---Richard---

  “Let’s see.” Maddy started walking around Richard as she spoke. “First we need to give you some faith. We need you to start believing. Seeing is believing as they say…I know! Give me a bit to figure out if this is possible.” Maddy motioned Richard to stay put then left quickly.

  Nearly a whole hour passed before she returned with James and laid out their plan. Richard would remove stats from the area and pop out his eye. Maddy would provide one of her spare eyes and James would attach it.

  Hopefully then Richard could see the world as Maddy saw it.

  The whole process was ripe with what Richard could only charitably call problems. Maddy mentioned inputs, outputs, brains being black boxes and the concept of hostile healing. As far as Richard's mind was concerned she was just trying to relate her insane idea to what they were working on.

  As far as Richard's body was concerned this was equivalent to duck-taping batteries to a bicycle and calling it a moterbike.

  Richard was forced to revise his metaphor as they grew closer to the goal. This was closer to strapping a rocket to the back of a bike and calling it a motorbike. It might just be possible even if it was far from kosher.

  The problem wasn’t even the transplant. It’s not like organ transplants were anything special. No the problem was deeper. It started with stat resonance and ended with the lack of common hardware. Richard’s flesh was a composite block of sponge bone, distributed brain, decentralized capillaries and more. Maddy’s eye was a living organism created from pseudo-matter. It could survive outside of a body and continued to produce its own aether and essence like a mini person.

  The process of linking her vision to his took the entire rest of the day and extended into the night.

  Finally with one eye closed, Richard began to see faint outlines of his friends. Green auras bloomed with intensity and depth like a three dimensional heat map.

  Sandy streams of light like a prismatic desert. Patterns of complexity repeating inwards like nearly invisible fractals – and as soon as Richard opened his other eye as a comparison they disappeared.

  Richard shut his natural eye closed but the psychedelic scene did not return. As if this vision was hiding from him as soon as it had learned he could bypass it, it didn’t even return after half an hour of waiting.

  Finally Richard ‘committed’ and removed his second eye allowing Maddy to fill it as well. Not long after that, the transplanted eyes finally began to show him a blurry vision once again. The psychedelic scene was nearly gone – this time true vision was the first to appear. True vision in this case meaning a normal view of his surroundings.

  There was a bit of a disconnect. Colors were slightly different to what he was used to. His mind had a difficult time processing it.

  Words began to appear floating in mid air.

  [Hi, Nod your head if you can see this ~Maddy]

  [Oh good, I could also make sound appear in your ear if you would prefer?]

  Richard shrugged non committedly then watched as a ghostly version of Maddy appeared projected into his vision.

  “Alright! Everything seems to be working.” Maddy spoke, her voice appearing in his ear instead of from her projecting. It was as if he were wearing a headpiece.

  “If you can hijack my vision how do I know anything I’m seeing is real?” Richard asked.

  “That’s the neat part – you don’t!” Maddy laughed and Richard groaned.

  “I think I’m rubbing off on you in a bad way. Anyways, fine. We’ve added a layer of interference in my vision to help slip magic in. What’s next? What is our current goal?” Richard asked.

  “That’s for you to decide.” Maddy smiled.

  Suddenly the surroundings seemed to melt away. In front of him was a simple chair, around him was a peaceful view of a meadow complete with butterflies and a deer grazing on some flowers.

  “Magic is about fulfilling wishes. It’s about imagining what you really want, no matter how improbable it seems, then working towards it using what you’ve been given no matter the cost.” Maddy added. “Feel free to come up with one thing you want. It can be part of what we are working on or separate. The important part is that you have to want it. After that we can focus on how that might be possible.”

  Richard felt like he was in a session of therapy or something.

  Time for some self reflection. Woohoo. Bleh.

  Richard sat and stared about at the backdrop.

  It was kind of boring. Not in a ‘I’m too manly for nature’ alpha bullshit way…but boring all the same. Why couldn’t there be some novel rules governing this scene? Warped natural laws? Wildlife with skills or plants that were at least colors other than green.

  Was that the point? Make it boring so you were forced to ignore it and confront your inner demons?

