3/21/54

DEIMOS DUST

This entire time, Lucas has continued to confuse me. I’ve been watching him as closely as I could, but I couldn’t find proof that he’s bad. So far, he’s only shown slightly suspicious behavior back in the alley and in the changing room. Otherwise, he just seems like a normal guy… Well, not normal, just not bad.

There he is, watching Max with such intensity, trying to absorb any arcane secrets that might show themselves to him. His eyes greedily absorb the information, but the expression on his face says that he’s not really pulling anything from Max’s magic. It probably doesn’t help that ink magic is nowhere close to either dark magic or light magic. It’s closer to dark than light, but it’s a long ways away from the two being related.

In magic, there are countless types. There’s magic for every aspect of the world; someone’s type of magic, someone’s use of magic, someone’s view on magic, all these components along with others go into creating unique magic which movie the user control over something. Lucas’s light magic seems relatively simple and broad. He can create light and perform some novice-level control over it. He can make the lights disappear at will, and he can create different colored lights.

Judging by how he can create different colored light, that probably means that Lucas can create different types of light. Microwave, radio, inferred, ultraviolet, gamma, he can probably make all these and more.

On another topic, his dark magic also seems pretty simple. He can make tentacles made of darkness appear from the shadows. Another way of viewing it is thinking he can control shadows in general, making tentacles of darkness might just be more natural for him. He can make shadows capable of influencing objects and anything else material. I wonder if he can make shapes or such out of the shadows?

These are both pretty decent abilities with a wide range of uses although that could be said for most magic. For example, Max’s abilities are quite interesting in that they can create a huge range of effects. The runes can also be set off at different points in time with different conditions to be activated. This magic seems made for traps and similar effects, but they could also be used in combat as well. For example, could he create runes on a person to enhance them with ink? Maybe draw a rune on someone that immobilizes them in the middle of combat?

As I passed through my thoughts, something that Max and Lucas were doing caught my attention. Lucas created a ball of light in the air, and Max took a moment to examine it. He requested Lucas to deactivate his magic, and when he did, Max had begun to draw on Lucas’s right hand. The drawing was a cone inside of an outer ring. I wondered what it’d do, but once Lucas activated his magic, my question was answered.

A bright ball of light formed in front of Lucas’s palm, and in response, the rune exploded into a cone formed from ink. The light was cut off by the cone and was now projected forward like a flashlight. My eyebrows raised at that. Was he trying to find a safe way to create his laser? Mixing magic, huh?

The thought made a smirk crawl across my face. This was something that rankers did. It’s a good idea, risky, but good, and this newbie just tried it without a second thought.

ALEXANDER GALDUR

I remembered my laser. It was draining. It was exhausting. It wasn’t even that powerful. However, it was something. Something that felt like an accomplishment. Something that made me feel slightly stronger. Safer. Secure. If I could get a less risky version of that, I’d be elated. When I asked Max about the idea, he looked worried for a second, but something in him looked just as curious about it as me. He drew the rune. I activated the magic. We watch the fruits of our efforts.

A flashlight. A glorified magic flashlight. Something that you could buy a slightly weaker version of in a store. Despite this however, I was elated. A step. The right step. The right step in the right direction. This was it. With a mix of magic, I could do just about anything. I’d heard about enchanters who worked with other magicians to infuse objects with magic. I wondered if they could put their magic together to make something new, something better, then why couldn’t I?

I waved around our new fusion magic, shining my light on the surroundings. If I wanted a laser, we’d need a stronger light and a better way of focusing it. Dissolving the spell, I watched as the light disappeared and the ink evaporated. Nothing was left on my hand, not a speck of ink as it had all turned into nothing. I looked over at Max, a wild grin on my face, “All right, let’s do this again, but instead, we’ll need a better way to focus the light into a beam.”

“Right,” Max hurriedly agreed, “I think if I create a more spherical focus, maybe with only a pinprick opening, we’ll be able to get a more focused laser.”

“Yeah, alright, let’s do that.” I confirmed, “Are you good on magic?”

“I’ll be okay. It’ll be more draining, but not by much though.” Max stated.

“Okay let’s do this.” I announced while sticking out my hand. Max drew a circle inside of a circle inside of another circle. The largest circle was present for all his runes, so that was just the base. The next one was completely filled with ink except for the smallest circle which was blank. I stuck out my hand once more, conjuring an even brighter light.

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

The flash of my magic shot throughout the training room for only a second, quickly becoming sealed in the inky black sphere. The reflective surface of the ink was just what I needed for my magic, and it proved this by shooting out an insanely focused beam of light. While still not a laser, or at least, not as powerful a laser as I would’ve wanted, it was noticeably more focused now. I started planning how to better refine the design of the ink before I thought how I could improve it. Making it brighter would help, but not to the extent I would like. Instead, maybe I should think about the position of the light.

