Adding several new grassy squares to the SW quadrant of his new layout he began to plant some of the seeds he’d just traded for. He also added in even more of the paths between three by three sections of grass to separate by them. Allowing him to segregate the plants so he didn’t end up with a mess. Eying the grass he cleared it from a few tiles using his domain before planting to see if it was part of the square, or like his recliner something that could be removed. In the meantime he had a little more of the bird he had leftover from his social visit. After a good twenty minutes he luckily didn’t see any new sprouts coming up. Taking his domain to the rest of the tiles he set up several plots and was able to quickly plant everything.

With the planting done he took the rest of his spoils to the shack. Vonder had actually doubly or triply provided on a few of his requests. There was Wheat, Flour, and bread, as well as sugar cane and sugar. Potatoes were already both edible and the way to propagate themselves so he’d just cut them around the eyes and planted them four to a tile. Taking a new shirt out of a drawer he wrapped the bread inside to help keep it from going stale, and also tossed it in a cupboard. The sugar and flour he poured out of the little cloth bags Vonder had provided into the two first cups he’d made. The clay would help to wick away moisture and prevent rot. He covered them both with a pair of his new, unused socks to keep things out. Though even as he did wondered if he needed to. There were not any pests here that might get in. At least as far as he knew. Though he may as well keep dust out. He’d make new containers for all three once he finished the clay kiln

With all of the physical spoils of his trade managed he turned to the information he’d gathered. Vonder had demonstrated creating light and shadow several times. Claiming it was simply about vibrating the energy. Then of course he’d ended his demonstrations with his dramatic display of flight. Ozzy was still a little shocked that it had worked the way Vonder had done it. Like Vonder had Ozzy latched onto himself and his domain and lifted. Sure enough he rose into the air in the middle of his shack. There wasn’t much room to go any higher but he could move to any part of the room without any of the resistance he might have expected.

He realized now he’d even done this with his domain while testing it. Having a single particle move itself and it had worked. He wasn’t sure why he’d forgotten that when trying to fly earlier. But, that’s the nature of invention and innovation. It doesn’t really matter how simple a concept is, you may not think of it. Even if you do you may not realize it could apply elsewhere. Ozzy found himself playing out little scenarios in his head as if he were an angel drifting through the air ever so lightly. Then alighting on the ground as if he’d just taken a step rather than actually flown. While true flight was absolutely amazing, unbelievably cool, and of course helpful it wasn’t all he was excited about. The light manipulation Vonder demonstrated was the barest beginnings of what Ozzy felt real magic consisted of, but a beginning it was.

Ozzy cleared a section of his domain in front of himself and focused on the center. He’d never knowingly manifested energy the way Vonder had, and while he wanted to jump straight to trying to generate light this was another ability that was just as useful. Vonder used telekinesis and generated light or shadow in the same way, first by generating a field of energy around the area he wished to manipulate. He did it almost instantly and without any apparent strain. Ozzy was able to move things around without moving energy to the area first so maybe he was already doing this without realizing it. Taking his pencil out he held it in the domain free area and grabbed it with his domain. Closing his eyes he looked at the pencil under a metaphysical microscope.

At first it appeared to be nothing at all similar to Vonders demonstrations. Not a single bit of power surrounded the object. However, after he adjusted his view a few times he saw that looking inside the pencil there was a thin layer of energy permeating through it. He suspected the difference was that Vonder had been envisioning grabbing the object and moving it. Resulting in his energy welling up around the object to move it. While Ozzy was thinking more along the lines of the object moving itself and him just willing it to do so thereby imparting the energy to the object to move itself. Testing showed that he could also surround it and move it instead of injecting the energy inside. Though there didn’t seem to be any difference. At least not with a pencil. Trying the same tricks with other items showed there was some variation. Not necessarily better or worse for either one, just different results.

Ozzy noted the differences and possibilities as they were interesting, but he wanted to get to the meat of Vonder’s demonstration at some point. Instead of focusing on the pencil he targeted the air itself. As the pencil dropped he could see a cloud of energy form in the air encapsulating and suffusing a small sphere in the cleared space. Then he began to shake the shit out of it. He continued doing so for a few seconds but saw nothing. He did hear a slight stuttering puff, as if a rather quiet compressor were operating in front of him. Opening his eyes he confirmed there was not even a tiny indication of light. Although he hadn’t really expected it. He was clearly only shaking at a few repetitions per second. He stopped and tried to visualize a different method. He’d started unconsciously switched to seeing his hand in his mind's eye shaking the small sphere. Resetting his mental picture he had the sphere shake itself and got a minor improvement. The sound coming off of the sphere now sounded like a bumblebee buzzing about. Although a bumblebee the size of a house. The thought made him note down that he should attempt setting up a speaker with this at some point.

