Augmented Aspects [Steampunk], [Progression], [Gamelit]

Mechanoid Casting

"And cast," I state, letting the energy flow out from the edge of my fingers where I go against every fiber of my being and try not to control the flow.

Tingle.

There is a slight push, then an odd an seemingly intangible linking of forces as my suddenly released spell meets first open air, then a magic emulator, sending the surge of energy out a long conductive tube, where it is allowed to slightly accelerate its momentum and discharge out into the wild. Only for the spray to form one perfect strand, a perfect tether that reaches out for about a foot, before the weight at the end becomes too much, causing the form to buckle and collapse to the ground below. Forming what appears to be the equivalent of a magical garden hose, one with a severe blockage and is only able to extend the most trivial of streams.

As depressing as it might be, my having an apparent Doctorate in multiple magical disciplines, only to find out that none of them have prepared me for this facet of magical understanding.

"Gwah-hahaha." Raygunnr, my personal mechanoid unit and magical volunteer laughs at this.

"It's not that funny," I stress, still focusing on the form of what I am doing. While it is only one of up to twelve interlocking threads, it is a lot closer to what I saw and mentally describe as Perfect Casting to give up on now.

"I know, I'm not even laughing at you," Raygunnr protests using Mana Language.

"Then what are you laughing at?" I press, responding in Mana Language easily, which ironically seems to have no effect on the pitiful stream of mana that is coming from my finger, being pulled along, and ultimately transferred out of the end of Raygunnr's finger.

"I'm apparently ticklish okay," Raygunnr protests, pulling back his arm on reflex, despite my being in control over the appendage from my controlling area within his core. I almost want to protest, but this is sort of interesting.

"You all can get ticklish?"

"Well, apparently, at least when it comes to your funny casting method. Normally I don't feel anything, but this time, I don't know." Raygunnr trails off, while involuntarily shaking his arm, the way one would when they hit their funny bone. I can almost feel that there is something more to his words. A deeper truth that is there, if I just focus.

"Go on, I need to know why you can feel this type of casting over the others. Or at the very least what is causing these new sensations."

There is a momentary paus, as Raygunnr seems to tense up. Only after this do I realize I might have been a bit too serious in my request for his assistance.

"Um, well. I don't know why it tingles so. Again, most of your spells just go right past and through me no problem. I don't even feel those. With this one though, the spell, it seems to ignite my own mana infused circuits, causing them to get excited and I don't know, tingle." Raygunnr speaks, and as he does I pause to take in his words, his posture. Everything tells me that he is both telling the truth, and that this is important.

I pause, letting the thoughts sink in. For a moment I wonder if I should get out and cast the spells apart from Raygunnr, but the end result is roughly the same. When I am outside of Raygunnr I can only get the single foot or so of distance, before casting buckles under the pressure of its own weight, causing it to drop as a single flat stream of mana energy.

Then I realize, that watching the spell go through Raygunnr's body through his arm might actually be the best to help me understand what is happening magically to my spell. But there is one thing I do need to clarify first.

"To be clear, you don't normally have such feelings?" I ask, trying to make sure I understand Raygunnr's sudden need to shake off my casting's effects on his body.

"Of excessive tingling within my own body? No. In fact, that is apparently one of the great things about being a Teleiotís, the fact that we don't actually feel pain or external stimuli."

With that revelation, I again think there is more here. I almost wonder if I can use his being ticklish, or at least, his ability to feel my casting might be a way to help me improve this process faster. Now the only question is, do I want to make it more ticklish, or less ticklish? I'm assuming less, as the most likely course of action is that his own mana circuitry is reacting to my mana that is not quite going with a perfected casting of the spells natural form. As I am going through these thoughts, I realize I am about to possibly torture Raygunnr again with uncontrollable tickles.

"Okay, last question and again you can say no. Just know that I need to perfect this part as part of my quests and I really could use your feedback in trying to improve." I begin, while taking in a deep breath, "with that, would you mind if I kept trying to perfect this casting form through you?"

"Are you kidding?" Raygunnr begins. I feel instantly rejected as who would honestly want to be tickled. That's my thought at least, before he continues from out of nowhere.

"Yes, of course I would like to continue. This is amazing for my skill growths."

"Skills as in plural?" I ask making sure I'm not missing something.

"Yes, in addition to Mana Circulation, I am also making exceptional gains in our Synchronized Casting skill. Which is possibly the best skill ever invented for improving Willpower." Raygunnr states excitedly.

That's right, in addition to clearly helping out his Mana Circulation skill, one that I almost instantly max out after finding new thresholds. Together we were able to unlock a bevy of quote unquote Synchronized skills. That is skills that can only be gained and increased by doing normal things within a willing Teleiotís.

Pulling up the new skill that he is referring to, I have to admit it is sort of nice.

