Casual Heroing

Whatever magic is, I’m a sucker for it.

There’s no denying it.

There’s no Lucinda, no baking, nothing in the world, while I look at this problem. It’s like everything else ceased existing the moment I started practicing.

As I was saying, birds and cars make up for an interesting problem, but I have to figure out how the polarity works. The fact that vectors can go off at different times already solved the problem of spinning in a circle, maybe, but I still don’t understand how the movement is generated.

I’m thinking of electromagnetic fields and such, but something tells me the answer lies elsewhere.

At first, I expected the [Light] to move in the opposite direction it had actually moved. I imagined it would have gone where fewer starting points had been generated. Why? Sort of like an osmosis process, moving to fill in the energy void. Instead, it went in the direction I had started tracing from.

Was the first mana I had laid down doing something while I traced the rest? Did it generate some sort of a pull that attracted the rest?

What was it?

The question claws at my curiosity, but I decide to put it away and get back to the practical problem.

Time, quantity and energy.

What else is there?

How thick or thin I paint those ethereal lines?

No, that’s just following the matrix. Maybe a more experienced [Mage] can touch that thickness to harness different effects, but it’s not something I’m concerned with. It’s just a byproduct of those using magic, not an intrinsic property.

You can go faster or slower, you can—

Synchronize them?

It’s still about time, but I realize I’ve been tracing the matrix at different speeds while not maintaining a constant acceleration for the individual paths. It’s good if it’s not moving, because you still end up with a spell, but otherwise, it becomes a problem!

But this means that I have to look at an ‘end-point’, where every single line is converging, and I cannot make adjustments on the go. Well, that sounds like a massive pain since the matrixes are a bit different—

Are they actually different?

I mean, they obviously are. But it’s like dealing with minute differences that can probably be homologated into one fixed matrix if I don’t care about 100% efficiency.

“Book, do [Mages] craft each matrix differently every time?”

‘No.’

And that’s that.

It makes much more sense, doesn’t it?

You wouldn’t expect someone to cast the best version of a stupid spell like [Light] every single time?

I quit the [Deep Focus] because I feel my mind is getting taxed. Also, I don’t need it for the next few steps. I prefer letting my mind wander a bit to get the best out of me.

I still keep the [Advanced Mana Sense] on and I look at a matrix that I put a few meters from me. I can still see it clearly, thanks to the shenanigans of my skill; distance doesn’t seem to affect me when working with the spell.

I look at all the squiggly moving lines and I start picking out starting points. I don’t bother with any difficult movements right now, I just want the [Light] to go straight.

And by the way, as a side note. The Mulligan fellow, who invented this book, is a madman. Or was a madman. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. But the problem I’m solving is something insane. There’s no way anyone can do all 529 cantrips in 333 days; it’s plain impossible. Just making a [Light] go in a straight line is a goddamn Herculean Labor.

This is hard work.

I don’t like it.

But, oh, boy, am I curious about what’s going to happen.

As soon as I’m done picking up the starting points, I look at the lines.

It’s time to experiment.

Even though the lines are slightly different every time, the time to get from the starting point to the end seems to stay almost the same. A realization suddenly hits me.

I can probably pre-track the lines in my mind and then try to re-do the in the matrix itself. Since I started doing magic, I’ve had the distinct impression that my thinking abilities have been somewhat enhanced. It’s hard to figure out the distance in a way that would make every line go at pretty much the same speed. But I need to figure it out if I want to give the [Light] spell a good and smooth acceleration.

Now, I know I should be careful and not rush into things. But it’s like being a kid with a lot of dry wood and an entire box of matches. Sometimes, we just want to see the world burn.

Therefore, even though I’m aware it’s a terrible idea, I look at the matrix and I sketch out the spell in half-a-second.

Before I explain what happened right after that, let me remind you that last time it took me around a minute and a half to cast the spell. So, half a second is… what, something like 150 times faster? Yeah, something like that. And do not forget that the spell had actually hit the wall with a soft thud, right? That means the spell has a substance, a manner of physicality.

What would happen if the casting speed and the movement speed were correlated? And what if they were correlated by an exponential relationship? Let’s say, there’s a curve that goes ‘VROOOM’ when you get under ten seconds or so – I don’t have the numbers, sadly, so I’m eyeballing here. So, what if said curve meant that the spell would accelerate at insane speed? How fast was it before? Let’s say a mile per hour. Maybe less. For the sake of the argument, let’s put it at 0.3 mph.

You multiply that by 150 and you get 45 mph.

I know, I didn’t want to do math, but my brain is refusing to accept what’s just happened. So, please, bear with me.

Fastballs in baseball can reach up to 100 mph. What happens if such a projectile hits you in the face? Well, bottom line is that it’s not pleasant.

So, our dear spell has gone off like a very fast ball and it hit the wooden wall. How fast is beyond me. I have no idea for two reasons. First, I was still using my magic skill that distorted the world in favor of seeing its pure energy. Second, I’m not a huge baseball fan.

What I know is that I just put a hole in a thick, wooden wall.

Another thing I know is that I can already feel someone stomping to my room.