17 What Can You Learn from a Spark? (Part 2)
"What I learned from a spark is that the Western Empire is planning on attacking the Vorbei Kingdom and starting another war in two months, eleven days, and sixteen hours, and I can prove it to you." Said Ethan.
"WHAT?!" Said Mia.
30 minutes earlier
Ethan was sitting on the hilltop enjoying his lunch. He was having some sausage sandwiched between two pancakes and drinking a nice cold canteen full of beer while thinking about magic. [This is so cool that I know magic now. Plus, I have a super high mana capacity. I guess that the only spell that I really know it the 'delayed spark' spell, which I'm told is for beginners. Maybe it's not totally useless though. The Magicae language is pretty strict with the wording of the spells, but within that it seems pretty easy to customize spells from what Hans and Friedrich just told me about their stories about the previous war between the Vorbei Kingdom and the Western Empire, and how they survived it. It seems that the two of them modified their protective barrier spells to trap large numbers of enemies in areas with a lot of smoke making the enemies suffocate to death, which previously wasn't known to be a use for protective barrier spells. They were previously thought to be purely defensive spells, but thanks to the injunuity of these twins, a whole new use of the spell emerged. Maybe I can similarly find a new use for this 'delayed spark' spell which everyone else thinks is a beginner level spell. Let me think about what made the spell so great in battle against the lizard-people that we used it to set off our gunpowder. That's right, we could set custom conditions. Against the lizard-people, we set the condition that it would go off if it comes within two meters of any member of the lizard-person species. I'll bet that that the setting of conditions for the spark to go off is going to be the best way to modify this spell and make it awesome. Maybe, I could make a conditionally true statement the condition for the spark going off so that I can learn whether any given statement is true by whether aa spark goes off when I set its truth as the condition. I should run some experiments] Thought Ethan.
Ethan then cast a 'delayed spark' spell in the Magicae language to create a spark just a centimeter above his right hand index fingertip with the condition being that the delayed spark would go off if 2+2=4, a statement which Ethan knew was true. He then dispersed 1/100 of a standard mana unit and the spark went off.
[Well, that worked. Now I should try it with a false statement just as a control] thought Ethan.
He then cast a similar spell to create a spark just a centimeter above his right hand index fingertip with the condition being that the delayed spark would go off if 2+2=5, a statement which Ethan knew was false. He then dispersed 1/100 of a standard mana unit, but there was no spark created.
[Good. Now I know that with statements, that I know are true or false, this spell will react accordingly. What about a statement which is true or false, but which I have no knowledge of.]
"Hans, can you do me a favor?" Asked Ethan.
"Sure" said Hans.
"Can you hold your right hand behind your back and hold up either one or two fingers, but don't tell me which just yet?" Said Ethan.
"Sure" said Hans and he did so.
Ethan then cast 'delayed spark' spell in the Magicae language to create a spark just a centimeter above his right hand index fingertip with the condition being that the delayed spark would go off if Hans was holding up two fingers behind his back, a statement which Ethan didn't know whether or not it was true. He then dispersed 1/100 of a standard mana unit and the spark went off.
"Was it two?" Ethan asked.
"Yes." Hans said while showing ethan his hand with two fingers sticking up.
"Can we do this again, with you once again holding up one or two fingers and not telling me which?" Asked Ethan.
"Sure." Said Hans.
Ethan cast the same spell again, but this time the spark didn't go off.
"Was it one?" Asked Ethan.
"Yes." Said Hans again revealing his hand, this time with just one finger sticking up.
"Thanks, Hans." Ethan said.
"No problem." Said Hans.
[This is great. I can learn new things that I wouldn't otherwise know by casting this spell and waiting to see whether there is a spark or not.] thought Ethan.
Ethan then thought of an outlandish use for this spell. [I wonder if I can predict wars.] Ethan thought.
Ethan then cast a 'delayed spark' spell in the Magicae language to create a spark just a centimeter above his right hand index fingertip with the condition being that the delayed spark would go off if the Western Empire planned on invading the Kingdom of Vorbei within the next year. He then dispersed 1/100 of a standard mana unit and to Ethan's horror, the spark went off.
[I can at least give Mia the correct date by narrowing down the timeframe.] thought Ethan.
He then cast a similar spell to go off if the Western Empire was planning on invading the Kingdom of Vorbei within the next six months. Once again the spark went off. He then set it to go off if the invasion were being planned for the next three months, and the spark went off. He then set it to go off if the invasion were being planned for the next month and a half. The spark did not go off much to Ethan's relief. In this way, he kept narrowing down the timeframe with further spells until he got to the exact date and time which was exactly two months, eleven days, and sixteen hours later.
[Wow. This is a big deal that I know this. If I'm right, no one's ever thought to use this spell in this way before. I guess that I should tell Mia what I learned. First, to soften the blow of learning when the next war will be, I should show her something that she wants to learn. Maybe I'll show her how to use the camera function on the phone. After all, it's not like she could use the camera function in any crazy plots.] Thought Ethan, as he walked over to where Mia was sitting.