Though he is sadly mistaken if Willpower times five is the best skill ever. But I will let him have it, as this is an important overall growth type skill that will be very helpful for our competition coming up, as all levels will be reset to zero, but all skills will remain the same. Meaning our bonuses from skills to our base Attributes will be applied, not just for me, but for Raygunnr as well.

"Okay, in that case I'm going to continue working on this, tell me when it begins to tickle more or less." I state as I once again take control over the arm and begin casting.

Opening my third eye, I look inside and see the instant reaction and seeming agitation of Raygunnr's own mana pathways to my spell that is being channeled along in his arm. Of course, it was right there. From there it is just a matter of testing out a few things. In casting, there are only a few things I can alter, the height of the waves being created, the frequency that each wave is being created, and the width of the waves being created. Frequency often deals with the spectrum of the spell type that I am casting. I oscillate the frequency real quick to make sure that the type of spell being cast doesn't change a thing, it doesn't, as the mana veins seem to be the same throughout my shifting of frequencies. With that part taken care of I narrow the scope of my research and casting down to two things the width of the wave being created, and the height of the waves being created.

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Focusing first on the height of the waves, I decide to shrink the height of the waves ever so slightly.

"Ahh!"

Instantly, I see and hear Raygunnr's body relax from the lowered depths of the waves being created. I can also see real time the way the motes of mana that had been agitatedly banging around within Raygunnr's parallel pathways suddenly slow down and reduce their tension.

Also of note, the stream that is leaving Raygunnr's outstretched finger quadrupled its distance covered before breaking and collapsing to the ground.

"Yes!" I exclaim excitedly after seeing the instant success that dropping the height of the waves caused.

"You did it?" Raygunnr exclaimed excitedly.

"Not quite, but it is a great start," I begin excitedly, before I continue, "I have never been so excited to see four inches as I am right now."

"Language Doctor, language." Raygunnr chastises playfully. I pause, trying to understand what exactly is going on. I even stop my casting, as I find myself blinking. Not that blinking does anything for me, other than adding trained responses leak into my social interactions.

"What?"

"Oh dear, this is that whole Parental Control thing they have in place to stop you from seeing or experiencing vulgar content, even if it is generated by you?" Raygunnr states to himself, shaking his head in sympathy.

"Again, what?"

"Nothing honey, you do you, and I will try to avoid adding my own interpretation to things." Raygunnr stated, and then positioned his own arm up as if wanting me to continue my casting.

I am still confused, but finally manage an, "okay."

Taking a moment to center myself I pause, then remember where I was in my casting and begin casting my stream once more. Again, it starts off at one inch, then by lowering the amplitude of the wave, I get that one inch to stretch into four inches. Once here, I pause looking at the stream, and find myself wondering what Raygunnr meant by language when talking about my scientific discovery here.

Now that the height is decided, I begin messing with the width, only to find that there is a problem. As my amazing four inches suddenly shrinks to three inches when I made the wave wider. I immediately tried to lower the wavelength, which only caused it to shrink even more. From there I tried to increase the wavelength, which fortunately made it a lot bigger, eventually allowing me to get to my original four inches and more.

It wasn't until I got my stream to six inches before collapsing that I finally got the skill notification I waned. The notification that let me know I was on the right path.

I wasn't the only one who got the new skill notification, as Raygunnr instantly responded.

"OH MY GODS! You are amazing! Is this how you got so strong, just standing around with your tongue out, trying new things until you force the world to accept your outcomes?" Raygunnr asked.

I was about to protest.

"He, hey!" But I was caught red tongued, as my tongue was apparently outside of my mouth.

"What? You look super cute while you are doing it, you even have a scrunched up look on your little face that looks super adorable."

"Not helping."

"Oh come on, you are adorable. Also, this new skill is amazing! And let me guess, it's not even the Perfect Casting skill itself, as these are just the principles of perfect casting?" Raygunnr noted.

At that comment, I realized what exactly was happening, and why I now got the skill as I had performed all three functions. I tested the frequency, the height, and width. Which now begged the question, did the frequency dictate different height and widths?

With that thought, I instantly practice increasing the frequency and see how my six inch stream goes down to a five inch stream on either end of Healing mana waves.

"That is so COOL!" I state.

"Yes, we just got three skill ups for that Super Amazing skill in five seconds. How did you do it?"

"I just changed the frequency, but you know what this means right?" I begin excitedly, wondering if he too was seeing the patterns that were right before us.

"Actually, honestly I have no clue what you are doing. Though I do know that your casting no longer tickles and more or less feels like a nice warm blanket."

"A blanket?"

"Yeah, like one you pull out of the dryer and immediately wrap yourself in?" Raygunnr replies.

I pause, remembering similar events but they were so long ago for me that I kind of forgot the sensation.

"Anyways, it feels like that. Nice and warm all over now when you cast."

