CHAPTER 56: CHAPTER 56 - GOING OVER INFORMATION (2)

If she couldn’t find a proper meditation method, then she would never be able to step onto the path of a Wizard.

She wasn’t worried about her mental capabilities not being enough to form a matrix. From what the AI had shown her, her current mental stat was around 18, and it was already very high before she even began training as a warrior.

And currently, it was almost comparable to a peak Rank 1 Warrior. It was clear her mental state was much higher than that of a normal person, and she believed it had to do with her two lives fusing into one.

The truth of that matter couldn’t be explored currently, and it wouldn’t matter much if she couldn’t get her hands on a meditation method.

"He was able to do his ’tricks’; he must have had some way to gather mana. Or, at least some research into it."

She didn’t believe that she could gather more information than the man in a short period of time, after all, the man spent years travelling the land and gathering such knowledge.

But she had one thing the man didn’t have: her AI. It was able to process, run simulations, and do more calculations in a mere day than Corin could’ve done in his entire lifetime.

With the AI, she might be able to achieve something he couldn’t have with the information he had.

"Show me any of the techniques he made. Even those deemed dangerous or impossible. Even the theoretical ones he couldn’t figure out."

[Section: Rudimentary Techniques]

Corin’s records of his techniques were scattered, his writing often uneven, with many parts removed, rewritten, or outright crossed off. Thankfully, with the aid of the AI, she was able to organize them into a much neater format.

He called them tricks, and from the way he described them, they were indeed nothing more than that—barely functioning scraps, fleeting glimpses of what proper spellwork might look like.

The first he wrote of was a minor technique he called Draft. It required a simple outline—two curved lines joined at one seam, with a small mark cut across the inner bend. If drawn right, one could use only elemental energy, without the need for proper mana, to activate it.

Enough to flick a candle flame or shift dust across a table.

But the failures were numerous. If the inner seam grew too thick, nothing happened at all; if the outer curve bent too much, the gust kicked sideways, spraying dust into his face. The accuracy of the outline was required to be very detailed; even the slightest mistake could cause a wide range of issues.

And even if you were to get the trick to work, it didn’t come without a price; his notes warned that the wrist grew cold and numb if he held the mark too long, and once he claimed his entire forearm ached for a day.

He experimented with different surfaces—charcoal on wood, chalk on stone, soot on bone. The last, he swore, carried the strongest result, but it wasn’t one he could easily do.

The second was what he called Ember. It was meant to create heat, even a spark, though he admitted it barely worked half the time. The shape was a triangle, but one side was always longer, never equal.

At the tip, a short line angled inward. If the proportions were wrong, the mark fizzled. Equal sides produced nothing, too sharp and his finger would burn, too wide made only a puff of warm air.

To succeed at all, he needed a touch of oil or wax on his fingertip when he pressed the mark.

The dangers here were clearer. He wrote of blistered thumbs, nails cracked from sudden sparks, and once a pop loud enough to scorch his table.

The last was a strange one—what he called Pin. It was only a bent line looped back upon itself, but he claimed it left a pull behind, allowing you to pin something to a location.

With this, he could hold a scrap of paper against a wall for a few moments or keep a door from swinging. But it faded quickly, never lasting more than thirty breaths.

He admitted these were weak, useless in a true fight. They were nothing but tricks, something meant to be used sparingly, never to be relied on. It was all he could come up with, all he could use without mana.

Yet beneath every trick was a basis of truth; the tricks he created followed the inspiration of spells, the only difference being, spells were formed in the mind, shaped using the letters, and branded onto the mental space.

They were then powered by mana to create their desired effect. He knew that, he collected that much information, but never any proper spell. That was why he resorted to making the external tricks, too scared to risk forming it in his mental space.

"None of these can help me currently, but they can be used for reference if we try making our own in the future."

Morena moved on from that section to another, one that the AI deemed important enough to connect.

[Section: Failures and Backlash]

In this section, the AI helped sort out the constant rambling and broken writing of Corin into a careful explanation. It catalogued every backlash in detail.

The most common was what he called Overfill. If he tried to push more energy into a mark than it could contain, it would lead to a backlash. First came tingling in the fingers, then a sharp ache in the forearm.

Once, he wrote of the taste of iron flooding his mouth before a nosebleed struck. He noted that in some instances, he noticed worsened or lessened effects based on his emotional state.

However, it wasn’t certain if that was merely his perception or the truth.

The second was Spill. A misdrawn line, an angle out of place, and the energy would bleed out in a direction it wasn’t supposed to go. The most common result was nothing happening, a waste of energy, but in some cases, it could lead to dizziness, shivers, and a strange cold draft across his teeth.

The last was Stain. He wrote that drawing too often could not only strain the body, but also put pressure on the mind. He noted that he sometimes had odd dreams when he overused the tricks; one time, he did it on purpose to test the effect, and had a dream he refused to explain.

His margin notes offered blunt warnings, scribbled almost like confessions. Do not work on an empty belly. Do not work with wine in you. And so on.

It was more like a lonely man writing notes for himself to remember rather than warnings for future generations to take note of. But she would pay attention to them regardless.

"Only one section remaining?"

She closed that display and pulled up the remaining one, it was much longer, but also contained the most messy information.