Chapter 13: Chapter 23: Synchronization
Finally, after so much complaining that I was surprised the lightning didn't strike her down, the goddess got her wishes and we could now confirmed that the experiment I perform in the mana spring could be repeat. However, I and Lux were to busily...oh...well there were no easy way to sugarcoat this.
We were glaring at a pendulum.
The goal of this experiment was to find out whether or not we could replicated the share vision we got during our sparing with Scathach. My method was pretty simple, utilizing Scathach's rune we hypnotized ourselves to look at the same thing, namely a pendulum.
Unlike my first discovery, we were not lucky this time.
Lux already dozed off and woke up again the moment her head hit the floor.
"Gave up yet," I said.
"Why are we even do this?" Lux said. "There must be another way."
"Yeah," I rubbed my chin in contemplation. "How could our abilities be transferred during battle like that?"
"Are we sure it really happen?" Lux said. "Never mind I had an idea."
She closed her eyes and meditated. Electricity ran across her body.
"What are you doing?"
"I am recalling that battle in detail?" Lux gave a satisfied smile. "Do you know that Nueroelectrical augmentation improved my memory to almost eidetic level."
"That skill is broken."
"Yeah," Lux gave a shy grin and opened her eyes. "I have an idea."
She hold my hand. I felt my heart beat a few seconds faster. No, it was confession time. I am the least popular person anywhere. This was partly thank to my personality and lacked of common interest with anything anyone might said. To put its simply, I never really cared about those around me on personal level.
You could say Cytortia was the only one who actually earn enough of my recognition for me to care and that was purely because her optimism kinda grew on me like a drug I never knew I needed.
Lux was a bit different. She was in every way out of my league. Truth to be told, I never care about the league thing. As long as mortality existed, anyone was equal in the eye of time and death--one face in the endless replaceable mass. She was the third person I couldn't really wrap this mindset around because I didn't want too.
Labeling everyone as interchangeable being was easy. You never had to care. If you don't like someone, you could live in comfort that they would likely died in regret in forty years time. You were not require to care about them but the moment you started seeing people individual something change. I knew this because I experienced it. In both prior cases those two person, my mother and Cy, reminded me it felt like to be accepted and understood as a person.
But Lux, well, she actually gave me a respect I didn't think I even deserved. Her life so far had been pretty worse than mine and unlike me she didn't use her complex to lord over anyone and be nothing but helpful.
Yes, I will said it honestly. If I got along with Cytortia by friendship, then it was admiration when it come to the Elf girl that only seemed to display the sincere humility.
It was the fact that I realized at that moment. I had made up my mind that today I will show her that article. I believe Lux could take it. She was way stronger than a certian weakling I know to well.
"I think that when we coordinated our attack some of our Mana linked," Lux said. "Normally this won't do anything much because most people couldn't used mana like you do. But the way you communicated with mana make linking it much more powerful."
So we conjured our mana into our hand and I let it mixed. Originally, this wouldn't accomplish anything but headache. However, I knew how mana worked now and, by extension, it also learned a thing from me.
The two stream of white energy touches. Mine turned Rainbow and, the moment it touched Lux's stream, Lus's mana was slowly dyed into gold. Both strand began to entwined like rope.
And just as it began it broke.
But that didn't mean I didn't gain anything far from it.
The moment the strand touched. Some kind of image loaded into my mind. An experience and point of view on sword play. The core concept of the style focusing on momentum with unbelievable usage of furious acrobatic from pirouette, cartwheel and somersault. Graceful and ferocious like a refine creature of the myth.
My lord, the [Mythological Sword Art: Simplicity] have ranked up from C to B
And there was this image of a guy. He was bleeding. Covered in red and on his last leg, yet, somehow he managed to win. Not once but twice through forethought, daring and slash of trickery. Exhausting himself not to conquer an opponent but be there for as long as possible to remind the girl with nothing on her back the beauty of the dream she once had. The hero who only allowed himself to fall only when the girl's soul was save and came for her when no one did.
