Chapter 112: The Grind

Author note: If you read Chapter 111 yesterday read it again. I changed a lot of the content and I moved the excerpt to this chapter so you can skip it if you've read it.

Jade spent his time studying the spells Mira brought to him. In under an hour Jade could already recreate the spells but his goal was to understand how they worked. He started with what he already knew about and brought various devices that had the same or similar effects as the spells and tried to see the similarities and differences between how they worked.

Time flew by as Mira's skill training and Jade's research progressed. Mira realized as she grew more proficient in sensing danger that her skill could also sense the degree of danger an object or space had. As Jade put more confusing things inside the ball, like a cake with a bomb in it or a bomb with a cake in it Mira realized that she wasn't just sensing the danger the objects carried but more specifically the 'intent' the object had.

Mira thought 'I wonder why this skill didn't improve during my other fights' Mira pondered on the question for a moment and realized 'A horde only has one intention towards outsiders, harm, danger, they never try to be tricky about their approach so the skill has been dormant. Only in special situations like with the Genius's easily ignorable magic would the skill have use'.

Her skill grew more versatile as she could sense not only danger and safety but also mischief, care, confusion and other intents from the objects that were in the identical cannon balls that shot at her.

At one point she gave the room the mental command to stop, but she instantly sensed mischief in the entire room and thought 'It's probably going to shoot something at me when I let my guard down'. It was as she had expected, when she walked toward the exit a cannon ball shot out from a tile without the tile opening.

Mira dodged but realized that the tile that the ball came from was a hologram. The tile had been opening like normal tiles before which gave her some time to prepare but now it just shot without opening and it wasn't damaged. If she had let her guard down she would have been hit. She smiled and thought 'Wow just when I thought I knew how things work he surprised me. I wonder what other tricks he has in store. Maybe holographic cannon balls are next?'

Mira's explody energy skill which she now could Energy Burst had also seen improvements. She could vary the amount of energy she used for the skill more flexibly and she could use it more frequently too after she learnt that the power of the skill was determined not only by how much energy is used but also by how condensed the energy used was.

The major problem for Mira at the start of her training was that she couldn't condense energy while she was dodging the cannon balls. But as she got increasingly familiar with the skill she learnt to passively condense energy while on the fly. Now when she trained she had a full coating of compressed energy around her body which she detonated with the Energy Burst skill at her own discretion; the density and volume of energy used was easily controlled as she progressed.

Jade on the other hand learned the principles that Magic worked on. It was scientific yet unscientific to him but he knew that some of the things he had made might seem magical to people who didn't know how they worked so he could only assume that the reason Magic was so unscientific to him was because he didn't understand it well yet.

Jade had made many more spells that mimicked the workings of normal machines. Since magical constructs didn't have materials they just depended on the user's energy and control to operate unlike normal machines that had operational limits due to the material they were made of and environmental factors.

The scientific part was Jade first experimenting with Teni's spell. Teni's spell could create light or electricity something modern technology could do well. Jade observed the workings of the spell and compared it with the working of a generator, solar panel, light bulbs and other things that could create electricity or light.

From the comparison he found out that Teni's spell for producing electricity was worked like how a generator worked. The both had moving magnetic fields, one, the generator, used metal coils while the other, the spell, used moving energy patterns. Like this Jade found the principle of work for the other spells that had a similar function to already made devices.

The unscientific part was what gave Jade a breakthrough in his research. Jade discovered the essence of each of the 12 basic patterns was.

1. Quantitative pattern

2. Spatial pattern

3. Chronological/Time pattern

4. Kinematic/Force pattern

5. Physical pattern

6. Biotic/Life pattern

7. Psychic pattern

8. Analytical pattern

9. Formative pattern

10. Lingual pattern

11. Judicial pattern

12. Pistic/Faith pattern

Each pattern represented a part of reality. With the understanding of the essence of the patterns at hand Jade could understand the spells that had effects that could not be replicated with devices, like Anita's spell that was used to make energy stones.

