Chương 191

Four teenagers gathered in a dusty laboratory on the fourth floor, sitting on mismatched stools surrounded by half-disassembled artifices. It was not the kind of scene people would imagine when they thought of the start of an intellectual revolution, yet that was exactly what it was.

Orion had laid the foundations for the work in Valderun and fully intended to pick it up from where he left off when he finally returned to the capital, but the current circumstances required him to act unless he wanted his friends to remain completely unprotected, so he did.

He had briefly considered inviting his mother and her team, since they were more likely to be on the frontlines than Luna and Dorian, but she was still very busy studying the anti-magic substance that was now being called the Silence, and was personally capable of spells strong enough to resist it, so it was less of a priority. Thus, Orion stood behind his workbench, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.

He had spent countless hours in his previous life in front of whiteboards, explaining complex theories to exhausted graduate students. But back then, the stakes had been grades and grant money. Now, the stakes were the survival of the entire Sanctum. Technically, it's possible that the enemy might slip up and let Seraphina find them, allowing her to handle everything at once, but I doubt we'll be that lucky. He looked at his audience. Dorian bounced his knees, eager yet uncertain.

Luna was fidgeting with the hem of her robe, her eyes darting around the room. Selene sat farther back, perched on the windowsill, watching him with an intensity that made the hairs on his arms stand up.

"Thank you for coming," Orion said. He had already placed a simple soundproofing ward on the door, as he hadn't yet had the chance to re-establish all his protections, and hopefully, that would be enough for now. The high-ranking witches were all too busy dealing with the discovery of the enemy on their lands, especially that locals had been subverted and turned against the Sanctum.

Morliana, in particular, seemed to have taken the matter as a personal insult and was on a one-woman mission to inspect every nearby settlement for more traitors. He doubted that any of them had the time to think about what he was doing.

"Is this about the liquid?" Dorian asked, eyeing the whiteboard with curiosity.

"I thought your mother was handling that."

"She is, but progress seems very slow. It's doubtful we'll find a counter anytime soon, which means you need to learn how to handle yourselves if you come across enemies with similar weapons," Orion explained. He grabbed a piece of chalk and turned to the slate board he had retrieved from a storage closet, drawing a basic circle.

"Magic, as taught by the Sanctum—and indeed, by most of the Magocracy—is a discipline of Intent," Orion said, tapping the circle.

"We are told that Mana is a living, responsive force. We guide it with our will, shape it with our visualization, and fuel it with our belief. You want fire, so you visualize heat, chant the words to focus your mind, and call mana from the Field to actualize your desire."

"You are making it sound like it's wrong, but it clearly works," Luna pointed out.

"It does work," Orion agreed.

"Because there is no obstacle in the Mana cooperating. But what happens when there is one?" He drew a jagged line across the circle.

"The Silence is a solvent. It attacks the connection between your Will and the Mana, weakens your Intent's expression, and breaks the link with the Field. Because your spell depends on belief, once that connection is broken, the magic disappears. It's like a tent held up by a single rope. Cut the rope, and the tent collapses." He turned back to them, grim-faced.

"That is why the villagers' bolts could pierce our shields. That is why Pauline's shadow constructs fell apart. Intent magic is soft unless it is supported by a strong mind. At lower levels, it is unstructured enough that it only takes one strike from an enemy like that to kill. One shield spell failing, and it's over." Knowing what he knew now, he would never have taken Luna and Dorian into the cave.

Leaving them out would have been tough, but they had essentially been glass cannons in there; able to dish it out, but once a crossbow was turned against them, they would have gone down. It was very fortunate that the traitors concentrated on the bigger threats.

"So what's the alternative?" Dorian asked, leaning forward.

"If we can't use Intent, what do we use? I've never heard of a spell being cast without a strong desire, unless you are talking about rituals." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Knowledge," Orion stated, writing the word on the board in blocky letters. He drew a square next to the circle. Inside the square, he made a criss-cross pattern.

"You might have noticed that I was able to change the trajectory of a crossbow bolt aimed at me. That is because the structure I imposed on my magic held back the liquid's effects," Orion said.

"Not because I am stronger than Pauline, or because I have more mana than her. In fact, I'm pretty sure she would have had no trouble piercing through the spell I used." In terms of raw power, Pauline far surpassed him. He had grown during the campaign faster than even in Valderun, but the difference in tiers remained significant, even for an extra-ranker like him. It would take him a while before he could match her. Returning to the original topic, he looked at Luna.

"Luna, when you cast a light spell, what are you doing?"

"I'm calling upon the concept of the Moon," she answered, reciting the textbook definition.

"I am willing the darkness to flee, and building over that depending on how complex the spell is."

"That is what we are taught, yes," Orion said gently.

