[369] Special Training (4)
Shirone began earnest practice with laser-guided magic.
Because he could already wield lasers, Omnipotence wasn't a real problem, but Omniscience had long since gone beyond the advanced-class level.
In that respect, Isabel was a savior.
True to her role as head of the spell library, her explanations were easy to follow and never missed the point.
Light is also a type of electromagnetic wave. The laser-guided magic developed by Jacobin was an active homing system: when a laser strikes an object and the emitted wavelengths are observed, the projectile is guided to the target.
And for that to work, the seeker—a laser-search magic—has to be deployed first.
"Ugh! I don't get it, I don't get it! What is this? It's basically information magic!"
Shirone tore his eyes away from the book and made a miserable face.
The page he was staring at laid out the algorithm for installing the seeker; to him it might as well have been a monster's language.
Plu, reading a spellbook across the training field, clicked her tongue.
"You should've picked a book by difficulty. You've got a month left. Why not give up now and find something else?"
Shirone squinted at Plu with bleary eyes. Infuriating.
"You said it was doable at first, senpai."
"Look, I'm not saying it's impossible. If you grind, you could do it in a month. But there's a reason Plan B exists."
"Hmm, Plan B…"
As Plu said, if he was going to quit, now would have been the time. Keep wasting time here and he might end up settling for a scattershot movement and heading back to school.
"I'll see it through. I've learned a lot already. Radio waves, too."
When Shirone finished speaking, Plu shut her book and stood.
"All right. If you mean that, let's get serious."
Shirone craned his neck to watch Plu's face as she approached.
"The most important thing now is the seeker. The linking magic that fuses laser and photon cannon."
"Right. But this is way too hard for me. I'm weak with information magic."
"You don't have to be an information mage to use algorithms. For example, I can."
"Huh? Senpai can?"
Shirone narrowed his eyes in disbelief. Plu picked up her magic staff and stepped to the center of the training ground. She drove the staff into the earth and showed her skill.
"Phoenix Formation."
From the crystal orb at the staff's tip, a colossal firebird rose like smoke and hovered in the air.
No one was within its radius, so the phoenix simply fluttered its wings and remained silent.
Plu pointed at herself. "What do you think my specialty is?"
"Um… a fire mage, right?"
"No. I handle flame types, sure, but to be precise I'm a Joner."
Shirone remembered Etella and cocked his head.
If Joners were defined by an enormous Spirit Zone beyond common sense and extremely refined perception, Plu didn't seem to match that image at all.
"It's a special major, so you might not know. When most people hear 'Joner,' they think of search-type mages. But a Joner is simply an expert in the Spirit Zone."
Plu held up two fingers.
"Joners split into search types and manipulation types. I'm the latter—a manipulation Joner."
"Ah, so you manipulate that firebird."
"Yeah. Phoenix Formation sends flames to every object in the Spirit Zone. It reacts much faster than synesthetic response because it borrows the Dawkins algorithm—automatic neural and mental reactions. The Gold Tower's defense against the vampire attack was automatic response, too."
Shirone went blank.
A top graduate of the Royal Magic Academy and a Joner as a special major.
That explained how she could precisely tune the Spirit Zone's golden balance.
"Search types are similar. If a battle mage values endurance, Joners are obsessed with density. But the mind isn't made of particles, so 100 percent density doesn't mean 'full'—it just means your intuition is 100 percent accurate. Once you get above about 95 percent, it becomes really hard to raise."
Plu flipped her staff behind her and shifted position; Shirone followed with his head.
"Of course, as a Joner you should basically hit 100 percent as a baseline. Then you borrow a unit called specific gravity to raise clarity. If a normal Spirit Zone is a gas, a Joner's Spirit Zone can reach the specific gravity of a liquid, clay, or even rock, depending on skill."
Shirone sat back while Plu paused and held up her fingers.
"Still, a Joner's minimum standard is 60 percent density. Search-type Spirit Zones are enormous. If you expand a Spirit Zone to a two-kilometer radius without entering the Immortal Function, density drops into the single digits. So Joners focus on density—only density."
If density fell into the single digits, a Spirit Zone couldn't even form. The comparison still helped him understand.
"All right, how do you search a two-kilometer radius at 60 percent density? That's where algorithms come in. For example, using the Pisaski algorithm you can detect metal within the radius. It tracks reflectivity, so it's less efficient at night."
Shirone felt a fresh surge of excitement. If ordinary magic affected the outside world, algorithms were a kind of meta-magic that gave Spirit Zones unique functions.
Not schemas exactly, but mages had developed magic to counter magic.
How vast was this world?
His heart beat faster. Wide. Deep. A massive playground unfolded before him—one he could spend his life in and never tire.
* * *
With Plu's help, Shirone gradually learned the algorithms that went into the seeker.
