[CYA] Chapter 105: Discovering the Old

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<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Cafeteria>

Alex was grumpy.

He got his food grumpy. He ate his food grumpy. He chose what he was going to do next… grumpy.

Multi-strike had not been right on the cusp, or if it was, he couldn’t figure out the trick of it.

He wasn’t sure which would be grumpier, but he didn’t have a way to figure it out, so it didn’t really matter.

“Fine, I’ll just go see Mr. Weston, then go carve stupid strengthen symbols with my stupid force blades in stupid wood.” He muttered to himself, knowing he was acting petulant, but not really caring at the moment. The fact that he still had a headache didn’t help, and he suspected that wouldn’t go away until he slept again.

Just to be sure, he conjured and drank a couple of cups of water, one mouthful at a time.

He stood for a moment. “Nope, not better.”

He, of course, knew that dehydration wouldn’t be fixed that quickly, but once again, he didn’t care.

Because I’m grumpy…

Leanne sighed, her voice drifting to him from where she followed beside him on the right. “If you stomp a bit harder, I bet you could leave footprints in the floor. You’re probably strong enough.”

Alex grimaced at the woman, the current ‘on guard’ spear wielder. “You don’t have to be here.”

“Of course I do. I’ve heard the stories, the same as the others. If we leave you alone, you’re going to go do something insane that might get you killed, and then where would we be.” She held up a hand to forestall him a moment. “It’ll be for a good reason, and I’m sure you’ll save a bunch of people as you die, but even so.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but then he realized that he really wanted to go test his new Shaped Force Burst despite the headache and despite the fact that it was dark outside and despite the fact that he still felt like it was too soon… somehow.

If he was feeling especially honest, the only thing really keeping him back was that he didn’t want to convince Leanne—or any of the spear wielders really—to come with him.

His grimace deepened, and he grumped, “Fine…”

He had thrown off his schedule the last few days, and as such, he was heading to a short—non-expansion centered—Inventory training with Mr. Weston, followed by some symbol carving work… Then, he’d sleep.

The sooner I sleep, the sooner I can go test my new spell… But he held off that growing thought as he knew that even if the spell was fully ready for use when he woke up—if it was still before dawn— it would be as bad an idea to go out then, as it would be to go out now.

He growled, but tried to be a little less grumpy as he entered the room where the teacher waited.

The teachers had been very busy of late with so many new Initiates coming in. Apparently, everyone had started to realize just how knowledgeable they were on so many things of use, and so all the Initiates were all doing their best to take advantage of the resource.

Regardless, Mr. Weston was happy to help Alex, and this was the time they’d set aside for some more specific training.

Around everything else, Alex had managed to add a few more inches to his Inventory’s dimensionality, but they weren’t meeting for purely expansion work.

Leanne took up position outside, pulling out something that she began working on. Alex almost asked about it, but realized that she had her tasks, and he had his, so he left her to it.

“Good evening, Alex.” The man had a kind smile, and if the twinkle in his eyes was any indication, he seemed to have some sympathy for whatever Alex was going through.

“Good evening, Mr. Weston. How are you today?”

“Very well, considering.” The older man looked weary despite his smile and evident good humor. “We are all grateful for the work you and your friends are doing on our behalf.”

Alex smiled, feeling a bit bad about his recent, petulant mood. “We are happy to help.”

“So it seems.” The man nodded, continuing to smile in return. “Now, I want to convey some things about your skill—mostly inspired by questions that your fellows asked—and then we can check up on your progress.”

Alex sat across from the man, and Mr. Weston began the cadence of pulling out boxes for Alex to put in his Inventory.

Alex had gotten a lot better at this task, making it almost thoughtless for him to take the next bigger box and put it in place around everything else in the Inventory, stretching the dimensionality fractionally. At the same time, he pulled out the innermost box from the outer ‘wall’ of boxes that surrounded everything within.

Mr. Weston made that disappear, only to be replaced by another, bigger box for Alex to take in.