  Richard tried to think about the ‘problem’. The ‘problem’ was this was all backwards. He wasn’t looking for a solution...not really. What he had been given was the answer – ‘magic’ – and then been he had to come up with the question ‘what do I want’.

  And then! And then told he actually needed to ‘want’ it. More than a whim. A true desire.

  In some ways he couldn’t think of problems they were trying to solve that fit because really. What Richard ‘wanted’ was to solve those ‘problems’ with science – not have magic come in and fix it all without any effort.

  That was his only real issue with magic wasn’t it? It felt like however chaotic aether had been set up, it just invalidated effort somehow. Was it just because of his early skill experience? His stupid mayhem skill that just ‘made’ mayhem without effort.

  If he had gotten something different like fire magic would he have split to the magic side throwing fireballs and blowing stuff up without a care?

  …maybe?

  But Richard liked what he had chosen. This goal wasn’t ‘what ifs’. It was to pick something he wanted to solve with magic.

  Something he wanted to solve in a way he couldn’t control or understand.

  …

  Richard was getting side tracked. ‘What did Richard want’? What did he well and truly want for himself? It was a simple question. It should be a simple answer.

  Well… He wanted an exciting life. He wanted to have fun. Maybe some of his desires were immature…but really Richard didn’t give a single shit? Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. As he had told Jess weeks ago, if the stuff he liked was childish he never wanted to grow up.

  Richard wanted stuff to explore. Stuff to experiment with. He had both of those…maybe what he really wanted was something to do with vibes? Some spice sprinkled on the situation at the end?

  He wanted to learn all there was to learn. There might be a slight worry about running out of stuff to explore, but considering how much he could see with his sandbox alone that wasn’t a worry.

  No the only worry Richard could possible focus on…was framing? Vibes as mentioned?

  With his current situation there was a worry that the discovery process might become repetitive. Change area to see what was possible. Test area. Repeat. If there was a way to fill the area with stuff to explore it could be like a game?

  Richard began to slowly speak out loud. He described his vague desire trusting but not knowing Maddy was listening.

  “I think…if I had to use magic for something I wish I could could control essence direction. Essence is random bullshit. My affinity is random bullshit. My wish is…a magic to direct that random bullshit into an area and let it terraform that area for me? Not necessarily a way to control every little bit of it. More a way to constrain the sort of things it can do?

  If anything has to be ‘press a random button’ my wish is a way to press a random button and get a biome full of stuff to explore. I can kind of see how I could do that with my current capabilities…step one build a black box with my sandbox skill. Create ‘laws’ for how stuff works in the area. Find a bucket of essence. Toss it in the area. Let it cook and fuck that area up conforming to the laws. Then open the box up. Essence just makes monsters…but nests make plants and resources as well?”

  Maddy stood beside Richard and nodded with a smile on her face. Her voice sounded directly in his ear instead of across from him but other than that the illusion was solid.

  “Now that you have an idea…think about it. Imagine what you want and actually want it strong enough for me to sense.”

  Richard immediately began to feel silly. This felt like tarot card reading…

  But okay. Fine. Imagine this ideal situation…

  Suddenly the meadow disappeared.

  In front of him was a simple structure somewhere partway between a religious altar and a sci fi pillar. Circuit lines glowed around it – pure special effects – and on top of it Richard's body lay. His body’s chest was caved in and various tubes ran towards a machine to its side. IV lines and more. The whole scene felt sterile. Still. Calm.

  “Is this trying to say I’m worshiping science? Some kind of metaphor? Because science isn’t to be worshiped. Its just how the world works.” Richard said stepping forward to get a closer look.

  “What is this by the way?” He asked pointing about the scene.

  “This is…a metaphor for your power in a way we can access. It’s a way of framing the problem that helps with your wish.” Maddy spoke beside him.

  “The way I see it. Magic is your heart and you’ve killed it. You’ve replaced it with an artificial heart. A shared prosthetic.” Maddy commented. As Richard walked around the area.

  “You know, this reminds me of the situation in between zones. I can see my body from an external perspective and apply stuff I want. Hey, you think I can add more prosthetics? A cool robot arm?” Richard asked wandering over to the metaphorical machine and peering in at all its alien parts.

