The Mage's Instinct
Split in half and die... Huh?
"Wish you luck."
With those words, Ariel's voice went silent.
She must've been worried about some interference messing with the communicator as she entered the hotel.
Too bad.
Just thinking about the communicator's flaws brought that to mind inevitably.
Conversing with someone far away. That alone proved its worth.
Military use or everyday life—being able to talk over distances held immense value.
Yet every nation had outright banned its military applications due to those very flaws.
The communicator's principle was dead simple. Just like radio waves from my past life, it shot out mana to connect calls.
The issue? Any mage could interfere with that mana midway.
Not just eavesdropping—skilled ones could turn the device into a remote bomb, launching spells right through it.
One country had even ended a war in three minutes flat by chaining a wide-area spell through a communicator like that.
"Breck."
> [What?]
"The plan's been fucked from the jump. How about we switch to everyone acting on their own judgment?"
> [...]
Breck's voice cut out for a moment at my words.
The plan's core premise was hitting all suspected mage workshops simultaneously.
But that premise had crumbled ages ago.
Breck, who knew it better than anyone, let out a sigh laced with lament.
> [Haa. Fine, everyone acts on their own judgment.]
"Good... [White Shadow], you lot do the same."
> [Understood.]
With that from [White Shadow], I killed the communicator, stepped out of the alley, and headed for my target: the lounge bar.
"Creepy as hell..."
I couldn't help muttering as I eyed the lounge bar in front of me.
Rundown exterior. The door handle hadn't seen a human touch in years—thick dust caked it.
With a bustling shop right across the street, it only amplified the eerie vibe.
"Like I'd touch that dust."
Ssshh.
No hobby of grabbing filth-covered handles, so I used smoke to slowly ease the door open.
Creeeak.
The grating screech of an ancient door, followed by a wave of stale, musty dust assaulting my nose.
"..."
I didn't step right in. Instead, I stood at the threshold and drew deep on the cigar clamped in my mouth.
The cigar shrank fast.
Once it burned down to about a knuckle's length, I stubbed it into my pocket ashtray and exhaled a long plume of smoke from my lungs.
The smoke from my mouth spread, claiming the floor, walls, and finally the ceiling completely.
...Bingo.
"What, this place was the jackpot?"
What is a mage?
People might spit out all sorts of answers.
A pursuer of mana's truth—probably the most common one.
No, no, that's not it. A mage isn't that at all.
"A mage is!"
In a gloomy room cluttered with all manner of experimental tools.
At its center, a middle-aged man, gripped by madness, bellowed at the specimen before him.
"What is a mage!!"
Just pursuing mana or worldly truths?
If that was it, the mage towers and academies wouldn't have spawned so many disciplines when training mages.
Magitech, elemental studies, alchemy, astrology, formula theory, magi-engineering, and on and on.
Really just chasing truth?
"No way in hell!!!"
No. Mages aren't about that crap!
Treat magic rationally?
Tune mana with cold reason, build spell formulas?
He'd lived by that thinking too.
But not anymore.
So what is a mage?
Telekinesis sent surgical tools floating around the man.
A mage is... the human truth is right there.
"Instinct!"
People driven by curiosity. That's the root, the truth mages seek.
That's what makes a mage—an awakened being with that power.
That was Heros's truth about mages.
And so, as Heros moved to dissect this specimen—awakened via the drug Miraz he'd created, following his instincts—
Pffft.
"Gack!"
Sudden foreign pressure at his solar plexus.
This...?
Heros bowed his head in agony, confirming what had pierced his body.
...Smoke?
Yeah, smoke.
Smoke shaped like an awl had speared straight through his solar plexus.
"Gack!"
The moment he registered it, blood surged up his throat. He vomited it out as his body began rising into the air.
"Hrrk!"
Fully airborne now, the blood pouring from his solar plexus and mouth ramped up sharply.
Clear life-or-death crisis.
Woooong.
Dozens of support spells embedded in his workshop activated.
Their magic circles hummed violently, staving off Heros's fading life.
Drip. Drip.
Heros hung there dazed, staring blankly at his own blood splattering the floor.
How much time passed?
Step. Step.
Footsteps approached his fading ears.
"Figures. Mages in their workshops are always so damn resilient."
"Huu..."
A young man with grayish hair, cigar in one hand.
He glanced at Heros, then calmly clamped the cigar in his mouth and exhaled a long trail of smoke.
The smoke began blanketing the workshop thickly.
Smoke that should've dissipated, yet it bizarrely lingered, expanding like it was consuming the space.
"Whoa. What kinda magic circles you got laid out here?"
"..."
"Life-sustain spells: twelve. Support arrays: five. Enemy detection: eighteen? Jeez."
How?
This was a mage's workshop.
Of course it'd be laced with spells—that was basic. But pinpointing the exact numbers and types? Totally different story.
Ability user.
This smoke. Had to be the guy's power. But how?
Curiosity burned. Unbearable.
Bleeding out a bucketful, on the brink of exsanguination? Didn't matter.
Heros ignored his worthless life and kept theorizing.
"Ah... aaah..."
Dozens of hypotheses spawned, shattered, and reformed in his mind.
Mad curiosity rolling his eyes to scan surroundings despite the hole in his gut.
Smoke... why spread it?
Gather info with smoke? Recon? Dominate... pierced me with smoke...
"That's it... gack... kuhehe."
"Huh?"
"Your power. Your... ability... it reads the truth of whatever the smoke touches...?"
Heros stared at the awl of smoke that had gutted him.
"Incredible... ability..."
Powerful enough to wreck the workshop's defenses, yet perfect for recon too. Flawless.
"Aaah, so curious..."
In his blurring vision, he desperately glared at the face of the man trying to kill him.
Gray hair murky as cigar smoke.
Memorizing every feature—to recognize in reincarnation, etched into his retinas, his soul.
Shrrrip!
"What the hell you babbling about?"
And those mad thoughts met their end as his body cleaved clean in two.
Solar plexus as the pivot, the mage's corpse fully bisected by my ability.
"...My ability's name is Smoke Manipulation."
Magic circles etched in the workshop slowly faded—owner dead, no doubt.
Smoke scan confirmed: vital signs flatlined.
Pulse and heart long stopped.
"Non-awakened can't even see it, and physical force scales with mana infused."
My voice echoed through the empty workshop.
Anyone watching would think I was some psycho monologuing at a corpse.
But I'd deliberately spilled the basics of my ability.
You have partially revealed your ability.
The opponent has confirmed your ability.
Ability manifestation, destructive power, and range slightly enhanced.
The constraint.
Beyond smoke manipulation itself, another facet: gain benefits by feeding enemies info on my power, weaknesses, or merits.
I'd tried explaining smoke clones to Mist before for a boost, but it flopped.
After that, pondering it with her revealed key facts.
One: Both parties must recognize each other as enemies for it to trigger.
Two: Won't work if the opponent doesn't perceive me—or vice versa.
Finally.
This was obvious from the start.
The constraint only fires if the opponent is alive and conscious enough to process my words.
In other words.
"You're not dead, huh?"
The mage wasn't dead.
Body split in two. Workshop arrays gone. Anyone would call it death.
But nope.
Creak.
"Busted?"
Heros the mage, hearing me, flashed a creepy grin from his halved face.