Sitting on the couch, I ponder the events of the day.
First, I realized that I'm now a parahuman—though that's debatable. The next thing I figured out was how to use my powers, and I also spoke with my new servant. Then I discovered that my bully, Sophia, is actually a hero. I also learned that there are side effects to my powers, like an emotional dampener, a streak of sadism, and many more subtle modifications to my personality.
So, what do I do next? Since it's the afternoon and my dad is about to get home, I have a limited amount of time to figure out what my next discovery will be.
To decide what comes next, I think back to my spider experiment.
The first spider—White (that's the name I gave her)—was a success. However, subsequent experiments with enchanting insects or any other living beings resulted in those lifeforms either dying or exploding.
But I do have a theory on why this happens. You see, the first spider I enchanted was given a core mechanic of my being. I don't know exactly what this mechanic is, all I know is that it's why our thought patterns are so similar. Having this minuscule amount of me in the spider's body allowed it to carry a small amount of MA energy, which then enabled it to cast magic.
If my theory is correct, no matter how many experiments I conduct, all of them will fail. Therefore, I can't give Emma powers to make her suffer.
Although, I could have my servant connect to her and give her powers—but why do that when I can experiment for days, or maybe even months, trying to figure out a formula to grant powers to other people?
My first theory is that MA energy is everywhere. Essentially, there is this energy that nobody else can detect, but I can, for some unknown reason, sense it throughout the entire universe.
Oh no, I can't even convince myself of that.
The second, more probable theory, is Personal Reality, or, more menacingly, Personal Universe.
It's essentially a personal domain made of MA energy, which gives me godlike powers—but I only have a limited amount of MA energy, so not exactly godlike, more like a cape's powers. The other thing I discovered about MA energy is that my servant can't scan or see through my MA energy field. This is only possible because she is connected to me, which is why she can even perceive or quantify MA energy at all.
You might be thinking, Aren't you going to run out of MA energy eventually?
And that would be a good question, and it's what I'm trying to figure out right now.
My leading theory is that a core mechanic of me essentially creates MA energy at a fixed rate. I don't know if it's infinite or if there are any negative side effects, but sadly, I'll have to find out the hard way.
Now, for the actual matter at hand—how to give Emma superpowers. My best chance of doing this is by extracting a small amount of me to create a Shard-like existence, like my servant.
This would also solve the problem of monitoring and giving powers, but there's just one problem—actually, several problems.
I'm still mulling over how to extract a piece of myself, how to enchant someone without them noticing, how enchanting even works, and how to figure out the underlying mechanics of MA energy. Those are all my problems right now.
The first problem I'm going to tackle is the underlying mechanics of MA energy. If I figure this out, the rest should be easier.
The first step in figuring out MA energy's underlying mechanics is to quantify it, but luckily for me, my servant has already done that.
I won't go into too much detail, but essentially, I have 5,000 MA energy in total. Now, this may seem like a lot, but it's nothing compared to how much I'll need to do the things I want to do.
The next thing I need to figure out is how MA energy affects reality.
The first step in understanding how and why MA energy works is to know my radius or my domain. I should give it a better name… MA Domain? No, I think Magical Domain sounds much cooler.
Now back on topic. Thanks to my servant, I figured out the diameter of my Magical Domain. It's about the size of half a city block in radius, fluctuating in distance depending on my mood and emotions.
Before I could experiment more with my power, my dad's car pulled into the driveway. A few seconds later, he came inside. He didn't greet me, simply sat down at the table and started eating the food I had prepared.
He only commented on how good the food was, asking if I'd gotten better at cooking. I gave a noncommittal response, and that was the end of it.
Walking back up to my room, careful not to make eye contact with him, I resumed my experimentation where I had left off. The experiment involved figuring out if my domain is more effective the closer you are to its center.
I tested this on birds by trying to imbue them with fire, and initially, it didn't work, even though the birds were inside my domain.
What a conundrum.
I tried again, this time successfully imbuing the fire into the birds, causing them to catch on fire.
I finally understood it. My enchantment works by imbuing anything with a concept. For example, by imbuing a bird with the concept of fire, the bird catches on fire because I added the concept to it. At least that's my theory for now.
My theorizing was interrupted by my servant, who informed me of her success.
[Information]
After receiving the information through shard speak, I was quite satisfied. I gave her a little more MA energy to speed up her repairs so she could serve me better.
That interruption made me aware of my surroundings again. Looking outside my window, I noticed the full moon, which meant it was already midnight. It was quite late, so I decided to go to bed. Hopefully, I wouldn't have any nightmares or weird dreams again.
My hopes were dashed when I woke up to find myself in a kaleidoscope of memories.
Looking around at the kaleidoscope, I found some interesting memories. For example, there were memories of how to turn someone into a vampire or, if you like Japanese folklore, how to turn someone into an oni. In fact, the white-haired girl from my dreams was friends with both an oni and a vampire.
But sadly, most of the memories were too blurred or incomprehensible to be of any use.
There were also miscellaneous memories, like the white-haired girl wondering what it would be like to eat a baby. Her thoughts on the subject were quite interesting. For example, she wondered if a small baby would make a good portable food source, or maybe it could be eaten in one bite for maximum satisfaction. Seeing all of her thought process made me, well, wonder what it would be like to eat a baby.
Looking through the black-haired girl's memories for something different and interesting, I found that most of them were also blurred. The only ones I could clearly see were her playing video games for three days straight or tormenting her classmates without them knowing. There were also other miscellaneous memories.
But I wasn't going to give up. I would figure out what these mysterious blurred memories were for.
No matter how hard I tried to focus on the black-haired girl's memories, I couldn't unblur them. It was simply impossible for me at the moment.
So, I gave up and looked at more of the white-haired girl's memories, which were still quite interesting. As I mentioned earlier, there were memories about how to create vampires and onis.
After scouring through hundreds—maybe even thousands—of blurred and miscellaneous memories, I finally found a way to make demons. But there were several varieties of demons, and I had only seen one variety. Just as I was about to explore more demon variants in the kaleidoscope of memories, I was suddenly awakened by a call to consciousness.
Waking up was a shocking experience because the white-haired girl from my dreams—the same one—was lying peacefully next to me, as if she had walked right out of my dreams.
I quickly snapped out of my shock due to my emotional dampening.
Wanting answers, I tried to wake her up by shaking her lightly, but that didn't work. So, I shook her more forcefully, and that finally woke her up.
As she slowly sat up from her lying position, I was mesmerized by her appearance for a moment.
No, it wasn't her beauty. It was something else, something familiar, something I couldn't describe. It wasn't just because she had been in my dreams—she felt familiar in a way I couldn't explain.
Finally, when she opened her mesmerizing, multi-pupiled red eyes, she asked, "What do you require from me, master?"