Chapter 55

 

The Night of day 11, or early morning of day 12

Dream state through use of the Demon box;

I check my gear. Everything is there, though there still isn’t much.

I managed to swipe a gnome weapon during the fighting earlier from someone who died in the earlier battle. It’s actually a dwarven war hammer, I discover upon inspection. Of course I hadn’t gotten a chance to look at it until now. It’s made from hand forged metal and made well, but not like the metalwork from our world. I find it interesting to check out what the weapons look like from this age, since it’s about the same as living in a medieval era.

But it’s easy for me to take things for granted. I’m so used to the pretty and sleek architecturally machined designs of our world if I’m not careful I can overlook good quality in this world. This thing was made with a lot of care and attention to detail. If I’m not mistaken it doesn’t have any particular special abilities to it, but it’s made well and beautiful.

The dwarven hammer’s shaft is mostly wood but with some metal hinges and side paneling reinforcement with some kind of primitive screws that connect the head to the shaft and run down the length, with a pointed stabbing end extension that can be used crowning the top. Mostly it’s swung with the blunt edge. Unlike a design from earth it has the shaft made to be thicker, with a metal hand guard so it can be used to parry against swords without fear of losing one’s fingers or hands.

It’s scored with markings all over it, showing that while in good condition. It’s seen some real fighting, service and not a new weapon. Interestingly enough by studying the metalwork I could tell it was made in a real blacksmith’s forge, not in a factory like earth tools might look. That was fascinating. I wanted to learn more about metalwork, but now wasn’t a good time.

But the acquired weapon not being brand new and scratched up, actually made it more interesting to me. Having proven itself in a few fights meant that it was solid. I guess that was the version of product inspection. If there would have been defects or if it had been made poorly then it would have broken in fighting.

After seeing me use my fireman’s axe, and seeing it in action, the gnomes insisted on giving the dwarven war hammer to me after the battle ended. But it was the only thing they’d given and very few of the others got anything. They made everyone else give stuff back, except they had given Akira one of their metal bucklers to use almost like a wrist guard, since it didn’t fit him properly. Yumi was given a dwarven war hammer like mine which she carried everywhere. This time they didn’t say she had to give it back, since she’d saved some of them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Vira was given something also.

It was strange that they would not give weapons to others, but would give dwarven weapons to those that had shown their worth. It also seemed like an irony that they’d insist on giving it to me only after I had another weapon that was just as good.

Or was it really a bribe for staying quiet about their lieutenant not really being a hero?

Hero of the Booze was more like it?

Or was it also related to their pride that if they saw someone had something metal forged they wanted that person to see the greatness of the Dwarven Kingdom? I find that confusing too because the gnomes always insist they aren’t dwarves but clearly have some connection to said kingdom, which was another type of strange perplexity. I’m tired of their mixed signals. Are they doing that intentionally?

Also about that sham hero…I shook my head sadly. To think they’d stoop so low.

The dwarves weren’t like that right? So far it just seemed like the gnomes…

With care I take out oil and some worn out rags and begin to clean it that we’d acquired through our gnome suppliers. I was inside the dream state now deciding my next moves and training while I went over and did my maintenance. We had to make sure the spider guts didn’t stay on the weapons long since they had corrosive parts where they stored their acid sac organs according to some of the others.

This time efficiency thing was interesting.

I fought to get just this one item. I’d take good care of it. But it wasn’t enough. I needed to find other things I could use and integrate into accumulating supplies.

But I digress.

I first spent a good two hours going through the mana cultivation exercises and then another hour going through the sand spin exercise. By then I was really tired. That wasn’t good enough; I need to push my limits further.

Something else had bothered me too…

Thinking back what had caused me to get shocked? I still didn’t have an answer for that. It wasn’t a new element discovery, but rather something had gone wrong when I’d tried to execute the process of starting mana.

But more than anything I was really curious about the paladin light.

Would I be able to duplicate it now that I’d tried to use it in a cheaty sort of way?

If I could then such a power would become mine. It was a thrilling type of feeling. And hadn’t I already half duplicated it already by artificially feeding mana into the unconscious paladin girl?