  “I’m not here to change your choices or convert you or anything” Maddy spoke at his side. “…this view is supposed to help me show you magic. It’s the metaphor I ended up on after feeling your desire and following it. Nothing here is real, but anything you do does relate to something you are doing in reality so don’t mess with anything you don’t understand.” She warned just before Richard unplugged one of the tubes to see what the liquid was.

  Richard studied the machine as Maddy walked around and muttered ideas to herself. Was this a blown up version of the device that gave him aether? This group of tubes was probably the power heading to his body…this tube heading off was essence.

  Richard stuck his finger in a vent and felt a wave of sensation.

  All of a sudden his vision began to glitch and shift. All about him reality and sensation melted like some sort of Esher painting. He ‘fell’ out of the illusion and spotted himself sitting on a conjured chair in the lab surrounded by a dozen of Maddy’s eyes from a third person perspective. Suddenly he was looking down from a security camera in the corner. Now he was relatively certain he was looking up at himself from one of Maddy's eyes. Colours constantly cycled and flipped as he stared and jumped about the scene – strands of sinuous thread linked random objects together.

  …Maddy’s eyes looked decidedly creepy like this, staring up at him.

  Suddenly Richard shifted once more – the world inverted and he found himself sitting in absolute nothing. A nothing without light or darkness – around him his connection hands floated. He wasn’t so much ‘seeing’ them as feeling the shape and structure of them in a way that translated to sight. His vision fell to the side and he spotted a blobby outline of his body without any features. This was…his skill body?

  …his soul?

  Richard reached out and suddenly knew too much. He knew everything about himself. He knew his past. He knew his personality. If Richard could describe this shape…it was like a book larger than a library. A book containing everything there was about Richard. A history. Every good thing he had done. Every bad thing he had done. Some things he remembered. A whole bunch of things he didn’t remember. His soul if that was what this was wasn’t so much ‘his true self’ as you might imagine. Nothing as vague as that. It was simply a record. Like the sediment record or fossil record of a patch of land.

  The base of a skill body. The base of ones soul was an almost infinitely dense storage medium containing ‘information’ – certain bits incredibly detailed others simply messy and hard to read. A record of who he was. A record of his dna. Of his family. Of his species and planet. A record of his personality using a thousand different measurable values. A record of his memories and experiences. A record of his affinity. What it actually was – the function of his affinity.

  Chaos. Chaos. Chaos. The type of chaos Richard had was probability manipulation and it was deeply tied into magic…even as it revealed how magic functioned killing the fantasy.

  Take regular aether, add some chaos and you got magic. It all made sense and was confirmed by this record. All magic was guided by a hint of chaos – all magic was controlled by his affinity.

  Probability manipulation increasing beneficial chances and decreasing negative ones.

  Mana was nothing more than corrupted aether with something like a random number generator and probability manipulator attached. The system used the probability manipulation of his affinity and the desires of a mage to help randomize their aether into something unique to them. R had given him the perfect magic cheat and he had broken it into science.

  Richard knew…He knew, He knew. Fuck Richard wanted to stop experiencing all this information, he suddenly knew too much and it felt overwhelming.

  His finger was pulled out of the vent and Richard stepped back from the machine breathing heavily.

  “Okay, I got it.” Maddy spoke up. “What are you doing by the way? The feed I was sending you just got twisted for a moment…”

  “Nothing” Richard shook his head like a toddler caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

  “Alright..." Maddy moved on. She was used to interacting with Richard by now. "Well, I just checked James and confirmed something. Magic is about sacrifice. You aren’t going to want to sacrifice your aether to get to it…but I think I have an alternative. We might be able to help you out if we sacrifice a stat slot.”

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  Richard was still reeling from what he had learned – the information had been too dense and fast to remember. Slowly he processed what Maddy had said then nodded. “Body power or body speed. I don’t use either of them. It might be annoying to lose access to the option…but counterpoint, it's annoying having to remove them all the time. Any small amount of power or speed stats I get actually weakens my defense. To have them be worth it I’d have to have a similar amount of stats in them as I do in defense and at that point I’d rather just triple my defense.” Richard shook his head slightly still trying to remember as much from his vision as possible.

