While Janna did not possess much in the way of technical knowledge pertaining to arrays, she was able to give them a basic overview of how wards and scripts were generally employed in the world of cultivators. In her experience, arrays were primarily utilized as a form of security, as with the fence around the Soma warehouse, but she was aware of other use cases.

Each color lent itself to the development of different kinds of arrays. She had heard of white mana being used to create boundaries containing large scale illusions, either for the purpose of a demonstration, or as a trap to confuse invaders. She knew enough to tell them that an array built around the principles of a particular color would only function properly when powered by the correct type of mana.

When a cultivator channeled mana from the environment, it was converted to the color for which they have an affinity. Mana colors could be altered again by channeling them through specifically fashioned crystals, but they had no such prisms themselves, or any knowledge of how to produce them.

(It’s a frequency. Just like the spectrum of visible light. Mana has a wavelength, and that wavelength determines its color.)

{But the wavelength can be changed merely by the act of channeling?}

(The artist is a prism.)

Certain effects could be rendered from any color of mana as long as the script was complex enough. Wards like those around the raven’s cage or the spider’s prison were scripted in such a way that they were powered by the spirit energy of the sacred beast they were attached to.

With some study, as well as conversations with Ogumo, they were able to determine that the brick Sunwhisper carried at his belt was keyed to red mana, for which the spider had an affinity. Red was associated with vitality, so it required no stretch of the imagination to see how the effect of the ward was to link Ogumo’s lifeforce to his proximity to the brick.

Starscream and Sunwhisper were both gold-aspected, and Janna was silver. Silver had broader applications than gold, as it encompassed some of the potential of both white and black, while gold was much better at accomplishing a much smaller range of tasks.

Cultivators generally used crystals called cabochons as mana batteries. They could also be used as light sources, as they radiated the color of the mana they contained. Kuei had used one for that purpose when they first descended into Starscream’s lair.

Crystals were used this way because their molecular architecture created a sort of mana trap, a channel that energy would follow indefinitely, holding it in one place with a lesser or greater degree of radiated waste. Not all crystals were made equal, and though there were no lapidaries in Fringe, Janna knew that the profession of an arcane jeweler was one of the most prized in all of the Blessed Lands. Clans and guilds bid against each other to secure the services of those rare individuals who could improve the quality of cabochons.

It was said that the earliest arrays were developed in imitation of the patterns observed in the internal structure of naturally occurring crystals.

As long as they were sharing their cores, Sunwhisper and Starscream could share their skills as well. Starscream had developed a working understanding of arrays in the course of building his web battery in the cave, but he was also in possession of a wealth of information regarding general engineering, physics, and computing that his companion lacked.

Sunwhisper was a product of the most advanced sciences of a civilization that had very nearly invented magic, but he was not a student of that science. As such, while the party made its way back up Jigoku, he applied himself to the study of everything that Starscream could show him.

(What we need is some lateral thinking.)

{How do you mean?}

(Your girlfriend seems to think that most of the things cultivators do with arrays are pretty hidebound. They aren’t experimenting. They’ve got thousand year old scrolls that tell them everything they need to know about how to do the particular thing people were doing a thousand years ago, and that’s good enough for them. We have the benefit of fresh eyes.)

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

{I agree. The existence of an alternative magical structuring, the magicians of Goth, suggests that the path of a cultivator is only one of many possible developmental styles.)

(Fire affinity artists can shoot fireballs, under the right conditions, you can launch metal at speeds approaching the supersonic. These guys have bows and arrows, but has anyone ever invented a gun? They wouldn’t be much use, would they? I mean the technological curve of bow to crossbow to musket evolved as an equalizer on the medieval battlefield, but here, it wouldn’t be an equalizer. The knights of this world aren’t just dudes in metal suits, they’re dudes who can fly on swords and shoot lighting and junk. There's no incentive to develop a musket, unless that musket shoots magic.)

{I suspect they do have magic muskets of some kind. You have to keep in mind that what we’ve seen so far has been on the outskirts of cultivator society. There will be more complexity the deeper we enter into their population}

(Fair enough, but I bet we can do guns better.)

Magic was like water, it flowed from areas of greater concentration into areas that were less dense. Animal populations followed a similar rule.

So it was that the cave of the Red Spider had come to be occupied by a hawk-bear.

It was an apex predator, a dozen feet tall when it balanced on its back legs, with claws as long as sabers and wings that brought shade like clouds. Its coloration ran from brown to yellow, deepening where its paws were stained by earth and blood. The sacred beast came charging out of the darkness of the cavern just as Sunwhisper and his party reached the mouth. It was as if it had been waiting for them.

Janna dodged to one side, and Ogumo was a blur in the opposite direction. The spider wasn’t scared of the hawk-bear, but it wasn’t about to face it head on either. Sunwhisper had been pulling the salvage cart, so he was a little less ready to abandon his position; he didn’t want the beast to knock their equipment back down the mountain.

In his conversations with Starscream, it had occurred to him that he had already failed the test of lateral thinking as it pertained to his own techniques. Rather than calling on Xanthous Ascendancy, he poured mana into Eight Mines Clutch of Lead, but he wasn’t holding his spear.

The hawk-bear thundered out of the darkness, beak snapping, intending to run him down.

Mana flooded his meridians, then sank into his bones. With Lead Grasshopper Stance, he made a horizontal leap, increasing the density of his internal structures as he went as if his entire body were a weapon.

He hit the hawk-bear like a living cannonball, and it made a noise that was less roar than startled squawk.

It wasn’t a young beast. For years it had dwelled in the lower passes of Jigoku, feeding on lesser monsters and the occasional unfortunate traveler, growing in size and appetite until it had become the mightiest of its kind in the region. Krenshar, it killed with a single swipe of its long, curved claws, and a few hunters in Fringe Village knew it and spoke of it with respect.

Its collarbone cracked on impact, and in the seconds it took to recover, its claws were gummed into mitts by dual streams of webbing.

Sunwhisper had his disguise to worry about, but Starscream was all chrome and crimson steel. He had access to Sunwhisper’s techniques, and his physical statistics were far higher, as he was advancing under a different System, and had been doing so for much longer.

Starscream’s weight multiplied so quickly that it drove Sunwhisper to one knee. At the same time, the Red Spider enhanced his claws with Eight Mines Honing Edge and launched himself at the hawk-bear, nearly severing its massive head in a single pass.

(Being stuck to you really hampers my style.)

{An extension cord, perhaps.}

(Project number one.)

The animals fed, and they harvested the hawk-bear's core before descending into the cavern with Janna holding up a makeshift torch and Sunwhisper projecting his status screen for ambient lighting. Starscream didn’t have eyes, but the sensory suite he was equipped with gave him a more than adequate grasp of his immediate surroundings described in electromagnetic fields, and in any case, they could tap into each other’s senses as needed.

The battery was still largely intact, if not at peak efficiency. It had sustained structural damage during their duel with Dappo, but the broad patterns were still in place.

Karasu and Janna were uncomfortable with the impending darkness, and Sunwhisper preferred to work in the light, so the extension cord concept was set aside in favor of weaving an ersatz cabochon, a pattern that would generate light when infused with mana.

It was a simple enough concept, made simpler by the fact that mana concentrations seemed to want to glow if you would only let them, they just didn’t always do so in a visible spectrum. After a few hours of experimentation, the cavern around the main battery was cast in the yellow light of Sunwhisper’s mana as it coursed through a series of cat’s cradles strung between the remaining stalactites.

"They’re beautiful," Janna said, and it was true, the way the moist webbing glimmered with the gold did have a certain charm.

(Let's get to work.)