My ambition was ticking inside me like a bomb with a timer. I wanted to get this worked out.

Using a stick in the dirt I tried to draw out everything that I’d seen and heard about how Vira had used it. Then I was also drawing out what it felt like to try to regulate its mana flow. It I could figure out how to make the same ignition spark then I’m sure I’d manage something.

But would it be the same spell or something else with how it ended up if I got anything at all?

At first while going through it, I failed. I had tried to make sure I accounted for everything on how it worked, but still it failed. What was missing?

I could only reason that something had been missed in the process. Not only had a failed but I’d not achieved an ignited mana spark.

I went back to check my dirt carving notes while biting my lip from the anguish of having no real paper to use. Of course I wished I really had paper but the gnomes didn’t have any that they could spare. Apparently paper is a rare commodity and pretty expensive in this world. They won’t waste a drop of it it seems. While I’d recently discovered they had paper I hadn’t realized an empty journal or empty book for notes or research keeping costs more than many types of weapons would, since it’s such a time intensive activity to pay a craftsman to make.

With no progress I was very discouraged.

So I went back to the exercises once again going through them while I got my mind off the process I was trying to work through. I’d hit it again after going through the exercises.

But after a few minutes I suddenly got an inspiration, when I was about 80% through the mana cultivation exercises!

I figured it out while thinking about car engines from my own world.

The car engine was a combustion engine that uses fuel, air, a piston, and a chamber that all have to interact with each other. They also have to do it in a balanced system that supports each other in each step of the process. It sends the gasoline over into the air chamber; the air chamber mixes the air and the fuel to a certain ratio while the spark plugs above then ignite the new process.

But what I’d missed was the ignition system. If my guess was right then maybe there was something there? It could be how I’m trying to get the spark to ignite without a spark in the gasoline. And mana was the gasoline, but I needed something else in the mix.

I believed I had almost everything else for the paladin holy light spell. It was also similar to what I had been working on with a heal spell and probably from the same element type. But for some reason the same ignition that I’d been using for heal spells didn’t work with the paladin holy light. I still didn’t have a reason for why, but after trying different ratios of mana and air that was my conclusion.

So if my theory was correct I needed to use a different starter motor for the paladin holy light than I was using for the heal spell, or possibly it was like comparing a diesel engine to a gasoline engine and they worked totally different. The heal spell I’d felt earlier to use a very different amount of mana and a lot of it at once because it was changing the status and structure of the body on a minute level. Maybe that was like a diesel engine that used a ton of pressure till the spark was ignited and why it was so different. The cure spell uses a ton of mana all at once but the paladin evil bane thing worked with using a simple smaller but intense heavy penetrating pulse that burned at evil while only using small amounts of mana intensified into a harsh glare that was more psychological in nature than actual damage.

Mixing the two systems would be terrible for me. Of course this had to be the answer. Since they worked differently of course they’d have to have a different setup.

So it was basically like I’d been trying to mix diesel fuel in a gasoline engine or vice versa. I first needed to finish my adjustments. After a few more minutes of expressing anguish and even a few expletives I’d worked it out. OK, now for some test runs. But of course I went back and rechecked over everything.

At first it fizzled and died. But it was still better than I’d gotten before. Even a little bit of smoke like this was better than absolutely nothing.

I’d expected it would take a few tries. I just have to act and believe like it will only be a matter of time until I get a breakthrough through blood, sweat, and tears of never giving up!

I will conquer this!

More smoke was good right? Or was that my delusion? I would soon find out.

But that’s not to say there wasn’t a faint glimmer of light briefly on the second try. So I was onto something huh? My curiosity was starting to pick up as I saw progression starting to happen and work itself out.

I tried again with a slight bit of more force, but narrower fuel line and burn. Each time I was trying it I would test and tweak it a bit more. So then I tried it again. Strange it almost worked. There was a much bigger puff of acrid smelling smoke.

I coughed on it for a few seconds. I didn’t like smoke and was overly sensitive to it.

This time it was too much and suddenly my wrist hurt where a mana choke point happened. I got shocked again too.