  Maddy nodded then did some strange actions that appeared to be nonsense.

  “Let’s do the affinity transfer ritual.” She spoke up after a moment. “We need a sample of the mana type you want to accept. You have to pull it into your domain and authority – ideally inside of your body. Then you have to perform a simple declaration. For me, this means writing down the stat I’m giving up in exchange for the affinity. The system is involved at this point, it removes its safeguards and helps smooth everything over.” She finished.

  Richard nodded. Seemed simple enough.

  “First you have to figure out what affinity you want. I’ll tell you what I was told. Anything can be a type of mana, but generic ones are easier to use and the most common ones are the strongest as they match reality the closest. That means Fire and Ice. Speed and Slow. Creation and Destruction. Life and Death or finally Light and Darkness. Oh! I’m relatively sure James will have to help as well. Anyways, We figure out what type of affinity you want. Give it to James to transform with his mantle. You then take it from him and finish the ritual.

  “Your concepts are more important than mana type when it comes to specific goals, but certain affinities definitely make some goals easier than others. Specific mana types will be stronger at their specific thing, but worse at every other thing. I’d recommend creation and destruction if you want to destroy a blank area of stone with little meaning and then create a biome in its place...transformation mana might be a better option if you go that route.” Maddy rattled off the plan.

  Richard nodded and thought about the problem for a bit.

  “You know…specific mana types are less flexible, but you admited they are better at their specific goal?” Richard added after a moment.

  Maddy nodded. “Your goal is a form of transformation. Transformation mana might be more direct even if its going to be slightly worse at general problems. Let’s back up a bit…so mana type is the method your spells will use to achieve something. The type of damage. For something like transmuting lead to gold, transformation mana would deal transformation damage to the lead until it creates gold. Creation and destruction would deal destruction damage to the lead. On the other hand something like surprise mana and a transformation concept would deal surprise damage to the lead before turning it into gold. Considering its hard for lead to be surprised, it resists that type of damage thousands of times more than something like void.” Maddy began going over some of the simplest of rules.

  “Is there something like copy mana?” Richard asked after a moment.

  Maddy looked up. “huh?”

  “Copy mana, Duplication mana. Something along those lines” Richard added.

  “Anything can be a type of mana.” Maddy instantly responded.

  “I haven’t heard of that one in particular but it’s definitely possible. If you want to copy something you are probably better off with a duplication concept and a creation affinity. I’m not here to tell you what to do with your own magic just provide some advice.” Maddy responded.

  “How do I get a duplication concept?” Richard asked and Maddy winced.

  “Randomly for one, if you had a specific dungeon you could ask for a dungeon that would give you that concept as a reward. If you are willing to make a deal with R I’m sure he could give you one. You could also use your magic to duplicate stuff enough times the shape starts to crystalize as a concept for you. That last method is the most consistent but the most work. Why about copy mana stands out? Is what you really want a copy concept?”

  Richard thought back to his soul experience. “I think…I think I want to try and duplicate what has come before. I want to recreate past civilizations or planets or maybe even recreate existing ones! You know how up till now the zones have been filled with copies of old towns and people? I want an affinity that can achieve that. I think history is stored in the soul. This affinity might help recreate that stored history!

  “I think…I think I only have this one goal for magic.” Richard confirmed.

  “I’m not going to use it much beyond this goal, so whatever affinity can help me achieve it is the best even if its much more brittle overall. The so called ‘spell’ I’m imagining, needs several specific concepts. Copying. Transformation, History. Some way to get the information stored in souls so some sort of soul concept as well as something like espionage or theft. Maybe donation instead?

  “Basically, if we include all of these concepts into the mana type they will become ‘innate’ concepts I can use right away.” Richard tried to explain his reasoning. “the only ‘things’ I want to damage with this affinity are unimportant ones. Unknown stone. If it does less damage to everything else I think that’s okay.

  “Also, I can see a way copying something that exists will help us copy and store spells. I can see the way to set that up as long as we trust it. Also! The only beings able to direct magic seem to have a soul right? Presumably the system itself has a soul. With this theoretical affinity, if I donate it to the system we are making – after we play about with it of course – then presumably the system can use it to recreate those past worlds it has witnessed? It already seems to do that, so this affinity should only help it right?” Richard asked.