Wonder who was that guy? I had a feeling I know but I would chose the most comfortable option at the moment and ignored it.
As for Lux she was blushing really hard. Her face was even redder than the first time she suffered the Susana of hell.
"D-Did you see that?" She stammered.
"I will pretend not to notice that."
"Yeah," Lux fidgeted visibly for the first time since I'd seen her. "Please try not to notice it. I will really thank you if you don't. And what is with the rainbow aura allow you."
I looked at Lux and stared. Normally, Mana from a person were white in colors, although mine was admittedly slowly dyed into Rainbow. My theory was that the more I communicated with mana and befriend it as intend, the more it synced with me.
Basically my mana evolved as it personalized around me.
And now I saw this silver of individualized mana girl who had no knowledge of Mana Comprehension. The sparkling gold flickered across
"Lux," I said. "What do you see around me?"
Lux squinted. White light with a hint of gold flashed through her eyes.
"There are some kind of white mist surrounding you with patch of multi-color rainbow." Lux frowned. "Rem your are keeping something from me. I feel it from your mana."
"Yes," I admitted and held her hand. That was when I felt some kind of wall melting. "In fact I decided going to tell you about it today. This will be hard to swallow. So let deal with the entire mana thing first. I promise I will be here when you need it."
Lux gave a soft and maybe the first genuine smile I had seen.
"It is okay Rem just promise me you won't keep something like this from me the next time."
I turned on my mana perception. Seriously, I need to learn how to turn that on twenty-four hours straight. Lux's mana was a usual milky white mist flowing around her body but once in a while a golden spark flashed throught it.
"Lux your Status ID."
She took and out and we looked at it.
...
Luxinna Latoria
Shadow Crusader(Lightning)
Stat:
Str: 200 (C)
End: 280 (C)
Mag: 230 (C)
Wis: 100 (D)>>175 (D)
Dex: 315 (B)
Skill
Active
Lightning Stream (B)
Passive
Child of Thunder (SS)
Mythical Sword Art: Elegance (B)
Mythical Sword Art: Ferocity (A)
High Elves (S)
Ultimate One Blessing (N/A)
Nueroelectric augmentation (A)
Mana Comprehension (N/A)
...
"Oh my god," Lux said. "Cy will complain about why I am still perfectly dry. How did we do this?"
"I think that our mana synchronized and shared information when we mixed it. Because we had a good affinity with each other we both benefited from the link. I got your insight on sword but your got my experience with mana. In fact I a kinda glad. We really need to build up the vocabulary for this entire branch of...okay Manathology."
"Manaception." Lux tried to suggested a better name.
"Manathamatic." I threw that in and we both cringe.
After a while, I decided to stick to the simple two words.
"Mana Art."
"Yes, Mana Art are okay." Lux nodded in agreement.
"Is this some kind of a date!"
Both me and Lux turned to look at the soaked goddess in swimsuit. I was a pretty good swimsuit. A two piece white bikini with a good cupsize that hid what needed to be hidden and highlight all the right curve. Whoever, bought that swimsuit had more class than my entire school's female population. Given the fact that she was not attempting to murder us, I guessed the experiment went well.
I will throw this out: I didn't believe for a second that Cy picked her Swimsuit and given Scathach's attires I didn't believe it is her either.
Lux swatted me in the head
"Stop ogling her," Lux said exasperatedly. "Cy this is not a date."
"Then what are you doing."
We looked into each other eyes. Who would walk to the chopping block and said that we discovered the method to learn the newly dubbed Mana Art without any negative side effect while the she had to take the risky ventured of getting dumped into a mana spring? This was keeping in mind the she spent three days waiting for this moment and two of those days saw her getting tossed like a chum twice by Scathach.
No way it gonna be me.
"You do it." we said to each other.
...
"NOW I AM FREAKING MAD!!!!!"
Wow, for a goddess who practice the exalted art focusing on calmness, precision and calculation, Cytortia sure knew how to threw a tantrum.
"Cy please calm down!" Lux placated her with panic tone and a facial expression of the girl who found out her boyfriend pet happened to be a cockroach. It was an interesting day back then.
