World of Laws and Magic

Nick was pleased with the results of his spell. The spell Big has the effect of increasing the size of whatever he touches and how big the target becomes depends on how much magic energy he uses to activate the spell. The principles of the spell are based on the mathematical theory of dilation, particularly, making objects bigger. Creating this spell was no easy task but thanks to the inspiration that Nick received from one of his soul states, he was able to be productive during the hardest parts. The greatest advantage that he had was the fact that he had a large amount of magic energy made possible by the capacity and processing power of his mindscape. During the last two months he had borrowed a magical tool from the academy's magical devices office in order to determine how much magic energy he could store and recover. This was basically done by everyone when they became an Apprentice Magician or advanced a rank. Magician's used these tools to ascertain their limits because the amount of magic energy they had determined how many spells that they could use within a certain period of time. Nick had read that Apprentice Magicians typically had a magic holding capacity of about 5000 magical units. Magical units were the universal unit of measure for magical energy. Typically, a normal spell required about 1500 magical units so most Apprentice Magicians would only be able to use a spell three times before needing to recover their magic energy through meditation; one could also recover their magic energy passively but that usually took three times as long as meditation.

The results of using the magical tool to test his mindscape's capacity confirmed in his own opinion that he had a special mindscape; his capacity for storing magic was a whopping 25,000 magical units, five times the average. That wasn't the only surprise though, Nick had released all of his magic energy so that he could also test his magic recovery when he meditated and the number was almost unbelievable: 980 magical units per second. Nick suspected that his foundation laws, Big Improvement, would significantly outpace the effects of the original Laws of Syracuse but he had never anticipated an over 2000% increase in effectiveness in processing raw magical energy. If the average time for a Magician to recover their magic energy fully when depleted was 42 seconds, considering that the average foundation laws that affluent persons could get recovered magic at 120 magical units per second, Nick could recover his large reserve within 21 seconds, half the time - that's a huge advantage, and Nick intended to use it fully. From reading books Nick new that a few seconds difference in magic recovery could mean life or death, victory or defeat so he was grateful for his advantage. Nick also realized the peculiar characteristic that his mindscape gave his magical energy and it was that the more magical energy that was stored in his mindscape's 'sea', the more magical energy would gather towards him when he meditated and with increasing concentration of rule magic that was included, increasing his recover ability so much so that his passive recovery was about just as good as other Apprentice Magician's active recovery. In other words:

(I'm a fucking beast.)

The biggest hurdle now was his own lack of combat experience which might be important in this end of year exam. Nick left the room and went to the clerk again.

"I would like a different scenario this time, I want to be within an enclosed space with multiple small enemies."

The clerk responded affirmatively.

"Okay, will a cavern with several goblins do?"

Nick had seen goblins in video games and movies but had never seen them in real life. Having the chance to face some in a simulation was very exciting.

"Yes, that will be fine."

Nick turned around to enter the room again.

"My advantages are irrelevant if I can't survive battles in the real world, after all, a dead genius is no genius at all so from now on I have to purposely hone my combat capabilities. Oh..."

Nick looked around the cavern that he now found himself in. It was a decent size, about the size of the dorm's cafeteria, enough to hold about 100 people. At the opposite end of the cavern he saw eight short green figures running towards him, each holding daggers.

"So these are goblins."

Nick didn't waste any time, he picked up four pebbles on the cavern floor with his left hand and then started running towards the approaching goblins. He was going to take full advantage of the fact that this was a simulation so that he could learn basic combat as soon as possible since he only has one more day to practice his spell before the exam started. When Nick was about 10 meters from the group of goblins, he put one of the pebbles in his right hand and used Big and then threw the pebble. The spell allowed him to decide the timing of the transformation after he used it within 10 seconds, beyond that the spell would carry out its effect on its own. When the pebble reached slightly overhead of the goblins, suddenly, the pebble that probably weighed no more that a gram originally became what seemed like a two tonne boulder. The goblins, not expecting the change did not react in unison and simply scattered when they realized that a heavy object was falling from above. The boulder fell in quick succession.

