Chapter 1081: Reinventing The Formula
’Any luck?’ Alyss yawned as Allura had tasked Alice to resonate with the land around her.
’Nothing. I’m starting to wonder if this’ll ever work...’ Alice sighed. Her eyes were closed while she sat with her legs crossed.
Her fingers pressed against the ground, blood tendrils connecting her to the earth.
She was even using Tiamat’s wings to passively absorb the energy around her in order to dive deeper.
There was also the case of using Kazira’s Sigil, but all she found was the history of the gardening done on this spot.
She’d been sitting here for several hours, yet she didn’t feel even remotely close to finding the answer.
"Don’t force yourself if you’re finding it hard. Oblivion is one of those things where the harder you try, the more it escapes your grasp. I simply wanted to see if you could pull out another exception to the rule." Allura smiled after noticing Alice’s concentration wavering.
Rather than properly harmonising herself with the surroundings, it was more accurate to say she was turning herself into a battery or generator instead.
Sitting in one spot and passively absorbing energy.
If she sat any longer, Allura wouldn’t be surprised if flowers started to grow on Alice’s body.
Helping her up, Alice gave her body a stretch before letting out a yawn.
"There were a few issues I saw when you were fighting. Not issues in the choices, but rather the way you were fighting. Can you tell me what they were?" Allura asked.
When it came to teaching Alice, or anyone else for that matter, she preferred to take a... somewhat hands-off approach.
She wanted them to figure out their own mistakes before she stepped in.
That way, not only would it develop their adaptation skills, but it would also reinforce their creative thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
Therefore, she waited for Alice to answer.
Alice closed her eyes.
She had memorised the entire fight, how it went down, and what was involved.
Reviewing it from start to finish, there was a major issue that started to show once her abilities started to fail.
When her Void Axis didn’t reach Nyer, when the Void powers couldn’t be used.
"Are my skills and abilities skewed too much?" Alice replied uncertainly as Allura shook her head.
"Not quite. It’s not that your skills and abilities are skewed, but rather you spent so much time developing ways for them to synergise with a single aspect of your power. You hadn’t considered the other possibilities or potential.
"You never asked yourself the question of what if you lost access to the Void? Sure, you might’ve asked that regarding your modified blood and violet flames, but you never considered the Void, did you?"
Alice froze.
Indeed, she hadn’t expected Nyer to be able to control the Void so easily. So many of her best attacks had aspects of the Void mixed into them.
So when it came time to work without it, Alice realised the new combinations were crude and basic in comparison to her refined skills.
By that point, what was the difference between her abilities and basic energy control?
Alice couldn’t answer.
She had access to countless tools at her disposal.
But with that, she realised that she had never fully explored any of them to their utmost limit.
Realising this, Alice quickly made a mental list of her key abilities that could introduce change.
The ones she would use as a catalyst or foundation for certain skills.
"Think out loud. I want to know your thought process." Allura reminded right before Alice lost herself in her own thoughts.
Nodding her head, Alice started to speak.
"First and foremost, we have my own blood and the connection I share with Alyss. This violet flame, I suppose, acts as a catalyst. Actually... let me better categorise this stuff." Alice mumbled, grabbing some spare paper and laying it out across the tea table in the garden.
With that, she split the paper into four sections and started to name them.
"Foundation. These abilities govern a fundamental force, element, or nature/concept of a skill. So I suppose things like blood, Void, space, and so on.
"Then there are Catalyst abilities like Duality, violet flames, and even Tiamat’s wings. They alter, combine, and bring change to certain abilities if mixed together. They are the transforming force that reshapes basic abilities to give them more branching options.
"Third on the list is Authority. These govern rules or an area of control. Abilities such as my Resonance that overrides certain aspects. I’ve faced Kazira, who imposed certain rules that I couldn’t break out of during our collision.
"Rules such as no retreating." Alice spoke aloud while Allura listened carefully.
Without realising it, she began seeing a shadow of Kaden in Alice, and a soft chuckle escaped her lips.
"Lastly, there is Manifestation. These are abilities that bring forth anything into the world. And honestly, I’ll even count changing existing things as that. So creation, summoning, mutation, and so on. In that regard, my ability to summon forth blood and metal would fall into the Manifestation category."
"But these are rudimentary categories for now. A preliminary thought based on the key use of each ability that I have access to." Alice took a step back.
She snapped her fingers, writing certain words using blood.
