Mind over Matter was an interesting ability. Its most basic and obvious function was to give telekinetic control over anything within a tre of myself, though the acceleration I could impart was fairly limited. It was difficult to estimate, but after a few simple experints, I thought it was roughly one and a half tis as strong as gravity. aning I could lift things at about half the speed they would have when falling down, as I needed to overco gravity’s pull first. That part was sowhat boring, though there were so fascinating possibilities, as it wasn’t limited by a bootstrap-paradox as my other magic was.
In other words, I would be able to use my telekineses to pull myself out of a swamp by my own bootstraps or levitate an object I was standing on, at least if the object wasn’t too big. In regards to size, once an object left the one-tre radius, my control deteriorated until it suddenly faded completely, making think that I needed to keep the object’s centre of mass within my radius of control. A few quick tests confird that hypothesis, giving a little more to work with, though I quickly realised that controlling macroscopic objects wasn’t the best use of the ability, it worked best in the other direction as it was only limited by my mind.
That discovery ca when I began to wonder what the definition of an object was, only to realise that my ability wasn’t ‘Mind over Object’, it was ‘Mind over Matter’, making the question of what objects I could control irrelevant. It was entirely a question of focus and perception, aning as long as I could narrow down my focus, I could pull two parts of an object in two different directions, neatly separating it with a fine, smooth line.
Telekinetically cutting through objects was a lot harder than I would have thought as I needed to focus on the object’s internal structure, not just the outside, unless I wanted to slowly pull parts away from the surface, carving my way through the object bit by bit, but the possible ways to use the ability were already looking incredibly promising. It would take ti and effort to master it, as it took a sizable amount of focus and magic at the mont, but if I managed, I could see it as one of the strongest abilities possible. After all, magic and non-physical forces were the domain of my magic and now, I could use my Mind over Matter to give mastery over all physical matter, giving protection from all physical threats. At the end of the day, what couldn’t touch couldn’t hurt .
Sadly, while a part of wanted nothing but to play around with the new trick so more, exhaustion was making itself known and soon, I realised, dawn would co and make my position on my tower sowhat uncomfortable, if only due to reflections. Maybe polishing the top of my tower to a mirror finish and shine had been a dumb idea, even if it looked pretty.
Down in the tower, I made myself comfortable and started to look inward, trying to get a better idea about the process of finding my breath and wings. It might be so sort of physical transformation, at least for the wings, or maybe so magical trick I needed to figure out to make the breath, though I was sowhat at a loss about where to start, especially with the wings. Well, unless I managed to find an old can of RedBull or sothing like that. I highly doubted it would work, but at the sa ti, it might be the kind of thing the system would do, simply because it would be amusing to so strange, higher power.
So, instead of flailing around with Blood Magic and trying to sohow give wings, however those would look like, I decided to focus on the breath and how I wanted it to work in both form and function.
The obvious clue ca from the vision I experienced and the images it contained. A combination of Ice and Darkness, combined into a breath that wasn’t just cold, but that was actively devouring the heat from its environnt, making it even colder. Maybe, if I studied the interaction between the concept of Heat, its removal via the concept of Devour and, lastly, how that could lead to the concept of Stillness, I might be able to create a breath attack that was more than cold, one that literally froze everything it touched in a conceptual stillness, making it as if ti itself had frozen for them.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
I doubted that I would be able to actively influence ti like that, at least not easily, but there was a distinct difference between freezing sobody or sothing to a point where ti didn’t pass for them and making it so ti actually didn’t pass. Sure, it was a distinction more important to an outside observer, but it was an important one, at least when dealing with concepts.
Thinking back to my magical work on Mundus, I rembered the fla I had created there, the Ice Magic construct that actively froze the world around it. Opening my hand, and thinking of that cold fla, I tried to conjure it, only to find my efforts sowhat stifled. I rembered how the fla had looked but when I tried to recreate it, I realised that the Astral River here on Terra was subtly different, making a direct recreation difficult, maybe even impossible. What I needed to do was recreate the result, though the process to get there had to be different from what I used on Munus. Not really a problem, reshaping the process would allow to incorporate the various new affinities and magical abilities I had learned, but it would take ti, as everything did.
After a few hours of experintation, relaxation and sleep, I decided that it was ti to catch up with the others. Show them my new trick and maybe ask if one of them had an idea how to utilise it best. While neither Luna nor Lia had the sa breadth of experience when it ca to magic, both of them had their own strengths and perspectives, giving sothing else to think about. Additionally, there was no telling what Luna might have learned from Lady Hecate, who was an entity worthy of my respect.
Not solely because She was a deity but because She was an incredibly experienced spellweaver and an excellent teacher. Maybe Her divine domain or portfolio helped to make Her the masterful spellcaster She was or it was the other way around and She was only a deity because of her mastery over the Arcane Path. Both were viable options and, amusingly, it hardly mattered which one was true. At the end of the night, Her mastery over the arcane arts was incredible and I could only hope to match Her so day. Maybe surpass Her in a few specific areas but those were dreams for the future. The far future, most likely, but dreams nonetheless. Once I revived Sigmir, I would have sothing else to focus on and obsess over.
Finding Lia and Alex was, as so often, trivially easy. I only had to follow the strange scents and the occasional bang from one of their experints and there they were. Granted, now that we had dedicated laboratories that was even easier, but the scent gave it away every ti.
To my amusent, it wasn’t only the two of them, for once, Luna and Silva were inside, too, both of them looking fairly irate at our mad-alchemy pair. It only took a mont to realise just why they were angry, it looked very much as if so of the gunk Alex had used to overwhelm the shield generator in the Foothold splashed onto Silva, causing so complications with her fur, despite their best efforts to get it out right afterwards.
Now, Silva’s normally pristine coat, which she took quite a bit of pride in and which she had Luna or myself brush and wash regularly, wasn’t quite as pristine any longer. Now, nurous tufts of hair were stuck together, giving her a look faintly resembling a plucked chicken, with spots of skin showing where the fur had been pulled away. To make matters worse, the fur still there was now a sickly, almost neon-green colour, making her look awful.
Quickly pushing away my amusent, knowing that neither Luna nor Silva were currently able to see the humour in the situation, I stepped up, offering my help, even if I wasn’t quite sure how I might be able to. Alchemy was, as I had long since realised, an entirely different field compared to my magic, based on the Astral River as it was. Still, what I could do was conjure water and train the precision of my newly discovered Mind over Matter skill, giving it an incredible workout. Who would have expected that the first, sowhat serious, use of an ability that powerful was to clean the gunk out of my canine companion’s fur?
User Comments
0 comments from readers