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58 - Ruminations About Magic
🕑 Added 2023-03-15 21:14:08 +0000 UTCMy consciousness snapped back to reality, the feeling a bit disorienting due to the sudden shift in perspective. I stared up at the mural, the context I’d gotten giving a whole new meaning to it. The mysterious figure at the top must have been Silas after his transformation.
I was certainly no expert, but I was relatively certain that Silas had transformed himself into a lich. It was interesting to see something that was considered made up back on earth come alive here. My knowledge about the magical creatures was woefully inadequate, but I knew that they were mages that extracted their soul and put them into objects, becoming functionally immortal as long as the object remained intact.
I think they were called Filoctery or something like that.
The last bit of this memory also shed some light on some things I’d seen during the other memory. The monstrous people had talked about an event that changed everything, and this seemed to have been it. The shockwave caused by Silas’s experiment carried something across the entire planet, something that corrupted and changed everything it came into contact with.
So the guy outside the tower that had been complaining about the experiment had been right after all, and they didn’t listen because they apparently disproved the theory. This entire event reminded me of that time back on earth, when they built a supercollider in Switzerland to simulate black holes, and a whole bunch of people were convinced that it would create an actual black hole that would then destroy the entire planet.
Except, the guy at the tower had been right, while the black hole theory never came true.
So Silas Silvan was responsible for changing an entire planet into monsters, huh? I’d have to remember the name, who knows where it’d pop up again. For all I knew, he might still roam Suigoss to this day. Or not. Who knows just how long ago this memory took place? Sure, he was technically immortal, but he could have been killed since then, or he could have left this planet and settled down somewhere else.
I had now collected two out of three fragments and was immensely curious about what the third one would show me. At this point, I was certain that I’d find it on the next floating island and since this island didn’t provide a relatively secure hunting ground like the first one did, I’d have to move on sooner than later. I briefly considered taking a quick nap since I’d been awake for several days now, but thinking of my last stint in the void made me decide against it.
Sure, I knew if I paid close attention to my guidance skill, I could probably arrive at the bar with little to no issues, but I just didn’t want to chance it right now. Ever since I’d become a voidling, I needed even less sleep than I needed as a slug. So if I could avoid it, I’d just keep trucking on for now. Tim said it as well, dreams of the void wasn’t a good skill, so the less I made use of it, the better.
I looked at the mural again, specifically at the humans on the ground, depicted during their research. Seeing the memory had given me an idea that I almost slapped myself for not thinking of sooner. These people had been researching magic, creating new spells from existing knowledge, and molding the magic to suit their whims. I took another look at the description of my Spell Attuned Brain mutation.
It promised that my understanding of spells would be heightened and that I potentially could learn new spells just by observing them. So why did I never think that I could just… make my own spells?
I already knew several spells. I knew how to cast them, that I needed to form these intricate patterns with the symbols and shapes the system put in my brain. If I could somehow reverse-engineer these spells, figure out what part of the spell was responsible for which effect… I should be able to create spells without the help of the system!
The proof of concept was right in front of me. This was something that people had done a long time ago, so there was nothing stopping me from doing it myself. I really felt like kicking my past self.
I’d diligently practiced what the system had downloaded into my brain, never questioning how or why things worked as they did. I always just assumed that the system gave me access to the spells as it pleased and that I was confined to what it offered to me. If I’d realized this sooner, like all the way back on the first layer, and diligently researched the magical methods of this new life…
I might just be a lot more powerful than I already was.
If I could somehow merge my poison spells with my void spells I could potentially wreak havoc on a whole other level. Even the infused poison spells showed a greatly infused performance. If I wasn’t limited by the amount of infused mana my mutation produced and I instead could mix the mana as needed, before using it to charge a specially rewritten spell matrix, the effects should be astounding.
I just kept staring at the mural of the magical researchers. Oh, how I’d love to exchange pointers with them right now, or any other intelligent being, really. Alas, I was all on my own. Stranded on a planet filled to the brim with monsters that only followed their base instincts. Which left me as the sole magical researcher on the planet, forced to advance my knowledge all by my lonesome.
But I wouldn’t let that discourage me!
I had a new avenue to gain strength. To recover what has been lost to me, and then some. It would most likely be an arduous journey, and if my knowledge from earth was anything to go by, I would probably make loads of mistakes and occasionally blow myself up. How exciting! Finally, I had something to do whenever I had some downtime.
I considered just staying here for a few days and researching magic, but my earlier exploration of the tower revealed that there was absolutely nothing of use left in the tower. Plus, I was looking to solve an incredibly complex problem. Staying here and slamming myself against the problem wouldn’t help me much. Better to just chip away at the problem bit by bit.
Since I didn’t want to bury my head in research and didn’t have an opportunity to easily hunt stuff up here, I chose to advance to the next island. I’d proven that I could be sneaky enough to make it from island to island, so I’d just go hunt down the last fragment instead. I took a last look at the large mural, paying my respects to the mages of the past, and left the tower.
The island was refreshingly empty, allowing me to go to the edge of the island without issues. After a bit of scouting around the edge of the island, I spotted the next island, quite a bit further away than the first two were. It was a relatively small speck in the distance, which meant it’d probably take me a day or two to get there, depending on how many fights I couldn’t avoid.
My mana had mostly recovered, which meant there was no reason for me to delay. I still remembered the vicious attack by the sky snake and was unwilling to repeat that mistake. I slowly cast void cloak on myself, making sure to pay a bit more attention to how the spell was constructed, before jumping off the island and banking towards the nearest forested area.
Sure, void cloak was a great hiding tool, but the cover of trees was a lot more comfortable to me than just running across open fields. I enjoyed the wind as I descended ever lower, curious about what the final memory might show me.
