A Jaded Life

Mind over Matter was an interesting ability. Its most basic and obvious function was to give me telekinetic control over anything within a metre of myself, though the acceleration I could impart was fairly limited. It was difficult to estimate, but after a few simple experiments, I thought it was roughly one and a half times as strong as gravity. Meaning I could lift things at about half the speed they would have when falling down, as I needed to overcome gravity’s pull first. That part was somewhat boring, though there were some fascinating possibilities, as it wasn’t limited by a bootstrap-paradox as my other magic was.

In other words, I would be able to use my telekineses to pull myself out of a swamp by my own bootstraps or levitate an object I was standing on, at least if the object wasn’t too big. In regards to size, once an object left the one-metre radius, my control deteriorated until it suddenly faded completely, making me think that I needed to keep the object’s centre of mass within my radius of control. A few quick tests confirmed that hypothesis, giving me a little more to work with, though I quickly realised that controlling macroscopic objects wasn’t the best use of the ability, it worked best in the other direction as it was only limited by my mind.

That discovery came when I began to wonder what the definition of an object was, only to realise that my ability wasn’t ‘Mind over Object’, it was ‘Mind over Matter’, making the question of what objects I could control irrelevant. It was entirely a question of focus and perception, meaning as long as I could narrow down my focus, I could pull two parts of an object in two different directions, neatly separating it with a fine, smooth line.

Telekinetically cutting through objects was a lot harder than I would have thought as I needed to focus on the object’s internal structure, not just the outside, unless I wanted to slowly pull parts away from the surface, carving my way through the object bit by bit, but the possible ways to use the ability were already looking incredibly promising. It would take time and effort to master it, as it took a sizable amount of focus and magic at the moment, but if I managed, I could see it as one of the strongest abilities possible. After all, magic and non-physical forces were the domain of my magic and now, I could use my Mind over Matter to give me mastery over all physical matter, giving me protection from all physical threats. At the end of the day, what couldn’t touch me couldn’t hurt me.

Sadly, while a part of me wanted nothing but to play around with the new trick some more, exhaustion was making itself known and soon, I realised, dawn would come and make my position on my tower somewhat uncomfortable, if only due to reflections. Maybe polishing the top of my tower to a mirror finish and shine had been a dumb idea, even if it looked pretty.

Down in the tower, I made myself comfortable and started to look inward, trying to get a better idea about the process of finding my breath and wings. It might be some sort of physical transformation, at least for the wings, or maybe some magical trick I needed to figure out to make the breath, though I was somewhat at a loss about where to start, especially with the wings. Well, unless I managed to find an old can of RedBull or something like that. I highly doubted it would work, but at the same time, it might be the kind of thing the system would do, simply because it would be amusing to some strange, higher power.

So, instead of flailing around with Blood Magic and trying to somehow give me wings, however those would look like, I decided to focus on the breath and how I wanted it to work in both form and function.

The obvious clue came from the vision I experienced and the images it contained. A combination of Ice and Darkness, combined into a breath that wasn’t just cold, but that was actively devouring the heat from its environment, making it even colder. Maybe, if I studied the interaction between the concept of Heat, its removal via the concept of Devour and, lastly, how that could lead to the concept of Stillness, I might be able to create a breath attack that was more than cold, one that literally froze everything it touched in a conceptual stillness, making it as if time itself had frozen for them.

I doubted that I would be able to actively influence time like that, at least not easily, but there was a distinct difference between freezing somebody or something to a point where time didn’t pass for them and making it so time actually didn’t pass. Sure, it was a distinction more important to an outside observer, but it was an important one, at least when dealing with concepts.

Thinking back to my magical work on Mundus, I remembered the flame I had created there, the Ice Magic construct that actively froze the world around it. Opening my hand, and thinking of that cold flame, I tried to conjure it, only to find my efforts somewhat stifled. I remembered how the flame had looked but when I tried to recreate it, I realised that the Astral River here on Terra was subtly different, making a direct recreation difficult, maybe even impossible. What I needed to do was recreate the result, though the process to get there had to be different from what I used on Munus. Not really a problem, reshaping the process would allow me to incorporate the various new affinities and magical abilities I had learned, but it would take time, as everything did.

After a few hours of experimentation, relaxation and sleep, I decided that it was time to catch up with the others. Show them my new trick and maybe ask if one of them had an idea how to utilise it best. While neither Luna nor Lia had the same breadth of experience when it came to magic, both of them had their own strengths and perspectives, giving me something else to think about. Additionally, there was no telling what Luna might have learned from Lady Hecate, who was an entity worthy of my respect.

Not solely because She was a deity but because She was an incredibly experienced spellweaver and an excellent teacher. Maybe Her divine domain or portfolio helped to make Her the masterful spellcaster She was or it was the other way around and She was only a deity because of her mastery over the Arcane Path. Both were viable options and, amusingly, it hardly mattered which one was true. At the end of the night, Her mastery over the arcane arts was incredible and I could only hope to match Her some day. Maybe surpass Her in a few specific areas but those were dreams for the future. The far future, most likely, but dreams nonetheless. Once I revived Sigmir, I would have something else to focus on and obsess over.

Finding Lia and Alex was, as so often, trivially easy. I only had to follow the strange scents and the occasional bang from one of their experiments and there they were. Granted, now that we had dedicated laboratories that was even easier, but the scent gave it away every time.

To my amusement, it wasn’t only the two of them, for once, Luna and Silva were inside, too, both of them looking fairly irate at our mad-alchemy pair. It only took me a moment to realise just why they were angry, it looked very much as if some of the gunk Alex had used to overwhelm the shield generator in the Foothold splashed onto Silva, causing some complications with her fur, despite their best efforts to get it out right afterwards.

Now, Silva’s normally pristine coat, which she took quite a bit of pride in and which she had Luna or myself brush and wash regularly, wasn’t quite as pristine any longer. Now, numerous tufts of hair were stuck together, giving her a look faintly resembling a plucked chicken, with spots of skin showing where the fur had been pulled away. To make matters worse, the fur still there was now a sickly, almost neon-green colour, making her look awful.

Quickly pushing away my amusement, knowing that neither Luna nor Silva were currently able to see the humour in the situation, I stepped up, offering my help, even if I wasn’t quite sure how I might be able to. Alchemy was, as I had long since realised, an entirely different field compared to my magic, based on the Astral River as it was. Still, what I could do was conjure water and train the precision of my newly discovered Mind over Matter skill, giving it an incredible workout. Who would have expected that the first, somewhat serious, use of an ability that powerful was to clean the gunk out of my canine companion’s fur?