I had clearly felt it.
Mana flowed from my "mana organ" through my hand, yet instead of conjuring a fireball, it simply generated heat.
A few hypotheses came to mind.
One, my imagination wasn't vivid enough, perhaps magic required a clearer mental image. Two, my mana control was insufficient. I might not be channeling enough mana, or doing it in the right way. Or three, magic required precise information. Meaning I needed to provide an accurate blueprint rather than just an abstract visualization.
The last hypothesis intrigued me the most. If true, it meant magic functioned on structured, logical principles, rewarding knowledge over sheer willpower. If modern scientific understanding enhanced magical potential, then real-world physics could be my greatest weapon.
I had to test it.
Closing my eyes, I focused once more.
I stirred my mana with emotion. The familiar twisting sensation coiled in my stomach as I visualized chemical combustion.
(2 C₄H₁₀ + 13 O₂ → 8 CO₂ + 10 H₂O)
I imagined butane forming, then igniting instantly in a controlled reaction, its shape structured into a sphere. The reaction looped continuously, sustaining itself in the form of a fireball.
Then, I activated my mana organ and opened my eyes.
FWOOSH!
A roaring sphere of flame erupted from my palm—a perfect execution. The fireball hovered for only a second before dissipating.
"WOOOAH!"
"IT ACTUALLY WORKED!"
Excitement surged through me. This was real. No longer a desperate, instinctive act of survival, but a deliberate, repeatable use of magic. The door to an entirely new scientific discipline had just been unlocked.
And I needed more.
I bolted to the desk, my thoughts racing as I scribbled down questions:
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Is knowledge the primary factor in magic efficiency?
Can spells be cast without emotion? If so, does emotion enhance magic in a measurable way?
Is there a spell hierarchy, like in fantasy novels?
Am I truly "creating" elements, or just simulating them?
What are the most efficient spells for combat?
Could I develop tracking spells? If so, how would they function?
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Enough theory. I needed data.
I rushed back outside.
'First, lets check if stirring my emotions every time I want to cast a spell is actually required.'
I conjured up another fireball. This time making sure that my emotions were not a big part of the casting process.
FWOOSH!
"Hell yeah!" I exclaimed.
"Emotion is completely unnecessary!"
"..."
"I mean, for magic. I'm not a psychopath."
This was a very positive outcome. Because instead of having extremely angry magic be the most powerful, I could become powerful without the need to mentally break myself.
Though it seemed magic wasn't completely without emotion. That was made clear by the fact that I cast my first spell out of pure desperation. But also because even now, the fireball felt slower and less powerful. But I still wanted to test that.
So I cast another fireball, this time with bubbling excitement.
FWOOOOSH!
"Oh shit! Guess I'm quite literally glowing with excitement." I said, realizing there was nobody around me to cringe.
This time, the spell was much quicker and more powerful, clearly indicating that strong emotions made stronger magic.
But the spell wasn't more efficient, it was more powerful. It was akin to increasing the diameter of a pipe to increase flow, rather than increasing the speed of the flowing water.
I took the time to write down my findings after every discovery. My pen, quickly filling the paper with more hypotheses and results.
Next I tried to create water from magic alone.
Rather than go directly to the more efficient route, I opted to use magic to conjure up new matter. This method was most definitely going to be less efficient, but if it worked, magic would be far more powerful than I originally thought.
...
Failure.
My magic barely even responded.
I tried again, but this time I tried really hard to move my magic with emotions.
Still nothing. This time, my magic only moved a little more
'Bummer.'
Thus I came to a conclusion. Creating elements out of nothing was either impossible or far beyond my abilities.
But that didn't mean I was out of options. I would just have to resort to the more logical approach to a water ball spell.
I closed my eyes and adjusted my approach. Instead of creating water, I visualized drawing moisture from the air—condensing it into a sphere of liquid.
FSSSHHH—
'Success!'
The ball of water floated majestically above my hand. I moved my hand to see if it would move with me but my concentration broke and the ball fell to the ground.
Only now did it dawn on me just how insanely powerful magic was. I had already expected it, but realizing I had just gained a virtually limitless supply of water that was both portable and extremely pure, made me shudder.