In Catalyst were abilities such as Duality, Tiamat, Violet Flames, Abyssal Relics, Authority of Life, and Revenant Recollection.
In Foundation, she noted down Fire, Metal, Blood, Soul, Void, and so on. The basic elements/phenomena the abilities took shape after.
Authority... Alice struggled but noted down Abyssal, Resonance, and even the Aspect of Life that she had "borrowed" from Karya.
Then, in Manifestation, she noted down abilities such as her blood coils.
But then there were also unique abilities that she struggled with placing.
Abilities such as the Primordial Flame and Eldritch energy.
These held aspects of all four, as they could serve as Foundation, Catalyst, Authority, and even Manifestation to some degree.
"In the first place, this wasn’t an accurate list. Just one to help me sort out my thoughts, I suppose." Alice shrugged.
There were more important things for her to use her brainpower on, so for this, she simply brushed it aside for now.
After all, next was how an ability was actually created.
"When it comes to the creation of an ability, I suppose one must think of it as a rule of three. Questions on its purpose. What must be done for it to achieve the desired effect.
"First, what is the source of the power? In what way do you want it to appear, or even what aspect do you want it to take on? If the enemy is primarily made up of water, I wouldn’t want to use water as a source of power.
"Then there’s the question of how it behaves. How would it bridge the gap between idea and reality? Would it invert? Mutate? Command? Create?
"And lastly, how does the ability express itself, or rather, how do I want it to be expressed? What unique technique does it perform?" Alice exhaled.
She had the categories, she had the formula.
Now it was time to think about how to create.
"Parts of the categories don’t necessarily have to be limited to abilities either. I suppose weapons or artifacts can be counted as well.
"The key is still to adhere to a merge of categories using the catalyst in order to invoke ’mutations’ within the function."
Alice flicked her finger and two artifacts appeared.
First was the now-injured Void Fang with cracks across its body. Just seeing this gave Alice heartache as she then glanced at Ruinous Void.
"Both of these can be considered a type of catalyst. Though in Void Fang’s case, it’s more of a mix between Foundation and Catalyst, whereas Ruinous Void is Authority and Catalyst..."
Alice paused immediately.
The gears in her mind started to turn as her eyes snapped towards the categories that she had created.
"No ability existed in isolation. Every ability was simply an interaction between these categories. Some leaned heavily into one, while others balanced several..." she mumbled.
Allura smiled.
Asking Alice to think aloud wasn’t just for her own benefit.
There are times where a thought in the mind, when spoken aloud for yourself to hear, suddenly gives you an inspiration you would’ve never gotten while it was inside your head.
It could be a moment where you go, "Oh wait, that’s a stupid idea. I shouldn’t do that." Or...
In Alice’s case...
"Who said I can’t make new catalysts by merging one with other categories?" A grin slowly appeared on her face.
The idea she just had was to fundamentally alter all aspects of the catalyst by merging it with an Authority or Foundation.
Take Ruinous Void.
Just the fact that it was a catalyst with a hint of Authority meant that it could not only fuse with abilities but also impose rules that wouldn’t have been applied before.
She had previously explored this line of thinking using physical Resonance, but that was using herself as a container.
"No, this thinking is too constricting. I need to break the framework and work with something more... adaptive." Alice snapped her fingers, erasing her notes for the moment.
She needed a clean sheet. A fresh perspective. Ideas she wouldn’t usually have.
And...
She just had an absurd thought.
It wasn’t... a product or an offensive ability, but rather one that would help her get herself into the ’mindset’ of creating one.
"Revenant Recollection, Soul Knowledge I learned from Griselda, Mirror Jester... Maybe even something to temporarily create an empty ’vessel’ for me to fill with information. A clone? A copy?" Alice started to ramble, but with the few key words she threw out, Allura froze.
Based on what she was thinking...
"Mom... Do you think I can replicate you, or anyone else for that matter, and have your thought process observe my skills?" Alice asked as her eyes shimmered with inspiration.
Key insights based on years of their experience could be instantly condensed into a single moment where Alice ’overlaid’ herself with their ’history’.
This was going beyond just disguising herself or copying.
What Alice was attempting was overriding herself temporarily.
To go a step beyond a simple doppelganger.
What she wanted to do, was to rework her entire thought process using the collective experience of others.
To discover the fundamental truth through overlapping countless lives together as one. Then with that, discover the patterns that are present between all of them.
Thus approaching unchanging framework that occurs no matter what.
The true formula that takes shape in nature without exception.
That will be the foundation of her new abilities.
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