As soon as I entered the mind world, Mnex greeted me.
"To find your prey in the forest, you need to examine your surroundings very carefully. I can't offer full support here, too many variables," he said, waving his arm as if performing a breakdance move.
"Rustling from wind, tiny insects, the sounds they make, birds chirping... But there's a way."
"What is it?" I had no patience left. My stomach was growling, and my vision was blurry. I hadn't eaten anything except a bit of water in almost three days.
"If you can properly combine the air and earth elements to create a pulse or a primitive sonar, it'd be much easier to detect nearby animals, don't you think?"
He tapped his forehead with a finger, as if to show how brilliant he was.
"Air? Don't I need to discover sound magic first?"
That made no sense to me.
"Same old idiot. Look, sound is air."
"No, sound is sound. Air is air. If you called me here just to mess with me, I swear this is the worst timing," I said, about to leave the mind world.
"Suit yourself. I'll sit here and watch you dig your own grave... and come crawling back later."
The thing is, he'd never called me here just to mess around before.
Maybe... just maybe, he was actually being serious?
"Alright. So what's the relationship between sound and air?" I asked with a sigh.
"The vocal cords in your throat vibrate through the air. The hammer, anvil, and stirrup in your ear collect those vibrations and send them as signals to your brain. What you organic life forms call 'sound' is actually vibrations traveling through air."
"So when someone speaks, what I'm actually hearing isn't sound, just vibration?"
"Bravo, Sherlock. When someone says 'A,' you're not hearing the letter, you're interpreting the vibration their vocal cords created."
"So... if I send a vibration through the air into the ground... will the earth talk back?"
"Oh, you poor thing... I think your body's started burning neurons for energy. Any minute now, you'll be drooling and banging rocks together."
"What?"
He placed one hand over the bridge of his nose and stood there silently for a few seconds.
"User intelligence scan complete. Adjusting to appropriate language level..."
"In plain terms, you're one IQ point away from being officially brain dead. Normally, you wouldn't be able to detect any feedback from the ground. No human can."
I ignored the insult. "Then how?"
He pointed at himself. "You can't receive the feedback. But I can."
"Better yet, I can process that feedback and give it to you like a minimap. The further your pulse spreads, the more effective the map becomes. I can tag every living and non living thing around you."
"Now you're talking."
I'd heard enough. It was time to try something.
I sat down on the ground.
"What do I do first?"
"Start by identifying air molecules. You'll need to create zones that push and pull, compression and rarefaction. That means applying high pressure to some molecules while leaving others under low pressure."
"If you use another fancy word," I growled, "I swear, I'll bite you so hard, I'll chew on your circuits like beef jerky. Bit by bit"
He paused, glanced at his own physical form, then grimaced.
"Eww. Henriball Lecter." Mnex's voice was almost offended.
"Think of it this way," he continued.
"Like ripples on water. Not like Hokusai's Great Wave, though. More like the ripples you get when you toss a stone into a pond."
Hokusai? Great Wave?
I grabbed Mnex's leg and bit it.
BAM!
He kicked me with his other foot, sending me flying at least a few meters. My head was still ringing when I tried to get up.
"I was following my promise..." I groaned. "Simple words, please. Thinking is hard right now."
He sighed. "Alright. When you throw a stone into water, the first energy sinks downward, but then ripples spread outward.
Same concept here. You apply high pressure to certain areas of air molecules, but to allow the wave to move, you also need zones with low pressure. That's what lets the pulse travel."
I returned to a sitting position and closed my eyes.
I called upon my air and earth magic.
Then I began examining the air on a molecular level.
Maybe, after earth, air was the element with the highest density of molecules.
If I understood correctly, I didn't need to target a specific molecule but rather a cluster in a specific region, applying a sudden burst of intense pressure.
Just like a speaker.
Grab it, push-pull, release.
No problem. I could do that.
But the real issue was integrating the earth element into the spell while doing all that.
"We'll need a ratio. 70% air for spread, 30% earth for stability… give or take. That's how earthquakes happen anyway. Let's make one politely."
"What?! If I manage to pull this off… I can cause an earthquake?"
I asked, stunned.
"Don't flatter yourself. You know how deep underground you'd have to go to make that happen?
You'd run out of mana before you even got halfway there and die before anything happened.
Don't even try."
Note recorded: Earthquake spell... not even once.
I followed Mnex's suggested 7:3 ratio.
Merging the waves, combining air and earth, it was harder than I expected.
But I knew it would work.
Focusing on the task helped me forget the hunger… at least a little.
But the goal? That stayed sharp.
The thought of food was no longer just a need, it was fuel.
I wasn't driven by starvation anymore. I was driven by the hope of ending it.
My first attempt failed. I started over.
Second try, nothing.
Third, still nothing.
But the fourth time… I found the problem.
I'd been applying all the pressure to the air component.
That was stopping the fusion from completing.
What I really needed was to distribute the pressure using the same 7:3 ratio.
Once I realized that, everything clicked into place.
I balanced the pressure.
Synchronized the elements.
And finally...
The pulse was born.
Right in front of me, barely an arm's length away something formed out of the fusion between air and earth magic.
Completely transparent.
Palm sized.
Slightly twitching.
Unlike any other spell I'd ever cast.
But… it was vibrating.
From the outside, it looked like a stone.
But on the inside… it was pulsing.
Like a heart.
Tiny concentric rings radiated from it in steady intervals… bum bum, bum bum, as if it were alive.
Now all that was left… was learning how to use it.
"The range of a pulse grows with mana, but its clarity depends on you.
As long as you control the flow and density of mana, you won't fail."
With those final words from Mnex, I returned to the real world.
And I already had a very cool idea for how to use this.
I opened my eyes.
Doyle was still there, a few meters away, gnawing on dried meat like nothing had happened.
I didn't care.
I stood up and stepped forward.
Then slammed my foot into the ground.
... …
Did it work?
"Yes. If your goal was to mildly inconvenience a beetle, then bravo.
That was disappointing.
Wait…
I think you just scared a worm."
Thanks, Mnex.
I guess... I'm not cool enough to pull that off just yet.
I looked back.
Doyle stared at me, still chewing.
We locked eyes.
He raised a thumbs up, without saying a word. But his expression said it all.
Not the proud kind. The "well, that was a choice" kind.
I crouched down, pretending not to hear the judgment radiating from his eyebrows.
Both palms pressed against the earth.
I reached into the mind world and pulled the pulse spell with a thread of mana then pushed it into the soil.
A light tremor rippled across the ground beneath me.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
We needed a pulse, not a localized earthquake!"
Sorry... I might've overdone it a bit.
"You overcompensated like a toddler with a hammer!"
Maybe if your instructions weren't in riddles, I wouldn't have to guess!
"Maybe if your brain had more than two active neurons, I wouldn't need to!"
I took a deep breath.
Focused.
Tried again.
This time, no sudden surge…
just a slow, steady release of mana.
And gradually...
The pulse formed.
I could feel the earth vibrating gently beneath my hands.
Subtle. But clear.
"Finally. Minimal destruction.
I'm impressed."
Are you getting anything back?
"Processing. Hold on...
…
Yes. Roughly 600 meters southeast.
I think it's a rabbit."