The invigilator steps back.
"First clean strike wins. Zadial. As a Concordant in the Apprentice-Class, you are limited to 3 concordees at once. No resummoning once they are WIA. If you or Isaac does get grievously hurt, I will be on standby to heal any injuries."
The invigilator too summoned his Nature-Class Concordee.
"Isaac… You know… It's quite hard to derive a strategy for whose capabilities are unknown." Zadial, in all his winning glory, stood across and posed Isaac a question. "It may be of common courtesy for you to duel with your module at birth, that would be?"
"Wind…"
"Right… But if you have a secondary module that you wish to keep a secret, I wouldn't mind sparring a twin Modular version of you."
"I'll stick with the wind, thank you."
"Well, that settles it, thanks."
"Combatants ready?"
Zadial nods. Isaac raises his hand.
"Sorry, you two. Could I do something real quick?"
"Uh… Zadial?"
"Uhm… Okay… Go ahead, Isaac."
"Thanks!"
Isaac reaches into his pocket and pulls out the second item that he stashed from the hut all the way back in the Orientation Arc.
The two students expected a CEC that would assist Isaac in combat.
But what Isaac pulled out was but a mere PTFE Tape. A simple roll of piping tape, which he used to wrap his wrist.
Okay… I got my game plan already.
I'm not stupid because I'm smarter.
Doesn't make sense… Hah, never mind.
I won't be generic and assume my intellectual superiority will carry me without a plan.
Therefore, I can expect that I'll be getting into close-range combat. I'm not a jiu-jiteiro, wrestler, nor a Judoka, but some protection when I inevitably try to punch rock and earth would be wonderful.
So… PTFE Tape acts as my in-world alternative to Finger Tape and Handwraps until I get more money.
That said… I'm gonna fuck this guy up.
Trust in my past.
Isaac tests out the tightness of his makeshift tape and folds his sleeves up, even if there was nothing to show, before walking forward.
"I'm ready, guys."
"Zadial. Ready?"
"Yup."
"Then… Begin!"
The invigilator brought down his hand with a clap.
Isaac's brain ran in advance.
First, assume an open-palmed boxing stance.
Isaac slid into Philly Shell, with an open palm in each hand, thumbs and pinky fingers curved outwards.
Then, anchor my Zone.
A thin circle begins to shimmer beneath him, the raw coherence between his Thamutonic Field and the colors that broke the current quantum theorem. Classical physics faltering at the edge. Within it, probabilities refuse to collapse, hovering in superposition. Every step Isaac takes, every Clause-Construct he prepares, it all branches from this 'Zone'.
"Wow…" Zadial couldn't help but mutter.
Across from him, Zadial goes serious; the look in his eyes was horrid recognition.
The realization of Isaac QCD charge.
What was labelled by the rest of his cohort and all that heard the news:
The First Anomaly.
No longer of his generation.
But the First Anomaly.
New Title Acquired: "Anomaly of Worldly Autonomy" |
Thank you and shaddap, bloody useless System.
Eh… 3 meters outward, quite unstable and flickering at the edges.
But it should be enough considering I'm not using any thesis.
But beyond that. An indescribable sense of nostalgic recognition flashed through Zadial's mind.
He couldn't help but blurt out one phrase that left Isaac stunned.
"Isaac… Have we trained/sparred together?"
Huh?
"Your stance is similar to a friend of mine I couldn't find long ago"
…
"I don't recall meeting you before today."
"Ah… I see."
With that, all semblance of familiarity left Zadial's expression. He instantly Out-Threaded a Mold 1 Zone that reached across the dueling arena, spanning 29 meters. But beyond that, like liquid rising in reverse of water, aberrations began rising from the Zone.
Even within the Apprentice-Class… He's more talented than me.
Focus…
Through Topological Anchor's worldview, three figures flicker into stable form ahead of Zadial. A lupine silhouette snarls low, the outline sharp and fluid like wind or water. Beside it was the shape of a deer, elegantly poised.
But the third…
It's different. Much bulkier than the other two.
A reptilian behemoth—Komodo-shaped, yet armoured with plated ridges trailing down its back. Its outline overflows with so much data cycling per second that Isaac's head begins to spin.
