A big, chonky chapter that dives deeply into magic theorycrafting.
"So Rose will only be able to come in a day or so because of alliance talks with Midgar officials…" Cid leaned back on his chair and tapped on the table… in a cool shadowy way, of course.
"Correct, Lord Shadow," Nu nodded, "Of course, she mentioned that it is something important, she will immediately drop her business and come to aid you-"
"No need, let her do her own thing."
"As you wish, my Lord."
Cid pondered a bit on what he wants to do next. Rose was currently busy, he already gave the gifts to Alexia and Claire, Shades are probably busy, too… Hang on a second.
There was also Sherry, right? Who was currently working under Eta! And she noted that she wants to have a meeting with to discuss the development of Shadow Garden's Research Department!… Which existed only on paper since the only member for a long time was Eta alone, and Sherry was a recent addition… Yeah…
"Nu, notify Eta that I am coming to her facility," he stood up, "I did not visit her place in a long time."
"By your orders, Lord Shadow!" Nu bowed and made some signs to guards at the door. They bowed and went out of the room.
"Good. Now…" he turned back to one of the few humans he saw in Shadow Garden, "Tell me, how are our most recent additions?"
"Ah, they…"
"Stand up, microbes! The training is not yet finished!"
"Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"
Annerose grunted and stood from the ground with shaking hands. Her gaze went sideways, to yet another victim of hellish environment that for some reason was called 'training grounds'.
"Remind me, why are we here, again?…" she whispered to the mature-looking blonde elf with azure eyes.
"Because we have lost against Shadow and now have to complete the training course he has set for us," elf replied indifferently.
"I mean, I know, but… Isn't it a bit too much?!" Annerose waved her hands around.
"Don't know about you, but I wouldn't scream so much," elf said nonchalantly and continued the training course.
"Huh?…"
It was at this moment that Annerose realized something was off. She slo-o-owly turned around and saw the tall dark elf with one closed eye that smiled warmly at her.
"Um…"
"Recruit, could you explain what are doing?" dark elf asked cordially.
"Ah, well, you see…"
"No need, I understand…" elf closed her eyes; Annerose beamed at the instructor's understanding, "I understand that the course is too easy for you, and therefore you need to double the amount of your exercises!"
"Wha-?! No, wait-!"
"Triple! Say anything, and it will be five times more than usual course!"
Annerose just stood there in shock. She didn't even notice a familiar face of the Velgalta's former knight who was looking at her in pity.
"What are you, deaf?! Begin!"
"But you didn't-"
"NOW!"
"Uh… yeah…"
Cid's jaw almost dropped before it remembered that its owner was actually Eminence in Shadow, and they are never surprised at anything because everything goes according to their plans, so it went back to its rightful place.
But to think that they had their own drill sergeant in the ranks! And judging by description, it was that dark-skinned elf that commanded the support troops in Lawless City… Not bad, not bad at all!
"My Lord, do you have any order about them?" Nu asked politely.
"No, not yet; continue with orders I have given you before."
"Understood, Lord Shadow."
"Alright, if Gamma asks about my whereabouts, tell her that I have went to Eta's facility."
"Yes, my Lord."
Nice, he has long wanted to discuss something with Eta!
"Ah, C-Cid…!"
"Hey, Sherry," he smiled brightly, "I have come to visit you."
"Oh, um! Please, come in!" Sherry immediately stepped from the entrance, allowing Cid to pass into the room.
"Master…" Eta's voice from the deeps of laboratory reached him, "He-he, you have come…"
"Hi, Eta," he waved as the Seventh Shade came out to the light.
And the sight was… not something to behold. Tired appearance, a bit messy clothes, dishevelled hair…
"And this is how you treat yourself, huh…" he caressed her hair and slowly channeled his mana into her, healing her and removing fatigue.
"Hi-hi-hi…" she clearly enjoyed the feeling of headpat, "Shadow Wisdom… has to be developed…"
"You're still sticking to that, huh?"
"Of course… speaking of it… Have you come… To develop some?…"
"Yeah, pretty much that," he nodded, "Sherry said you two wouldn't mind if I came along."
"Hmm…" Eta turned to Sherry… and gave her a thumbs up, "Good thinking…"
"Ah, thank you?…"
Clearly, Sherry still hasn't grown accustomed to being in presence of Eta, huh? Kinda funny, if he's being honest.
"So, Master… What shall we do?…"
"Hm, I had a couple ideas here and there…" he walked further into laboratory and saw Eta's working place, "I see you're making full use of my gift."
