Magic sense.
It's a suave sounding name for a relatively rudimentary spell. Fundamentally, I'm just visualizing my magic as threads spread out in a two-dimensional grid, and imbuing those threads with the property of reacting with foreign magic, or other things. Based on the sensations of my magic being 'pulled', and lots of practice, I can tell what is located where.
To maximize range, the threads are typically spaced with about a single square meter resolution. While this sparse, two-dimensional grid is normally sufficient to locate people or things scattered across large distances, as long as I have time to sweep it thoroughly over a search field, it falls short in other applications. Namely, quickly finding something small in size, or probing the bounds of a person's magic signature to a very high resolution aren't possible.
For example, when I teleport people to me from great distances, I have to use the initial point of detection on my 2D grid as a starting point to create a small, local 3D grid with slightly higher resolution. Only that way can I safely sense the boundaries of their body in space and teleport them to me unscathed.
Today, I'm looking to see if I can push that concept even further. I want to create a small, 3D grid of thinner magic threads in my surrounding area – a 'magic domain', of sorts – with ulta-high resolution that I can actually use to detect and interfere with the flow of magic during someone else's spell casting. It's ambitious, sure, but if I'm successful and practice enough, not only will I be able to sense and identify even Alto's incantation-less spells before they activate, but I could even disrupt those spells mid-cast.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself...baby steps.
I move to sit cross-legged on the ground, and close my eyes to focus. I allow my magic to spill out, and visualize it organizing into layers of gridlines around me, spaced only millimeters apart. While my sparse magic sense can extend for thousands of kilometers, I find that the increased resolution of the magic domain limits me to a max radius of only about twenty meters.
After I finish laying the foundation for the magic domain, I activate it, probing for magic in the surrounding area, making sure to use a higher sensitivity to magic than normal. Almost instantly, I'm nearly overwhelmed by the influx of information, and I let out a short gasp that causes Alto's gaze to snap towards me. But, I ignore her, and redouble my efforts in parsing through the information.
I focus on trying to interpret the influx of information wholistically, much like how you appreciate a photograph without being instantaneously aware of every pixel. After a few minutes, and a severe headache, my efforts begin to bear fruit. It's hard to describe the sensation but, deprived of my sight, I eventually form a mental image of the world around me via the magic domain. It's like taking a slightly pixelated, greyscale panorama, but through a sixth sense that maps the distribution of magic instead of light.
I can 'see' the slight density fluctuations in atmospheric magic around me, like wisps of fog in the early morning, and the blades of grass in the surrounding area with their modest accumulation of magic. Amidst all this is a beacon of magic so relatively intense it might as well be the sun...Alto. As I watch her in a whole new light, I'm struck by the distribution of magic in and around her.
For the first time, I can see that magic in a person is not distributed evenly. Instead, it seems to be concentrated in the core of their being, just above the navel area. Fantasy novel lover that I am, I can almost equate it to a mana core, just much less defined. From this 'brighter' region towards her core, I can see a thick fog of magic spilling out in all directions and permeating the bounds of Alto's body, creating a beautiful gradient of magic through her extremities.
As I'm indulging my scientific curiosity, there's a sudden efflux of magic from her core. I watch as a stream of it snakes through her outstretched hand and forms a thin disc outside her body, projecting an image into my mind that's reminiscent of her flying a kite.
My eyes snap open, and I'm greeted by the sight of Alto focusing on a white barrier that she's conjured. Slowly, a shameless grin spreads across my face, and I can't help but whisper excitedly.
"It really worked..." (Mizuki)
As I'm soaking in the exhilaration of that fact, and replaying the image of Alto's spell casting in my mind, I'm stuck by an idea – an opportunity to test something about the nature of spell casting that I've wondered about for quite some time.
I close my eyes once again and activate my magic domain, parsing through my new sensory input until I can once again 'see' Alto's spell casting in real time. Then, I focus on the tendril of Alto's magic connecting her outstretched hand to the conjured barrier, and I will that region of my domain's magic grid to start repelling its magic.
Almost immediately, the tendril appears to 'explode' into a mist, and not a second later, the bright barrier it was attached to begins to diffuse into the atmospheric magic. The observation hits me like a tidal wave.
For quite some time, the mechanics that connect consciousness and manipulation of the enigmatic particle known as magic have been a mystery to me. At the same time, it's been clear since early on that there's something profound about consciousness with respect to magic – something special that marks consciousness as the bridge between the physical and the ethereal.
And that's the only way I can describe magic at this point...ethereal.
After all, I can safely conclude that the magic particle doesn't have rest mass. One could argue that it's like photons – something that doesn't have rest mass, but still gets influenced by gravitational fields, has momentum, and can impart force on physical objects. But, I don't think that's true either, at least not for magic's natural state. If it was, the fact that I have so much magic confined to my physical body should inflate my body's rest mass, depending on the amount of total energy that my magic represents. Thus, the magic particle seems ethereal to me – ever present, but having no inherent interactions with the physical world that you'd expect of other quantized forms of energy defined in the Standard Model.