Never as much as the light of the universe in 1s and 0s, but still extremely impressive for a 'living' organism.
I can't decipher the nature of their affinities ye—
"I'm sorry for halting the beginning for one more time, but, Isaac, are you not gonna put anything up?"
"I mean… My guard is enough."
"Hoh… Suite yourself…"
What?
Argh nevermind… If bandwidth is a measure of spiritual processing power, then the spiked reptile is the apex.
That one is his main artillery.
"Wind Slash."
A casual, teasing flick to probe.
Haha… It's still quite the Magical experience to me after all…
Remaining MP: 280 / 300 |
Da wolf.
Let's see its role and the master's reaction.
It moved, reconstructing its physiology in such a way that Isaac's Wind Slash unraveled before contact, no strand of air ever touching its fur. The Clause-Constructs' path warped as the creature's form distorted local airflow, altering drag gradients at the point of approach.
It disintegrated midair.
Isaac involuntarily thought about Navier-Stokes interference, to his dismay.
Dynamic pressure gradients shifted across the wolf's skin, disrupting the vortex structure through transient boundary-layer collapse. Pre-contact nullification was what Zadial commanded using the hydrodynamic skin refractor; fluidic flow control balanced on the threshold between laminar and turbulent states to allow such a maneuver.
Water-element?
Quite fast, on instinct, blocked my attack.
Logic: Absorption, acting as Zadial's shield.
Zadial hadn't flinched nor issued a command. He was standing behind his miniature army, with a shocked expression on his face.
"Incantationless In-Threading? Wow… Isaac, your cognitive processing, visualization, Thaumiton Density, and nucleation must be incredibly high… One of the highest amongst those I've dueled."
Tsk…
It was a compliment Isaac took offensively.
Attribute: 'I Hate Therefore I Think, I Think Therefore I.M' Activated |
They began to circle with Zadial just staring at the boy.
His Deer-Concordee moved next; its hooves brushed the ground without sound, yet the substrate's Thaumiton Zone thickened quantifiably. The surrounding vegetation responded like a field in bloom where grasses straightened, flowers opened, and the roots of nearby trees surged with vigor.
Again, science rushed through his head. Thoughts he so desperately wished to cease.
It was likely that the deer was manipulating plant cells through accelerated photosynthetic saturation, causing a biomass stimulation induced by a low-frequency Thaumitonic-harmonic resonance field, presumably using the Concordant's Zone for the above. Botanical quantum entanglement was not impossible after all. A Spirit that gained consciousness of nature could figure that out.
Nature-Spirit.
Using the surrounding flora to pebble and distract me from the other three. If the rules of first-strike really do hold true, then I need to dodge every single leaf, vine, or stick that comes my way.
Hah…
Logic: Sword, or… Multiple razor blades, one could say.
"Swirl."
Isaac's left hand rotates once.
Remaining MP: 260 / 300 |
He folds angular momentum vectors, imposing asymmetric QCD perturbations that force the air molecules into aligned spin, laterally spinning along the spirals he overlaid. A pressure-inversion vortex snaps outward where atmospheric density drops locally, and Wind stabilises into a toroidal pulse.
That would be in a cynical world.
The deer sidesteps the pulse as the reptilian Spirit intercepts it instead, a full-body block, suffering no recoil or disruption. The Nature Spirit fires grass arcs from its antlers, sharpened by accelerated cellulose crystallization.
Isaac ducks. Eyes still locked on it. Perhaps all the years of boxing gave him this innate sense. Or perhaps those years were being accelerated to a point of his pinnacle.
All to defy this one boy across from him.
Stamina: 98% |
Nice… My training has paid off. Stamina decreases at what would be considered an average pace.
Now the third. That lizard-like creature with an unnaturally spiked tail.
It still had not moved.
Till now.
The air around it... is curving?
No, not even the air…
To Isaac, his worldview was spatially curving.
The lines of binary in Isaac's world bend from the index-of-refraction drift. Light redshifts subtly at its perimeter, yet no thermal gradient could be deciphered. The reason being, all the 1s and 0s that made up the lizard were superheating white.
Isaac was continuously dodging the wolf's approach, punching it whenever he could. At the same time, he followed by sidestepping botanical shrapnel and slipping through constricting vines.