"Yes, Master," Eta suddenly turned lively, "The instruments and tools you have provided me with have proven their worth in full. The runecrafting table in particular greatly reduced time I waste on writing the runes manually, allowing me to focus on my research way closely than before."
"I am glad that you found my gift useful…" seriously, 'runecrafting table'? Like, she's completely right, but it's absolutely not cool!… Eh, whatever.
"Master, what about your ideas?" Eta pressed her breasts into his arm, looking affectionately at him.
"Well, here's what we shall do today…" he concentrated on the feeling inside of him, "Study the magic."
"…Um, Cid, don't we study magic every day?" Sherry raised her question, looking at Eta with jealousy.
"No, you misunderstood me," he raised his hand, "Today, we shall study the magic as the phenomenon!"
"How interesting…" Cid mumbled.
As it stands, not even Cid himself touched the concept of magic itself before. Like, he knows there are multiple types of it, it follows its own rules, it can be controlled and used for whatever task you want… But he did not dive deeper into it.
Wasted opportunity, if he's being honest. The magic itself was no less interesting than the material world! For example, Cid was suddenly struck with a thought: why can't spirits and the like use magic on their own? Sure, the materialized concepts could use whatever they represented, but other than that? Nope, nada. They didn't even use magic in an usual sense of its word, instead just being the living phenomena.
And so Cid started searching for answer. Surely there ought to be a reason why dead people can't just use their magic, right? Like, he knows reincarnation with memory is possible, and he knows souls of the dead exist (he has some in his pockets, after all).
You may think the conclusion is in the physical body itself, right? And, well, you would be almost right. Almost, because it's not the physical body itself that allows you to use magic, but rather how it interacts with the material world and mana…
Cid volunteered as the study object, and with Eta's help they slowly came to an understanding on how it all actually works.
Even to this day Cid had an interesting question: how comes it magic only appears in living beings when, well, mana comes into the world? Surely there are latent magic users in the magicless world, right? Even Nishimura turned out to be one! And yet, unless mana comes into the world, you cannot become a magic user…
They would have been stuck if Cid suddenly didn't remember about the souls he had. The normal ones, and the peculiar kind that was stuck with some kind of construct that connected with them. And so, he went on to study them.
As it turned out, the construct in question was heavily reliant on a particular part of the soul… Exactly the one which hosted magic energy. With that, Cid started to develop a theory…
When he reincarnated into this new world, he already had the ability to see magic. When he later returned back to Earth, he also saw the magic here, albeit way less than in his new world. So, he already was a latent magic user, but he could not use it before coming to world with mana. What did that mean? That means that while he had the potential, it could not be opened before coming into contact with mana.
What, too obvious? He didn't come to the best part yet.
He has tasked Eta and Sherry to bring some animals for testing, both magicless and ones that already had magic, while he concentrated further on the soul in front of him.
Let's see… This part, as he established, is hosting the magic energy, right? However, for some reason soul by itself cannot take a lot of mana, and, even more, cannot use its magic… Physical body, yes… How does it interact with magic?
"Master, here…" Eta brought the rats.
"Thank you, now sit down and watch."
Alright, here goes nothing.
Cid slowly surrounded the poor rat with his magic. As soon as he felt the compression reached his limit, he started pushing the mana into rat's body. He was absolutely extra careful to make sure the animal does not die or get any wounds, and soon he got the result.
Rat acclimatized with the magic, and suddenly Cid felt a spark of magic inside of it. However, the magic was unlike his own; even though it was his mana that was a catalyst for rat's awakened abilities, animal clearly had different… Hmm, how does he call it?… Spectre? Probably spectre, yes…
Cid watched eagerly as the magic from the environment started going into the rat's body… And the physical body had some changes, too! Even now, he could clearly feel some kind of… vessels, he thinks? Yeah, vessels that contained mana.
He raised his gaze to look at the two girls near him. Yes, indeed, he can see their mana being stored in the body… The problem is, his own case was completely different: for some reason, his mana could not only be contained in the body, but also in the soul itself, and in quantities way larger than his own body…
Hmm, what was about that soul part that hosted magic, again?…
He looked at it from a different angle and finally realized how, exactly, that worked. Yes, indeed, this part of the soul was the one responsible for magic. However, most people in this world didn't bother to properly train it, instead simply using it as means to increase their physical prowess; rarely anyone trained in the control of magic… Yes, even now he can see the large difference between the Cult's members and, say, Eta: most of Cult's members' magic was stored in their bodies, while Eta's was hidden deeply, only summoned whenever necessary.