Jade spent the rest of his time creating more spells and improving his understanding of Magic. His main exercise was replicating the effects of various devices with Magic. From a toaster, to a laser gun, to his spatial devices, the complexity of the spells increased as the technology it was made to replicate became more advanced. Jade did all this work in 4 days, since he barely needed sleep and didn't have many distractions. As he worked Jade learnt that some monster materials had such complex workings that they could not be replaced by magic patterns at all although some of their workings could be replicated the other parts couldn't.

After this was done Jade could create portals with spells and teleport with them too but they could not perform as well as the spatial devices made with monster materials; they worked like his spatial devices before he upgraded them. The main question was "Is using a spell more efficient than using an energy device?"

Currently the answer was no. Jade's energy devices required less energy and time to use while the spells required time and energy to use. Although the effect of the spells could be magnified beyond the limits that various materials would allow Jade could use True dream to achieve the same effect for his devices. But this drawback was only because Jade was replicating what the devices could do with spells so the spells still had some redundant parts, patterns and pattern formations that could be trimmed out to make a more efficient spell.

Jade then worked on optimizing the spells. After about a week and a half of work Jade had optimized all the spells and during the process he learnt that some of the parts of the original spells he got from the sanctuary could be cut out or replaced with something simpler.

Even after optimizing the spells they still cost more energy to run and took more time to activate than Jade's devices but it was better than before. This was obvious since Jade could mentally control his devices (If he needed control devices like switches, touch screens, etc the spells would have a better activation time than his devices) but the reason Jade optimized the spells was because they still had advantages that devices didn't have.

Jade thought 'If I can replace some of the parts of the devices with the energy formations it would allow me to use less materials to get more just in exchange for energy which is still acceptable. For instance a gunpowder gun that doesn't need gun powder but uses the explosion spell to fire the bullet this kind of weapon would make gun powder completely obsolete and the materials used to make gunpowder can be used to for some other process and the gun and the bullets will become lighter and less complex'.

Jade then began experimenting on ways to make devices that were capable of casting spells… yes he was working in reverse. The challenge was relatively simple he just had to make the devices capable of making and holding energy constructs.

This would have been quite a hard task for him before but he had the energy stone creation spell and by extension energy stones. They could hold energy in a more stable state than his energy batteries even though his batteries could hold more energy. Jade experimented with the brain matter of different creatures until he made an energy pattern storing crystal.

The crystal was transparent, resembling glass, and it couldn't dynamically store and release energy patterns. It had to be made for a certain pattern and then when energy was stored in the crystal it would create the pattern with the energy stored. If the crystal was full and energy was sent to it, it would release the energy pattern and cast the spell, empting itself out in an instant.

Jade used the crystal to make the first ever Magic Items. But his creation could not stop there. This was because the devices he made were only capable of using a certain amount of energy at a time for each spell; the energy could not be reduced or increased.

Jade worked on improving those aspects. Creating even more dynamic types of energy stones and devices that made magic items more comfortable to use, the details of which are very complex and would take too long to narrate (trust me, I specialize in digital devices and I'm know how their memories are made. If I was to explain everything I could imagine, the novel would become a textbook) even though this new round of innovations lasted him a week.

{Excerpt from the article 'Mantra Arts' by Chao Feng, the Prince of stars}

{.....

Most Martial Arts masters categorize Mantra arts into 2 schools:

Qi/Ki/Chakra/Chi School

Forms School

The Forms School of martial arts are as the name states; they are martial arts that require specific stances, moves or forms to be utilized. This school of martial arts has mantras too but the mantras are accompanied by forms to utilize their skills. This is why I prefer to call mantras enlightenments since they aren't always just words or ideas they are also accompanied by actions as is the case for the Forms school of martial arts.

The forms of the martial arts can be learned by anyone with a suitable body but the effects wouldn't take place without the specific mantra that is why it is categorized as a Mantra Art. The training is usually very specific and stringent and so are the moves, one step short or one slip will result in failed skill activation.

Forms martial arts require a high amount of instinct (Talent) second only to Aura martial arts. Different types of Form styles are suitable for different people so it might be quite hard to find the type one is suited for that's why most of the people who use Forms today are the pioneers of their own specific styles even if the styles might be similar or exactly the same as what someone else discovered.