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Altering the method he used incrementally he was able to ratchet the noise higher and higher until it went up past the point of human hearing. It became a bit more difficult to continue as he could no longer hear or even feel the vibration. Though continue he did, to the point that eventually he did see light coming out, though it was simply a very dim red glow. Something told him despite the progress he was making that this wasn’t the right path. If this was what Vonder was doing then there should have been residual effects in the air after each demonstration he’d provided. The brighter and larger demonstrations should have actually caused explosions as air hot enough to emit anything but red light should cause it to expand rapidly. Even just this dimly glowing sphere about the size of a fist when released was dispersing through the shack with a flurry of gusts as it mixed with the surrounding air and cooled.

Ozzy doubted Vonder was vibrating the electrons or some other subatomic particle themselves. The only other thing Ozzy could think of was the energy itself. Which he should be able to replicate. Taking a few minutes Ozzy became familiar with calling out energy on demand but without the purpose of grabbing anything. He had to alternate back and forth between the attempt, and grabbing a section of air several times until he got the process down. Once he did he was able to begin vibrating the energy itself. As a metaphysical substance it didn’t make any noise, but the fact that the energy was a part of his own domain helped him feel the vibration better. He had been holding the air with energy before but that apparently made a difference. Ratcheting the Vibration up was so much quicker and easier that before he realized it,Ozzy had gone well beyond the rate he’d achieved previously. Though at that point he could tell there wasn’t any visible light even though there was with the previous method at a lower speed. Despite the lack of success Ozzy kept ramping up the speed of the vibration. Past the point where he could even conceive of how fast he was moving it. Until suddenly he was bombarded with a bright red beam of light shooting out to the sides into the walls.

The sudden change shocked him into stopping and staring. Though this of course left him sitting in a dark shack looking at nothing in particular. Other than a discolored splotch in his vision from the sudden bright light.Trying again he started with a smaller sphere of energy and diffused it a bit. He was quickly able to reach the same vibration and again there came a red light. Though this time it was much dimmer. Pumping his fist in celebration Ozzy took just a moment to celebrate his success before moving on. Increasing the vibration even higher he watched as the light increased along the spectrum. From red to orange and yellow, then to green and blue.

Or at least that was the general idea of the colors he could see. The whole spectrum played out as he passed through. He stopped at blue for now. He had no interest in giving himself a sunburn or burning out his retinas if he accidentally created ultraviolet or higher. Instead he turned his attention to the how and why. The process to get this far seemed like a crude approximation of what he wanted to accomplish. So he began his standard practices of repetition and variation to examine what was going on. Fluctuating up and down the visible spectrum, even dipping down below red to compare. Eventually he found the next step he was looking for.

The energy was leaking like a faucet. It was being shed ever faster the higher the vibration. Although in discrete chunks, a bit like a dripping faucet. Not the chunks of quanta that was the namesake for quantum mechanics. This was occurring specifically on the reversing of motion. Like shaking off your hands. The more he tested the more real that image became. He couldn’t actually see what was happening. Even with his greatly improved metaphysical senses he couldn’t see bits of energy that small, but he could feel them. Little droplets of energy being shaken off of the mass. Larger ones the harder he shook. To confirm he tightened down the surface of the sphere till it was as hard as steel. The light immediately stopped entirely.

He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d been unconsciously loosening his grip on the edges to allow the leak in the first place. Maybe some intuitive sense that it was the right thing to do. He could also just have been focusing so hard on the vibration that he’d let his grip on the energy lax. Maybe if he was better at doing two things at once he never would have found this to begin with. Whichever the cause he had at least a basic working model, and an inkling of how to improve. Which was success enough to take a break.

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Ozzy ate a sandwich for dinner. It was a bit dry without condiments. Which he quickly added to his list of things to trade for. Though he at least had ample, clean, and easily accessible water to counter that particular issue. The ability to even have sandwiches was pretty great though. A sign he was moving in the right direction with his goal to be self-sufficient. While eating he walked around his haven enjoying his new layout and garden. Most of the plants had already sprouted utilizing the ambient waste energies in the air. Which reminded him of a growing waste problem of his own even as he ate. With all his methods to gather, concentrate, and store usable energy from the air, there was none left to seep into his body and help alleviate the basic human needs he’d been avoiding. A quick dollop of energy in his body helped remedy the uncomfortable feeling he’d almost forgotten the meaning of. He wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to go through with the trouble of building a restroom only so he could manually deal with such inconveniences again. It was a drain on his energy reserves but he had enough stocked now to handle several years worth of the issue. If magic should allow any convenience it should allow one to no longer need to shit.