I’m sure it’s not supposed to do that! Shit this hurt bad! Ack! Damn. That hurts sooo freaking bad. Pain isn’t supposed to happen in magic!

I rolled onto the ground for a long time feeling like I’d hit my funny bone. Except it was my wrist instead of course. I took deep breaths and concentration went up.

Then I rested a bit with a half hour nap.

Again I resumed my experiments.

This time the glimmer lasted about three seconds and died. Three seconds is like a mile of progress when you consider I’d had zero before that. So I tried again, four seconds of a glimmering light that was sort of trying to figure out its own existence. It had unstable flow, and thus the light of four seconds had also been unstable too.

Whatever I was doing I was getting closer to the end.

But something was also wrong with not just the steadiness of the flow but the light pitch intensity as I thought about the previous version that I’d experienced firsthand. It didn’t have the same penetration factor that the paladin girl had either. That was probably one of the key elements to its composition I think; something about the penetration felt so heavy and real. Even if I figured out how to get it steady I was on the wrong wavelength.

Why was that? Was it something emotional or something else?

I also had to think like what if there were things that I was blind about seeing and take different points of view to look at it in a way that was more complex and thorough again.

I’d tried experimenting already with the mana flow itself, but also what about the kinds of thoughts I was having and visuals in my mind? If spells came from applied intelligence and applied desires manifested into reality then it was probably so. On top of emotions like happy, sad, courage, hate, brightness, and despair there were other things I could try too.

Did I have to think about saving someone or interacting with people or some kind of image? Chinese picture writing had this concept, but was it possible I needed to spell it out with something similar to make a spell work? Did Yumi and Vira have to picture also like a solid image in their head sustaining it?

So I tried again.

It fizzled. Again there was a small puff of smoke, but it wasn’t as strong or as big this time. Nothing worked. But even stranger a bunch of strange smelling smoke is floating up from the palm of my hand in response.

Oh I hadn’t noticed that before…all the buildup of fails was building up like a chaffed feeling on my palm like when you work in the garden too long and are starting to get blisters. The skin there also feels very tender and swollen.

Also I’d been doing all the magic with my dominant hand but what would happen if I developed with both hands? Would that also develop some kind of extra skill? What would happen if I got a shield and then mixed up using one hand for a shield and one hand for mana skills? Would that work too or have some kind of useful result?

I should have thought of all of this earlier! But my mind started to race thinking of all the possibilities. I’d trip up if I went to fast. Focus on the now I told myself. I can’t go in a thousand directions at once without losing ground, one step at a time.

So this time I tried happy thoughts and a spark of mana together. The light didn’t last long but was like ten seconds. After feeling frustrated I decided to hate a certain other character in a story that focuses on using happy thoughts to fly. He was a fake after all.

That was closer but still not right. Again, what was missing or off?

So I tried again, but decided to use an image like pushing away darkness while setting off the spark. Would this work? Pushing away darkness was a feeling of light wasn’t it? It was also the closest thing I could think of. After not getting other inspiration I decided to go with this concept for a bit and see what happened.

I suppose I might have pictured a candle or flame but I wasn’t a flame or fire element so this didn’t seem as effective because of it. I had to use pictures that seemed closest to my element, which was light, I think. Maybe that’s why the gnome’s earth element exercise of stacking rocks had no benefit to me so far. It may be the wrong image for my element.

Hmm the gnomes’ stacking rocks still was another untouched mystery wasn’t it?

Trying again I was surprised when the light lasted a good twenty seconds. At first I thought I’d gotten it to work, but then I was wrong again when I saw that the light was sputtering the entire time. It was like the fuel was getting choked off. There wasn’t any smoke this time and the palm of my hand wasn’t feeling as raw. When it lasted over ten seconds I was elated. Then when it hit fifteen I was openly agape. But I wanted to bite my tongue off at twenty when its spark sizzled.

Again something was missing. I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration. I was so freaking close. How do I push above twenty seconds and get something stable, something that can last for several minutes or even as long as I want?

So this time I pictured like an open eye and pushing away darkness by facing into it with penetrating feeling.

