Chara was utterly astonished.

She was just looking at some interestingly colored rocks when out of nowhere, a stream of information transmitted itself directly into her consciousness. The next thing she knew, her mind was being filled with all kinds of knowledge about the earth, shape, texture, carbon, composition, pressure, temperature, humidity, patterns, clarity, beauty, and all kinds of other miscellaneous nonsense.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to do with this information, or where it came from, but when she put it all together, it gave her a rough idea of the concept of “diamond.”

Scared me to death!!

After being in profound silence for the better part of a week, upon suddenly receiving the psychological equivalent of a file transfer, it would not be an exaggeration to say that she was nearly startled half to death.

Uuu… Wasn’t I just looking at rocks? What the heck was that… whined Chara.

Once she calmed down, she began analyzing the situation. Given the circumstances, she did not believe her most recent jump scare was without a proper cause. However, given that the only things around her at the time of incident were herself and an earthen pillar, was there really any need to keep guessing who the true culprit behind this incident was?

Hmph. Fool me once, shame on you. Let’s see what you’re hiding underneath that earthy facade… accused Chara as she glared indignantly at the offending earth formation.

It was the same one containing the clumps filled with the bright and visible color that she was inspecting earlier.

Full of suspicion, she focused her perception and submerged it into the stone. The scene that was presented to her was one of roughly shaped rocks embedded sporadically throughout an earthen column, without a single alien to be found.

Skeptical, she narrowed her perception onto the area with the color that was very bright and visible. Upon a closer examination, she realized that the clump’s peculiarities might not be limited to just its unusual color. For example, unlike the rest of the stone’s interior, the mist inside the bright clumps was very uniform and consistent, with very few irregularities.

It was too conspicuous. How could Chara not suspect it?

Hello… Chara to Earth…?

She waited a couple seconds for a response, but nothing happened.

She sighed, I guess it really is just some strangely colored rocks…

As far as she could tell, there was nothing particularly special about these rocks aside from their unusual impression and extreme consistency. Under the impression that she had hit a dead end, she was on the cusp of giving up when she had a realization.

Wait, could those be diamonds?!

Although she had only voiced this question in her mind, she was already certain of her conjecture. Alas, rather than becoming cheerful for uncovering the culprit’s true identity, what she revealed was an even deeper mystery.

Originally, she had assumed there might be something unusual hiding in her surroundings. However, upon discovering the primary suspect to be a shiny rock, she was forced to concede that the impetus behind the diamond incident may lie within herself.

In that case, then what did I do that could have caused all that knowledge to go inside my head?

Was it because I was looking? No, probably not. I was looking just now, but nothing happened this time…

Err, was it because I had a question? Umm, no. That also seems unlikely. I have questions all the time…

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

At a loss for how to proceed, she decided to just go ahead and try recreating her earlier actions to see if anything happened. She didn’t hold out much expectation, but still figured it was worth a shot, if only to confirm it didn’t work.

Chara focused all of her attention on suspected diamonds before voicing an internal question.

What are you?

Suddenly, a small amount of the particles in her body glimmered faintly before vanishing. The next thing she knew, there was a stream of information flowing directly into her consciousness, just like before.

[Diamond]

Ah. Ah! It worked! It really worked! Chara was elated, but after her excitement faded, she realized that she was still none the wiser as she still had no clue how or why that happened.

Wait, why did some of the mist that makes up my body light up and disappear?

Perhaps, because she hadn’t seen the mist interact with anything meaningfully, she subconsciously considered the fog unreal, leading her to only think of the curious substance as a means for her perception.

It was only after such a strange experience that she began to question the identity of the mysterious dream-like fog. From one moment to another, Chara felt like the fog around her suddenly became much more deep and profound. It was like the more she knew, the less she understood.

In any case, now that she had realized that the enigmatic substance held a deeper mystery, she started to investigate right away. With renewed consideration, she began to carefully scrutinize everything she had observed about it until this point.

Let’s see. It’s radiating out of my body and flying everywhere. It comes in various hues, and each color gives a distinct impression. Also, on top of having different hues, they can be used to do other things… Eh. Ah! Uwa! Since when am I this dumb?!

Chara quickly dove into her memories and focused on trying to recall the contents of the many audiobooks she had listened to while in her time in the hospital.

These are like the literal vanilla magic elements in every standard fantasy story! How did I not realize it sooner?!

When she reassessed the mysterious particles under the assumption that they were mana equivalents, a lot of seemingly disconnected and unrelated details suddenly aligned perfectly.

Well, let’s see. The most obvious parallel would be the solid and stable color being the earth element. As for the rest… The dark and gloomy color is darkness, the bright and captivating color is light, the cold and chilly color is ice, and the free and unrestrained color is wind. As for the lively and energetic color… uhh… I want to say lightning, but then why is it infused within the earth?

Because of a certain monster collecting game and the greater media, Chara had been conditioned into thinking of lightning and earth as mutually exclusive concepts, even though academically, she was aware that this was not the case.

Well, whatever. Then this means the earth, light, dark, ice, wind, and lightning elements have been accounted for. That only leaves… umm, fire and water…

To be frank, when most people think of magic and magic tricks, a sizable portion will probably think of controlling fire. This is especially the case in the context of high fantasy where traditional spells like “Fire Ball” and “Explosion” have been a staple for years. No matter how dangerous, humans in general seem to have some kind of innate obsession with controlling fire, and Chara was no exception.

Hmph! So what if I haven’t found a color that corresponds with water or fire? That’s still six out of eight. That’s like… 75% correct! calculated Chara, while deliberately not acknowledging the possibility that there could be more than eight elements, thereby lowering her correctness even further.

Despite her many failings, she did have the mind to recognize that she might be jumping to conclusions. But after giving it some thought, she concluded it was not a problem.

What will definitively prove if this is mana or chi or whatever is whether or not it can be used for magic. As for how I’m going to accomplish this… Uh, it’s still a work in progress… evaded Chara.

Having declared her intent to use magic, she began to carefully consider what was in common between her two flukes. She was hoping to deduce the conditions for activating magic.

Hmm… During both instances, I was asking a question. However, this seemed more like an impetus rather than a requirement. Either way, when I attempt to use magic, I’ll try replacing it with a statement. Asking a question feels kinda weird. Like, who am I even asking? The Devil?

What else… Oh! Both times I was looking at a thing… Maybe when I’m trying to use magic, the thing I’m trying to affect has to be within my perception or something. At least, it would certainly explain why none of my previous questions garnered an answer… surmised Chara with a touch of dissatisfaction.

Her feelings aside, the only difference between then and now was her awareness. If her hypothesis were to be correct, then the reason why her questions failed to activate magic before, is because she didn’t have a sufficient connection with a thing that contained the desired information. During her latest attempt, since she had both the subject within her perception, and it contained the desired information, the magic activated seamlessly.

Chara lightly wondered what would happen if she didn’t understand the information, but since she didn’t have a way to test that now, she threw it to the back of her mind for later.