So, how and why does something like that, so decidedly ethereal, respond to the will of living beings? Our thoughts, though not fully understood by Earth's science, do seem to have a physical basis. Why are those chemical processes the exception to interacting with magic particles? By all accounts, consciousness shouldn't be special. And yet, its privileges with respect to magic are clear. Not just in how people can use magic, but even in how magic accumulates. As Alto pointed out earlier, there seems to be a correlation between the density of magic accumulated in living beings and the neurological complexity of those beings.
So, again...what are the mechanisms that explain this?
My little spell disruption experiment on Alto just now hasn't answered this by any means, but...it has given me another piece of the puzzle. Not only was there a continuous connection of magic between Alto and her light barrier spell, but disrupting that connection immediately disrupted the downstream spell. It wasn't just a loss of magic power supply to the spell, it was like her control over her external magic itself was completely abolished.
That's the interesting implication – that a spell control requires a direct link to the caster through magic. It suggests that magic is serving as a conduit for the spell caster's consciousness. However, such an idea also raises several counter questions in my mind.
If my inferences are true, then how have I been able to leave spells active while I'm away from them, like defensive barriers while I sleep? Is there some exception to this inferred rule of magic-linked communication with spells, or was I always subconsciously maintaining some level of magic linkage with my spells, even when separated by large distances? In retrospect, I have enough magic that I wouldn't even notice the drain of a single magic tether spanning the world. Plus, most of my spells with external manifestations don't involve visualizing a magic link. For example, fireballs, forcefields and other barriers, or gravity manipulation within my line of sight.
Yet Alto, who I taught how to cast such incantation-less spells, and who likely visualizes them similarly, just exhibited a magic tether during her spell casting. The more I consider what I know, the more likely it seems that my inferences are correct. Magic can likely act as a conduit for consciousness, and such a direct link is necessary for one's will to manipulate magic particles.
My mind begins to swirl with what that could mean for my future study of magic, both in terms of limitations and unexpected applications.
"Mizuki..." (Alto)
My thoughts are swiftly interrupted by a soft whisper from Alto. I open my eyes and direct a curious glance at her, but I'm shocked by what I see. She's crouched on the ground a short distance away from me. Her face is pale, her breath coming in soft, quick gasps, and her forehead is covered in so much sweat that her blonde hair is matted to it. But the most striking thing is her blue eyes, staring back at me in clear, unadulterated terror.
My eyes widen, and my heart immediately races with a sense of alarm.
"Alto, what's wrong!? What happened!?" (Mizuki)
Her bottom lip quivers.
"My spell, Mizuki...my magic...did you do something?" (Alto)
I feel the cold hand of guilt grip my heart.
"Alto, I'm so sorry, I was just testing out a way to disrupt spells! Are you hurt? What happened? I swear, I didn't even mess with the magic inside your body, just your spell!" (Mizuki)
Alto's eyes widen in surprise at the admission, but after a moment, she takes a trembling breath and nods her head.
"I see...that explains it. Don't worry, I think I'm fine physically, though I'd appreciate a warning before I'm used for an experiment in the future. It's just, the sensation of whatever you did...it was terrifying. I guess I've never really thought much about it before, but whenever I'm casting a spell there's this faint awareness of my magic, like how you know where your hand is even when you can't see it. But, it goes beyond just imagining where it is and what it's doing. It's like I can feel an extension of myself acting within the spell. Whatever you did, though, it felt like...like whatever that is I've been feeling suddenly died. It's hard to explain...the sense of loss was so foreign and jarring. Still, I think I'm okay now – just a bit of a headache and a little disoriented." (Alto)
Despite my lingering guilt, I involuntarily let out a small sigh of relief.
I still feel terrible for putting her through whatever this was, emotionally, but for a moment I was scared that I'd damaged her ability to use magic somehow. I don't know how I would have lived with that, so I guess just scaring her doesn't seem so bad in comparison.
At the same time, I can't help but wonder about the implications of her description of the experience. An awareness of her magic while casting a spell...now that I think about it, I guess I can vaguely relate to that. After all, my magic sense relies on an exaggerated, more intentional version of 'feeling' what my magic is doing...the capacity for such a sensation exists.
Her experience leaves me with an even firmer belief that one's will or part of their consciousness can be carried through magic. Of course, the Greater Spirits, as far as I've deduced, have their entire consciousness supported by magic instead of neurons, but I thought they were a special case. Now though, it seems that, at least on some level, they don't have a monopoly on that application of magic. And if people are capable of using magic as a conduit for their will, part of me can't help but wonder...can we also use it like the spirits do, to expand our own cognitive abilities to some degree? Actually, is the fact that I'm even able to interpret the overwhelming sensory information from my magic sense and domain spells an indicator that magic is having a hidden influence on my cognition?
"What did you do to me, exactly?" (Alto)
My eyes snap to Alto as my train of thought is derailed. I blink, dazed, and slowly remember the context of our conversation. After I heard that she was physically fine, I just spaced out.
"Oh, right...sorry. Sure thing..." (Mizuki)
Putting aside my own thoughts, I proceed to explain to her what I did, why I did it, and what I think everything I've seen implies.