The basics were sequential; the complex upper-level theory fell under Isabel's focused tutelage.
Time flew, and with four days left before leaving the Magic Association, he barely completed the Omniscience stage.
"At last. It's over."
Shirone snapped the book shut and collapsed. He'd never studied this hard, even at school.
It wasn't effort that was the limit but biology.
Humans must sleep, but the association's sleep devices let him push through the impossible.
"I did it. I actually did it."
Shirone mumbled in a daze. He felt steam leaking out from around his head.
Plu, who'd suffered almost as much, had also grown gaunt over the month.
"You're relentless. I told you to quit."
Plu had been eager at first, but by midcourse she'd started hitting her limits.
She still had daytime duties at the Association, but even accounting for that, Shirone's stubbornness was remarkable.
"Heh! How's that? I did it, didn't I?"
Plu held onto her last shred of pride.
"No. Do you know? For an ordinary person it was physically impossible. You've just finished Omniscience. So my original judgment was right."
Shirone admitted that.
Learning Omniscience alone didn't make the magic fire. Still, he'd clung to laser-guidance because, unlike others, he already had Omnipotence.
"Shall we start, then?"
As Shirone rose, Plu shook her head.
"No. You rest today, no matter what."
"But there's no time."
"No is no! If you go into practice like that, you'll die. Not just you—I'll die too!"
"Then at least use the sleep device—"
"Nope! Not that either! Go to your room now! If you don't sleep at least eight hours I'm not helping anymore!"
Plu shoved Shirone back toward the lodgings.
His steps home felt heavy. Time was short. He felt too anxious to even notice being sleep-deprived.
"Just a little more. At least review before bed."
Shirone lay on the bed with the laser-guided magic book in hand.
One second later, he was asleep.
The next day, afternoon.
"Ah! This is bad!"
People in the corridor turned at the shout spilling from a dorm room.
The door flew open and Shirone, hair still wet and not even towel-dried, dashed into the training ground.
Three days remained.
If he practiced today and took the evaluation tomorrow, he could reach his goal.
When he arrived, Plu was already prepared.
Shirone widened his eyes. He'd overslept, yet Plu should have been on duty.
"Huh? What's going on?"
"You sleep well?"
Plu checked Shirone's condition first.
"Yes. I slept so much I'm annoyed. But what about work—why are you here?"
"I took leave. I'll train you intensively for the next three days."
"Ah…"
Tears sprang to Shirone's eyes.
Using vacation—the sweetest thing to a worker—for a junior's training made her look angelic today.
"Senpai…"
Plu hunched her neck like a turtle and reached out a hand at Shirone's strange expression.
"What's with that look? Get away! Gross!"
Shirone kept coming forward, but Plu couldn't bring herself to touch him and hastily stepped back. Only after confirming he'd stopped did she speak.
"Anyway, since I'm here I have to see you succeed. So do it properly."
Shirone's face turned serious too.
"All right. Please teach me well!"
Training stretched until midnight and, powered by sleep capsules, continued into the next morning.
They fixed many algorithm errors overnight, but there was still a long way to go.
"You've at least installed the seeker. Now let's do a proper fusion. Can you do it?"
"Yes. I'll try."
Shirone warmed his mind with a numeric sequence and entered the Spirit Zone.
The sequence in his head sped up and his eyes snapped open.
"Homing photon cannon!"
Eight photon cannons formed around him. Pale, beautiful spheres of light.
This time, each sphere had a red dot at its center.
A laser pointer—the seeker.
"Fusion successful. Now the target-acquisition algorithm."
Following Plu's command, Shirone manipulated the seeker and then blinked in confusion.
"Uh… the target?"
Plu clapped her hands.
"Oh, right! There should be a test drone somewhere."
She rummaged through a supply box in the corner of the training ground, then brightened and turned.
"No, don't bother—I'll be the target myself."
She moved along the wall toward the supply box and stood with her back against the east wall.
"Senpai will be the target personally?"
"Yeah. There's no time. Skip the small stuff."
It made sense to Shirone.
When he aimed the Spirit Zone at Plu, the seeker followed the algorithm and locked onto her.
Eight laser points dotted her body here and there.
Plu swallowed hard as she stared at the floating spheres.
The seekers embedded in the centers of the photon cannons felt like emotionless monster eyes staring at her.
"This is… way scarier than I thought."
As she leaned slowly, all eight laser points moved together and tracked her.
When she straightened again, the seekers turned without fail. Goosebumps rose.
"This is already fast magic by itself. And it's tracking me?"
Shirone, ready, said, "Senpai, then—start—"
"Wait a sec."
Plu held up a hand. Shirone hastily stopped the spell and stared blankly.
She cleared her throat, glanced away, and said, "This isn't right. Let's just use the drone."