"Huh," I manage to reply as I try to take in this new context. So he isn't getting the skill ups due to understanding the principles that I am, but rather because he is the conduit that experiences my understandings? Interesting, this means that Teleiotís have a deeper reason to let talented pilots in, as they can learn vicariously through the understandings made by the pilot. Good to know.

"That is why I am exceptionally happy that you chose to be my pilot," Raygunnr replies.

Hearing his words I pause, wondering if I had somehow spoken those internal thoughts out loud, I even feel a slight chill on me as I wonder how long I have been doing this.

"No, you haven't been speaking your thoughts, but remember this is an aspect of our Synergetic Piloting skill that is also amazing and improving constantly," Raygunnr replied to my thoughts again.

"Oh yeah," I reply out loud and using Mana Language, trying to mentally establish some boundaries.

"Oh, I wasn't supposed to respond to your thoughts earlier?"

Chuckles.

"Well, I wouldn't wish letting others read my mind on anyone."

"You are tough to keep up with sometimes, but I do learn a lot from eavesdropping on your thoughts, so thank you for the experience."

I nod.

There is a silence that overcomes us, as I mentally begin going over my recent discovery about casting. That there is likely a golden ratio to each particular field of magic's casting. Mentally I begin mapping out the wavelengths and widths needed for seemingly optimal range for each Frequency type.

As I am mapping out this ratio, using all three dimensions: Length, width, and height, I begin fine tuning each in real time. Splitting my consciousness to do Multitasking, and Dual Casting, I begin quadrupling the number of spells, then quintupling the number of spells I can cast, choosing four distinct parts of the magical spectrum to use as baselines for my ratios.

I realize I am likely looking like a mad scientist here, arms out, smile wide, and yes tongue out for focus. Then after that internal reflection I focus back on my progress and continue casting. Trying to understand if there is a ratio. There is the faster the frequency, that is the shift to the purple Death magic spectrum, the shorter the waves but wider the base can be. Likewise the slower the frequency the taller the waves with a narrower base. No clue what it all means yet, but the ratio is there and it is perfect. Waves need to be shorter and wider the faster the frequency before the stream is disrupted. While narrower taller waves are required to perfectly cast your red flame type spells. Why fireballs always go up.

"Why fireballs always go up?" Raygunnr finally asks, his thoughts bringing me from my introspection. I am almost angry, but I realize I have been stalling for time, thinking, confirming, and then reconfirming my findings.

"Yeah, Fireballs, everyone thinks of them as more vertical than horizontal."

"Literally no one thinks that, they are balls. Meaning they are round or spherical, thus they should be even on all sides," Raygunnr protests.

"Yeah, but the flames go up, making them taller," I protest trying to explain how I always see people casting Fireball spells. Though I think this is mainly due to everyone overpowering their casts with more mana, which then forces the excess to go up and vertical. At that thought, I realize the answer might have been right there the whole time right in front of me. "Of course, it was right there all along."

"Yes, casting causes spells to go boom!" Raygunnr replies, trying and failing to add humor to this conversation.

I just pause and take a deep sigh at the comment. I am about to reply with something, when Raygunnr responds.

"Oh, before this goes too far. I was tasked with making sure you finished your Daily Quest before Midnight each night," Raygunnr begins.

At that, I pause, and finally ask, "how long do we have until Midnight?"

"About two, no, one minute," Raygunnr begins.

With that, I totally pause trying to remember what the Daily Quest was. Then just as I bring it up I hear the system letting me know that it is too late and today is already over.

Chime.

Looking at the progress, I realized that these daily quests were a cheat. Well, as long as I could complete them. This time, it was clear that the world was trying to guide me down a particular path, as if saying that my learning and perfecting Perfect Casting would be vital to my survival. The little markers also let me know that I still had class-related improvements to choose, but that was down the road. For now, I had a very serious task of trying to figure out this Perfect Casting.

Remembering the tunnel that the ancient being on that Void planet had created, I realized that there was likely a lot that I could do with that type of casting at my disposal. Most importantly, I knew that I could possibly cheat and manage to take back Guild members who might otherwise be forced to die and respawn on one of the cursed prime planets.

It was that thought, the idea of losing Gwen, Mallory, Jhonny, or anyone that caused a moment of fear to build within me. Then my mind shifts to Penelope, and the possibility of losing her, that's when I recover from my temporary leveling fugue and continue where I left off on yesterday.

"You do realize that yesterday was like five seconds ago, right?" Raygunnr cuts into my thoughts.

Hearing his words, I pause and suddenly feel slightly vulnerable, wondering if he heard my other thoughts.

"If you are talking about your unspoken but clearly visible feelings about Penelope, rest assured that I am clueless of your thoughts."

"What? I… I don't…" I begin to protest, but only in vain.