Chapter 49 More Scientific Mumbo-Jumbo (1/2)

”Hmph!” Lord Gallius retreated backwards as he began to treat Alex and Alina with more caution. ”If you aimed for my head earlier, I should have been dead already. Tell me, are you two holding back because you think that you two combined are already more powerful than me?”

”That's up for you to imagine.” Alex replied as he tightened his hold on Alina's hand. Alina responded in kind, as her fingers caressed the back of Alex's hand.

Alex suppressed a shiver as he tried to not show a delighted expression on his face.

This seems to have succeeded, as Alina and Asteria did not see any hints of Alex being physically delighted right now.

But aside from being delighted with Alina being touchy with him, Alex was also delightedfrom the fact that his first Power Synthesis with Alina succeeded.

Attempting a Power Synthesis was an extremely rare and hard thing to do, since only a Traveler and his Companion can perform it.

During a Power Synthesis, the Traveler and his Companion can, in a sense, 'fuse their power'.

Of course it will not be just as simple as that.

First of all, only one power from the Traveler and one power from the Companion can be fused at a time.

This means that it is impossible to fuse two abilities from the Traveler with two abilities from its Companion.

Second, the powers that will be fused must have at least the same origin.

In Alex and Alina's case, both of their powers were Esper Abilities, so there are no problems in fusing them.

And this is what Alex and Alina did.

They fused Alex's EM Wave Manipulation and Alina's Weak Space Manipulation in order to manifest a mutation in their Esper Abilities.

But even if it looks like the Power Synthesis is a very powerful technique, there are some limiters that made Alex hesitant on using it today.

One of this was its usage limit and the other one was the time limit.

According to Asteria, Alex and Alina can only use the Power Synthesis once per mission.

This means that if Alex uses the Power Synthesis today, he will be unable to use it in the Esper World anymore.

Alex will have to wait until he is on a new world in order to use Power Synthesis again.

As for the time limit, a Power Synthesis will only last for 10 minutes, which is considerably short.

Another thing that must be noted was that any new ability gained during Power Synthesis will be temporary and will disappear once the Power Synthesis has finished.

All of these conditions above shows that using a Power Synthesis is a big risk, since there's no way to know what the combination of two different abilities will be.

But Alex and Alina ignored these risks as they knew that with their current strength, their only way to win is to use Power Synthesis.

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What Alex and Alina got after usingPower Synthesis was an entirely new ability which stemmed from the combination of the wave-particle duality of EM Waves and the alteration ability of Weak Space Manipulation.

This new ability is called Quantum Property Manipulation, and just like what its name says, this ability grants its user the power of manipulate the quantum properties of certain objects.

Alex's attack which wounded Lord Gallius' shoulder earlier was the result of this ability.

Alex was able to have an attack this effective as he manipulated his attack to exhibit a phenomenon called Quantum Tunneling.

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In Quantum Tunneling, electrons will have the ability to pass through obstacles blocking its path, as if the electron was 'tunneling' through the obstacles.

This happens due to the dual nature of an electron as a particle and a wave.

In Alex's world, some experiments have already concluded that this phenomenon indeed exists, which led to some applications of this phenomenon in the scientific community.

With Alex knowing the math and principles behind Quantum Tunneling, he vicariously applied this phenomenon on his light attack earlier.

He adjusted the 'tunneling ability' of his light attack in such a way that his light attack was able to pass through Lord Gallius' defense.

And once his light attack was inside Lord Gallius' shoulder, Alex undid the quantum tunneling, which essentially materialized the light attack inside Lord Gallius' shoulder.

Naturally, this kind of move was able to greatly damage Lord Gallius' shoulder.

”Hehehe, seems like I really should just aim for the head.” Alex muttered as he wiped the sweat away on his face.

Forcing an electron to undergo quantum tunneling was easy,but forcing the same thing on a light beam was extremely taxing, which was made evident by the fact that Alex was feeling a little tired after doing what he did earlier.

With a jolt, Alex realized that just like any other powerful techniques, he cannot just spam his Quantum Tunneling for a long time.

But even with that limitation, Alex was sure that he had enough Mental Power left to make more attacks.

After all, his Mental Power has changed too.

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”Hmph, I do not know what you did to your attack earlier, but I am sure that you cannot just do that many times.” Lord Gallius said as he was able to slow the blood flow from his injured shoulder. ”You only have a Mental Power of 150, so sooner or later, your attacks will also stop. When that time comes, I will only have to watch for Miss Alina to protect myself.”

”That is a good analysis…” Alex muttered as Alina looked at the two of them with mirth. But, that will only apply if my Mental Power really is just 150 right now. However, that is where you are wrong!”

Alex then unleashed 10 more light attacks from his palms, which managed to elicit strangled shouts from Lord Gallius himself.

”Right now, my Mental Power is just the same as Alina's.” Alex muttered as he monitored Lord Gallius' situation with an intense gaze. ”Because of that, there is no way that I will just run out of Mental Power that quickly.”

”You bastard!”

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The reason for why Alex had the same Mental Power as Alina was because of the phenomenon called Quantum Entanglement.

In this phenomenon, two separate particles will have the same exact properties, so much so that they are extremely identical with each other.

Even when the two particles were far away from each other, both of them will still have the same properties.

Not only that, but whatever the first particle experiences will also be experienced by the other particle at the same time.

In short, particles under quantum entanglement will practically have a doppleganger.

Alex and Alina applied this phenomenon on themselves, as Alex began to have some of the properties that Alina had, most notably her Mental Power.

This allowed Alex to have a Mental Power of Tier 999+, which made it easier for him to spam attacks.

Alex tried to not laugh as he realized that for the next 10 minutes, Lord Gallius will face 2 Tier 999+ Espers at the same time, who both have an ability that will let their attacks penetrate Lord Gallius' defense.

”I have heard stories about some Tier Espers defeating Star Espers.” Alex muttered as he and Alina slowly approached Lord Gallius.