Chapter 196: Diving In (1/2)
”You offered me a deal, so I decided to accept,” Chrona stated.
”Hmm...I don't know. It's just I didn't expect you to be willing to teach me something so powerful.”
”Many have tried learning from me. Few have succeeded in any capacity. Offering my magic to you doesn't mean you'll fully attain its potential. The same could be said for the secrets of your own techniques. Even then, you've used your own combat potential responsibly.”
That made sense to me.
”Alright, so where do we start?”
”With comprehension. Most can't grasp the fabric of our dimension and sense it. That alone is a harsh first step.”
”Got that in spades.”
Chrona leaned back, ”Perhaps you're further along than I expected. Still, there's much more to establish. You must learn to mold mana into a specific location.”
”Got that too.”
”What of mana saturation? Can you do that?”
”What is it exactly?”
”It's to oversaturate your body or area with mana. Very strenuous, but required if you are to manipulate your own timeline.”
”I can do that, but I don't get how this ties together exactly.”
She sighed, ”Perhaps we should discuss this in the entrance. There will be more room to practice there.”
Going back to the room stuffed with ice sculptures, Chrona stood at the center of the room. She pointed her tail to a particular spot, which I walked toward.
”First, sense the dimensional fabric around you.”
I did so, noting the subtle fluctuations from Chrona's own gravitational pull. It gave me a rough outline of the area, allowing me to discern movement. It was much harder than merely using temperature differences along with wind currents though. Those sensations gave me more to work with since a person's gravitational pull was pretty small.
Wrinkles ebbed on the gravitational net, Chrona gathering mana from her surroundings. She wheezed, ”Gah, I despise drawing mana from my own reserves. It's exhausting.”
After a few moments, a tiny blue sphere of mana popped into existence.
”This is mana given a physical form. Can you create a ball of mana such as this?”
I raised an eyebrow, ”Why are you moving it outside of your body?”
”It makes manipulating the dimensional fabric aside from my own much simpler.”
Listening to her, I lifted a hand. I redirected my mana flow to my palm from my cipher runes. A river of red mana flooded from my arm, coalescing into a crimson ball. It dwarfed Chrona's own sphere, and it left her taking a few steps back.
”Your mana is...volatile, isn't it? I understand where your fury in battle comes from. It's your spirit.”
”Don't worry. I've got it under control.”
”Then your mind is like Emagrotha's. She preferred using her own personal reserves of mana as you do. She believed it strengthened her spirit.”
I crossed my arms, leaving my mana sphere floating in front of me, ”Why don't you do the same?”
”My...my magic is too demanding,” Chrona murmured while looking away. ”Perhaps one day I will be able to. Today is not that day, however.”
I shrugged, ”Eh, keep working at it. You'll get there.”
”Easy for a genius to say,” she said with a glare.
I rolled my eyes, ”It's even easier to make excuses.”
She held her sneer before letting out a deep sigh,
”You and Emagrotha would've made good friends. You echo her ideology with your own. You're far more direct and harsh, however. She was more eloquent.”
”Yeah, that's never been my strong point. I can usually fire people up in a speech though.”
She tilted her head, ”I would liken my own magic to a speech in nature. It's as if I'm convincing time to alter itself. There's very little force involved. It's more so an act of persuasion. Perhaps that was why Emagrotha could never use my magic. She went through any obstacle, headstrong and unstoppable.”
”She sounds cool and all, but I need to learn this.”
She waved a clawed hand, ”Ah yes, of course. Now we move onto field manipulation.”
From her sphere, a ripple ushered out. As it passed us, a familiar but odd sensation passed over me. Chrona slowed time yet again.
”Did you catch what I did?”
”I noticed the change. I don't know how you did it.”
She flicked her tail up to the blue sphere, ”I created a field of mana around us, then I altered the density of the dimensional fabric around us. I imagine it as such. Space and time are one. If you lessen one, you lessen the other. Therefore, the less space around us, the less time as well. This makes time move slowly.”