And his own, by extension, was completely moved into the now-developed part of his soul… Yes, Soul Space was actually an extension of that part… Or rather, a byproduct of its evolution. In short, his own Magic Part fully bloomed, and instead of relying on external stuff was now producing mana on its own.
Yes, even now Eta subconsciously 'inhaled' the environment's mana; the body then purified it to a certain standard, and then transferred it into various vessels… or Magic Part, if it could contain it.
As it stands, Magic Part connected with mind and body, posing as another muscle system, only for magic. Even things that did not have ability to use magic could be exposed to magic environment and develop it, albeit in this way the results… vary.
The more you refine your magic control and magic itself, the more your Magic Part blooms… until it comes to a point where it fully develops into something separate from the body. From that point, as Cid theorized looking at himself, magic could be used without body… He didn't want to try it out, though.
And if he could see correctly, it's not that Magic Part did not exist… It actually did exist all the time, but without magic it was simply inactive! Why? Is it something that exists in all souls? He could say it did…
So, here how it works, by his observations: first physical body of living being is exposed to magic. Over time, mana seeps deep into the being's essence, becoming a catalyst for Magic Part's awakening. After that, the living being could either use the magic to increase the prowess of physical body (most people in this world), or go deeper into research about its nature and allow the Magic Part to bloom fully.
Once that step is finished, Magic Part starts working on its own and becomes unaffected by environment; in theory, if magic was to suddenly disappear, most people of this world would lose access to it… But not Cid. His own soul has already evolved to a new step, step where he becomes a source of magic. And in theory, at some point his existence would become the catalyst for a new age of magic… Just like it was at Earth!
Physical body at this point was more like a filter between him and the world; it refined the magic energy from environment should he take any, and it also made his own mana more… worldly, if he can say so. He tried to release the mana without body's interjection, and it dissipated faster than he could say 'oya'… but it was also infinitely easier to control.
That's why without physical body using magic is nigh impossible. Sure, for the most part mana was a mix between his energy and world's energy, refined to a certain point, but it was body which, so to say, 'polluted' the mana that went out. And that 'polluted' mana was way heavier than pure, pristine one, which allowed it to stay so long as he had control over it.
So, physical body allowed the development of Magic Part, and Magic Part after fully maturing, in turn, affected the development of physical body. However…
Cid took the second magicless rat and injected Shadow Mana into it. At first it was quite normal, however once it tried to take environment's mana in…
It squeaked in agony and died. Its organs fully melted from the clash between Shadow Mana and world's mana.
He heard the gulp from behind. Sherry, huh… Yeah, poor girl can't handle such stuff.
Right, it seems like while the living being without any magic can take and awaken any type of mana, it would still be far better to develop the mana attuned to the world… At least, until they can develop Magic Part to the point where it can take in multiple types, like his own was… Come to think of it, when he deep dove into Shadow Realm, he wasn't that developed and still relied on physical body… And yet once he finished refining Shadow Magic System, it suddenly went deep into his body.
Later he found out that it actually went into his Soul Space, which was not developed yet at the time, but it gave a foundation to make it. Yes, it gave a foundation. His reckless action actually boosted the development of Magic Part, allowing it to bloom early. After that he also found out about Faith Energy and Sanctuary and used them for his own advantage, completing the process early… With a lot of damage, of course, but in a sense he was an early-bloomer. Once his soul healed back, his Magic Part was now fully functional. That raised a question what his Soul Space was, as after separation it was almost completely unrelated to Magic Part, but he will come to that at some point.
Now, since his Magic Part fully matured, with his body being min-maxed for purpose of combat and using magic, he could almost freely refine world's mana into the type he could use on his own, like normal, Shadow, or Fire… Almost freely, because there were some parasitic losses during conversion that even full control during the process could not remove. Not that much, about 10% when he's not concentrated and 1% when concentrated, but it still pisses him off!
Hah, alright, fine, at least he now knows how it works. Hams, Todd, Diva, write everything down for future use. Maybe they will develop something out of it…
Now, for the girls.
"Eta, get ready, it's about time I implant some Shadow Wisdom…"
"Master, what were you doing the whole time? You just stared at rats and empty space…"
…Oh, yeah, she didn't see the world in same way as he did. Come to think of it, he has never saw any mention of other people seeing the magic clearly; instead they all felt, sensed, but did not see… Not to mention, the souls… That will take some time to explain…
Welp, that's pretty much it. Some explanation on souls, though there are a lot more that Cid doesn't know yet about them, something about magic, and a hint at to what Soul Space could become in the future.