The past couple of days have been rather interesting. After stirring up that little mess at the Three Roses, Irene almost spanked me—which I told her I was all in favor of. But you know how women are, too soft to do what’s right.

Nonetheless, I made some progress with the old Trufflebag. And I don’t mean casting him in a boy band. It appears that his dyslexia is not nearly as severe as I had initially thought. He can already read several phonemes with little to no difficulty. That’s great, honestly.

But you know what’s even greater? The fact that I’m going for lunch with Irene today. That’s what I’m talking about.

Applications for the wife’s job are still open, but Irene is definitely a strong candidate. I mean, she has that independent woman charm with a touch of maternity that looks really great. Hard to come by in NYC, that’s for sure. I’ve met more women who had serious road rage issues than maternity-inclined ones.

Talking about road rage—I still can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Amelia is. She’s a mix of hyper-elegant, super-model, and witchy beauty that only Angelina Jolie at her peak years could have rivaled, perhaps.

Another interesting, albeit random, fact for you is that I’ve been sleeping so damn well. Hell, I’ve been getting up in the middle of the night fully rested after barely three hours of sleep. I’ve had so much time on my hands that I’ve been trying to figure out some rather intriguing stuff…

I’m talking about magic, obviously.

I should have been practicing Cantrips. But after discovering that I’m way ahead of schedule thanks to the unorthodox methodology I’ve been using, I decided to focus on something else for the moment.

See, changing the spell shape is pretty easy. You just stretch out the matrix into the shape you want, twist it, and that’s it. I’ve yet to see a [Light] that is not just a plain orb out there, but I’ve wondered about something else.

How does one change a [Light]’s color? How would that work, right?

I’ve actually asked the book, but it replied, paraphrasing, that I should just get on with the next Cantrip.

And so, I just decided to try and change the [Light]’s color on my own. And I think I pretty much figured it out.

See, I started to think about how the spectrum of colors works. Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation, and the color of light depends on its wavelength. The colors of the visible spectrum are made up of different wavelengths, ranging from red, with the longest wavelength, to violet, which has the shortest wavelength. In between, we have orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo.

Why is this important? Well, because the [Light]’s normal color is white. According to color theory, white light is the combination of all colors in the visible spectrum. If that’s the case here, it means I have pretty much all the colors already, right?

But here’s where it gets more interesting.

Initially, I had thought that getting an orange-y hue would have been pretty simple. If white is everything, I just needed to think about a different color, no? Nope. It turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong, really.

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First of all, there was little to no scientific way to approach this. It’s like the thing with visualizing a spell matrix; you just think about it. Mh, thinking might be a bit reductionist… did you get the joke? No? Whatever.

You have to enter a state of focus, or [Deep Focus], and literally will the magic into reality. That’s how the spell matrixes of spells you know appear in front of you.

I knew that if I’d wanted to change the color of the [Light] spell, I'd have needed to manipulate the wavelength of the emitted light somehow. I started to focus on the matrix of the spell, trying to visualize the different wavelengths and how they could be altered.

Get this; I actually got a response from the spell matrix itself. The more I thought about a specific color, the more the matrix would sort of respond to this input of mine. However, instead of taking less Mana than the white version, even a simple red took almost twice the standard amount.

It turns out that splitting [Light] into colors requires more energy. And not just that – red is the cheapest. The higher you go in frequency, the higher the amount of energy output. If red is two times the cost of a normal [Light], indigo is thrice the cost.

Again, it was fairly intuitive. There was something about spell matrixes that piqued my curiosity though: how was it possible that you could just think about it? Previously, I had carefully traced the matrixes shown to me by the book. How could I just imagine a color and have it pop up?

Meh.

It worked, though.

I breathed slowly and conjured several [Lights] around me, one for each color of the rainbow.

Creating various shades is much harder than simply getting these seven basic colors for reasons that are currently beyond my understanding.

As I stand here, surrounded by the shimmering lights of the rainbow, I can't help but let my mind wander to even more ambitious ideas. If I can manipulate the wavelength of light to create different colors, could it be possible to create something more dangerous? Say, a death ray made of concentrated radiation?

The idea simmers in my mind for a moment. Theoretically, the concept might hold some merit. After all, the energy of the electromagnetic spectrum increases as the wavelength shortens, leading to ultraviolet, then X-rays, and finally, gamma rays – all of which are known to be dangerous or even lethal in high concentrations.

However, even though the idea of wielding a death ray is pretty cool, I immediately realize how impractical it would be. Remember how the Mana cost increases exponentially as I move through the visible spectrum? Now, imagine trying to create a beam of radiation with wavelengths much shorter than visible light. The Mana cost would likely become astronomical: it makes everything about this idea effectively impossible.

Furthermore, even if I could somehow manage to provide the energy requirements, handling so much radiation would be terribly dangerous. It could spill all over the surroundings. It seems that for now, at least, the death ray remains firmly in the realm of science fiction.

So, as I stand in front of the unhelpful book, I decide to focus on what I have accomplished so far. After all, the ability to manipulate the color of the light spell is an impressive feat in and of itself. And it opens up a bunch of opportunities for the future.

But the death ray idea still nags at me with more alluring suggestions and images, like an ex-girlfriend at one in the morning after getting drunk with some friends of hers and not finding what she was looking for in a seedy club.

It would definitely be a good deterrent for any [Soldier] wanting to mess with me, I think to myself. Yeah, but it would also be quite a literal nuclear deterrent.

With that in mind, I decide to let go of the idea of a death ray for now.

Plus, I need to get changed. And not just that, I also need to visit Fulvia, the [Seamstress], again. I want to buy a few changes of clothing. Nothing extravagant, mind you, but I can’t go on dates in the same two shirts every single time. I mean, I could go in my uniform, which is more glamorous than any other garment I have, save for my Earth suit…

But whatever.

Time to get dressed and go try out a proper restaurant!