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Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (103/?) WiP 1
🕑 Added 2024-10-19 21:00:50 +0000 UTCHey everyone! Just as a heads up, I’d recommend that everyone should read the revised version of the previous chapter first as there’s been some big revisions at the end of it that’ll be important to see before jumping into this week’s chapter! :D
With all that being said, if you’ve already read the revised version, here is the Work in Progress for Chapter 103 I hope you guys enjoy! :D
Nexus. The Crown Herald Town of Elaseer. Ambassadorial District. Mortis’ Mage’s Essentials. Local Time: 1510 Hours.
Emma
“I believe this may be of help, Cadet Booker.” The elemental spoke warmly, her crowd of floating axolotls maintaining their signature perpetual smiles, with one in particular attempting to hand me a sizable wand for its diminutive size.
To say that I had my doubts would’ve been an understatement.
To say that my interest was piqued would also be a massive lie.
This was because unlike the previous sleazeball, Mortis actually seemed intent on helping, rather than profiting off of my apparent ‘need’ for a wand.
Moreover, the fact she wasn’t overpromising anything, and actually attempted to cater to my requirements was also nothing short of a complete departure from Olli’s business practices.
The expectations here also weren’t outrageous.
If anything, it boded well for one of the EVI’s current pet projects — the development of a ‘mana-sense visualizer’.
So if the Nexus truly did have something already cooked up for that very issue, then that might just help bootstrap development significantly.
Work smarter, not harder was something I lived by after all.
I held out my hand, allowing the little axolotl to drop a wand just about twice its size onto it.
Almost immediately… nothing happened.
Just as I’d anticipated.
“Nothing?” The wandsmith inquired softly.
“Nope, like I said, I don’t have a manafield to interface with.”
“Your armor being in the way I presume…” Mortis rationalized out loud, before reaching out a hand to physically tap the wand’s tip.
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 250% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
Not a moment later, following a mana radiation warning, did the etched filigree along the stick begin to glow; pulsating with a soft ethereal light.
This pathway of light all culminated at the very tip, which glowed bright and began dancing through various colors; sort of like an RGB rave stick.
This continued for several moments, until suddenly, it stopped — maintaining a simple white glow.
“I’m afraid I’m not really following how this is supposed to—”
ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 300% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS
I stopped in my tracks as I felt a force in my hand, tugging it away from the direction of the water elemental, and towards something else.
“Allow it to guide your hand, Cadet Booker.” Mortis instructed with a motherly tone of voice, coinciding with the tip of the wand turning a deep red.
I nodded, doing as instructed, following the wand’s physical pull towards the direction it seemed almost magnetically attracted to; its force increasing with every degree I turned until suddenly it stopped. At which point, I was face to face with the source of its almost magnetic attraction, and its sudden shift in both color and brightness — the Vunerian’s flame breath.
“That’s how it’s supposed to work, Cadet Emma Booker.” The Vunerian spoke with his signature smug grin, his smarmy tone of voice egging me on, but failing to do anything as my mind was assaulted with a torrential downpour of ideas, and an earth-shattering realization.
We’d just skipped several major milestone’s worth of grueling R&D in a single stroke.
My eyes were now locked onto the object. My hand, my real hand just beneath the base of the armor’s wrist, trembled with not shock, but raw, and pure excitement.
We were finally making progress!
“Do you have any questions, Cadet Emma Booker—”
“So I’m assuming this thing has three primary modes of use?” I shot out excitedly, my former tone and cadence evaporating almost instantly, as urgency filled every ounce of my voice. “Its physical tugging corresponding to the localization of a given surge in mana, er, the direction a spell is being cast from?” I began, as I practically shot up, taking a step towards the water elemental. “Its brightness corresponding to the intensity of the spell being cast?” I took another excited step, my face beaming with excitement. “And its color… I guess it corresponds to the type of spell being cast?”
