It was difficult due to the chaos, but also relatively simple. After all, the spells were still connected to her, meaning their effects were still in place. As such, while she couldn’t make sense of any of the information they provided, she could still feel through them.

And soon, she felt the area where they interacted. Unlike the chaos of the three spells clashing, this place was oddly... empty.

It was hard to describe, but Aubrey felt like it was a point of convergence, where everything was, but also a place of absence, where nothing was. It didn’t really make sense, but as she observed it, she got increasingly nervous. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she dived in, moving on nothing but Xander’s words

But that was enough.

Taking a breath, she delved in.

As soon as she did, she found herself in a strange place.

She blinked, or at least, she tried to, and she looked down, realizing that her body was floating in this strange place. She couldn’t make sense of where she was, but also wasn’t. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she was at the edge of ’somewhere’. Yet when she tried to comprehend it, she had the feeling that doing so would destroy her, so she didn’t.

Rather, after a moment of hesitation, she grasped the mana in her mana pool, and she pulled it in as per Xander’s instructions.

What followed was difficult to describe.