  Maddy rubbed her eyes. “I think…there are some leaps of logic there.”

  Richard pulled back slightly. She was right…this wasn’t scientific. He hadn’t confirmed a single one of his ideas. Most of them he had just gained moments before in a drug trip fueled by sticking his finger in a strange box.

  As if noticing him pulling back Maddy waved her hand.

  “If the leaps of logic make sense to you keep them! I’m sorry. I broke my own rules there. Let’s see. Think about these goals a bit and I’ll try and follow them. Imagine this wish once again. We can see how possible it is.”

  Richard was rapidly loosing momentum but he tried to follow Maddy’s direction. They hadn’t achieved anything yet had they? Just brainstormed a bit in a different way?

  Focus.

  Suddenly the scene around them changed.

  They were in a pit. High above them there was open sky. A paradise awaited them up there. One where Richard's dream was true.

  …the walls of this pit were awfully high weren’t they?

  Was this a metaphor for their situation? They just had to climb out? Why were the walls so smooth?

  Beside him Maddy suddenly let out the largest sigh he had ever heard her make.

  “Fuck.” She whispered.

  That was the first time Richard had ever heard her swear. Properly swear at least.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  Turning to look at him Richard saw she was holding what looked like an extendible ladder.

  A few rungs were missing but it definitely looked capable of getting them out of the pit.

  “Nothing, sorry.” Maddy spoke up then whispered just within his hearing “The things I do for my friends”.

  “Is that how we are getting out of the pit?” Richard asked gesturing to her ladder. “Is that yours? Something you don’t want to give up?”

  Maddy shook her head.

  “It's fine, it's not like I’m using it. We’ll have to fix a few rungs first. It’s only a metaphor” she spoke as if convincing herself as much as him.

  Smiling across at him, the scene changed. They were back in the lab. Everything felt a tiny bit more real – but that might be a placebo.

  Maddy walked into the lab a moment later – her real body this time.

  “Okay! So what we are going to do is create a blueprint for the spell you want to make. We are going to add all the ingredients first. Then give you the affinity that will help you complete the spell afterwards. There is a very good chance you will never be able to use any other spell…but you said you were okay with that?” Maddy asked.

  Richard gave a thumbs up. She finally got it. “Sure, where do we start?”

  …

  Over the next day Richard wrote a diary of sorts. He described the idea he had come up with and then came back and wrote that idea once again from a different perspective. With Maddy’s help as a scout, they scoured the surroundings for monsters that might have abilities close to what they were hoping for. They changed Richard’s perspective a few times to figure out gaps they might have left.

  Finally it was time. If they did the ritual now Maddy confirmed his goal was possible.

  First Maddy reached out with her magic and melted all the ingredients they had prepared – feeding it first into his diary and then melting that diary into a glowing orb of information.

  That orb was passed to James who solemnly held it for a bit before passing it to Richard.

  Richard stared at the orb for a second then popped it in his mouth quickly writing down his goal then stepping back and waiting for something to happen.

  The feeling in his mouth began to fade.

  Nothing seemed to be happening.

  Of course not…

  Suddenly Maddy spoke a hint of panic in her voice.

  “Domain –“

  And his eyes melted. Richard felt a fuzzy static fill the surroundings as the transplanted eyes in his face began to feed him a strange view of the surroundings.

  What felt like the orb pulled off his tongue, through his head and then disappeared.

  “We need a second affinity slot. This is interacting with your chaos affinity even if that affinity is dead” Maddy’s voice sounded out in his ear.

  “Yes, body speed as well. Both of them.” Richard nodded trying to see enough of his paper to write down the second sacrifice.

  Moments later it was done. Richard sacrificed his slots allowing his new affinity and the combined one to roost in his soul. Maddy donated a ladder worth of something to him. James’s existence left open a path that would otherwise be closed.

  Richard vaguly felt himself climb a ladder but everything was too full of conflicting sensations for him to truly confirm that had happened.

  Maddy stood near the top of a pit and helped pull him up the rest of the way…

  And then it was done.

  Richard felt a skill feedback deeper than he had ever felt before. This was his affinity.

