Chapter 118 Magus Experimentation (1)

While the baby ate off of his palms, Lucius studied it with his solar vision. It seemed that the information he was receiving was not hindered at all by the fact that it was small, which was quite interesting as he expected the radiation it emitted to be insignificant.

After watching the baby eat for a few more moments, he began moving his crux around the room. Seeing the glowing orb flying towards them, the other babies scurried around in fear. Their sibling stopped eating for a moment to stare at them, letting out a little shriek, as if laughing at their anxiety.

~Hmm, at this rate they'll never come over,~ he thought to himself, before tossing a few pieces of meat toward them. They looked at the meat for a moment, then at him, then at the meat again, before scrambling for the pieces and retreating to their individual corners.

~I've been wondering about the relation between the solar and radiant index,~ Lucius thought to himself as he watched the babies literally choke on the meat as they ate.

~They both use the crux, so there should be an equivalent cowl, in the solar index, right?~ he thought, trying to cover himself in solar energy. However, that was all it did.

This wasn't the first time he had attempted this. The effect increased the power of his spells ever so slightly but caused his mind to overheat at an even faster rate, so it wasn't worth it if a battle were to go on for a long period of time.

He had also tried forcing solar energy into his body but found that it would not penetrate his skin. It could only cover him, but for it to go into his body was an impossible task.

~Though there was something interesting that I discovered back when I had the radiant index. How changing the intensity of the energy also changed its effect,~ he thought to himself, remembering how he had created the healing technique.

With this, he eased up on the crux, relaxing it so much that he could hardly feel it anymore. It felt odd, unsafe almost, but there was a change.

The crux expanded, from the size of a coin to that of a tennis ball. Large amounts of mist-like solar energy coalesced around it, and it was almost see-through at this point. If he eased up any more than this, it felt like it would disperse into the air.

~Spacial cleanse,~ he chanted, healing all the babies around him. From doing this he found two differences with this type of crux.

The first was its range, which was now almost two times larger than in its normal state. And the second was that its spells were absolutely weak. From the feedback he was getting from spacial cleanse, he could tell that very little of the babies' injuries had been healed.

Though in exchange, almost none of his solar energy had been used, which perhaps could be seen as a fair exchange, though he couldn't imagine this being useful past scouting for information.

~Solar trace,~ he chanted, this time pushing the pulses out as far as they could go.

The solar trace was nearly two times faster than in its normal state, and the pulses reached a radius of 6 meters, now 3 times their normal value.

~Hmm, so if I try my best its six meters, huh?~ he thought to himself after having run solar trace for a few cycles.

At this point, all the babies stopped eating to look at him for a second, before going back to their meals.

~I can see this being useful for when I need to harm a large number of enemies, but not completely kill them,~ he thought to himself, imagining a 6-meter radius bursting trace.

? Next, he increased the intensity of the crux, pushing past the hold he normally had. Though he found that he could not compress it past the point it was naturally in, which figured since he had tried increasing the intensity of spells through this method before but found nothing.

Just as he was about to ease up on it once again to further experiment with it in its eased mode, a thought crossed his mind.

He increased the intensity of the crux, but did so only in small regions. He was trying to create streams from his crux, similar to the vessels that the radiant index formed, but this time in the air.

After a great amount of strain, the first small vessel was formed. Though the second he eased up on the intensity it retreated back into the crux.

He had no idea what he wanted to do with this, but such was the method of experimentation, he only knew that he was onto something.

Several minutes passed, and his efforts bore no fruit.

~This is tiring,~ he thought to himself, though it seemed he was not the only one who was tired. The baby arachnid was sleeping soundly on his hands, and even the others slept in the corners where they had eaten. That meant that they at least trusted him enough to do so, though he doubted they were all fully asleep.

~Hmm, the vessels from the radiant index had a medium for creation, they were imposed on top of my own vessels. Perhaps that's what I am missing? A sort of medium?~ he thought to himself.

After some thought, he came to only a single possible medium, solar energy itself. Perhaps it was hard for him to do whatever it was he was trying to do because he was essentially trying to force small streams of solar energy into the air.

So he cast solar field, creating a forcefield around himself. After the field had stabilized, he eased on the crux turning it into its coalescing form, and in turn, the force field began shimmering a lighter hue of yellow.

~I hope I'm right about this,~ he thought to himself, before sending out very slow pulses of solar energy. His plan was to have the mist-like solar energy that coalesced around the crux fill up the inside of the solar field. Since magic couldn't get in, it only figured that it could get out as well.

[Processing...]

[New spell acquired... 『Solar Pit』.]

[Adding 『Solar Pit』 to 『Solar Sorcery Index』...]

[Complete. 『Solar Pit』 has been added.]