It was around this point that Thacea moved up towards me, grabbing me by the shoulder and staring at me intensely. “Emma, please. It's quite unbecoming of you to—”
“Oh please forgive her, your highness.” Mortis interjected with a raised hand and an amused chuckle. “This is to be expected from those near-blind to manasight. It’s a reaction I don’t often see given how manasight is still present amongst even the most severe of immature mana-fielder cases. So to see this once again, to witness my creations helping those in need… it sparks great joy in my old, old heart. Because this is what I live for.” The water elemental stood up, her axolotls staying behind as she placed a single hand on my shoulder. “I live to serve those in need.”
“Oh, the earthrealmer definitely needs help, that’s for certain.” Ilunor chided with a bemused grin.
I ignored him, of course, as my attention was focused solely on the wandsmith.
“And to address your earlier questions, Cadet Booker, you are indeed correct on all counts.” She nodded deeply, sidestepping Ilunor’s chides like a river parting against an immovable rock. Her indifference to him, perhaps a hint as to her own noble heritage. “However, there’s also this—” The water elemental stepped back, grabbing one of her floating axolotls, as the wand began shifting between various fixed colors. “—the fish bowl’s ability to float is a result of a fixed enchantment. Though you must be relatively close to an enchantment in order to ascertain its presence.”
I nodded along intently, not once interrupting as I awaited every ounce of sweet intel the wandsmith had to offer.
“However, I am afraid this is the limit to what the wand can offer.” She announced with a heavy and regret-filled breath. “This wand was, after all, designed with the integration of a mage’s manafield in mind. And as a result, these features we’ve just discussed, are moreso adjacent accessories to its main function.”
“Its main function is to somehow allow you to better visualize manafields and manastreams, I imagine.” I offered, garnering a nod from the elemental.
“Correct. It does so through a process we call mana resonance.” She began.
However, no sooner did those words leave her mouth, did I begin to internally chuckle.
“So… I guess you could say it images the world around you through mana resonance.” I managed out with a barely contained chuckle. “In effect, it’s… Mana… Resonance… Imaging?”
Comments
Rex
What are you my solid mechanics professor>:/
Michael Halpern
mass is slugs not weight, weight is TECHNICALLY force.
Timothy G
Take the elemental and a second wand as a gift to the library. The library could help develop non- mana mana vision in its learning of physics
Rex
Did you know that lb is not a unit of weight but of force, in imperial, the unit for weight it actually slugs, because fuck if know!
Michael Halpern
blame the brits, their privateers prevented us from converting over
UC-79
Several steps closer to manavision, and all it took was a scammer fumbling the bag.
Simon Pitre
I like how even after a thousand year America still uses the imperial system.
Daniel Lewin
Bravo
I Dare Korval
You also need to keep in mind the pulling and glow intensity of the wand. By having a static spell and using the wand, you can trace out in 3D the mana field and it's intensities as it gets closer to the source. By tracing it out and comparing it to the suits raw sensor data, it will allow EVI to learn to maps out it's raw data inputs and provide a visual overlay to the suits helmet allowing Emma to "see" the mana fields, intensity, direction, and type artifically. You have to remember early on they stated that they had no way back on Earth to properly map the raw data into any coherent patterns since they could only had random burst of mana and not something shaped into a spell.
Michael Halpern
the wand will wear out eventually, better to use it for calibration for the visualizer
Legijas
Emma's equipment also identifies the type, it's just not displayed to her. It was mentioned near the beginning of the story
Skrzynek
Long story short, she can start measuring the spell power in Joules instead of in "% above background radiation". Which probably sounds way more cozily familiar to both Emma and EVI. Also, she'll need to build an OPAQUE, camera-encrusted casing around the wand mounted to a gyroscope. Otherwise, everyone seeing her wave that wand around is gonna bully her for using a BABYWAND!
Rex
Shhh shhh shh, dont speak to me the ways of math for I was forged by it
Michael Halpern
i know but for your volume, it'd probably be 1 liter or 10cm x10cm x 10cm cube. or 1 kg. water is really easy in metric
Skrzynek
To be fair, if someone like Thacea gave Emma some time and conjured various types of magic, saying "this is transmutation magic and I see it as orange" (drawing that with non-magical paints for good measure) then Emma does not need the wand necessarily. That said, she would need someone else to tell her, every time, reliably and without error, what color is a given spell and what type of magic they identify it as (or what mixture of types it has). This is a very time consuming measure and requires lots of cooperation from others. If she can sidestep the issue with getting an artifice to do it automatically and without error, this speeds things up immensely!
