Web of Light

My problem is: I do not understand how is this working. Where is the loop back to the amulet? Not there. It does not stop me from creating the spontaneous threads of light. And how is a seal able to change the material properties? Questions, only questions; now I have a headache.

30.

Winter in Japan — at least here — is short and not severe. Almost no snow. February has passed, spring begins: not only according to calendar. Soon is sakura blooming. Half of the school are fans of laser tag. School administration opened an official tournament after the “massacre” on holidays. One class is one team. I have even heared about bets.

Seals are still not clear understandable for me. The only progress: I got what is responsible for what in people. The seal in the muscles stands for strength and sturdiness. Bones are just sturdy. Subtract these and here you go: a seal for improving the contraction stength of fibres. It seems correct, but I feel quite anxious from the idea of testing it. Heck, it gives me creeps!

Some time ago, once I have managed to recreate my “seal” from the laser gun, I put it on some wood stick. And “put my energy” into it. Fuck! Good that this idiot of me took a non-conductive material! Good that close by was an iron leg of a park bench. This bench was wooden itself, which is good, too. Also good is that no one was around. Results: slowly recovering blinded eyes from the discharge arc; slightly impaired hearing from the thunder; bench leg, molten as from an electric welding, where the arc connected, and— a fully intact stick. That I made into a dangerous weapon, much worse than a stunner. A further “artefact” lies on the shelf in the basement now. I already blocked a half of the section with similar junk.

By the way! Rinko made me chocolate for Valentine’s Day. She was giving it to me with such a red face that I made heroic efforts not to burst in laughter. She’s so cute! However, I could not tell, how is the light seal influencing her. And what would happen, if the seal is removed. If seals can be removed at all.

31.

Plum trees are blooming, my brain is overloading. Everything is barely advancing — I don’t mean “normal” school, of course. Light Ferry is no magic. Because the energy, that “performs” magic I could not and still cannot see, as it turns out. I was trying to turn my spontaneous construct into something more controllable. One hundred wooden M2 pencils as the initial material, two weeks of wasted evening, and I have managed to construct from the pencils and myself a direct current energy source. What a cool feeling when a lightbulb burns in your hands. I managed to power it for almost an hour, by the way, so much about how much power do I have. Though, what is the efficiency of my device, is not clear, but I have an estimate. To the point: I noticed that when I “switch on” the lightbulb nothing changes in the visible pattern of light lines. Hence, I need to experiment more: now with my own eyes. In fact, this though alone makes me stop wishing to see magic. Or should I just get extremely scared again?

32.

The plum— err— the sakura is blooming! Classmates turned mysterious and moronic. Sometimes the wind ascends a winter storm made of petals, this is truely beautiful. But paining the same blooming plum is not funny at all. Good that we were doing so just on the next alley. Also, the school festival will take place; not quite soon, like, in one-and-half months, but we already need a topic for our class. Class rep was nagging us. Very funny: we are all such kids, extremely proud from the feeling of self-importance, and our homeroom teacher — actually a young gal, she is, like, 25 — is also very serious. My face is also getting tough: I am wearing glasses. In the kiosk where I got a hundred of them at once, this model was called “computer glasses.” But they look cool. Yep, I tried like twenty of them before I got the “bulk.” How he cringed, poor guy, I even had to leave some prepayment. But that Japanese guy was a very polite Japanese, so he did not ask anything.

Why do I need glasses? Well, I thought that instead killing my eyes I’d try glasses first. I have not mastered the “magical sight” yet, but I decided to get everyone familiar to the sight of me in glasses. I told just this the class rep: “To look more like a geek.” Why is everyone who hears this so overrun?

33.

Aaaachoo! Rinko “saved” a kitten, an extremely young one, just got its eyes open. Good that you can save yourself from a magically induced allergy with usual suprastin. Neither Rinko, nor her parents ever dealt with animals if not my help, neko’s fate would be pitful. Had to take Rinko by her arm and buy cat milk, nipple, napkins. The latter were needed after I fed the kitty with usual cow milk from a syringe. Now my neighbour is dashing home after school to look after the pet, then she runs back again for self-study. Yeah, she is fast. Unlike me. This is a demon hunter, what a shame! I often try jogging in the park, but I lack both speed and stamina. I am very afraid to “modernise” muscles, even though I have already copied and modernised the structure. Same for bones. I merely need to understand how does this work and then I can try to create my own seal. All my internals are twisting when I think how much knowledge was lost with the last one who was introduced to clan techinque. Fucking morons! Formally, it’s not really my heritage, but I got into the role— well, it’s mine now!

Aside from that, all the limits on the term of awaking have passed. I don’t even know what to think about this. After comming up with like three dozen hypotheses, I deciding to stop playing a fortune teller. Even more: we have here like a hell much of “specialists” in injecting a conscience into someone’s else body, starting with ayakashi and ending with local magi. I cound try to acquire the required information— later on— Survival is the current priority. Good that the amulet is so robust and seems to do self-repearing. By the way, its seal is changing over time, but too weakly for me to comprehend what is it about.

T/N: Remeber that the protagonist identifies himself as Russian.

34.

Rinko is through with milk-feeding her kitten, he is now capable of non-assisted eating. We made a 3D cinema in class. Hail the Russian torrent servers! You can not only find there a cam-rip for a film that is not yet running in cinemas, but also a full version of a Japanese cinema classics. In Japanese. For home cinema. I also found on some our forum how to make a projector from a television set. Very nice! And how much fun I got from the team speak in “Lineage” on a Russian server: even the accent of my young body almost disappeared! Well-well, a master’s introduction to swearing from the lab for the young lads was also included.

