Daniel’s POV

“Jesus how much are you going to eat? You’re going clean out our stash at this rate!” yelled an irritated Alisha. Daniel felt puzzled about hearing his sister yelling at someone else and not him in the morning but his thoughts were interrupted by an incredible amount of aching pain.

At the sound of his grunts of pain, Alisha came over, “you remember how we read up on all kinds of things so you know what a defibrillator does? Well you are probably feeling like a horse kicked you in the chest from the jury-rigged defibrillator. You woke up for a second but fell unconscious.” Daniel felt the tension in his body relax thankfully with a strange feeling in his stomach. The feeling must be from the… second stomach forming? Ugh he wanted a better way to refer to it but that could be postponed.

Daniel retorted with a smile, “No I feel like someone used me as an anvil.” Hopefully his sister felt a little more at ease.

Daniel looked up and saw Alex stuffing her mouth at a pace just like how the admonishing he heard his sister described. Seeing him stare at her, Alex uttered with her mouth full, “what?” Daniel figured this was a symptom from her… storage organ forming but remembered how her table manners were ghastly even before. A combination of the two then since her manners managed to actually get worse seeing the scattered empty cans.

Daniel shuffled over to grab a can himself and motioned for Alisha to bring the book over. Might as well find what else he could discern from the contents. Alisha broke the silence, “I think we should name the energy that the book mentions as mana. The stuff seems to function the same way anyway.” Daniel would have to confess he did read fantasy novels voraciously himself but that idea slipped his thoughts. He replied almost jokingly, “then our storage organs would be referred as mana cores? A little inaccurate seeing how the stuff in our guts are literally black diamonds, but the name is acceptable I guess.” Hearing those words Alex choked on her food spewing, “We have diamonds in us?”

Daniel laughed, “the lowest quality though.”

Alisha commented, “so the carbon in your mana core is combusted and then from there converted to mana. The wisemen realized this when they fine tuned their monitor spells to detect even sudden spikes of heat, so the split instances of combustions were caught. No wonder you two need so much more food and water.”

Daniel lowered his head in embarrassment, because he had dismissed any words that translated to fantasy words. He had automatically assumed there to be an issue of translation when absurd words like ‭magic showed up. Ignoring that moment of embarrassment, did that not mean that they could surpass the stupid god’s understanding if technology could be combined with the spells? The “wisemen” managed to reach such heights with simply their brains after all, what if their technology could take them even higher? Daniel had to end this line of thought before he became too wishful. Instead he needed to apply himself to the now.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

A smile split Daniel’s face when he read the next paragraph. Gleefully Daniel asked his sister, “are you up for creating a new language?”

Alisha’s weak smile turned into a frown, “after I rest for a bit! Do you know how tiring it was to rig that defibrillator? And then you drag me into researching again!”

Daniel had to admit he was working his sister a little too hard, but magic would soon be at his fingertips. Seeing Daniel crestfallen Alex asked, “why would you need a language? And can you tell me why I passed out after fighting with the beastie I mentioned?”

Daniel thought over Alex’s second question and decided to answer that first since that would have the shorter answer of the two. “We read more into the book and the test subjects were found to require the time to grow their mana cores into completion to safely use them. You overused your mana core and when yours wasn’t even complete. Just wait one and half or two days. And for the reason why I want to create a language? The book mentioned the need to associate spell structures to words we don’t use normally like from dead languages or else we can be casting them in our sleep, and the book had a recommended spell language. The problem is that everyone else including that “god” are going to know this language. Huh, considering how each word has only one meaning isn’t that pretty close to computer languages? If computers could be used to support spell casting wouldn’t that open the door to spell structures of complexity not even dreamed before? And you are falling asleep aren’t you?”

Alex yawned, “ah, you noticed. It was a long day you know. After my fight I woke up to your sister hitting me awake, but thanks for clearing up my worries about falling asleep after every time I fight. I guess waiting three days won’t be a problem.” Alex climbed under her covers with another yawn.

Daniel smiled to himself about the possibilities. Thinking back, he recalled how he did a project on the element of carbon. He learned there were several allotropes for carbon but what stood out was how similar the spell structures were to the amorphous allotrope. Both had patterns at the micro level but on the macro level the pattern never included the whole structure.

When he remembered about allotropes he saw several other similarities like how the structure of carbon nanotubes were used in delivery of some spells. After tossing and turning he picked up the book and and began reading once again. Only a few more minutes passed before his eyelids grew too heavy and he nodded off.