'Not to get ahead of myself though.' I one hundred percent realize the danger of drinking excessive amounts of pure water and knew that I needed to add minerals for optimal drinking conditions.
But enough dwelling on nearly infinite water, I had more and more questions.
The next thing I wanted to try was categorized as less of a complete spell and more of a psychic power.
Telekinesis.
I had already demonstrated the ability to hold a ball of water in mid-air. But I needed to extend my understanding of its capabilities.
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Was magic inherently telekinetic or does the act of telekinesis also expend a great deal of mana?
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To check this, I designed a neat little experiment.
I would cast three telekinesis spells. One of those spells would move a chair across the floor without any obstruction. The next would move the chair with another chair blocking its path. Then the final would move the chair with another chair sitting on top. Each spell was intended to move the chair the same distance in 5 seconds.
This experiment would help me determine a few key things. One, depending on how much mana was required to move the object within that time frame, I could confirm if the weight of a system and/or the friction force has any effect on telekinesis. Two, I could confirm whether or not I could use telekinesis on objects not created by magic. And lastly, I could confirm whether I could dictate time as part of my visualization.
I walked over to the bar section of the chavern and moved a chair to the middle of the room.
'Focus.' I thought
For my visualization, I wasn't going to do anything fancy. The plan was to have the chair slide across the floor in 5 seconds.
'Now!'
I activated the spell.
eeeeeeee
The chair made a screeching noise as it slid across the floor boards, stopping right before it hit the wall.
I watched the chair slide across the floor, then stared at it for a second.
A quiet "Hmmm" escaped my lips.
There wasn't anything too special about what had just happened, other than the fact that telekinesis works on non-magic things. My spell did not take five seconds, rather it felt more like ten seconds had passed when it finally stopped.
So even though I visualized five seconds, the actual result didn't seem to care.
"That's... a problem." I muttered
This revelation threw a minor wrench at my plan. It meant that comparing the amount of mana used would not work very well considering that time was also a variable that couldn't be controlled.
I knew this would affect my results but I still pushed forward, because depending on what actually happened it would still be possible to draw decent conclusions.
I walked over and repositioned the chair. Then I went and grabbed another chair and placed it down, lying in front of the other chair.
Once again, I visualized the same thing as before, ignoring the addition of the chair in front.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
The chair once again, made a loud screeching noise as it slid across the floor. This time though, the travel time took well over 30 seconds with the additional chair on the floor.
This time, however, instead of thinking about why this could be, I quickly reset the chair and stacked the other chair on top of it instead of in front and repeated the experiment.
Visualizing the same thing again, I cast the spell.
'Now!'
eeeeeeee
"Woah!" I exclaimed.
This experiment yielded results I never could have expected.
Each of the tests resulted in different amounts of mana consumed.
The first one, for obvious reasons, cost the least mana to cast, the second one cost the most mana to cast, and the third one was in-between. The surprising part however, was that the third test, despite having another chair on top of it, cost negligibly more mana than the first test while taking, from what I could tell, the exact same time to complete.
This revelation was extremely interesting because it either meant spell efficiency had almost everything to do with how close your visualization was to reality, or it meant that the effect of gravity and/or friction was heavily reduced when casting spells.
Why would it mean that? Simple. The chair being in front of the other chair increases the mass of the system while also changing the center of mass, the surface area, and actual size considerably while the chair being stacked on top only really increases the mass of the system, while slightly raising the center of mass. So if you think about it, because I didn't incorporate the mass of the system into my visualization, but I did incorporate the shape and surface area of the chair, so the visualization for the third test was much closer to reality than the second test.
Of course, more testing could lead to a whole range of different conclusions. One such test might conclude your spell's upfront mana cost included the effects of gravity and made it negligible for the time to complete, but overall this needed much more experimentation before I could say anything conclusive.
'Hmm.' I thought 'I should try imagining the mass as a function of weight.'
"I should see how heavy the-"
fthp
My head immediately darted to the location of the noise, only to catch a slight glimpse of a human looking thing vanishing in front of me.
My mind raced and my heart started beating. I only had one thought going through my head. Not that there were other people here, not that I had been found first, not asking why they ran.
"WAS THAT A FUCKIN' ELF!?"