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Chapter 12: Mana Wavelengths

The ship’s rear descends towards the ground. Tiana strolls down towards the ground while I sluggishly opened the cabinet to grab my knife.

「By the way, where are we going?」

「To the mountains.」

I placed the knife around my waist before walking down towards Tiana before she descends into my shadow. Before we walked towards the mountains, I grabbed my keys to shut the ship's door before finally getting out of the docking bay.

「You serious? Why there of all places?」

「I’m not 100% sure myself but I feel something familiar dragging me towards that area.」

「Just to let you know we are going into a restricted area, it’s mostly guarded, especially at night. I want to stay out of trouble, especially with that asshole priest always finding ways to mess with me.」

「Don’t worry, I got a plan to bypass it.」

「You sure?」

「Yeah, Yeah I am sure.」

「That doesn’t sound reassuring.」

「Trust me, I did this stuff before. We should be good.」

The night was very silent, too silent for a fact. I am surprised that no one is out tonight, especially when Tiana allegedly said that she heard a large laser beam blasting towards the sky. But I believe something is up. The air felt unusually heavy, especially since we were already high up; this shouldn’t happen. I also felt slightly sleepy; I must of not have enough sleep. But I slept extremely early today so it shouldn’t be the case.

「It’s magic; they are emanating out of the magic stones around us. From what I know, it is some sort of sleeping spell. But you shouldn’t worry about it. I reversed the spell for you. You should be resistant to it if you are around me. Unfortunately, I cann’t create a complete immunity, since the magic crystals are creating different wavelengths of the same spells. 」

「What?」

「Ok, so imagine a wavelength. Each spell has a different wavelength that creates different magic spells. So something like a fireball and a waterfall with have different wavelengths to create the spell. But even the same spell can give a slightly different wavelength depending on multiple factors, like the strength outputted, how much mana has been used, and the technique. So one person's fireball might differ slightly from another person’s fireball. So what if you reverse the wavelength?」

「You completely neutralise the magic?」

「Correct. I’m currently emitting a frequency that reverses the spell, so if you are close enough to me, you shouldn’t be affected by the spell. But since each magic stone is not equal, they all have a slightly different wavelength; you will still feel a slight effect from the spell.」

「I didn’t know that was even possible.」

「Well, not a lot of people will know about this; it is extremely complex and hard to pull off, but it requires no mana to do it. It is extremely strong against any magic users, but to reverse the exact wavelength while in combat, it’s very impractical. I’ve done it multiple times before.」

「That’s pretty impressive.」

「It does; until you realise that most of the time they are spamming the same spell with no alteration, so after a while you can easily reverse the spell. But even then, I feel like it’s a waste of time.」

「From how you are explaining it; it seems very useful; especially for a chronomancer like you..」

「Of course it does; until you realise that not everyone relies solely on magic to fight. And even if they mainly use magic, most sane people use different spells to fight and even if I use my powers to figure out the right wavelength, most of the time it is easier just to dodge it. It requires less thought, too. 」

「Man, this sucks, for something this complex and strong; I thought I could slowly learn and master it. But how you explain it, I will basically never use it.」

「I can still teach you how to use it. It’s not completely useless. It’s highly effective against people with fragile egos that think they automatically win once they fire their strongest magic spell.」

My eyes lit up.

「Really?」

「Yeah, I can teach you now. It’s a good time to try it now since we are still in range of their spell. Before I teach you how to reverse them; you need to know a bit of the basics. Earlier, the wavelengths are different for each spell; One way to determine each wavelength is how long their length is. So something like water magic will have a longer wavelength than something like lightning. The height will determine the strength of the magic. There is other stuff to it, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. Just so you can at understand how to do it, I will just tell you what kind of wavelength this is.」

Her arm emerges out of my chest through a small shadow portal. She waves around a small piece of paper. I grabbed the paper off of her hand and looked into the paper. It seems like a bunch of scribbles.

「Since this is specifically a sleeping spell, it has a very complex wavelength. Usually offensive spells are very consistent with their wavelengths. For this spell, it requires the knowledge of brainwaves frequencies. So what I drew for you is the deep sleep brainwaves frequency but in reverse. It looks a bit different from what it usually looks like since the waves are stretched, but it should do the trick. So what you have to do is to imagine yourself tracing this wavelength in your brain while imagining it emitting from a certain part of your body. I recommend for something like this to emit those waves out of your head. Oh yeah, do it slowly as well, this isn’t an aggressive spell.」

I looked at the wavelengths multiple times, trying to memories it before I closed my eyes and slowly breathe in and out, trying to imagine it. I imagine myself following the wavelength, but after one or two waves, I forget what it looks like and have to open my eyes to peek at the sheet.

「Usually, you do it like that, but it’s a waste of time. You can honestly do it while reading this paper repeatedly while imagining those waves are emitting through your head.」

My eyes snapped open.

「You could’ve just said that.」

「I could but I want to give you an idea of how to do it without looking at the paper.」

I took a deep breath before I followed the wavelengths from start to finish repeatedly. I directed the attention towards my head, pretending the frequency was emitting out of it. Before I knew it; the air felt lighter while the tiredness slowly disappeared.

「Good job, you did it.」

「It isn’t hard as I thought.」

「Doing it isn’t the hard part; it’s mostly the knowledge part.」

「hmmm, wait so what if I imagined following wavelength normally, would I be able to use the spell?」

「Theoretically yes.」

「So learning the wavelengths is useful then.」

「Well, think about this; what would be easier; creating the spell through imagining it or remembering the wavelength of the spell?」

「Fair enough.」

From a short distance, we large chain-link fence loomed ahead, an unexpected barrier cutting off the forest that led to the mountain. Security cameras were conspicuously attached to every second post, making it feel entirely out of place in the neighborhood.

「So, how are we gonna go through it without getting caught?」

「We are going to travel through the shadows, of course. But firstly take the corner into the alleyway.」

I followed her advice willingly, skeptical but extremely hopeful it would work.

This chapter was going to be talking about the new character, but I ended up talking about wavelengths. Her proper introduction is further than I thought it was.