"It's a beautiful method, but it's fragile. Light isn't just a concept associated with a goddess, you see. It is a particle and a wave. It is photons moving at a constant velocity. It is refraction and reflection." He raised his hand, pointing at his closed lips to show he wasn't invoking or chanting. Instead, he visualized the excitation of electrons at the specific frequency of white light. A sphere of light appeared above his palm, not flickering like the common expression of [Torchlight].

Instead, it hummed, consistently emitting the same amount of light.

"This isn't held together by my will," Orion explained, letting the light hang there even as he retracted his hand.

"I built a structure and created a localized zone where the laws of the universe demand that light exists. Even if you cut my connection to it, the light would persist for a few seconds until the energy dissipated, because the structure is real. It's not a tent held up by a rope. It's a house built of bricks." He extinguished the spell with a snap of his fingers.

"That is what I want to teach you. Not to copy my approach in everything—you can't, not without my specific class. But I want to teach you the underlying laws of reality. Thermodynamics. Kinetics. Optics. If you build your spells on the bedrock of how the universe actually works, the Silence cannot touch them. It will be a major advantage if you ever find yourselves up against such a foe, and you'll be able to pass this knowledge on in case I'm not here." Silence filled the room as the three of them absorbed this.

Even with the careful way he'd phrased his offer, it was just short of heretical. It went against every lesson they had learned since childhood, and he couldn't deny that a small part of him expected objections, maybe even accusations.

"So," Dorian said, scratching his chin, "you think that if we know exactly what our spells do, rather than just desiring a specific result, it will give them enough resilience?" Somewhat relieved that that was the first question, Orion nodded.

"It's more complicated than that, as you'll need to incorporate the Knowledge into your casting, and it might take a while to do so, given that you aren't used to it, but that is the first step, yes." Surprisingly, the first person to agree to his teachings was Selene, who had been silently observing the lecture so far.

"I'm in." When three surprised gazes turned her way, she shrugged.

"I'm self-aware enough to realize my previous method wasn't working. This has a chance, and that's already better." She was still awkward and much more standoffish than he remembered, but compared to the detached, almost lifeless girl from the first day, it was a significant improvement. Luna and Dorian gave their approval shortly after, allowing Orion to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Good," he smiled.

"We'll meet twice a week and start with the basics. No spellcasting at first, but once you have the theory down, we'll focus on a few specialized spells you might need in battle. No need to cover every single cantrip and waste time." He paused, glancing at the door.

"There is one more thing. I can't teach the whole Sanctum. But we need more than four people." He looked at them seriously, trying to impress how important this was.

"Keep your eyes open. I want you to look for others. Not necessarily the strongest students, or the ones with the highest grades, but if you find someone you trust, someone who can keep a secret, bring them to me. We need to build a core group." The next day, Orion sat in the middle of his room floor, surrounded by scattered sheets of parchment.

His mother was still in the Deep Labs, and Pauline was busy getting familiar with her duties as a Magistra, leaving him alone with his thoughts for the first time in quite a while. He had spent the morning reviewing the curriculum he planned to teach his friends, but in doing so, he was forced to face the messy, chaotic state of his own arsenal. ORION A.

VOIDWALKER Class: [Causal Epistemologist] [B-rank] Level: 56 Mind: 254 Attunement: 245 Body: 37 Traits: Mana Manipulation [B-rank]; Hypotheticism [B-rank]; Falsifiability Criterion [B-rank] His status screen was nothing to complain about, and he was proud of how much he'd grown, but the overall spell list he'd built over the years was too scattered. To be fair, it was driven more by curiosity than any real plan. He hadn't expected to go to war, and twice at that.

So he could be forgiven for not preparing earlier, but now that he knew what he was facing, he needed to make changes. Basically, he needed to rely more on his Class, especially now that he knew his unique casting style gave him an edge over the Silence. He grabbed a new sheet of parchment and started writing. Current strengths: High burst damage (Gamma Ray, Gravity Cannon). High mobility (Flight). High control (Gravity). Weaknesses: Limited ability to draw from the Field. Lack of sustained defense.

Vulnerability to melee rushes (as seen with Red Mane). Slow deployment of the strongest spells. He then drew a line down the center of the page. The Path Forward. He couldn't master everything. The realm of physics was too vast, and he could spend centuries developing spells based on different principles. That meant he needed to focus on the fundamental forces that governed the universe, given how successful his attempts had been so far. That basically left him with two primary focuses.

General Relativity would serve as his shield and control. His recent experiments with [Gravity Cannon] showed great promise, as did [Collapsing Wormhole]. Although they are offensive spells, they stem from utility spells, and I believe I should return to focusing on those original goals first. Quantum Mechanics, on the other hand, would be his sword. [Null Laser] was proof that he could go beyond just burst damage. He just needed to buckle down and figure it out.