And on it went, essentially without conscious intervention. Alex had also gotten to the point that he could do both of these actions up to three inches from his body, and Mr. Weston had said that such was the most he could expect from the basic ‘Inventory’ skill.

He could do more, but that would take more effort than it was worth. It would be simpler to alter the skill if more distance was needed.

“Alright, then. First, while you can move things around within your Inventory to a degree, it is difficult, if not impossible, to change their state.”

Alex frowned. “What?”

The teacher smiled. “One of your friends asked if they could just pull air into their Inventory, letting it compress while giving a constant outward pressure on the dimensional restrictions, expanding the dimensionality of the skill in that way.”

Alex blinked a few times. That… huh. That was a really clever idea. “So…?”

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. That avenue would require the compression to take place within your space, and then for expansion to try to take place. The standard Inventory skill does not allow for time to pass, so this would not work in either direction. If you had a perfect understanding and grasp of air molecules you might be able to figure out the compression part, but that wouldn’t actually lead to any gain in your Inventory’s size, not by itself.”

“Ahh, I see.”

“Similarly, you cannot catch magical spells for use later.”

Yet again, he found himself surprised. He hadn’t even considered the possibility… Now, he realized that it would have been awesome. “Oh… Okay.”

“There are Inventory-like skills that can do that, but they are rare and difficult to acquire and harder to master. Even when one does do that, they are often surprisingly limited.” Mr. Weston shrugged. “In a similar vein, you cannot catch most projectiles in your Inventory. A good rule of thumb to consider is that you cannot store anything that is traveling too quickly, relative to you. You can train yourself to do sleight of hand or juggling tricks with your Inventory, but that would be about the limit. It isn’t meant to be a direct combat tool, either offensive or defensively.”

“But I could do something like calling a weapon to my hand mid-strike? Or mid-throw?”

Mr. Weston smiled. “Indeed, but I would assume that doing such would take a lot of practice to get the timing right. I don’t know, though. I am not a combatant.”

“So, the item pulled out matches the speed of the part of me it’s summoned next to?”

“Exactly. Otherwise the spin of the planet—and the velocity you have because of that—would cause all sorts of havoc.”

Alex swallowed involuntarily, thinking of the chaos that could otherwise have come from putting an item in, turning around and pushing an item out. “I… didn’t consider that either.”

Mr. Weston smiled. “That is understandable. We rarely consider that we are but specs of organic matter, clinging to a wet rock, hurtling through space at unimaginable speeds.”

Alex blinked at the man. “I think I’m starting to understand why you have trouble with danger.”

Mr. Weston chuckled. “Indeed. Though, I know that others in my position take the opposite tact. After all, our existence is so unlikely, and we are surrounded by so much that could kill us without any warning, who cares about a little more danger.” The man’s mirth faded, and he shuddered. “I care…” He shook himself and smiled. “But we can move on.”

Alex nodded, deciding not to think further on the existential nihilism. “What next, then?”

They were continuing the expansion, one sixteenth of an inch at a time. “Well, did you ever figure out how to read?”

Alex frowned. “Read? Of course I can read, I…” His eyes widened. “By the great buffalo of Antarctica. I completely forgot.”

Mr. Weston smiled again. “Inventive expletives aside, why don’t you try it now? I know you can count items you have within with the nature of the skill.”

“So, open a book and see what I see?”

The teacher shrugged. “Why would you need to open the book? You don’t have eyes within that you have to expose the information to. There is no light to illuminate the page that you must ensure is shining on the contents. Just look.”

Alex relaxed, the continued cadence of boxes not disruptive in the least. First, he wished to know how many boxes he had: Twenty four, twenty five, twenty four…

How many carved wooden shingles?

Two hundred in a stack just more than twenty five inches tall.

What was on the seventy third page of the book on Magical Symbology?

A page suddenly appeared to his mind’s eye as if he were imagining it, but the words and drawings were perfectly clear. He barked a laugh, and Mr. Weston’s smile grew, the boxes stopping for the moment.