Many people have the notion that Forms martial arts are predictable because each style has a limited number of moves. This is a very stupid way of understanding Forms martial arts. Simply knowing how every piece in a game of chess moves doesn't mean you are a master chess player that can beat every other chess player. Forms martial artists don't always have to use a move and the more you know about their moves the more they can trick you into thinking they're going to use it when they aren't… in short simple moves can be used in complex ways.

The same applies to Forms martial arts; although some styles have as little as 5 moves/forms in total, even if one knows what those 5 moves do the person will only be able to come up with a set of suitable countermeasures not a perfect strategy for beating the opponent.

For more information on the Forms school of Mantra Arts see Satoshi's article 'Forms Martial Arts'.

Qi School is more flexible than the Forms School, the requirements for learning it being less specific. The Qi/Chi/Whatever you want to call it school of martial arts refers to skills that utilize energy to create certain simple effects.

Unlike the Forms school, Qi martial arts have simple base skills that get more complicated and advanced with higher degrees of proficiency and with more mantras.

A good example is my Force style Qi. The first expression of this Qi was when I acquired the Copy Strike skill that allowed me to use my energy to create a second hit from my body after the first hit. This gave the effect of punching twice is quick succession.

As I advanced I could create more strikes and I further reduced the time between the copied strikes. At a certain degree of prowess (which I believe is the highest the skills prowess can go but I'm not all knowing so I can't say for sure) I could, with sufficient preparation, reduce the time between each copied strike to 0 seconds. Hence I named the highest result I could achieve with the skill Amplified Strike, the skill allowed me to multiply the power (Strength, speed, penetration, anything that the strike did) of a single strike by an amount (two time the power to a thousand times the power) as long as I had enough charging time and enough energy to do so.

At one point I got a different enlightenment (Mantra) and I could create a strike and store it in my body ahead of time in the form of energy. I named the skill Delayed Strike. The skill gave me more options since I could also use it to store Amplified or Copied Strikes. As I improved in prowess with that skill I became able to store the Delayed strikes in other object (Weapons, creature's bodies, the air, etc). This is the highest level of prowess I achieved using this skill, I called it Premonition Strike.

What I've explained is a typical progression of a Qi type martial art skill; Simple at first but it gets more complex as the prowess of the user increases and as more skill in the Qi style are discovered/unlocked by the user. Premonition Strike and Amplified strike combined with some other profound skills, Martial Cultivation drugs and enlightenment gave birth to the illustrious Living Strike which is a skill that can create a living punch, kick, slash, etc.

All of these skills come under the Force theme, Copied strike copies force, Delayed strike saves force, Living strike is more blurry but it is also considered a force Qi skill.

There are many styles of Qi/Ki/Chi/Chakra. Some examples are Burst, Flow, Quake and Shadow. They all have their own effects and they all have Simple and Advanced skills in their repertoire. There are even some people that consider Aura martial arts as a form of Qi martial arts. I don't agree with this because aura doesn't require a Mantra to unlock, you just need talent and training.

The Qi School of martial arts has the most balanced fighters since an equal ratio of ingenuity and instinct is required to learn them.

For a more detailed covering on Qi/Ki/Chakra/Chi martial arts see my article 'Qi Martial Arts'

…

A question that pops up when the schools of martial arts are described is 'What about mental skills? What school do they fall under?'

This question is usually posed by those who don't like the separation of martial arts into schools. The thing is, martial arts like most of the power systems have not been fully explored so the schools might become a redundant classification in the future. The reason why I talked about the schools in such an important article is because when someone falls into one school the person can't use the skills in the other school no matter what.

Even if the person that has Forms style martial arts has an enlightenment that is similar to the enlightenment needed for a Qi martial art it will not result in the person having a Qi martial art. The person might get a different application or Form from the enlightenment but the person won't be able to use Qi martial arts.

Mental skills are still a mystery to us as some of them fit the schools while some don't. For example Intent sense is a mental skill that allows the user sense the true intent behind an action, an object, a person, a situation, etc. This mental skill can only be used by Qi martial artist, in fact it has been proven that all Qi martial artists can learn Intent Sense and on rare occasions some already have it in an unrecognized form.

Mental skills like High Mind don't have a specification and can be learnt by anyone who has the enlightenment (Mantra) as long as the person isn't an aura martial artist (They have their own mental skills).}