While just letting my magic work itself to my desires was much less mentally taxing, it did consume and output more ULE than when I was carefully limiting myself. Under normal conditions, this would be totally fine- but due to a truly unfortunate sequence of mistakes on my part, the slight increase in ULE was just enough for a pack of demons to notice me.
Due to my sight being contingent on it, I had put some time into trying to figure out the details of how ULE could be used to construct a model of your environment. The big conclusion was that however my prosthetics actually worked, they were massively cheating what should be possible in terms of sensitivity and accuracy.
Each little ‘packet’ of ULE propagates a force much like how matter propagates gravity. Since every packet of ULE affects every other packet of ULE, if you measure your packets at regular intervals and plot the differences, it is theoretically possible to figure out the force of ULE in every direction. Currently, how to actually do this is driving scientists insane- even more so since MGs just kinda do it naturally with no helpful explanation like an extra organ.
Although it is important to note that by some cruel trick of nature, the strength of a packet’s force doesn’t appear to correlate to the amount of energy that packet contains- since the energy is completely random and constantly changing. Although if they were related, the randomness would absolutely ruin any ability to see anything.
My prosthetics allowed me to see using ULE much better than normal in three ways. The first was that there was probably some Fourier transform magic done to separate individual sources down to the tiny geometries of a single object. The second was that I had two offset sensors that could add depth to readings- likely by measuring the minute difference in the strength of the force in a direction to compute distance. Finally, I also had a specially-built lantern that broadcasted in… even weirder ULE that took me from passive sensing to active scanning.
For almost the entire time since I got them, I had forgotten that the lantern was on. It was a very normal consequence of liking being able to see clearly and having nothing both able to see it and wanting to kill me nearby- although, even if that was the case, something with the special ULE emissions should mostly hide the signal. No clue how that worked yet. Anyway, even the lantern wouldn’t have been a big issue if I wasn’t also using a lot of ULE- creating a very obvious and unnatural pattern of interference that clearly indicated use instead of simply a concentration of the energy.
And some demons can detect ULE like I can.
There was also the issue of me acting like an idiot and not staying vigilant of… anything while I tried to get a grasp on my semi-sentient magic. While I wasn’t able to pay attention to the entirety of my perception’s range, I had a program doing just that- and it helpfully outlined the four demons for me as they came closer. However, the actual usefulness of that function depends on my ability to not just ignore it. An impressive feat considering I was literally incapable of not knowing about the outlines given how everything was set up.
When I eventually put two-and-two together, I froze all my magic in the hope I could scrape back some stealth, but the demons were close enough they could probably just see the ULE in my body- despite the inferiority of their abilities in that regard. They weren’t immediately aggressive, although that might be because they were having trouble finding a path to where I was- giving me plenty of time to prepare.
Over the course of the two minutes it took them to get to the room adjacent to my hallway, I had frantically secured every entry point except the ones necessary for civilians to get through later to funnel them through a choke point- then realized they were still a handful of rooms from getting to me and calmed down a little. With my extra time, I realized their navigation method prioritized cutting off escape routes over pure speed, which I guess made sense since they usually would be the only ones with the ability to see through walls.
When they finally did reach the adjacent room, they all stopped, straightening up to look like emaciated armless humans with much too big a head housing only a vertical mouth. A second after the abnormal pause, I saw the telltale ripples in my ULE perception indicating some form of magic being cast in a ring around me.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
As I skipped back with the assistance of a ULE boost, each creature teleported on top of where I had just been. I got off the first real attack, just spraying the general area with silane-induced fire. Chlorine trifluoride took too much ULE to control for still wanting to be somewhat stealthy and had the habit of making especially hazardous byproducts I didn’t want people walking through any time soon.
My attack warded off the demons and elicited a couple yelps as the fire singled taut flesh, but clearly didn’t seriously injure any of them.
Switching tactics, I sprayed out a layer of cyanoacrylate making sure to keep it tentatively liquid while I twisted the silane’s nozzle to the toroidal setting and gave it a quick burst. The dense cloud shot out of the canister quickly closed the distance and detonated right under the chin of the closest demon. While lacking containment to help concentrate the force, the donut shape of the cloud still vaguely focused the blast into the demon’s chest- throwing it backwards with its body shape inverted.
Like with all the others before them, the remaining demons immediately charged me- moving much faster than their previous movements and body structure suggested they could. On instinct I flinched back a step, slipping on loose rubble and needing a precious fraction of a second to stabilize. It was very lucky that these demons didn’t finish their charge by jumping- instead getting their foot glued to the floor mid-step.
Each of the demon’s momentum was converted into rotation as their ankles became a convenient fulcrum- slamming their bodies into the floor with a series of almost synchronized, meaty thwaps. Now unable to offer any resistance with their entire bodies bonded to the floor, it was easy- and more importantly quiet- work to burn a hole right through their skulls, killing them.
Like the terrible field biologist I was becoming, I took a few seconds as the adrenaline wore off to add another entry to my pitiful database, “Bobblehead: systematic pack hunter utilizing ULE perception. Can teleport short distances. Easy to incapacitate. Dumb.”
Satisfied, I continued my preparations, alerting everyone I had encountered demons and had fallen behind on schedule, but would be able to make quicker progress from here. True to my word, even the small amount of practice I had unintentionally just gotten with my magic made just about noticeable improvement on my ability to multitask with it.
It wasn’t enough to make up the time I had lost or was likely to lose if I ran into anything unexpected, so I pulled up the document I used to track my perks- immediately facepalming at the simple solution. It was so obvious that I was already kinda doing it: using [Synthesized Weapon Proficiency] as the perk, not just a prerequisite for ‘proper’ magic. While I could bias the direction my chemicals went with magic, its primary and limited purpose was to catalyze or inhibit specific reactions. On the other hand, I quickly figured out the perk side of it worked much like [Improvised Weapon Proficiency]- another perk I forgot about in the excitement of learning more proper magic.
After only a minute of experimentation, I was able to use both perks like opposite poles of a magnet, marking a location with [Improvised]’s ability to work on almost anything and pushing the chemicals to it through [Synthesized]’s more specific control. In this case, the increased complexity inversely correlated to ULE consumption and speed. Who would've guessed using something much closer to the right tool for the job made it far faster and more efficient than brute force?
Apparently not me.
The downside to this new target-designation method was the large increase in concentration needed to effectively pull it off. I was reminded of those games like Tetris where you have to make decisions and execute actions at an uncomfortable but manageable pace as I slowly walked through a room, mentally painting everything as needed while letting off bursts of the appropriate chemical.
As I got comfortable with the pace I was going, I advanced from a slow-motion walk to careful one, then just a bit slower than my normal walking speed. Even though I was getting better the longer I practiced, any faster threatened to end up causing mistakes, so I unhappily settled into the slow and steady rhythm.
My idea of MGs painted them as unstoppable and overwhelming powerhouses- and to be fair, even with my limited experiences, that still held up. Well, for MGs other than me, stuck at a slow walk as time ticked down and the threat of ever-strengthening demons grew. Try as I might, I still had hard limits; limits far beyond what was humanly achievable, but not far enough to be beyond the familiar march of encroaching stress.