Inside his own head, Alex wanted to know what was on the other side of the paper, and there it was, the next page.

Then, the next, and so on.

It was almost as if he had the page before him, but he could still see perfectly well. “This is amazing. Thank you, Mr. Weston.”

“Of course.”

Alex waited a moment, but when nothing happened, he asked, “Should I expect the skill to improve in rarity?”

The man shrugged. “I highly doubt it. This is not really a new use of the skill, nor is it even new for you. This is like you suddenly realizing that the cutting board you were using in the kitchen isn’t secured to the counter, so you can move it.”

“...That makes me sound like a bit of an idiot.”

The man’s smile widened. “If that’s how you see it, I likely can’t dissuade you.”

Alex sighed. “Well, this will be really interesting. It’s fascinating that I can read it, without interrupting my vision at all. What’s more, if I want, I can sort of overlay it over a part of my vision, mentally, but that’s an artifact of imagination, not a true blocking or obscuring. I can also just ‘know’ what’s on the page and either see or actually read it.”

He frowned. Why did this seem familiar? He hadn’t been doing this before… had he?

No… that wasn’t it. Why did the mental impression of the page seem like he’d seen its like before… recently?”

Mr. Weston nodded, clearly unaware of Alex’s contemplations. “It’s really helpful for a lot of things. I particularly like using it to trace images onto other surfaces.” He smiled. “I always enjoyed helping with the school decorations around holidays. This allowed those who could do it to pull from quite a large variety of sources. It’s also useful for grading multiple choice tests, because I can ‘overlay’ the answer key atop the student’s sheet, and the differences become obvious.”

Alex’s eyes were huge, and he was staring, open mouthed at Mr. Weston.

The older man frowned. “What?”

“You can use this to trace… BY THE SEVEN HUMPS OF THE GREAT CAMEL!” Alex momentarily paused, his own words throwing him for a loop. But he set that aside. “I can use this to do my symbol carving.”

The teacher nodded. “Yes, it is rather useful for woodcarving, I’ve heard. My talents and interests lie in other areas, however.”

Then, the reason for the familiarity clicked into place. “It’s like my Force Blast. The System projected spellforms into my mind, and my magic simply filled them in.”

Mr. Weston tilted his head to one side. “Really? Hmmm… I suppose there could be that similarity, but I imagine that System guidance comes with a bit more than just a mental impression of what needs to happen, right? If memory serves, the mana practically flows on its own?”

Alex gave the man a skeptical look. This was pushing the bounds of knowledge the man should have… but he wasn’t going to look a gift-wiki in the sources. Even still, some of Alex’s excitement faded, but only just. The man wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t fully right. He’d been able to adjust the symbols given by the System. Maybe, just maybe, he would be able to do so more quickly—and more accurately—with this technique.

Mr. Weston sighed, and pushed himself up to stand. “I can see you’re contemplating some important things. I’ve another of your friends to help, but I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”

Alex smiled up at the older man and nodded. “Thank you, thank you so much.” On a whim, he stood and held out his hand. When the other man took it—seeming surprised—Alex shook firmly. “Truly. I cannot express how much you’ve helped me.”

“Of course.” Mr. Weston smiled a big, genuine smile. “It is my joy to help my students improve, and you are decidedly one of my students.”

Alex grinned in return. “Well, you have my gratitude.”

The teacher hesitated for just a moment before adding, “Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. I know that these are important skills, but I can’t help but feel like I could be doing more.”

Alex’s grin moved to a genuine smile. “Will do, thank you for the offer. I will definitely keep it in mind.”

As the man left, Alex looked longingly past him and at the dark window that looked into the school yard. Yet again, he wanted to throw caution to the wind and go test his newly improved spell. Moreover, he wanted to see if he could indeed more easily shift the spellforms based on templates within his Inventory.

But he knew that not only was it a bad idea, the spear folk wouldn’t like it.

So first? First, he’d try this new technique on his carving. Then he’d sleep.

Then, he’d see if he had just found a whole new avenue of amazingness.

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