All of this wouldn't have been possible if not for the emotions that filled him.
Yet he wasn't even at the maximum of his anger yet.
Zadial was still letting his Spirits act autonomously, his chin in his palm as he examined Isaac.
Now.
"Burst!"
Remaining MP: 220 / 300 |
Isaac compresses the 'air' beneath him, the shockwave displacing him forward with an impulse vector straight and narrow, directly towards the salamander Concordee.
Without the support of Veil, my joints barely hold the acceleration, but it's perfect for now.
It may seem to him like I'm running from the previous two spirits like a bitch, but… no.
Isaac was getting ever closer to the final concorde. And for the last time subconsciously, Isaac's physicist brain racked itself to the max.
Infrared photon-coupling, stimulated emission from within a high-density quantum she—
Ambient electromagnetic fields distort as photonic activity spikes.
The salamander opened its mouth.
A beam of code shot outwards.
The color shifts beyond red.
Short-wavelength IR, near-ultraviolet under compression.
In simplest terms:
Pure plasmatic flames.
"Gust!!!"
Remaining MP: 200 / 300 |
Stamina: 91% |
Isaac ejects sideways. His hand was forced into using cross-vector wind propulsion just to narrowly escape the beam, fairly late but luckily, barely enough.
The laser passes him and into the backdrop, permanently leaving a hole in the trees where branches and leaves used to be, to the dismay of the Nature-Class Concorde.
Just like how Darius did.
That fucking Spirit is at bare minimum an Apprentice-Class like me.
Its binary pulses irregularly. Likely encoded data… Nonlinear binary via spin-orbit coupling??? Whatever this thing is—it stores information much better than anyone I've seen casting befor—
In sum: Hyper Sentient Thaumitons given form.
Argh fuck!
Shit… Okay, I need to think… Focus!
Portions of Isaac's Zone folded inward, quantum computation crashing under decoherence where instability ripple detected at the outer boundary. Isaac re-anchored his Thaumitons down to the world, with the smirk he always wears finally coming out.
It's fucking burning through particles.
Hah… That's like… 500 degrees Celsius at bare minimum…
Logic: Artillery
With all three Spirits' roles confirmed… This motherfucker is treating this as some turn-based battle.
Isaac finally lands low. Roll. And resets his stance before instantly getting targeted by vines, continuing to dodge Zadial's assault.
Stamina: 89% |
He, on the other hand, finally speaks.
Calmly and analytically.
"No matter your Noësical prowess… I think this combination is fairly effective, wouldn't you say? You're trying to isolate them individually, right?"
Isaac nods once.
"And you're defending them like a mirrored network?"
Isaac shakes his head.
"Haha…" Zadial caught the lie. "Expected from you; you've managed to deduce my formation of attack with just 4 spells."
"Thank you. You're quite the spectacle as well."
Luckily— I've already derived the solution.
Okay… This adrenaline rush.
His worldview slows down even more, unnecessary thoughts parting. His pupils dilate, allowing more light to enter his retinas. His reaction time extends, and that completes his equation.
Topological Anchor V2 x Adrenaline.
I can form it now… I can form my Mana Build.
Ego aside, this is what I came here for… Remember how it was.
Will it into existence!
Isaac's Thaumitonic Zone is immediately assimilated back into his body. The sensations flood again as he loses all sense, consciousness being blasted off into hypothetical space. Yet this time:
Retain bodily autonomy… Huh? … Maybe that was what that title was hinting at…
Zadial, clearly sensing something was wrong, ordered his Concordees to fiercely pursue Isaac. The Water Wolf was drawing atmospheric vapor to form jaws near Isaac's ankles, while the Nature Deer was hyper-accelerating the growth of weeds to tangle his steps.
But even with the heightened aggression, Isaac's body dodged all that came his way. Possibly due to his former training and now subconscious enhancement. The most minuscule vibrations in the space surrounding him were being perceived and reacted to at consistent single-millisecond speeds, both in mind and muscle.
Just like in the | Theater of Loci |, Isaac was watching his body from a third person's perspective. This time, however, he would seize action and swim through the hypothetical space back into his own body.
It is a partial mimicry of the ζ-type, and I'm not sure how long it could even last…
But still, with this Mana Build… Counter in:
3…
2…
1—