Let Me Think

As he pondered where to go from here, Blade Tusk made a new discovery.

Some of the water molecules he had "marked" had inexplicably vanished after leaving his control.

"Hmm? What's going on? Where did all my water go?"

Blade Tusk was puzzled. He hadn't gone to the bathroom or sweated heavily during this time, so he didn't believe all the vanished water molecules had been expelled from his body.

"Maybe the hydrogen and oxygen separated because of some reaction inside my body?"

At this point, the inability of the "mental power" software to keep up revealed its drawback once again.

When he had previously "created" water molecules, in pursuit of maximizing molecular quantity, he had given up on "marking" their fundamental constituent units.

In other words, the oxygen and hydrogen atoms contained in those water molecules lay outside the "observation" range of his consciousness.

Faced with this situation, in order to figure out what exactly had happened, he had no choice but to sink the "mark" down to the atomic level again.

The steps were simple: first, erase the connection between the water molecules in his sea of consciousness and the water molecules in reality;

Then, dissolve most of the water molecules in his sea of consciousness to free up the mental-power "memory" they had occupied;

Afterward, redirect that "memory" toward marking the internal structures of the remaining water molecules.

The process could be described more vividly.

If his sea of consciousness could mark at most twelve units, then previously, he had only marked twelve water molecules.

Each water molecule contained three atomic units. If he wanted to bring those atoms into the range of "observation" as well, then the marked units would need to change from twelve water molecules into: three water molecules + the nine atoms within them = twelve new units.

Of course, the total number of units a formal Witch Doctor's sea of consciousness could mark was in fact far greater than this.

After carrying out a "shift in perspective" similar to the process above, the water molecules he linked to within his body were reduced by the vast majority.

Next, Blade Tusk stopped taking in outside information and devoted all his effort to "observing" the "targets."

The effects of "sinking the perspective" were remarkably obvious. This time, his "observation" did not stop at the disappearance of the water molecules.

By tracking the hydrogen and oxygen, he discovered that his earlier guess had at least been partly correct.

Some oxygen atoms had indeed vanished from his body. Some oxygen atoms darted about like headless flies;

While another portion of the oxygen, along with most of the hydrogen, continued to remain in his body in other forms.

After observing these changes alongside the macroscopic workings of his body, he understood where the portion of oxygen that had "truly vanished" had gone.

The pattern of its disappearance often matched up with his breathing, naturally leading him to think of CO2.

Because his observation was limited to the "targets" themselves, he could not "see" what they were connected to or what they had formed. He only knew that after oxygen combined with some substance, it was automatically excluded from the "composition" by the "recognition system," causing the "marked oxygen" to vanish along with it.

Thus, the conclusion that it was CO2 remained only a guess.

The results of his "observation" did not end there.

Perhaps because the targets were dense enough, a few marked hydrogen and oxygen atoms were extremely fortunate: after splitting apart, they reunited and formed entirely new water molecules once more.

"Water breaking down and then becoming water again? This definitely isn't taking off my pants just to fart. Something must have happened in between."

To observe further, Blade Tusk first freed all the targets, then "created" another batch within a short period of time.

The range of these new "marks" was compressed from covering the skin of his entire hand to only the size of a fingernail. Of course, a Troll's fingernail was not actually that small.

As he took this step, he had been mentally prepared for failure.

The water molecules he had meditated upon were not many, but they were by no means few either. He had no idea whether such a tiny patch of skin could provide enough water molecules for him to link to.

The result? There was more than enough.

That made him happy, but also a little uneasy. The order of magnitude of molecules possessed by the body might be even more terrifying than he had imagined.

The observation continued. Once the targets were concentrated, the phenomenon of "water becoming water" appeared with increasing frequency.

From this, he could make a preliminary judgment: this was indeed an important part of life activity, not some random occurrence.

To add variables, Blade Tusk controlled some water molecules. He took the atoms that had freely separated after decomposition, as well as the "artificially" separated atoms whose "bridges" he had actively severed, and once again tried to repeat the initial oscillations.

A change appeared, but it was completely different from what he had expected.

He discovered that as the oscillations grew more frequent, that patch of skin began to emit a faint purple glow carrying a trace of heat.

"Hmm? What's going on?"

Blade Tusk felt astonishment—and considerable excitement.

In his understanding, "light" and "heat" could, to some extent, be regarded as manifestations of "energy."

This meant that if he could make good use of the phenomenon currently taking place, the problem of increasing his own "energy level" might finally have an effective solution.

"The marked hydrogen and oxygen atoms have clearly become more active, shown by their increased rates of combining with other units and breaking apart. The phenomena of 'water decomposition' and 'water synthesis' have become especially frequent."

"Could these two phenomena be necessary pathways through which the body produces energy?"

"Let me think. In the formation of molecules, the 'bridging' role of electrons should be crucial. So, have the electrons undergone some kind of change? I need to sink the 'perspective' of observation another level and bring the electrons in as well."

Thinking this, Blade Tusk began operating again.

Bringing electrons within the scope of "marking" meant investing ten additional units of "observation" into every water molecule. This was clearly an enormous undertaking.

He had thought that as long as he paid the price of drastically reducing the number of marked water molecules, he could bring electrons into his "field of vision" as well—but he failed.

After several attempts, Blade Tusk discovered that the "sea of consciousness marker-linking method" had run into a bottleneck.

At the initial "modeling" stage, he had no way to construct a complete structure spanning molecules to atoms, then to atomic nuclei while accounting for electrons.

As for the reason, building a structure from the "vast" down to the "infinitesimal" placed too great a burden on his "thoughts." While "constructing" molecules, he could not spare attention for the internal structure of atoms.

Left with no choice, he could only abandon maintaining the molecular structure and focus on atomic-level modeling.

Repeating the previous steps, the experiment began once more.

Yet another new problem arose.

This time, after the electrons simulated in his sea of consciousness formed point-to-point links with the electrons in reality, their trajectories vanished from observation. They clearly existed, yet he simply could not pinpoint them.

"Ah, why is it this again?!"

After fuming for a while, he realized that was no solution and began searching for a way forward.

After racking his brains through the scant physics knowledge in his head, along with the common sense of everyday life, he actually came up with a solution.

"In the darkness of night, a mouse's tracks remain in scattered flour. So could I scatter some 'flour' beneath an electron's 'feet' as well?"

With that idea in mind, he no longer sought to directly "see" the electrons. Instead, in his sea of consciousness, he evenly spread a layer of magic power wherever electrons ought to exist;

Using the peculiar trait of magic power and the sea of consciousness—"existing and not existing at the same time"—he set it so that it could only be interfered with by electrons one-sidedly, without affecting their movement.

After all that fussing around, the electrons finally became like huge rats stealing food in the dead of night, leaving behind clear "evidence of their crimes."

I'm a little lacking in confidence. This part, where fantasy and real-world theories correspond, was actually quite fun to write. Looking up information even let me learn a few extra things.

But whether you esteemed readers will accept it is another question.

I don't dare ask, either, because I don't know how many people the readers who answer would actually represent.

Also, I signed a contract, so I'm reporting in to everyone. Please leave more comments and recommendation votes. Thank you, everyone.