“What was that spell?” Lorelei called down toward William, “Explain it!”

“I will, but first, shouldn’t you get to the top of the ridge? Something else might come if we’re too slow.”

“Ah… yes.” Lorelei went back to her climbing. She seemed to have already planned out the last part of the route, as she quickly made the last part of the path and climbed up it. Then, she stood on top of the ridge and braced the rope, while William quickly went up the handholds. Making them took much more time than actually traversing them once they were done. As soon as William’s feet were on top of the ridge, Lorelei clapped her hands together, her expression eager. “Now, tell me. What was that spell? It looked like… a light spell. But… that doesn’t seem right. I didn’t see any light… or anything, and then the roc flew away.”

“No, you’re right. It was light.”

“But how? Light doesn’t hurt things.”

“Doesn’t it though? You know about sunburns. This is… actually only tangentially related. As for why you couldn’t see it… tell me how eyeballs work.”

Lorelei sighed. “So, we’re doing it like this are we? Fine. Eyes take in light reflected off of outside objects and form an image out of it. In addition-”

“That’s enough- the important part. So, what would cause you not to be able to see something?”

“It could be transparent, like air… or the light could flow around it. Is there any point in doing that to a spell though? It would take a lot of energy?” Lorelei muttered to herself.

“Actually-”

“No, don’t say anything. You said it was a light spell? Is that… it?”

William nodded.

Lorelei frowned. “In that case, you have light, but then you bend the light around it to…? No, that doesn’t make any sense.” She started pacing around, almost forgetting she was on the top of a narrow ridge. “But I couldn’t see it which means… the light wasn’t going toward my eyes. But it also didn’t seem to light up anything else, so it wasn’t going in another direction. Except… toward the roc. So, you shone a large amount of light directly into its eyes, and scared it away?” Lorelei shrugged. “That doesn’t seem… quite right, but it’s what I have.”

“It is very close. However, I doubt light in its eye would scare it away. You’re right though, I did make the light go in one direction. There’s just one little detail you glossed over. What happens to light that isn’t reflected off of objects?”

“It’s absorbed into them… as heat, essentially. Ohhh… I thought you gathered a rather significant amount of light. So, I imagine it’s blind in that eye now?”

William shrugged, “It wasn’t close enough to see clearly. I certainly tried to get it in an eye. If not, it should have gotten scorched anyway. I suppose the eye is most likely, or it wouldn’t have backed off.”

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

“Is this an idea you got because of Earth?”

“Exactly. This is known as a laser. Umm, I didn’t study them closely, so it’s taken a while to get something like it. Basically, though, you use mirrors and lenses and light, and concentrate all of the light into a directional beam. That makes a significant amount of energy in one direction, instead of just generally going all over.”

“Yet you don’t have a mirror or a lens…” Lorelei looked over at Chris, “Or do you?”

“Well, I don’t have a mirror, but Chris acts as the lens… and crystal, and stuff. Umm, actually it would be a lot more powerful if I knew how to do it right. I’m not sure if I’m inserting the light in the right way, as well as having other problems. Well, at least I’m no longer scattering it all over and what come out is a coherent beam of light. I’m definitely wasting energy, which means I can’t sustain it for very long right now.”

“Fascinating. You should have told me about it sooner. I-” she looked up at the sound of another cry. “Well, I suppose we should talk later. Now that I’m not hanging off of a cliff, I’ll take care of this.”

William turned to see the roc had returned- probably. There were two now, which made William think that the previous one brought a mate, though he couldn’t be sure until they got closer and he could see if one was wounded. William nodded toward Lorelei. If both of them tried to use magic in close proximity at the same time, they would only have trouble, so it was best for just one of them to use magic. Though the ridge wasn’t wide, it was much better than hanging off of a cliff face, and William thought he could do something with Chris and ki, if the rocs got close enough to claw them. He’d rather not, but he’d have to if it came to that.

As Lorelei chanted, he saw it was some kind of fire spell… or something else involving manipulation of the gases around. That was because he could see the mana being used to do something with the air in front of them. Then the mana seemed to be pushing the air, and William felt a breeze. It soon reached a distance William couldn’t reliably control magic at, before finally igniting into a fireball just before reaching the rocs. When they collided, the rocs suddenly tumbled down as if they had been hit by a force from above, though William saw nothing that could have caused that. They seemed to have been singed some from the flames, but soon righted themselves, crying out in what seemed to be fury. However, now they had to regain height as they charged toward William and Lorelei, instead of diving from above.

Lorelei immediately followed up with another spell, this time lightning. The rocs were quite close when she finished, and they cried out as the lightning struck. William saw that they couldn’t control their flight once again, and started crashing toward the cliff face below them. Lorelei reached a hand out and grabbed William’s shoulder. “Steady yourself!”

William didn’t think he was particularly unsteady, but when Lorelei crouched down and used ki to somewhat anchor herself to the ground, William did the same. As soon as he did, he felt a huge gust of air flow over the two of them, and then some shaking as the rocs crashed into the cliff face. Then, Lorelei slowly stood up. “Rocs can’t fly, you see. They’re far too big, and too heavy.” Lorelei grinned.

William nodded. “Right. That’s why they’re magical beasts. They have to use magic to push themselves through the air. I didn’t think the air currents would continue so far after they stopped controlling them.”

Lorelei nodded. “It’s easy to forget about. Much of the time they don’t even have to catch prey in their claws, and merely knock it off a cliff as they fly by, and then eat it on the ground below. Of course, they have to eat a significant amount to maintain their size, so it is fortunate their numbers are few. This is probably the only pair in this section of the mountain, and if this is their territory we are less likely to run into any further trouble. Still, keep your guard up.”