I frowned, ”Shit...That's crazy. Do you guys know about E=mc2?”
”No.”
”It's this idea by this smart guy called Einstien. He's a, uh, famous scientist. He made that equation, and it just means that energy equals mass. It had a lot of implications back in the day, one of them being that space and time are the same.”
I cupped my chin, ”Well, there's a lot more to it, but I'm not that knowledgeable about the topic, to be honest. Point is, you're describing his idea for the most part without knowing it. I was surprised.”
”This Einstein sounds like a fearsome dimensional mage. His understanding of the inner workings of it dwarfs my own if what you say is true.”
In a way, what he did was magic. It led to bombs far more massive than could be believed, so I guessed magician was a pretty fitting title for the guy.
”Er, Einstein wielded a different kind of magic. It was nuclear in nature.”
Her eyes narrowed while she raised her brow, ”What is nuclear?”
”Basically what fuels stars.”
”Fascinating. He wielded the power of dimensions and the stars above. A star mage! Incredible. He outmatches even Lehesion in power and might then.”
Eh, nuclear bombs were a powerful thing.
”Yeah...he did. Well, he built on the magic of those before him, just like those that came after. He was pivotal in the development of the ideas though. With enough practice, a group of people could even recreate his magic.”
”What? That's chills the blood to hear,” her eyes widened. ”Too much power in the hands of many is the end of all.”
The Cold War was pretty bad.
”Yeah, he opened Pandora's Box in a way.”
”The Box of Pandora?”
”You know what, we'll talk about it later.”
Chrona leaned towards me, ”To think you've such a vibrant history throughout the galaxy. Our forefathers told stories through tall tales. We passed the knowledge down by speaking with one another. Where did you come across such vibrant tales?”
”People wrote all this down in large books. That's a big reason why Einstein was successful actually. He used the knowledge of those before him, building on it. Otherwise it would've been impossible.”
Chrona waved her tail, ”All discoveries mirror this trait. Imagine a pathetic worm attempting to dismantle his achievements. 'His knowledge was not utterly unique.' Neither is the language we share, yet we do not ascribe our achievements to those that made words.” She shook her head,
”It sounds as though Einstein unveiled secrets of the universe. What more does it take to be impressed? He's like the ancients that guided us from the sea. They turned our fins into wings, and thus, we ascended. That is what we are told in our stories.”
She was probably describing evolution. Considering how long gialgathens live, it must have been a slow process. The fact their oral stories shifted from the truth a bit was to be expected. Fascinating as it all was, we had a job to do.
Interrupting our discussion, I created a gravity well in front of me, creating a dip in the space around us, ”Is this similar to what you're doing?”
Chrona leaned back and furrowed her brows, ”It's...quite different. You're simply pulling on the fabric around us. I'm actually manipulating its density. It's quite strange that you're able to press into space with such extreme force actually. Perhaps your immunity to our time is what enables you to perform such feats?”
I shook my head, ”My teacher could do the same.”
”But not to this extent, surely?”
”Well, no,” I frowned. ”My mana and weight are much higher than his though.”
”What does your own weight have to do with it?”
”The more I weight, the stronger my gravity wells become. This is because I can create a pulling force that matches my mass. It saves me a lot of mana in the long run.”
Chrona sat down, on all fours, kind of like a cat, ”That isn't how my magic works in the slightest. All my manipulation requires my own intervention. It may be due to the difference in our techniques, however.”
I always assumed everyone had the same parameters around their magic, but from what Chrona said, it didn't look like it. Maybe being a Living Dimension had more effects on my abilities than I first realized. Either way, I needed to duplicate the field she was making before I attempted anything else.
”Well, my magic involves gripping the space around you and tugging on it. I can do the opposite too, shoving it out of a point as well.”
Chrona scoffed, ”What? You grab a single point instead of designating a space? Madness.”
I whispered, ”No...Sparta.”
”What was that?”