It was Ning's 6th day of training, where he was trying to convert the content of a glass of water into a glass of wine.
The test here was for him to do the conversion without ssing up the glass itself. Liquids were notoriously hard to convert, given how flexible they were and how there was no nurical value that could be assigned to a liquid in opposition to solids which could be easily numbered.
Ning focused on the liquid and felt the energy within him grow enough that he was comfortable using it. Then, he willed the water to change into the wine he had tasted just monts earlier.
The water imdiately took on a darker shade, turning more and more purplish as Ning focused his thoughts on turning the water.
In the past few days, he had co to understand a basic aspect of the magic in this world that was sowhat similar to what he had learned in another place.
Intent. The will of an intelligent being to make sothing happen. So long as they had enough energy, they could make it work.
Ning understood this had sothing to do with the perception one got from a Soul or the Intelligence that ford when Matter and Energy were in one place. But beyond that, he knew nothing.
Still, what he knew worked, and he used it.
He willed with all his being to turn the water into wine, and it worked. The water fully turned purple, and Ning stopped.
Berraine took the glass from Ning and tasted it. A bright smile ford on her face. "Exactly how it should be," she said. "You've grown far more than I could have expected from you in just a week. With better training, you will reach a lot higher."
Ning smiled. "What's next?"
"Next?" Berraine asked. "Nothing I fear. We don't have enough Spark for any more training, and you know almost everything I can teach you."
"Oh... then we just talk?" Ning asked.
Berraine shrugged. "Oh right, the list should have been published. When do you depart?"
"In 10 days. I go through the ship in my city, City 3," Ning answered.
As the date of migration drew closer, the military finally released the list of who was going to Urelon on what ship, and Ning had gotten the ssage that he was going on the ship that was at his place of birth.
"I'm on 7, we leave 9 days from now."
"Is there a reason why they scatter the launches?" Ning asked. "I'm trying to co up with a reason, but the best I can think of is that they are trying to make sure not everyone dies catastrophically at the sa ti."
Berraine chuckled a little. "No, that's not it," she said. "It's to allow the other people to settle before more get there. It will take a while for people to go into the city, make it habitable, and live there, so if everyone reaches the place at the sa ti, it ends up being a big problem."
"Oh! That makes sense," Ning said. "Then speaking of that, why don't we just teleport directly to the other moon? Is there a reason why we don't do that?"
"There are many problems in doing that, but the main problem is the feasibility of such a task. Teleporters need a lot of Spark to just teleport from one city to another just here."
"To teleport from here to another moon, they would have to eat Spark by the mouthful. While it is possible to set people over, it just isn't that good of an idea."
"If we have that much Spark to spare, then we probably don't even have to leave in the first place, you know," Berraine added.
"Ah! I didn't realize teleporters cost so much to operate," Ning said. "Do they really have to eat so much for a single person? Can they even survive consuming Sparks by the mouthful?"
"That's just a figure of speech, but they do consu a lot of Spark. They have to if they want to be of any use, so they train their body to handle Spark to the utmost limit."
"I see. But they do beco Sparkless if they do too much, right?" Ning asked.
"Of course," Berraine said. "Teleporters and Thinkers are the people with the highest possibility of becoming Sparkless after all."
"Thinkers too? Why? Don't they just beco abnormally smart by taking a bit of Spark?" Ning asked.
"Yes," Berraine said. "It is true that Thinkers seem to require the least amount of Spark to operate, but from ti to ti, there cos a task where just logical calculations and thought process don't suffice. They need more. They need the actual answer to reveal to them, and for that to happen they need to use a trendous amount of Spark at once."
"That is when Thinkers are more likely to go Sparkless when they force themselves to imdiately co up with an answer that they otherwise could not possibly think of."
Ning was a little stunned. He had read about this before, he hadn't realized that it was this godlike.
"What sort of answers do they look for?" Ning asked.
"For example," Berraine said and handed Ning one of the oval-shaped rocks they had been practicing with. "What was this before?"
"An Egg," Ning said. That was what it had been before he had converted it to stone.
"Yes, and can you convert it back to egg?" she asked.
"No, I cannot," Ning said. There simply was no way for him to do sothing that complex, to create a source of life.
"You can't, not because it's impossible, but because its very, very difficult and you don't know how to."
"In those instances, when you know an egg is all you have to save humanity, a Thinker can take the massive amount of Spark and instantly co up with the answer that you desire."
"Using that answer, you can turn a rock into an egg," Berraine said. "Now do you see how valuable Thinkers are?"
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