Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 234: Anise’s Project

While Miria went to eat dinner with the adults, Felix pondered what he had learned during the day. And as he thought about everything they had learned, he tried not to manically grin in delight.

He was finally delving into the secrets of alchemy. At long last, after years of unsuccessfully searching on his own, he knew how to progress.

Felix had been the most excited when Miria asked who wanted to go to alchemy prep school. Unlike other essences, binding essence seemed hard to use intuitively, even with his exceptional affinity.

The first class of school had clarified a lot of things for him. Felix had never realized that binding essence needed to work as a sort of external sense before it could be used for alchemy. Once he’d realized what the ‘correct’ direction was, using his binding essence to go further had felt… easy. Natural. It was like learning how to breathe. It felt exactly the same way the others had described their own extreme affinities.

Felix finally gave in, and grinned with delight. He was finally learning the magic system meant for him. He started running through the exercise they had learned in class again. He didn't have any of the fancy liquids their teacher had used, but that was fine. He could sense his own essence well enough to confirm that binding essence was leaving his body.

<Hey Felix,> said Anise over the communication bracelet, interrupting Felix’s sixth repetition of the exercise.

<Yes?> He asked, trying not to wince as his attempt to sense parts of the bowl of liquid in front of him fell apart.

<I made a breakthrough in the Zelyrian magic system!> said Anise. <But I need your help with something!>

<Really?> asked Felix, trying not to show his surprise. The Zelyrian magic system was harder to learn than the magic system from the world of the black sun. And Anise wanted to do everything on her own , so that she wouldn’t miss out on a keyword ability. So the idea that Anise was asking for help surprised him. Why was Anise risking missing out on her keyword ability?

<I think so! The learning exercise today inspired me. There was one part of the Zelyrian introductory magic textbook that kept tripping me up, since it said I needed to ‘observe the stars’. From there, I'm supposed to do a few things with that... But no matter how much I looked at the stars, nothing ever happened. Once I tried using my manifestation essence as a pair of ‘eyes’ instead, I finally got somewhere.>

<That’s great to hear!> said Felix. <But what do you need my help for? It sounds like you’re finally making progress. If I help you, it might mess up your attempts to get a keyword ability...>

<Well, here’s the thing…> said Anise. <I had an idea. It's an item I want as a training aid, and you're the person most likely to be willing and able to help me.>

<Oh?> said Felix. He had barely started figuring out the alchemy of this world. He started feeling a bit nervous. If Anise wanted a training aid, Felix would love to help - but he wasn't sure if he could do it yet.

<Well… here’s the thing,> said Anise, after a few moments. <The Zelyrian manifestation magic system relies a lot on constellations and stars. The first step in Zelyrian magic is to observe stars and starlight with your magic. Then, you need to sort of... make a copy out of manifestation essence. Then, you spend a while solidifying them. Once they're stable, you start shaping them into a spell glyph. After it's finished forming, you just stuff essence into the spell glyph to activate a spell. The glyphs are reusable, so it's easy to spam spells once you have the appropriate spell glyph. Does that make sense?>

Felix nodded - before he realized that he and Anise were a few houses apart, and so she couldn’t see him nodding.

<I think I get it,> he said. Then, he frowned. <That sounds a lot more complicated than the other manifestation magic system,> he said. <The magic system from the world of the black sun didn't need to go through that many steps to cast a basic spell. We just needed to make the magic rings and then stuff the right magic symbols into our spell rings. Are there any benefits to the Zelyrian magic system?>

<Well, there are, actually,> said Anise. <First of all, the essence cost of casting a spell is lower with this magic system. The essence stars in your brain help focus and optimize spellcasting, so there’s a lot less mana wasted. For another, casting a spell is much faster with this magic system, which is very useful. The magic system from our last world might require several minutes to put together a seventh or eighth circle spell. This magic system lets you cast even the largest spells nearly instantly. Of course, it takes way longer to form each constellation, so it's not all upsides. It's way harder to learn new spells in this magic system, too. So with the Zelyrian magic system, I'm going to tend to specialize in a few spells and struggle with utility spells. But this one has a lot of potential for growth> Anise paused. <But anyway! The training item I wanted is a piece of paper with fake stars in it.>

<Fake stars?> asked Felix, feeling bewildered. He hadn’t expected Anise to come up with that idea. How would that even work?