"Why don't you told me this in the beginning?"
"Inspiration didn't grow on trees," I said shortly.
"Dammit are you telling me that I could have got this power from the beginning?" Cytortia complained. "What did the this three days mean?"
"It was a time I spent debating various kink and wear of this power-up." I said getting up. "Since we received the same power, and I already had a prior experience into this I believe that we can contribute toward it development."
Cy stayed silent.
"Wait you meant we are going R&D."
"Yes, so far I had been using it vaguely with limited technique or optimized method." Rem said. "But the fact that I failed to beat barely serious Scathach twice in a row showed me that there are a ceiling I need to overcome."
"Kid," Scathach said from the Van's driver seat. "You are saying that as if you are expecting to run into someone stronger than me."
"Yes, because our core value crashed heavily against pretty much anyone who would enjoy seeing the world going up in flame."
"Who would that be?" Lux said.
Well, it had to be now or never I guessed time to let the cat out of the bag.
"Emma Enterprise, I had been doing some research on them and the way they had been chewing on Millian and my home world was plain disturbing. And Lux I am very sorry to say that they just net another investor. I don't know how broke this to you but your father just sell his soul to a devil."
"Wait, what is my dad doing again?"
I show her the article for Phantasia Daily. It appeared highly disturbing that this news channel was responsible for pumping over fifty percent of global articles but, given that all other source were outright biased or rampant propaganda machine, I would take what I got.
Lu read the text out loud. Her face looked worst with every words.
"Natural Right Movement Uproar: Drakokia's Investment in Eastern Continent
This week, during the unity meeting, Lord Lucian Drakokia and two of the fellow representatives from the forest of Lightwell signed a purchasing of the right of over 1,540,000 debt slaves from Emma Enterprise. It was the largest and most opened transaction of unpaid and barely protected labor the resent memory. This combined with the prior weapons purchases from multiple firms raised the scrutiny on Lord Drakokia's increasingly militaristic policies.
This movement was not something that appeared recently. Lord Lucian had been accused of several weapon smuggling charge and even suspect for an assassination of several journalist and investigator working on his conspiracy with Emma and convicted military leader. Even against the following backlashes and bad reputation, he still stood his ground from this following quote..."
Lux's voice faded.
"You got to admit he had a good sense of humor. I mean it's quite a great joke for the man who prosecuted his daughter to say: 'All of this transaction and sacrifice was made to guarantee the brighter and better for the citizen of this continent. So that the tomorrow children of the elves could live in the light of freedom and right to happiness'." I said without a sense of humor.
Lux stayed silent.
"But I don't get it." Cy said. "I knew it existed but I never understand how it happened. Phantasia's law forbade slavery right."
"There are a loophole," Scathach answered. "Directly enslaving someone is illegal and crime on the level with collusion with the world enemy. But in case that someone was cornered into a debt they couldn't pay, or asked for a reduce sentence for a crime, it is possible to worked that debt away as an unpaid worker for set amount of time for the debtor."
"But the debtor are not always fair and the right to debt slaves can be trade like good in the markets. It become a legalize enslavement." I concluded.
"That's is horrible!" Cy said. "Aren't there anyone doing anything about its?"
"Organization like the Natural Right Movement, or NRM, was trying to abolish the system." Scathach stated coldly. "But they couldn't do anything with something as large as the Emma Enterprise as an opposition. The Drakokia joining the causes meant they could count the entire High Elves to back their dubious activity."
"I have to stop him." Lux whispered her eyes completely blank. "I need too."
"Yes, that one was your closure." I tossed her a coin.
"What is this?" Lux said picking up that worthless piece of metal.
"Something you should have. I will tell you about it tomorrow," I said looking at the setting sun. "But firstly, we have to amass enough power to actually make a dent so let focus on the biggest issue first:R&D."
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JWL09 I have gave up Rem's character profile as a bonus update. Please comment and voted in power stone. Now it time to develop the power and raised the stake...and don't for get to start sharing your opinion
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