Rex
Hey none of my numbers are that precise, it was more about making the scale apparent
Michael Halpern
Emma seems to be in "Younger American scientist/engineer " that is to say Imperial for low precision measurements like distance estimates in miles, but metric where precision matters.
Rex
Well idk what the writer is in, so i converted it all
Michael Halpern
I suspect Emma's mostly in metric.
Rex
This is a long read sorry. So this is my engineering brain talking, but when Emma starts to actually scan/understand the mana radiation, I would love there to be a experiment where she calculates the energy of mana radiation by comparing heat transfer. A simple spell to heat up a 1x1x1 ft cube of water, and compare the actual energy gain of the water to the mana radiation observed. To me it seems like a very important and crucial first step to understanding the real power of magic. With heat, other then energy losses in magic which can be measured, all energy would go to heat, unlike kinetic or light which are harder to measure. Like for example, to heat 1 ft^3 cube of water 1 degree Fahrenheit, it would take 212 kJ of energy. For a reference, a average new American home with 200A power coming in (before being split) at 240V, pulling the maximum power it can from the grid, 48 kW (Never happening, but bear with me), will still take 1.4 s to heat up that cubic foot of water 1 degree (F). While earth realm seems like (so far) it has resource, personnel, redundancy, and technological advantage, on a straight Energy to Energy comparison, I think the Nexus has more because of the, well, magic of magic. For a example I would think would make sense in a magic world, heating up a bathtub. Heating up a average 70 gallon bathtub of water, 1 degree (F) is 1990 kJ, at the max power of a house, its 12.8 s per degree (F). With the average temperature of water being 62.6 degrees (F), and lets say taking a 100 degree (F) bath, it would, with all the power (electrical) your house could use, take 7 minutes and 59 seconds to heat up that water (I know alot). So with magic to heat a bathtub I would assume they could heat that bathtub in a minute, that would be a average power output of 382.8 kW. That output is equal to the max amount of power 8 houses can use. That max isn't really even a max because 200A service is a futureproof feature, a normal house couldn't use close to that sustained. For another comparison you would need 0.5 in. diameter copper cables to transmit that much power. (this is subjective though, with acceptable losses, resistance, heat gain, etc). Some more comparisons for equivalent to what the average power of magic I made up: - A 4000 mah phone battery at the same wattage would drain in 0.139 s - As a straight light, 48.3 million lumens - As the kinetic energy of a average 4000 lb car, it would be the same as moving 356 mph Basically the energy of magic can probably live up to or outshine human electrical grids for at least short periods of time.
Michael Halpern
no she's going to use the arms to hold it and scan in a controlled environment (room) first where all 30 manatypes can be safely scanned
Rex
Is she gonna hook it up to a rapidly spinning gyroscope to just constantly scan around her?
Michael Halpern
well that'll be useful for calibrating the mana field visualizer
Xander McDarmont
nMRI lol
Scott Repplinger
It identifies type. If a mundane way can be found to activate it, then it's properties can begin to be analyzed by the suit's ai. Basically, it's a Rosetta stone but for magic
MaritimeTech2
It would be funny if the wand is supposed to give visual feedback for Mansfield’s, like a visual for magnetic fields. But because Emma is getting her vision from optical sensor the wand is useless in that regard, as her optical sensors can’t detect anything
ArdenW
MRI, ha!
Blake S
Im comfused why this wand is usefull, it requires someone else to turn it on and only seems to be able to lock onto the highest source of manaradiation in the area, which is what her scanner does already. I understand more data is good, but the wand seems about on par with her current scanner.
Skrzynek
I now wonder whether Emma will attach the wand to her antenna with some wires and duct tape.
Arlen Verl Duncan III
I love the new MRI pun JCB!
Matt Null
A new Sci-Fi terminology! Congrats!
RevanReborn365
She is going to build an ENTIRELY different type of MRI, and I am here for it.
