Chương 116: Chapter 109: Life Watch

The first thing Lira did when she entered her hidden alcove early the next morning was recreate The Truth Untold: Life Within Life. She sat down at the chair, closed her eyes, and focused on the image of the book in her mind.

"Pika. Moren. Kaldris." The memory spell took hold, pulling the stored memory into focus until she could recall every page she had absorbed yesterday with perfect clarity. Then she picked up an empty notebook and a bottle of ink.

"Asatan. Tir. Kisar." The calligraphy spell began reproducing the text before her as the ink flowed across the paper, recreating the pages perfectly. The spells meant that recreating a book from scratch was a matter of minutes rather than days. Lira stared at it for a moment. Technically, she did not need the physical copy to study the contents.

Still, given the complexity of the task at hand, she figured that flipping back and forth between pages would help her work through the knowledge and break it into more manageable parts. So she opened the book and began reading. An hour later, the margins were filled with notes. Some were simple observations, while others were her personal opinions. Five years looking for a mite on a mite. That was an unreasonable amount of dedication. She shook her head.

Then again, she had spent the better part of two weeks reading books about healing and trying to understand a field that had previously been almost entirely foreign to her. Perhaps she was not in a position to criticize. Lira leaned back in her chair, stretching. The problem was much larger than she had initially thought. She needed to start with the Life Watch spell. That part should be simple enough, since Tony had described Life Watch as an adaptation of Eagle Eyes, adding the incantations for Life and Clarity.

She already knew Eagle Eyes and both of the added words for Life and Clarity. She had also studied vision back when she created Eagle Eyes in the first place, and had already learned to associate the concept of sight with the magical world of interpretation, as well as the role of light in vision. In fact, she should have enough information to reconstruct the spell immediately. The next step was to further adapt Life Watch into Small Life Watch.

Tony had removed Clarity and added Diminution before Life, creating a spell that allowed him to perceive things far smaller than what ordinary Life Watch could reveal. Lira tapped the page with her finger. She could theoretically skip Life Watch and go directly to Small Life Watch. She shook her head. No, working the slow way was always better. Besides, Life Watch was a useful spell to have for spying. She could climb to a high place and keep a target at the center of her vision no matter the distance.

She wrote it down. Eagle Eyes → Life Watch That was step one. Then, beneath it: Life Watch → Small Life Watch That was step two. Step three was obvious. Confirm the existence of tiny lives. She paused. Technically, she already believed they existed. Tony had seen them, after all, and had described them in considerable detail. The entire theory made enough sense to her that she was willing to proceed on the assumption that he was right. She had worked with less to create spells before.

Still, believing something and confirming it were two different things. Since she had dedicated this much effort to the task, it was best to see it through. So she continued writing. Confirm the fortress model. That would be step four. Tony believed that the body was a fortress made from living cells. Invading cells made the body sick, while specialized cells defended it. The white knights fought the invaders, while the red peasants maintained the walls. If that was true, then she needed to see it herself.

And if possible, she needed to understand exactly what they were doing. Only after that could she move on to the final step. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Reconcile the new knowledge with everything I have learned about healing during the past two weeks. She sighed. That mass of contradictory knowledge was the cause of all her trouble.

It was partly the reason why she felt like she needed concrete evidence before attempting a new healing spell. She could not allow doubt to creep in during the meditation stage. Otherwise, she might end up with a weak spell, or no spell at all. She looked down at her paper. Even broken down into smaller tasks, it was still daunting.

"Well, let's get started." First, she wrote down the spell she already knew. Eagle Eyes Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Mind. Amplification. Interpretation. It was a completely internal spell. Rather than changing the world around the caster, it amplified the mind's ability to interpret incoming light, allowing the caster to see things more clearly and at greater distances. Lira stared at the three words for a while before turning to the next spell. Life Watch Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Kalaba. Velar. Mind. Amplification.

Interpretation. Life. Clarity. She activated her Meditation spell.

"Pika. Selan. Tureth." Her breathing slowed as she entered the familiar state of stillness. She pushed everything else out of her mind and focused entirely on the two spells in front of her. One of the first things she learned about magic was that limiting a spell's scope would actually enhance its performance and improve its efficiency. It was an important principle that she had encountered with the candle ignition spell. In this case, by adding Kalaba, Life, the spell gained a specific category of targets.

That meant Life Watch could no longer be used to focus on an arrow flying through the air, a rock falling from a cliff, or even the movement of clouds across the sky, as those things fell outside the spell's intended scope. But in exchange, the spell could devote far more of its magical processing toward identifying and interpreting living things. Then there was Velar, Clarity. Lira already used the word frequently in her own spells to filter out noise and remove distractions.

In this spell, however, she suspected that it served a slightly different purpose: framing. The spell would identify something living, then use Clarity to make that living thing the primary focus of her perception. It was almost like telling her mind, Ignore everything else. This is what matters. She also focused on the relationship between each word.

Mind kept the spell internal, Amplification was a surrogate word for making distant targets seem closer and smaller targets seem larger, Interpretation converted the incoming light into something meaningful, Life restricted the spell's focus, and Clarity brought the chosen target to the center of her awareness. Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Kalaba. Velar. Click. The spell was imprinted successfully.

"One down." Lira smiled. She stood from her chair and crossed the small alcove toward the tiny window. It was barely large enough for her to look through comfortably, but it provided a clear view of the outside world. As she scanned the distant landscape, a bird caught her attention. It was perched on the roof of the stables. Lira focused on it.

"Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Kalaba. Velar." The world seemed to shift and the bird suddenly became the center of her vision. While the bird didn't physically grow, her perception of it changed so dramatically that it almost felt as though it had expanded until it occupied most of her field of view. Lira could see individual feathers, some gray while others were browns. She could see the subtle movement of its chest as it breathed. She could even make out the tiny scales covering its legs.

"That's..." Her eyes widened. She leaned closer to the window. The bird turned its head. Lira tried to focus the spell further and managed to center her vision on just its head. To her surprise, it actually worked. She could make out the tiny shape of its eye and, after focusing even further, a small scar along its beak. She doubted she would have been able to spot those details with her own eyes even if the bird was perched on her arm.

"This is incredible." She released the spell and allowed her vision to return to normal. Then she immediately tried again.

"Pika. Cipos. Syneth. Kalaba. Velar." Another bird, this time a crow, became the center of her perception. Lira watched it for several minutes before it took off into flight. That was when she discovered something else. The spell kept the bird at the center of her vision without the need for her to move her neck or keep it centered in her eyes. She was able to keep track of it until it flew over the tower and disappeared from her field of view, at which point her eyes lost focus and returned to normal.

Lira left the alcove and went to another window that allowed her an unobstructed view of the courtyard. One of the maids was walking away from the well, carrying a bucket full of water and a mop. So Lira focused on her. The spell activated and the woman's face became sharply defined. Lira could see the individual strands of her hair, the stitching in her clothing, and the small movements of her eyes as she looked around. Then Lira noticed something even more impressive.

A tiny beauty mark on the woman's index finger where her hand was gripping the bucket, and another on the side of her neck, next to a bead of sweat that left a trail from the back of her ear. Lira blinked. She was at least a hundred meters away. This spell was no joke. It was dramatically improving her ability to extract useful information from what she saw. She dismissed the spell, sat back in her chair, and picked up her journal. Life Watch. Confirmed: Works better than expected.

Extremely effective at identifying and observing living targets at a distance. She stared at the page for a moment. Well, that was a success. Now the next step was to transform this useful spell into something even more specialized. Life Watch → Small Life Watch.