Elevation of Mana Chapter 208 A New Spell

Plans began to form in my mind. I needed a weapon, silent, impossibly fast, and now. Poisons had worked in the past, but not now, too slow, detecting one she'd crush us out of spite if nothing else. There were compounds that would kill even an Ancient, but none that could do so fast enough. Pure power was out too, since we were weaker, and with her experience probably slower, large concentrations would be seen.

So I needed something small too, small but deadly enough. There were a few contenders; electricity across the heart would kill, but thinking on it she might have enough time for a reprisal, so no. No, the brain would need to be the target, and it would need to fall instantly, or as near as I could manage. It would also need to be unseen, and something she'd no experience with, a daunting task at the best of times.

I thought of all the sci-fi concepts I could, and all of their seemingly impossible ideas. Some were impractical, or almost insane, I needed something I could comprehend, not something out of Star Wars. Or did I? As a light flashed in my eye I hit upon the other meaning of those words, uttered by a man in need of defenses against weapons not even I would want to field.

A laser would hit most of those criteria, and those were hardly something beyond my knowledge. It was just light, powerful, focused, exact, what I needed to a T. I'd have to make sure it had enough umph, but I'd worked with light quite a lot, it was after all something all of us used often. So I'd need to combine it then, with something else I understood, head, an infrared laser, close range, high power.

“I have an idea,” I signed slowly to Chien. “I'll need time.”

“You'll have it,” he returned.

The time wasn't for the spell, but to search everything that was bouncing around in my mind. I wasn't an expert on lasers. Sure, I'd used a few here and there, along with other optical equipment in classes, but nothing like what I needed. I'd need time to form my ideas and search for everything I could.

An old man I'd known had part of one of the building blocks for the defensive system the US had been building, a massive chunk of synthetic ruby. Neat stuff, and seeing it I'd looked into how that worked, but it wasn't really applicable here, I discarded it. The physics here and there helped with the idea of the spell I would need, but much of those were focused around media that I wouldn't be using, or power generation I didn't need.

“Matriarch, what exactly are you planning here? Besides moving southward of course. You see, I'm not sure what you need us doing.”

“Whatever you're planning it won't work, and it will irritate me, so don't,” she said, seeing through his attempt immediately. I supposed being in a political position for around a millennium would do that.

“Alright, but my question stands,” he said, trying to act compliant.

She turned to me, but I was just thinking, not doing yet, so there really wasn't anything to see. I would have to build at some point, and if I wasn't careful that would be obvious, but it wasn't at the moment.

“Much the same as you're doing now truly. Believe it or not I'm quite impressed by the two of you and your people, and I don't want you as enemies. I just think that you need a bit of... direction, so as not to cause problems. In time you'll understand, even if you don't now, and in time I'll give you your freedom back, as you learn.”

She was trying to make a compelling argument, but I wasn't buying. She could claim all kinds of things while reaping all the benefits we made. This would increase her power by leaps and bounds, and let her have a better chance at beating us should we ever come to blows. That and the fact that she was more than willing to kidnap us showed me that this was just an excuse, something she was telling us and perhaps even herself to salve her conscience. Perhaps in time she even would loosen her hold, but only after she was satisfied we'd never be a threat again, foolish and prideful.

I didn't have time for that though, now I needed to organize my spell ideas more. Quickly I began to work through exactly what kind of light I would need, trying to piece together bits and bobs bouncing around in my brain that not even I consciously had known. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world.

“You know, you'd probably do better to take a light hand now, leave us as is and reap the growth we want to bring anyway. All the benefit, without even a modicum of animosity on our part. After all you did help us out a lot, why would we begrudge you a little help here or there?”

“I could,” she said, almost like she was considering it. “But you two are frankly too dangerous to let meander about on your own. Your weapons may be magnificent, but they're too much to trust to ones so young. You'll understand when you're older.”

She was sounding more and more like the worst kind of people I'd known in any life; busybodies who wanted to control you to protect you from you, and ones that didn't even understand what you were doing. Actually thinking of her like a number of politicians helped, I couldn't stand them; I couldn't stand them on Earth, and I had a not so light hate for the council I was part of.

Regardless though I'd found all I needed to, or at least all I could without potentially weeks of meditation, and began to form the magic in my mind. I didn't let it into the world yet, instead just thinking about what exactly I wanted. Measurements in nanometers, compared to colors I knew, potencies, and wavelengths, and magnitudes, everything I knew about the behavior of photons and potential problems we might encounter, even how to solve them.

“That's enough for now boy, I tire of your words,” she said to Chien, apparently while I'd been focusing their conversation had continued. “And your companion is...”

Without a word I slammed my spell into the world, pushing every ounce of power I could into it. Care had to be taken to avoid it being pure magic, I'd seen how that could be resisted, but there was a workaround. Rather than just hit her with the spell itself I had it altering the world that would then hit her instead. The laser wouldn't be magic itself, instead it would be made by magic and released. It wasn't the normal formation, where it came slowly and build, but almost like a jab at reality, as fast as I could make it. Sure, it would lose power, but I could live with that.

There was no flash of light, no booming sound, nothing like that as the magic hit the world. There was only a feeling of a pulse in my mana, then the rest of it hit. A noise like a stiff wind sounded, and then everything around us stopped, both Chien and I dropping like stones.

Upon looking up my assistant immediately looked away, the sound of vomit slapping against the ice clear. I nearly joined him, the smell alone was sickening, it was so wrong, but mixed with something that almost reminded me of cooking meat, which just made it all the worse.

“Justin what the fuck?” he asked as he looked up again.

“I...”