14- You never asked

"Well we have all eaten, and now that we have returned to the laboratory, you can start explaining why you were shouting in Imperial while sitting at the dining table; all the while staring fixedly at that vase carrying that constipated expression on your face," returning to the basement, Elaine immediately shifted her attention to Zin, inquiring about what they had found him doing in the room before breakfast. "Yeah, and how can that be related to magic, when it is against the very concept of magic we have been taught?"

"I've told you, it's just one of my speculations, and I will tell you once I get facts to support it."

"But you must tell us. Remember, you said we are your team, and we have to carry out research and experimentation together?" She nagged. "Besides I am very much afraid that it isn't even a valid hypothesis and you'll just end up frustrating yourself or falling into madness, as almost all research based mages and scholars are. Heck, the imperial circles of scholars and colleges of magic always have a few very famous madmen who are a very big pain in the ass to be around…." Elaine grumbled, her dissatisfaction with Zin's silence all too evident from her face.

"Hey, why are you two fighting like little kids? Don't you have any better things to do than bicker like little kids? At least Zin, you can be the bigger person, as you know Elaine has not yet grown up except in body sizes and years" Cynthia mocked Elaine, as she and Iris were forced to divert their attention to the three from their attempts at enchantment. "You say Selene, why are they bickering again after the morning spar?"

"Hey if my rack is larger than your flatness, it can't be used to taunt me. It should be you trying to grow your size or worrying to arrange male clothes for yourself, not that the mage's robe is anything gender specific, but still, it's equally lose throughout all over your body, if you get it…" Elaine trailed out as she retorted with a big slap to Cynthia's taunt, again starting their taunt game.

"You dare!" Cynthia growled, as her grey hair began rippling under effect of her mobilizing her magic power. A chill spread as Elaine also raised her left hand, snowflakes dancing on her palm, as another ice sword condensed in her other hand.

"Yes, let's see what a tomboy can do," Elaine smiled, as she flashed, magically enhancing her speed to instantly reach Cynthia, only to hit and fall down meeting an invisible wall in the way.

"I have constantly told you two, no fighting inside the laboratory. There are a lot of delicate apparatus inside here that you will destroy. And yet" Zin stopped the two, as he looked around noticing the havoc caused by the two's magic power being exposed in the overcrowded place.

"At least I was better than the cow," Cynthia hummed. "I only let loose a fraction of my power, while protecting the surroundings and didn't even attack."

"Yeah you're much better than a battle hungry spell sword, who has always been taught to attack first against mages, to try to reducethe distance and get into melee to gain advantage. You OnLy showed an IntEnT to AtTaCk and didn't AtTaCK," Zin ended in a sing-song voice rolling his eyes.

"Well, we were talking about serious matters. What was this we heard about you staring at things and ordering them to move in Imperial, instead of using magic? What of the claims of Zin losing his sanity?" the serious minded Iris interrupted their bickering. "Is this another one of Zin's brilliant ideas for research? Like we haven't already got enough proof of his power of genius speculation, conjecture and postulation?" Iris waved her hands around to draw attention to the magic laboratory.

Where the basement two months ago used to be clean, tidy and very elegant, portraying a scene of a typical magic laboratory, completely equipped with an alchemy table, an enchanting table, rows upon rows of bookshelves containing scrolls and books of magic and cabinets containing all kinds of precious and rare magical items and ingredients, it had now been converted into a messy congested bio-lab cum greenhouse, with all sorts of different plants growing in pots and chunks of different animals submerged in different solutions and cultured as experiments. The air carried a rancid, pungent odor of strong concoctions and strange rituals being conducted.

"Well…." Zin scratched his nose in embarrassment. "I tried, but I couldn't find a breakthrough…"

"It's no problem trying, but the way you explained it, and how you said that crops can be genetically mutated to increase produce and lower their ripening time is alright theoretically, but if you wish to accomplish it on your own and in such little time, it's impossible. I thought so at the very time you proposed it, that it's going to be a very difficult feat; as although maybe you could describe cells and plant structures very minutely, if it all could be modified this easily, many mages would have done it already, when the empire was already very keen at increased productivity over the years. And genetically tempering animals, well, you can produce monsters, but apart from the established spell models and body strengthening tactics already recorded its nigh impossible. By oblivion, mages have already been tempering with undead and necromancy, let alone your amateurish attempts at attaining immortality through magic modification of the body." Iris continued her demolition of Zin's conjectures.

"Yeah, but it is all so possible. So real. If I had the power over magic to only temper some stats and not all, to make it according to my will, while maintaining the other existent configurations. But, when I do it, it all falls apart. Everything is tied as if a single thread, if you move a single thing, it all collapses, as if it all is being maintained at the best balance, and any disturbance causes it all to just fall apart," Zin vigorously gestured with his hands as if trying to explain something that he couldn't find the words for, as if his verbal skills couldn't quite keep up with his thinking.

And so it was. He couldn't explain how he felt. Over these past two months, he had been frustrated over the lack of results from his research as time after time he had met with failure. The scholar level spells that he had mastered up till now had been unable to meet his needs. He had even tried peering into the arch-mage level spells that his father had kept for future study, but had been unable to find a satisfactory model.

The reason was simple. Mages stored magika from the surroundings inside them as mana. They even gained the power to, overtime although, manipulate the ambient magika in the surroundings, but they all did it through employing calculations and casting spells. The spells model enabled them to manipulate the magika energy, and thus they were limited to manipulate magika according to how good and powerful the spell model was. The deeper the understanding of the spell model making, and the elements, the better the result, and the more efficient the spell would be, even mana cost wise. This made it too mind boggling for him when he considered how deep the calculations needed were to develop an advanced spell.

'Like algebra having multivariable non-linear equations, with millions of variables,' Zin sighed.

"Tell me Zin, what perturbs you?" Iris came closer to him looking deep into his eyes, she noticed how he turned his eyes away as if trying to hide something. "I also noticed that you have something on your mind, but you were always hiding it. I thought I would give you time, but now listening to Elaine it seems that it is something serious. I'm always here to help, when you're ready to talk."

"Well I'm working at it, and as soon as I find a breakthrough I will consult you people on this manner and share my findings." Zin said, as he continued walking to a corner of the rather congested room. "I will stay here trying to check out my new theory and conduct experiments…"

All four of them frowned, flinching as if in fear, wary of what new absurdities Zin would be introducing in the lab. At long last Iris gathered her courage to ask, although maintaining her serious façade: "Wait does this mean that you will be introducing more strange things into this room?"

"Nope. Although I think I will be meditating a lot…" his voice was drowned out in the cheers of Elaine and Cynthia while Selene just had a beautiful smile on her face. Iris also breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked, "Can we clean the room and throw away these then?"

"You can always clean the room and at least somehow clean the air quality. Seriously, I thought you senior mages must at least know a spell or two for air odor refreshment?"

The four gasped, only for Cynthia to flare up and say "we thought it was essential to your stupid experimentation. You could have at least told us to clean up."

"Oh I thought you liked living in all the filth and smell, you know mages and all," Zin rolled his eyes spreading his arms to prove his innocence. "Anyways, you never asked…"