17. Everything Comes from Original Creation

Everything Comes from Original Creation

“So…”

I thought back over my own powers, and in my mind the list of abilities rose up and matched itself, one by one, against the things I could actually do.

I squeezed the now-silent lump of metal between my fingers absentmindedly, wondering how my powers managed all those things I had no time to think through, could not perceive, and absolutely could not calculate.

Yet sometimes they clearly did have limits, and those limits seemed to arrive at random.

“So how exactly does it do what it does?”

“No idea,” Chi Li said, laughing.

She dodged with ease when I tossed a little scrap of crushed metal at her head. She was much faster than an ordinary girl now.

Come to think of it, if she had not grown in ways beyond simple firepower, she probably would not have survived this long either.

“Lia says it’s original creation.”

“That little thing?” I frowned. “You really trust an outsider you know almost nothing about? Someone from another world?”

“She isn’t actually a little thing. And in the situation we’re in now, we either choose to trust people or die alone.”

Chi Li shrugged, far calmer than I had expected.

“Shape-shifting, mind control, and similar abilities are real. Anyone we meet could be the enemy, and there’s no logical or experiential proof that can truly establish otherwise. For all you know, you could currently be trapped in a complete sensory hallucination, a lucid dream no one could see through without stronger magic. Which brings us back to the key point.”

“And what would that key point be?”

“Magic creates everything. When I make a flame, that flame is created. It doesn’t come from somewhere else. When you push something with force or fly, that force is created too. When Cheng Rui suddenly understands more about technology, that knowledge is also created.”

She picked up one of the finished wands and twirled it like a conductor’s baton.

“So what happens when a spell, an ability, or a piece of super-technology needs information? That information is created too. It doesn’t need senses to discover the information, or a brain to understand it, just as I don’t need fuel to make fire, and you don’t need an airplane to fly. Invisibility or ordinary concealment can’t stop a spell with a trigger condition from exploding in an intruder’s face. And you can’t physically disarm it the way you’d disable an alarm.”

“Then how have the bad guys not found us yet?” I pressed. “If they can create information like that…”

“Because the more powerful a spell, ability, or skill is, the harder it is to learn and cast,” Chi Li explained.

“A spell that can create any information you want is much harder to obtain than a spell that turns San Guang City into a crater. Honestly, ordinary technology can make craters. You don’t even need magic. But obtaining just enough information to make an explosive trap work? That only needs to be a little more advanced than a land mine. So if you have enough magical energy to melt a car, you can do it.”

She frowned.

“Apparently some magical energy gets spent on the trigger condition, so a normal mine I make is weaker than a normal explosion… unless I spend more time and effort making the mine than I would spend making the blast.”

“Is that what you’re doing when you make wands?” I understood at once. “You spend ten minutes making a wand, while a single explosion in combat takes only one second?”

“Yes and no. The trigger condition for a wand is a password the user must speak. It can also be triggered by thought, but things you might accidentally think about are not very good trigger conditions.”

We both laughed at that.

“Also, a weapon that can only fire once isn’t much of a weapon, so I store enough energy in the wand for multiple uses. Packing that much power into a small object is the truly difficult part. Or maybe I’m doing something wrong…”

“You’ll get it eventually. Just don’t experiment with enough magic to flatten this building.”

Only I was allowed to do that, and only far away from everyone else. Big sister privilege.

“Too late!” my best friend said, laughing again, before returning to her work.

At least she was fireproof.

I hoped.

After being squeezed enough times, the metal in my hand had taken on the consistency of soft clay. Judging by the dull red glow it gave off and the few inches of heat haze rising around it, throwing it aside and ignoring it would probably be dangerous.

So why not make something interesting?

Using Near-Object Manipulation, I shaped it into a short sword, compressed it to remove voids and structural flaws, then used Strength Modulation to reinforce all the forces holding it together. As it cooled, it became quite sturdy.

Then I used another ability.

Persistent Force lv1:
Make force effects you personally exert permanent, with reduced effect. Requires time and stamina. The time and stamina required are proportional to the effect and inversely proportional to one another.

First, I used Near-Object Manipulation to apply an effect: a thin layer of force along the blade.

Unlike Chi Li’s wand, it would have no trigger condition and no other complicated parts. It would simply remain active. Maybe that made it more dangerous, but this was only a simple proof of concept. No need to make things too complicated.

Persistent Force caught hold of the effect, and my energy—there really was no better word for it—began pouring into the sword.

It was like running a fixed distance in order to complete a task, spending my physical strength along the way.

I could walk slowly to avoid exhaustion, even stop to rest on that imaginary road and recover my stamina.

Or I could jog, finishing the same distance faster.

Or sprint.

If I felt the distance was short enough, I might even try to leap across it in one go… but if I failed, neither I nor the sword would enjoy the result.

This first attempt was not especially difficult. After about an hour, it was finished smoothly. I was not even panting, though I had definitely worked up a sweat.

If Chi Li got headaches from overthinking while enchanting wands, I got physically tired. Given the nature of my powers, that was strangely appropriate.

I formally drew the sword and swung it a few times. Its balance had not changed at all.

Then I let it fall point-down onto a steel table. With a dull clang, it cut into the quarter-inch-thick metal and stopped halfway through.

Not bad for my first magic sword.

Now let’s see what else I can do with it.