I was shocked this time when this time the light stayed on and felt stable. The sputtering was gone, and so was the feeling of the fuel getting choked away. It was there in my hand and had an almost pale shallow blue color to it. That was also different than the paladin’s full white normal light.

Holy shit! It worked! No way?!

I’m doing it! Yes!

Hmm.

Did I get something else then? It wasn’t exactly the same thing that Vira had, but it was something. Would I get a different spell technique then? Although it was stable it didn’t look the same. By studying it, the feel was completely different. This also didn’t seem to have any intensity and harsh blaring fire like feel to it like hers did. It didn’t feel like it was pushing back …oh that was the answer, I suddenly noticed it.

When the answer came to me I was again highly excited.

I’d suddenly realized that I’d mixed up the two ideas as well. There was a difference between the concept of pushing back darkness and pushing back evil. I almost got so excited I couldn’t stop shivering because now I had two workable and usable applied concepts and not just one. This was a new cool idea that would definitely pay off.

Did I just discover two different spells then?

The paladin’s pushing back evil and this pushing back darkness were both real but just not the same effect. Not only that but this light had a mana usage that was so low it was like nothing at all was being burned. But would the other version have a harsher mana cost pulse?

It was confirmed then after I tried both; two spells, not one.

The first was the constant pale blue shallow light that let me see in darkness. It felt kind of pretty in a way. I was enjoying it immensely until I had to face the reality that it had almost no combat value and its survival usage was also pretty limited.

The second was a harsher penetrating light that was almost harsh and bright. It seemed to feel ferocious to me even though I wasn’t burned by it. It was also the heavy penetrating deepness that I was seeking.

But I couldn’t help but notice that when I passed it over orc made items they started to quiver and almost imperceptibly shake just a tiny bit if I lingered on them too long.

Strange, but very interesting; I hadn’t expected it to actually cause an effect to things made by the orcs in the dream state. I could only guess that was because things made by evil intent had a sort of malice poured into them on a minute level? I’m not sure I understood this part correctly, but the small quivering almost like earth tremors was real. Other things in the dream state and the overall structure of the room seemed safe though.

I quickly put it out though for fear it may cause damage to the demon box or the crystals inside.

Sweet!

I tried it again after putting out the light. Then duplicating each again to test for stability; sure enough things were checking out.

It wasn’t by accident. Holding the light normally while it’s already activated isn’t a challenge. The challenge is starting the car to make sure it’s a stable system. Once the car is already started of course it won’t by hard to keep your foot on the gas pedal.

I tried it once more this way. It worked. This time I wasn’t trying to prove the spell but rather to prove that I could manifest both spells without misfiring constantly. If it were to fail to activate in battle of course I would probably die or be hurt.

So now it’s time to move onto the next thing.

But I can feel I’m getting a bit more tired.

This time I did a thought with the mana activation like courage plus pushing back evil and with a feeling of like ferociousness to it. I pour in my guts to the energy.

The spark roared to life in my hand, flashing a heavy light all over the dungeon room walls. It felt like a flame except that while I could feel like it was a fire there and that it was roaring…it didn’t feel like real heat, but like a type of inner anger that was applied. It also didn’t feel like it was burning or making my hand under it any warmer. This version seemed more stable and felt more oppressive to shadows and darkness.

I’d finally worked out its final form. This was it. This was even better!

So it was a heavy intense fire, that didn’t burn that which was good. It burned only evil or certain attributed creatures? I wondered briefly if it would differentiate between darkness and evil. What if someone had a darkness element but wasn’t evil?

Weird.

The mana consumption did feel like it was stronger than with the other light. But this light had a pulse like feel similar to how the paladin used it. Only my radius of effect was more like six feet out in any direction compared to her ten feet. That part would have to be worked out still. It wasn’t a bad thing, but just maybe she’d been practicing it longer than I had. I was just happy I’d gotten anything out of this at all!

Again confirmation that it didn’t burn people by testing it on myself a second time to be sure. I was realizing with magic you had to be sure all the time and test it many times under different types of conditions. You can’t take chances if you are going to be entrusting your life or that of others with you to its effects in fights.

So I needed to test it out on something evil.

Damn.

Where was Kenji when I needed him?