THUD SPLAT SPLAT

Two of the goblins were not lucky enough to escape because they were at the center of the group and so were a step too late in getting from under the boulder. Their red blood oozed from beneath the boulder.

"Six left."

Two goblins had jumped to the left of the boulder and since they had jumped out of the way so wildly and without caution, they were now picking themselves up off of the ground. Nick rushed over and the goblin nearest to him, sensing his presence, hastily picked up his dagger and lunged at Nick. Nick side stepped the goblin and grabbed its right arm holding the dagger with his right hand; although these goblins were child sized, they had the strength of grown men but Nick was stronger.

(This is where all the mornings of doing pushups pay off.)

(Big)

Nick let go of the goblin and retreated a few steps. The goblin's entire arm had instantly became ten times its width and length. The goblin's arm fell down with a thud; it tried to move it but was not able to do so.

(No creature could move a limb that just had a suddenly large increase in size. Big seems to have the advantage that I can control how far the magic penetrates within a living being. I held onto the goblin long enough to just affect its arm muscles. Seeing how grotesque its right arm is now, my spell may not have had a uniform effect on its arm bones...I can live with that.)

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

The goblin started to scream out in pain seemingly from its arm suddenly transforming, it could no longer grasp its dagger and its arm felt like a mass of useless mush. The other goblin saw its friend's predicament and also lunged towards Nick with its dagger. Nick responded by throwing a pebble at the goblins face.

(Big)

Nick had thrown the pebble with a lot of force and by the time it reached the goblins face the pebble expanded into a basin wide rock. The transformation did not slow the rock down even a little and with a disastrous force the rock hit the goblins face tearing its head off of its body.

(Force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration. A sudden increase in mass from my spell did not seem to immediately affect the rock's acceleration so the force that I threw the rock with increased by over twenty times in response to the same increase in the rock's size. The flying rock produced enough force to tear the goblin's head off. So cool.)

Nick rush over to the goblin's now lifeless body lying on the ground and picked up its dagger and ran over to the goblin whose arm he had enlarged. Nick held the dagger firmly and drove it into the goblin's throat. It could hardly defend itself because of its deformed right arm and Nick was too strong to defend against with only the use of one arm. This goblin now lied on the ground grasping its punctured neck drowning in its own blood. Nick looked at the scene with indifference.

"It's just a simulation."

Nick heard the sound of running and saw that the other four goblins had gathered themselves and were now quickly approaching his position. Nick ran over to the body of the decapitated goblin and used a significant amount of magic energy to activate his spell. His magic sea could be seen decreasing at a visible rate.

"It seems that in order to use Big on living beings the cost is far more than on inanimate objects. Hmmm...."

Nick wondered why that was but since he was in battle, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind. Nick threw the goblin's body at the four approaching goblins using his developed arms; it wasn't difficult to throw the corpse as the goblins were child sized. As the goblin's corpse reached the others, it suddenly increased in size by about twenty times in midair and fell on them.

(Now the easy part begins.)

As the goblins tried to crawl out from under the corpse, just as each one was almost free, Nick walked over and gabbed its head activating his spell.

(Big)

(Big)

(Big)

(Big)

All the heads of the goblins increased in size by about eight times and they silently died. Nick looked on with satisfaction.

(I was wondering what would happen if a creature's brain was suddenly increased in size. I guess it's not that they get smarter. Ha.)

This is the most excitement Nick had had in a year so he was getting a little carried away in his celebration of his spell's effectiveness by making inappropriate jokes. Nick quickly realized that none of the events that just occurred were funny and calmed himself down. 

SIMULATION ENDED

Neon colored letters appeared and the room warped, returning to its boring white walled, bedroom like state. Nick smiled as he declared:

"I win."