Something For Nothing

"No you've made a mistake-I mean- I can't be a wizard-I mean-I'm just a retard prig." Linden fumbled.

Ashley sat their stunned. She had always like boys with thin bodies, but all the pieces seemed clear after hearing Linden call himself that word. Linden wasn't that way naturally. He had been starved! Ashley was furious, how could someone do this?

Seeing Ashley's annoyed expression made Linden instinctively raise his hands to protect his head. After the anticipated attack never arrived Linden began to sheepishly lower his hands before being suddenly enveloped by an unfamiliar sensation.

"Oh Linden..." Ashley sobbed while hugging him.

"You're not a prig to me."

For some reason Linden began to cry too.

***

For Linden the year was especially eventful and full of firsts. Linden recalled the first real Christmas he had had. And smiled warmly while remembering that Ashley had gotten him (in a stunning display of sensitivity) a physical book about veterans overcoming PTSD. While walking down the hall with Ashley Linden recalled his last year.

He and Ashley became inseparable as they underwent hellish physical, magical, and academic training together.

At the end of it both had at least passed their SAT's (though Linden passed with flying colors) and were among the fittest they could possibly be at age 11. They had also acquired some knowledge of combat and survival skills through combat and mission simulations where Ashley found herself to be particularly gifted. Their magical training in comparison was lackluster.

Since the field of M.A.G.I.C was only recently created based on spotty Nazi manuscripts much of the provided information was either missing or omitted leaving researchers scratching their head on how to fill it in. Another problem was the presence of contradicting and illogical statements in the documents. But the main limitation was the lack of available mages to gather new data from. Lindens heard from Leo that there were only 20 mages in the facility. As a result they were required to wear their i-glass at all times for data collection on their vitals and brain waves.

Due to new discoveries throughout the year Magical curriculum was updated numerous times to the point where what they learned before was useless.

Take for example Ashley's spoon levitation. Originally magic was thought to be a simply an imposition of ones will on undefined segments of reality (i.e. dark matter) so magic classes were about building willpower and focus using mind cultivating meditation techniques[0]. But if it was only willpower that let you cast magic wouldn't everyone be able to do it? Why was it that only some people were able to do so?

The breakthrough came after a particularly long study session that Linden had with Ashley. They were reviewing the definition of gravity when Ashley decided to levitate a cookie from across the room. Ashley felt that it was slightly easier, perhaps only 0.5 to 1% so but perhaps not noteworthy.

Through her i-glass such a sudden increase was noted. The fact that only 10 day meditation lessons were able to induce this level of improvement caused quite a frenzy among the researchers

The conclusion was that magic was not merely the imposition of will but the will needed to by sculpted in the image of some ideal. In other words to levitate something you needed to not only to have sufficient focus and will but also have enough enlightenment on the idea of levitation in order to force the surrounding dark matter to levitate the object.

Previously Ashley had was able to levitate the objects purely through her own freakishly strong will, unbeknownst to her, making her as one of the strongest mages on earth and literal one in a billion genius.

Researchers then worked tirelessly to discover how enlightenment could be induced. Numerous experiments concluded that obtaining enlightenment on something

Strangely being on an LSD high while reading religious and spiritual philosophy seemed to be the best method. But this was not open to mages under the age of 22 due to their brains still developing, until then their magical training centered in reading poetry and philosophy about movement.

Today the dynamic duo would be receiving their last injection of gene serum. Their regime consisted of graduated injections of NervInhance, BloodInhance, BoneInhance, and MusInhance. Essentially the serums used modified versions the CAS9 protein[1] to cause signal base pair mutations that increased the efficacy of nerve cell myelination[2], allowed their body to make a more efficient version of hemoglobin[3], encouraged dense bone growth[4], and much stronger muscles[5].

It was thanks to these enhancements and the teaching via the method of loci[6] that Linden and Ashley were able to get through 8 years of school in one year while also undergoing hellish training daily.

As they reached the last corner to the base doctors Linden thought it was funny how things turned out. Even though he had realized that being a "prig" was okay. It seemed that he was now anything but.

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[0] Regular meditation has been proven to enhance focus and attention span.

[1] CAS9 a protein that can induce signal base pair mutations in specific DNA sequences. Many proteins/enzymes can be enhanced with even single base pair mutations making this a holy grail of gene editing. look up "Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR" on youtube. Unlike gene serum in "it's not easy being a man after traveling to the future" gene editing serum could be available very cheaply in the next 50 years after legal and safety concerns are cleared.

[2] The process by which the axons of the nerves are coated with a fatty layer that enhances the speed of impulses. In theory (https://ww w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3201847/) this means that learning speed, reaction time, and thought is quicker.

[3] Hemoglobin is the protein that carries oxygen throughout your body. Fetal hemoglobin has greater oxygen affinity (h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_hemoglobin). By making the body to produce fetal hemoglobin it is more oxygenated and in theory can preform better at physical and mental tasks. In fact inducing fetal hemoglobin production using CAS9 is being investigated for treating sickle cell disease (https://ww w.mdedge.com/hematologynews/article/141178/anemia/gene-editing-aims-recreate-beneficial-mutation-scd-beta) right now.

[4] Real life mutation link: (https://ww w.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa013444).

[5] One way to increase muscle mass is Myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy. Basically you edit the mess up gene that codes the limiters for muscle growth. Allowing people to become extremely muscular with basically no effort (https://e n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin).

[6] An ancient memory technique that dates back to the ancient Greeks. Search it up for more info. The children in Lindens class all learned subjects the way that you would memorize a room. In contrast to rot memorization Linden and his peers would create objects in their mental landscapes to represent concepts and facts.