After experiencing the sewage treatnt plant and its slimy inhabitant, we focused on less exciting things. Mainly, training the two students I had promised to help while studying the findings of their research. Sadly, we either had a lacking sample size in regards to the research or there simply wasn’t anything useful to find, I wasn’t sure which was the case. Maybe it was both, but only ti would tell. I’d certainly continue to have people research how traits were assigned, though ultimately it was only a side amusent. I highly doubted that the data would co in handy anyti soon, the change had happened and from now on, traits and attributes would grow organically as people aged, not be assigned due to prior life experience.
Another project I was working, and making significant progress, on was the actual cloak of Shadows. Weaving Shadows into a near-corporeal form and using the Void Crystal to stabilise them without a constant application of Darkness Magic was one thing, but I had yet to truly decide what to do with the cloth. A cloak was the obvious answer, but what exactly I could do with it, I had no idea. The best case scenario was to use the Feather from Lenore, the Crystal and the cloth together and create so sort of artefact that might allow to fly. Wings, along the lines of what I had when Lenore and I used the Raven’s Shadow, allowing to fly at least temporarily. I doubted I’d be able to make sothing that’d work for unlimited flight, but sothing that used my Astral Power? That sounded sowhat feasible.
I had made quite a few concept drawings for that item, though I was having trouble with the Wind-Magic aspect. It needed one to fly but all I had used Wind Magic for thus far was to conceal myself, be it sound or scent. Neither really mapped to flying, nor did the few tis I had tried to use Wind Magic to attack or what I had taught Sonja about the use of Wind Magic to enhance her archery. No, if I wanted an artefact that allowed to fly, I’d have to push my Wind Magic in other ways.
For that, I was now out and about, with Luna and Sonja watching nearby. Luna wanted to see what I could do, while trying to help Sonja get so insights into my experintation and Sonja, obviously, wanted to learn herself. She still didn’t have the strength to be a true archer, At the mont, she could either use an elevated location, using gravity to give the arrow additional power and her Wind Magic to improve accuracy, If she wanted to remain on that route, she’d have to get a lot stronger, so she could use a proper bow with enough power to deliver dearly arrows from afar. She might also want to look into ways to improve her eyesight, so she could actually find her targets to take aim, but that was to be considered later. The other option she had was to use a light, short bow and remain at street level, using her Wind Magic to improve the low power of her bow. In that case, she’d have to be mobile and flee, using agility and speed to stay away from Shattered and Undead, essentially employing tactics similar to those we used against the sli. For this, Strength wouldn’t be as vital as for the first option but she’d need more than she currently had.
Both options were interesting in their own right, with completely different applications of Wind Magic, especially if she could make use of what I had in mind myself, using Wind Magic to lighten my steps and speed myself up. Which is why she was watching now, trying to see what I could do. Though so far, that wasn’t all that much.
Mainly because I hadn’t actually found the right way to go about things. WIth Blood Magic, my primary enhancent magic, I could use my muscles as targets and empower them but with Wind? That wouldn’t really work, especially as I wanted to use Wind Magic to move in ways I normally couldn’t. There were no muscles that allowed to fly, I’d either need magic or that old joke about trying to hit the ground but missing. Not sothing I could use, not unless I was desperate and in need of a gamble.
What I could consider were ways to push myself forward with the wind, similar to the wind pushing leaves ahead of itself. I doubted I’d be able to actually use Wind Magic to fly directly, not without massive galeforce winds, but giving myself a push? That should work. Maybe I could even use magic to reduce air resistance, though I had a feeling that wouldn’t be too important at slow speeds but if I managed to hit higher speeds it might beco vital.
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My first problem was how to implent the effect. I could use Wind Magic to send out a breeze, pushing air away from , but that was always that, away from . The origin of the moving air was generally my hand, as I habitually used gestures to give myself a ntal frawork, but that didn’t really work when I wanted to run. I could hardly push behind to try to conjure the wind that hit in the back. So, the first step would be to get the wind moving as I wanted it to move.
That alone was significantly harder than I had expected. I had never really thought about how much I used my hands to gesture as I used my magic, from a simple swipe to conjure wind, to slow, almost hypnotic hand motions when conjuring water, my hands were almost always involved in the initial phase of my magic. It wasn’t as bad when it ca to Darkness Magic, but even there I noticed my fingers twitching and flexing.
Amusingly, the easiest way to circumvent this problem was to use a spell lasting for a longer ti. When I conjured my current concealnt cloak, I only twitched my fingers in the beginning, the movent curiously close to the motions I’d use to draw the Runes of Shadow and Concealnt, and once the spell was running, I could simply keep it going.
With that in mind, how could i go about creating a similar spell, one that allowed to move faster than normal? Pushing my own movent was the idea, so maybe the answer was to use sothing similar to the Cloak of Shadows, only that I had to take control of the air around , pulling it towards my front, only to force an opening in the middle, letting the air flow past my body on both sides before coming together in the middle, giving a further push? That sort of circular airflow sounded like sothing that might work, at least I could imagine it fairly well in my mind. Amusingly, I was fairly certain that this was essentially the way to remove air resistance, which I had originally discarded as a later project. But it sounded like it was a good first step if only to see if I could control the air around and use it to push myself.
Air pushing against my front was trivially easy to accomplish, I only needed to move and the air would push against , or rather, I’d push against the air, simply because the air was generally stationary and when running, I was not. Magical research and so simple physical training, not that it really did anything for , what more could I want?
Starting to jog, I focused on my Wind Magic, amusent bubbling up in when I felt Titanic Ambition kick in, boosting my attributes quite a bit. I could feel myself pushing against the air and while the resistance wasn’t major, it was there. Easily perceivable and, thanks to my Wind Magic, easily manipulated. Creating magical effects was a lot easier when they originated close to your body, so my first step was to essentially create a plough of air, parting the air before as I passed. It took a few tries, but it wasn’t anything seriously complicated, if anything it was amusingly similar to a few of my attempts to attack using Wind Magic. Only, instead of trying to use wind to slice through a target, I was using Wind to slice through the air. A lot easier, even if it was a little challenging to keep it synched with my body.
The next step was to keep the air I was pushing aside moving around , so it wouldn’t simply dissipate into my surroundings but instead et up again, behind . If I could make things work, the two air currents would clash and at that point, I’d have an overpressure behind , one that had to try and escape into all directions. If it moved in one of those directions, naly in my direction, it would push forward, hopefully increasing my speed as I kept running.
Amusingly, that worked out a little better than expected, especially when I realised that quite a bit of the concepts I was using were the sa ideas I had taught to Sonja in an effort to improve the power of her arrows. Only, instead of launching a projectile, I was the projectile.
Once that idea settled into my mind, things sped up a great deal, allowing to get the basic version down and gain two points in Wind Magic for my efforts, bringing the skill to twenty-seven. It was coming along nicely.
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