  He felt…he felt the innate concepts contained in his chimera of an affinity. Remade History, Duplication of Memories, donation of knowledge. Creation and Destruction of that which was out of sight. Unknown damage for the Unknown. Known creation of the known. Transformation of the unknown. A copy of the forgotten. A duplication of the memories. A Terraformation of the unverified and direction of that which was uncontrolled…the concepts kept going on and on. They circled back on themselves and then jumped into a different position metaphorically skipping over key parts.

  This was not a good affinity classically. There was too many similar but conflicting parts. Not enough self synergy despite all the duplication. Not enough strength holding parts that should perfectly stick together…together.

  While all those concepts made up a part of his affinity in the same way plants, healing and growth made up the life affinity…

  The actual affinity he got was something that felt hollow. There wasn’t a single word that represented what this new affinity was. A word shouldn’t matter but it did. This was shapes glued together and boosted into concepts that loosely related. There wasn’t a opposite to it bound and providing a contrast he could slide up and down. It wasn’t ‘pure’. They weren’t professional affinity creators, and it showed.

  There was a chance it couldn’t even be used for his goal. Stratch that. Richard was already gaining a feedback from the affinity and could tell they had failed.

  He had a handful of glass tied together with string and he was trying to hold a cup of water with it.

  Some water was cupped in the curve of one of the shards but it was little more than a drop.

  Despite all their work it was almost a waste of time. This…was proof that magic was too wishy washy. Proof science was better. Science had second chances.

  The affinity itself was a complete failure. The only reason a ‘almost’ was slipped in was due to a quirk…but that quirk did exist. Beside this ugly chimera of an affinity, Richard had something else.

  His combined affinity.

  Richard's combined affinity pulled the chimeratic mess towards it. A second refinement. Chaos directing and glueing shards of glass together.

  It pulled from his regular aether as well but less aggressively.

  This pool felt complete in a way the chimera wasn’t.

  Chaos.

  The opposite of chaos is chaos. Not order as you might imagine. Unaturally ordered information in the midst of chaos was almost more chaotic than its surroundings. Add something to chaos and it's still chaos. The affinity could contain all even as it stood alone.

  Richard's vision returned as his eyes healed. Maddy was no longer there and his body was regenerating.

  Suddenly his eyes popped. His mana pulsed randomly as he thought of his eyes – shooting up towards them and causing them to shift before instantly healing as it somehow hijacked the aether in his void defense.

  One eye healed perfectly – faster than his regeneration should allow.

  The second became a ping pong ball.

  Richard pulled the ping pong ball out of his eye then let the second slowly regenerate normally.

  “Did it work?” James asked a curious look on his face.

  Richard silently scooped some stone from the floor following his affinities direction.

  It felt like being led by the hand. His train of thought kept getting nudged as if his affinity was a creature that wanted him to know how to use it.

  Slowly Richard liquefied the ball of stone using his stone hands then held up the results. His affinity really didn’t want them to be watching it but whatever. It could deal.

  Suddenly the ball of stone shook. It wobbled and flashed…

  And Richard was holding an apple.

  Huh…

  Richard took a bite.

  It tasted real?

  “You good?” James asked once again and Richard nodded slowly finding his voice.

  “Yeah, I feel strange. Not sure I like the mental prodding – hey! Neither of you told me a magic affinity feels like having a rabid rat locked in a cage. I keep shaking the cage but it’s still angry…”

  James looked at him funny. “Do you have brain worms? We can check you out if you do.”

  “Hah, still. The feedback is quite strong.” Richard muttered then spoke up, narrating what he felt. “Doesn’t seem to be any other side effects yet? Also I’m pretty sure this apple is one a friend of mine made me try a decade ago. It’s very distinctive. Shit. It tastes like shit is what I’m trying to say.”

  Richard took another bite.

  “Now that you have a magical affinity we should try and help you complete your spell.” Maddy spoke up. “Practice will be the most important.”

  Richard nodded slightly.

  “That apple took my entire pool. Going have to figure out how to get it more efficient first.”

  …

  The following days passed in a blur. Richard had some fun with his random creation/random transformation magic but really at the end of the day the ability wasn’t for him. He had always wanted the magic as something the system could use for the background not as something he used to achieve anything himself.

