Transcended Black
After a few weeks since the savannah of Anima I, Silva Branwen and my companions got across the length of sea dividing Anima and Menagerie. It wasn't difficult since I was driving a hovercraft, and it only took about a week to reach the continent after directly sailing south. Fun fact, Neopolitan can easily get seasick, which I found out after letting the Drake rest its hover systems. The tri-color girl spent the nights puking and looking green while sleeping through the day since she couldn't sleep at night. Neopolitan literally kissed the ground after we finally reached Menagerie.
One thing that makes me laugh nowadays is the fact our resident cheetah, Sir Spot, likes me better than the tri-colored girl for some odd reason. When Neopolitan isn't hugging the little cheetah, he can be found either napping in my lap as I drive or by my side, trying to get my attention or trying to groom my fur-covered arms. The tri-colored girl gets all pouty seeing the cub she picked up cozying up to me instead of her, which made me give her a smug smile. For now, we are going west along the coast to reach Kuo Kuana.
Another thing that has happened is that Arthur has chosen to stick with me instead of following Salem. Thankfully, the Queen didn't decide to pursue the matter further, but from what my sources in Atlas tell me, Hazel has been going to other disgruntled scientists of Atlas to get them to join Salem's cause. This is disconcerting to me because this means that the Queen is building up her power and influence for her next move and that she has likely figured out how to steal the Maidens' powers to unlock the vaults. Cinder may or may not be by her side right now.
I can't afford to be passive now since Salem is in her preparation stage at making her attempt to acquire the Relics. After setting up camp for the night and sending the girls to bed, I took out the Lamp of Knowledge to start practicing the method I decided to use to strengthen me. I called out to the spirit of the Lamp.
" Jinn."
She appeared again from a stream of green smoke and greeted me.
" Hello, again Silva. Why have you summoned me?"
" I am just using the time-stop feature of the Lamp to give me some time to test something without distractions. If that is fine with you, Jinn?"
The genie replied with a neutral hum, and I sat down cross-legged to get started on the method I learned from Jinn. The funny thing about what I was about to do, it was Salem that came up with the idea. Basically, she saw Aura as a watered-down version of Magic in terms of energy, and she had the idea to try and convert Aura into Magical Energy through a few different methods. She started this line of experimenting when she and Ozma were married and had a kingdom of their own. The Queen wanted to strengthen her troops to dominate the battlefield with Magic on their side without the need for either her or her husband to enter the war they caused to unite Remnant.
Salem was met with some success, but the conversion rate of Aura to Magical Energy was abysmal at best. Converting one warrior's high amounts of Aura into Magic resulted in them possessing nowhere near enough Magic to cast a single effective spell. So she discontinued that line of experiments until Ozma decided to try and sneak their children away from her. Salem soon picked up that line of experimenting again but this time without the moral compass that her ex-husband represented. Her experiments were more extreme and were met with more success than previously. It wasn't enough to satisfy her.
Salem then completely dropped the idea of converting Aura into Magical energy as it wasn't worth it in her eyes. Now I had a few ideas of my own I wanted to test, thanks to my unique perspective of being a reincarnator from another world. I focused on my Aura and tried to divide it into the smallest units of measurement to gain precise control of the conversion rate of Aura to Magic. With the time stop of the Relic affecting my need to eat and sleep, I could continue until I burned out my mental stamina, then rest and repeat this process.
I completely focused on what I was doing without any external distractions. A small eternity went by until I could measure and control my Aura to the smallest level possible. I could even provide an accurate number if asked how much Aura I had, and now for the hard part. I started compressing and condensing my Aura to create the smallest possible unit of Magic. While it would be easier if I had external help, like Ozma, since asking Salem is a hard pass, but I could ultimately only count on myself in this matter. 5 units of Aura, 10 units, 20 units, 50 units, a 100 units and I finally created my first unit of Magical energy after who knows how long.
Am I turning into a Cultivator? I mean, I am essentially doing something along the lines of closed doors Cultivation... I shook my head of those useless thoughts and went on to the next step. I am breaking down my first unit of Magical Energy into Aura so that I can understand the conversion more in-depth. I inverted the single unit of Magical Energy into itself to make it collapse and disperse back into my Aura. I winded up injuring myself despite succeeding, as the method I used could be described as self-harm.
I waited for a while to recover, then examined my Aura to see if it fully regained the 100 units I had put into the 1 unit of Magic. No, instead of 100 units, I got around 110 units instead, which confused and surprised me to no end. I repeated the process of converting Aura into Magic and Magic into Aura until I learned with certainty that I am always getting an unstable increase of Aura when I do this process. I started to wonder what the mysterious third component of this process was causing my Aura to increase; Jinn couldn't tell me if she wanted to because of her restrictions.
As my mind wandered, I decided to change a variable to see what would happen; I had Jinn return to the Lamp, then did the process again as time moved forward again. I converted 100 units of Aura into 1 unit of Magic, then broke down the 1 point of Magic and got 101 units of Aura back. I repeated this process and still got an unstable increase in my Aura. Why did Salem not notice this? Or maybe she never bothered to return Magic to Aura because she rightfully saw it as superior to Aura despite its limited quantities. What is the third or more component resulting in this increase of my Aura?
I called Jinn back to stop time with the Lamp again, so I had more time to think and experiment. I ran every experiment I could think of with various variables to discover what component is causing this increase, as it can't come from nowhere. I rather not be paying a price I am not willing to pay for this unexpected increase. Despite a small eternity of testing and examining, I could only accept that I had no way of finding out about this phenomenon and understanding it as I am now.
In the end, I decided to use this phenomenon to my advantage to increase my power as much as possible to see what the limit is while abusing the time-stop of the Lamp. If I want Salem to take me seriously, I need to be powerful enough to be a deterrent and threat to her plans in order to have her listen to me. I started the process of increasing my Aura and gaining Magic through my own efforts and wandered what my limit would be.
***
In a far-flung corner of the universe where the world of Remnant resides, the God of Darkness watched over the new world he created in his own image. Using the information he acquired from Silva's soul from where he first encountered it within the void between dimensions, the god made several new beings based on what he learned and watched how they unfold. He then decided to check up on the faunus to see what Silva was up to and was mildly surprised to see the snow leopard faunus using the Relics his brother had him help make as a final chance to humanity.
The God of Darkness looked at the area that separated itself from time and space to find Silva acquiring Magic while retaining Aura through his own efforts. The god was stunned at what he saw and then peeked at the past to see what had happened before and found Silva's journey slightly interesting. The God of Darkness decided to keep a close eye on the snow leopard faunus for the time being and see what would happen next.