<Well… it doesn’t have to be now, of course. But binding essence is about binding things together. Affixation binds the conceptual to the physical, and Transmutation binds the physical to the physical,> she said. <We’ve only learned the basics of how to do anything, but I was thinking… what if we took some starlight and then bound it to a piece of paper? Or, once we learn a little more alchemy, what if you affixed your idea of what a star is to a piece of paper? I want to see if that would work, and if that changes the way the Zelyrian magic system works. I might get some very interesting results when forming my essence stars if it succeeds.>

<That’s an interesting idea,> said Felix, trying to figure out how that would work. He didn’t know quite enough about light to bind it to a piece of paper… but he could fix that with some research. He would need to get some books describing what light was and how it worked, of course. But if it would help Anise, he didn’t mind spending some time on it. And it also sounded like a fascinating project. It might even help him form his own keyword ability. Still, he was a bit confused.

<I get the idea of trying to affix the concept of starlight onto the paper, since that could improve the magic system. But what does a paper with physical light bound to it do for you?> Felix asked.

<One of the biggest issues I’m having right now is that the stars are very far away. That makes it hard to 'observe' them with my essence properly. It’s a distance issue. And I also can’t see the stars when the sun is up, so I can only do my starlight absorption exercises at night. That doesn't work very well when my parents feel obligated to watch me whenever I observe the stars. They have to sleep too, after all. And sneaking out feels wrong… so I was thinking of ways to circumvent that. Having more time to work on my constellations would have other benefits, too. In the Zelyrian magic system, there is almost no real limit on how many fake stars I can make. So if I could work on the magic system whenever I'm awake, I could learn way more spells in the same amount of time.>

Felix thought about it, and chuckled. Anise had barely stepped into the Zelyrian magic system, but she was already experimenting with it. If her idea worked, she would circumvent one of the major weaknesses of the system.

<Well, I’m happy to help,> said Felix. <I don’t have the ability to stick starlight inside of a piece of paper yet, because we haven’t progressed that far in our lessons. But I’ll pester Old Mo to help us find some books about light. I'm going to need a solid understanding of it to make this work. We can start preparing for this project, even if I can't make items yet.> Felix found himself getting excited at the thought of Anise’s project.

For a long time, he had felt bad about how lacking his combat prowess was. Miria had her extinguishes and her renewals, and they were utterly terrifying. Sallia had her swordsmanship, and she was a monster when it came to physical combat. Anise wasn't very powerful yet, but Felix was sure she would get there soon. Meanwhile, Felix's best idea so far was to optimize prosthetics. That would certainly help - he would be able to drastically enhance his physique with the right modifications. But it felt a little lackluster if that was the only thing he could contribute to future fights. Especially the fight to buy more lives. If the group failed that, everyone would really die.

On the other hand, if he also learned how to make training aids for everyone, he could enhance the group a lot. Making training aids had a lot of potential for future worlds.

<Where are you right now?> he asked. <I want to get a closer look at what you’re doing with your essence when you make a fake star. And we can work out a more concrete plan for how this is going to work if we meet in person.>

<I’m in the yard of our apartment,> said Anise. <My father is getting sleepy, but he said he’s willing to stay up with me for another hour before he goes to bed. And my parents don't want me to stay up late alone at night while sitting outside of the apartment.>

Felix grinned, and started making his way towards the yard of Anise’s apartment. His thoughts constantly circled around Anise's new project as he thought of new ideas and ways to make it work. He might not have the expertise to build what Anise wanted yet, but one thing was certain. He was incredibly excited to see if Anise's idea would work.