  The ability was more than a simple skill, and yet after a lot of testing and study they were forced to confirm it was a bit less than a ‘full magic’.

  They could point it somewhere. They could nudge it in certain directions. That was it.

  There were a few useful things they discovered.

  One, efficiency was magnitudes higher on what they could consider the ‘unknown’. Exactly as planned, but still important to note. If he used it out of sight in a place nearly completely isolated, his mana kept going without spending itself…like a dungeon with perfect isolation.

  If Richard made a stone room, closed it up as a perfect black box and then poked a connection arm in and fed the room some chaotic creation, his mana would transform the entire room. It took some time, but with the same amount of mana as his apple had cost he could convert a room to his old classroom or a bus station. If it just had to change 'something' and not an entire area he could let it loose in an area kilometers wide and something would change somewhere.

  The most important note was that his affinity was compatible with essence. A drop of essence fed into his single ‘spell’ could do the same as a bucket of mana…although it often tried to kill them somehow. Same with a combination of both essence and mana, although that had an added chance to just fail to do something.

  The most effective version of this ‘spell’ Richard found was something that became a cornerstone of their class system. Specifically the exploration half. Imagine you were a miner. You cast this spell on a cave to ‘discover riches’. Then you explored the cave. There was a good chance you wouldn’t find something…but a small percent chance you would find gold or diamonds or a hidden dungeon or magical materials.

  The lower a chance for ‘winning’ there was, the higher the potential rewards could become. The chance itself could then be increased with restriction rules while keeping those high rewards. A lower level explorer ‘working’ harder. A miner going to a more dangerous area. A explorer exploring alone or in a larger area. A variation of this ‘spell’ allowed sacrificing existing riches to increase the chance of getting new riches. The spell could then recycle those donated items making them appear for someone else at a later date. Another variation allowed the spell to ‘constantly’ run slowly populating the surroundings with ‘secrets’.

  “Technically” this spell was what created the reward but if they hid that fact the vibes were better and the chaos mana more effective. It truly felt like random ‘riches’ could be found in the unknown.

  Who cared that summoning ‘riches’ in front of you would be more convient than hiding them somewhere and forcing you to put in the work to find and dig it out.

  In this time Maddy briefly explored the empty stone dimension and Richard managed to figure out how to copy spells by achieving part of his chaos duplication with pure aether.

  The general idea was that information was stored in the soul and any amount of information could be stored in it including quantities that were larger than physically possible. Spells were just unknown complicated information. Even if they didn’t know or understand what a ‘spell’ was or how to replicate it naturally, they could still copy the ‘hidden’ history and ‘known’ results of it. Essentially they could take all the uncountable unknown parameters of any spell. Copy everything about it by copying literally everything in a destructive manner. Then shove this result in a metaphorical black box.

  If a spell was donated three times it could be duplicated 3 times into 3 separate black boxes and then by using a data recovery algorithm any changes to any box could be overwritten with the information in the other boxes. Any change that changed the result of a spell could then be ‘undone’ with the two backups.

  Any of these three boxes could then be copied in a non destructive manner to achieve the ‘result’ without understanding how they worked. The hidden box could mutate as long as the result remained the same – any parameters that ‘didn’t affect the result would slowly disappear and refine the information within shrinking it into a more manageable form.

  All their tests stored the information in their own souls but the goal was for the system to store it in their final result.

  Bit by bit all their goals began to come together and then suddenly. Right before the end – before they were fully satisfied – the world moved on.

  It ranked up.

  Enough calamities had died. Enough monsters had died. Enough humans had reached a high enough level…

  That the world tipped over an otherwise invisible barrier.

  Just for fun. Spoiler if you are interested.

  not related to souls except in roundabout ways. It’s related to life (plus a activation/enviroment for it) while life is related to essence and nothing else. (basically ‘life’ is not dependent upon souls just complex self contained systems). Souls on the other hand are a random permanent unknown that appears in a unmeasurable way and propagates without explanation. They (souls) don’t mean anything as a default but because they exist as an unknown 'thing' they can be abused by the magic system to mean anything based on belief etc.