Embodiment

As if coming out of a trance, Olive stared at the empty mirror until even its finest markings had completely faded. Only then did she speak, breaking the silence in the workshop.

"Tell me, what did you feel?"

"Hmm... I felt like the material inside the operating terminal wasn't pure metal. It seemed to be somewhere between a liquid and a solid. When I didn't interfere with it, it seemed to flow, but when I touched it, it hardened..."

—A non-Newtonian fluid.

Thinking of the similar properties, Horn's mouth twitched.

If Nobel had already been playing with phlogiston explosives, what kind of expert would Sir Isaac Newton be in this world?

Could there really be a flaming laser sword?

"Very perceptive. As you described, it's filled with a highly concentrated Mythos gel. When infused with spirituality, it hardens and creates resistance, just as Mythos obstructs thought. Ha, isn't that a fitting name? Rhyme Street Intersection has always been quite literary when it comes to naming things."

"Ahem, I've gone off track."

After a brief cough, she steered the conversation back on course. Olive's small face grew serious again as she continued.

"Next, your task is to control the Mythos inside the Metatne, making it solidify and flow. Manipulate it, guide it, make it an extension of your limbs, and ultimately imprint your own mark upon it."

"Better to show you than tell you. Give it a try."

With Mentor Olive's perfectly timed pointers, Horn tried one thing after another: using his spirituality to construct geometric shapes inside the mirror—a regular tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, and more—and keeping them intact for as long as he could. The cube lasted the longest, holding for nearly ten minutes before collapsing into a flash of light that faded away.

This is so much fun?!

After a round of practice, Horn began to get the hang of it. His eyebrows rose as he felt his crude use of spirituality—previously limited to controlling the amount of firepower—gradually transform, with the aid and extension of the operating terminal, into a multifunctional machine tool. He could not only shape things, but also control the strength and pressure of each stroke, and perform all sorts of crafts he'd never imagined before.

Like the Metatron Cube!

He smoothly nested one cube inside another within the mirror, only giving up in disappointment when he reached the third, unable to manage the required precision. Horn grew even more excited.

—This is way smarter than a drawing tablet!

He didn't even need to go to the trouble. By setting up a series of macro commands in advance, he could draw semi-automatically, completely solving the problem of his mind learning something before his hands did. He could cross the long gap of practice and make drawing a matter of simply putting his ideas into action...

If you ignored the problem of how long the images lasted, this was a godsend for artists with tendonitis!

"Is this Alchemy? Is this the occult?" Horn unconsciously tightened his grip on the handle and murmured, "...C-could it be that I'm actually a genius?"

[Flame of Destiny], give me a few points!

"Good attitude. Keep it up."

Olive, still expressionless, reached out her arm. A sheet of lead-gray metal foil had appeared in her hand at some point. She slapped it onto the upper-left corner of the mirror and pointed to the design etched on it.

"Look, understand, then imitate."

Horn focused on the etched symbol, his brows knitting slightly.

Intricate marks of varying depth had been carved into the metal. Overall, it resembled a blazing fire atop an anvil. Even as Horn watched, it writhed as if refusing to be understood, unwilling to hold a single shape.

In his mind, the orange-red card representing the Secret of Change on the desktop seemed to answer it with a faint tremor. A sudden intuition welled up in him, and before he even consciously understood it, Horn grasped the meaning contained in the symbol.

—Burning!

"Now, use your spirituality to reproduce this symbol on the Metat as precisely and accurately as possible. You don't need to make the fine details quite so clear; the spirituality you infuse will fill them in on its own in response. What you need to do is control the overall direction..."

Smack!

Before the instructor could finish speaking, the rune Horn had just drawn a quarter of shattered from a single unsteady stroke, bursting into a halo of light across the mirror.

He'd failed!

Horn let go in frustration and shook his hands, which felt as though they'd just been kissed by static electricity while he was taking off a sweater in winter. At last, the weight hanging over his heart came crashing down.

The difficulty went up this quickly...

Unlike the neat geometric shapes from before, the design Mentor Olive had provided didn't look all that complicated. But whenever he tried to put it on the mirror, some force repelled him, disrupting the balance of the Mythos and keeping it from flowing smoothly as he drew.

—This knowledge resisted being understood by others.

"Keep going. Failure is normal. If you succeeded on the first try, I'd have to question my teaching ability and judgment."

Seated in a chair brought over beside them, Olive took a casual sip of tea and continued:

"Don't doubt yourself, and don't let the difficulty scare you off. What you need to do is summon your Fortitude and Clear Insight. No, to put it simply, don't let your spirituality lead you. It's also a part of you. Instead, set its limits with your resolve and keep a firm grip on the reins of your power..."

Grinding his teeth, Horn drew on the spirituality he had left. On the desktop in his mind, the marble stairs on the [Memory: Foresight] card gradually faded, while the gleaming copper handrail grew brighter and brighter, as if it were about to catch fire.

[A specific memory strengthened your state of mind.]

Horn clenched his hands again.

Smack!

Another sharp sound, another failure. Clear sweat trickled down Horn's temples, and Mentor Olive offered a fair assessment.

"You handled the unexpected loss of balance well at the beginning, but the lines in the upper-right corner need to be turned at just the right angle to work."

"Again."

So he tried again.

Smack!

"This time it was the finish. You pressed too hard with the final stroke, disrupting the overall balance."

"Again."

Smack! Smack! Smack!

"All three mistakes were the same—you failed to grasp the overall layout. Remember, whether it's the part you've already drawn or the part you're about to draw, it's an extension of your limbs. You need to build a blueprint in your mind."

"Again."

Time passed.

Over and over, he started again and failed again. Only the increasingly loud beating of his heart thudded against his eardrums. The color first flooded Horn's face, then drained away, while his breathing grew heavier. Though he was dizzy and light-headed, his hands grew more and more practiced. On the mirror, which had flashed with halos again and again, a complex symbol unlike anything he had drawn before began to take shape.

At last, crimson light illuminated Horn's face, brilliant and steady.

Success!