I summoned another orb behind the first, noticing my rapidly decreasing magic levels. I unsummoned the first, feeling the drain slow down. The light was even more focused now, and the metal I was aiming at was becoming orange with red around the edges. I dispelled the magic before it got out of hand, satisfied by the results.

This was a pretty solid test. The drainage was minimal with myself only depleting to about seventy percent, so I could’ve held on for a decent while longer. The ink dissipated away, and a grin pulled the edges of my lips up. This felt good, this felt like an actual accomplishment. I conveyed my feelings to Max, “This worked great, and there was quite a bit of improvement. Don’t you agree?”

“That worked quite a bit better, though, I did notice that it improved part way through; did you change anything?” Max questioned.

I nodded in confirmation, “Yeah, I changed the position of the light, so it would be further back. Luckily, I think I got the perfect spot on the first try.”

“I see,” Max responded while he ran his hand through his hair, “Do you think we can improve it?”

Hmm, something to improve it? I voiced my thoughts, “Maybe if we make the opening even smaller?”

“That might do it; alright, let’s try this again.” Max agreed, ink already forming on the tip of his finger as he was noticeably pumped up, excited by our efforts.

I presented my hand to him, and I watched him carefully etch the details of the rune onto it. The rune was the same as last time, but the pinprick opening was somehow even smaller than before. The way he made it was he created a needle of ink on his finger, and with a steady hand, he slowly and carefully pricked the middle of the circle. The ink from that spot disappeared, presumably being absorbed by the needle like a syringe, and that finished the process.

With a large inhale of breath, I pointed my palm at the floor, pointing away from the already heated spot. The magic inside responded to my call, and it fired a laminar flow of light, impacting the metallic floor. The laser was even smaller this time, and therefore, it was even more focused.

The metal was heating up faster, glowing more with every second the laser kept trained on it. It was now that I decided to try moving my arm. Moving around my limb, and therefore the laser, the beam created a streak of color wherever it landed. For fun, I decided to draw a picture of a smiley face, and a smile formed from metal with a rainbow sheen marked on the ground.

Confidence swirled in my mind with my new ability… Until I felt my magic draining. I kept this up for longer than the previous tests, and now I was moving the light. The drain made itself known when seventy percent became fifty, and fifty became thirty. Hurriedly, I weakened the magic, hoping the effects of my folly wouldn’t be too disastrous. However, things are often not what you want them to be.

The darkness inside bellowed, a sudden struggle to its sibling’s weakening. The light tried to calm it down, but it fell on deaf ears as it was consumed by the darkness. The inky shadow wrapped itself tightly around the light, shrilling on the entire time. Mirrored in reality, the light disappeared. It, however, was not canceled. No, it was engulfed. Protected by shadowy tendrils wrapping and weaving around it, the light could not cast its rays onto the inky contraption it was in.

This was easy to notice, as while the light disappeared from sight, the ink was still there, floating just in front of my palm. I was there with the ink, but my light was clearly not visible. The ink was supposed to dissipate into nothingness when my magic was gone, but here I was without the damn light.

I tried to ease the darkness, I tried calming it, and when that did nothing, I tried forcing it. Gripping my pathetic magical might with all my power, I tried to force my magic away.

The tendrils shrunk back a little, and the light created a laser to shine from the ink. I would’ve gotten rid of the light, but doing that would get rid of the ink, the only thing keeping my dark magic from out of sight. As if trying to spite my thoughts, my shadow started reaching out a little more.

Panicked, I willed the shadows to stop, and when they didn’t, I urged them to swirl around my feet. If they were going to try to present themselves to the world, then I wanted them to be as hard to notice as possible. Begrudgingly, they complied, and I felt the tendrils slowly crawl up my shoes. If I was going to get this problem under control, then I needed to put a drain on my dark magic while I got rid of the light Magic’s drain.

Inside of the shadows of my clothes, I willed as many tendrils of shadows as I could make to writhe about. They complied, a somehow noticeable pep in their metaphorical step as they wriggled about.

They stayed mostly out of sight, thankfully, only occasionally shifting my shorts and baggy shirt. I was quite glad that I had continued to get a shirt slightly larger than needed as it was helping out quite a bit now.

Hundreds of finger-sized tentacles wiggled around, quickly draining my magic to about fifty percent. I dispelled both magic being the light magic was at around twenty percent while the dark magic just ticked down to forty-five. At this amount, I was hoping the combined efforts between myself and my light magic would be able to calm the darkness.

I sighed in relief as the light, shadows, and ink faded away to nothing, and the shadows didn’t rise again. Too many close calls in this training. Too… many…

*Thunk*