The festival was also pure gold. Did not laugh that much since longer! And even a fraction of this fun was not shown in any anime. You just need to keep your eyes open. Well, also the preparation. Like, when we were painting my “computer glasses” in two colours. With a nail polish. We, guys. By the way, the teachers are working hard here, in Japan. Even such a not-quite-fitting into the group guy as me is now perceived by his nine-year-old peers as “ours”. Though, I am almost ten years old now, it’s soon a year since I am here.

35.

What is magic? Oh, well, let’s be more concrete: what is magical energy? Twelve variants of a seal and, correspondingly, twelve glasses. Each seal shows a movement— something when I power on electric artifacts. Something different for each variant. By the way, the light lines of a seal appear to have varying functions. Rinko has no magic by definition. She should not have it. But as the seal speciman #22 that seems to register weak high-frequency electric currents— or something— Well, the muscle amplifier looks like a dumb forcing of all fibres of a muscle to contract strictly synchronous, not in a time frame of few milliseconds as in a purely biological sample. Please don’t ask me what part of the body of my female friend I was peeping at and for how long!

36.

Today I turned ten years old and I made myself a “gift”. The second wall is occupied with a rack with cages holding hamsters. First I thought about getting mice, but white lab mice do not look very much like house pets. I did not want to risk. I just said, I am buying them for school pet circle, it went A-Ok. I need to conduct experiments, six years are left to the moment X. It would be dumb to die because I am so tasty.

Now I now where to get pure magic to compare things to. Ayakashi. Apparently they consist of pure energy, even though they have a body from matter. Now I will walk in the park in the evening, it will be Ok, as it’s summer. And we’ll get summer vacation soon. It would be nice to remove the attached curse: Rinko is running everywhere with her pet, and I have to sneeze when I visit. This annoys me a bit. But— To find a curse in my own body? I do not even know where to start. Now, the spirit hunt begins next saturday. And now: go feed the hamsters!

37.

Minus two hamsters. I need to cast muscle amplifier and bone strengthener together, or else the animal broke both front paws. The second “disabling” happened in course of a completely successful casting of an amplifier. The cage rods were bitten though— and swallowed. Looks like internal bleeding.

I crafted a magic wand. Yep, sure! For real it is a distance shocker, based on “farey”: a tube, laser pointer, and an optimised seal from my first artefact, the gun. (Yeah, I got a grip on that. With trial and error method. And a bit of knowledge of physics.) The laser ionises the air, and from the edge of the improvised stunner the discharge arrives over the air. Plus the glasses to protect my cornea, as I got “arc eyes”. The usage looks highly magical: point the wand to the target in a most pathos manner possible. Oh, a poor wall, a yet another scotched blot! The working distance of the stunner was like five yards, maximally ten. This weapon should have similar characteristica. Need also to eat something sweet before usage, I am very starving now.

38.

First try failed. Better luck next time! The park has, surely, lights. On the alleys. New moon, stars, light pollution do illuminate a bit. The tops of the trees. I need the night sight glasses. I wonder, do the bodies of demons emit heat? Maybe, I could just buy a night sight in a shop and let it be… On the other hand, with the large night sight on my head I would look even more strange than just a boy wandering in the park at 3 a.m. They are also heavy— I have decided to craft a night sight myself. I need practice.

39.

Second try failed. Better luck next time! Three glasses worn consecutively look impressive— or at least take aback. I closed the curtains to train at home, and then Rinko came for a visit, while I was currently in the hall.

A positive result: I was right, the glasses with the detector of biological currents can be used as a selective filter. Many ayakashi wander around in the human form, this way I should be able to tell them apart from humans. I should feel the Force, just like any hunter of any clan, but— it could be the blocking of the amulet, it could be that I did not meet any spririts after that maniac caterpillar. Or I just don’t understand what I am feeling: noone can teach me.

A negative result: Rinko still cannot get over myself in three glasses at once. I regret telling her that one glass is not enough to express my charisma.

Well, okay. I think I should tell her about my magical heritage. Either way the girl will get deep into this just as soon as I will. Well, there is way around this: just stop all comminication with her, but— Maybe it’s really egoistic, but I fear to loose my sole friend. Rinko is indeed everything I have, the only person who is concerned about me. A further point: there are not so many ayakashi compared to human population, and it’s much more probable to get into a car accident that smacked with a tentacle or mind control. But forewarned is forearmed. And last but not least: the responsibility. I don’t know if my parents “ferried” my neighbour on purpose to change her attitude towards myself, or did she just got hit with all the quater and caring is part of ther personality, but as it happened that I am the last clan member, I am responsible for her. And, on a big scale, also for others in our block.

But, additionally to all these thoughts of high moral, I got a very pragmatic one: when you are ten you will believe into magic easier than when you are sixteen. Not merely believe, but integrate into your world view and react calmly. Ok, commence educating the allies.

40.

Long since I have seen someone being to amused. I told Rinko about great, but extinct clan of exorcists and its last heir, me. As I said, it’s shounen plot story. As a proof of my “magical force” I suggested to Rinko to wear my glasses. And got another burst of laughter. What? It works for me! What’s the prob— Idiot! Power source! The girl has no magic, as I reckoned earlier. Okay, let me touch the glasses on the handle— Wow, very large eyes you got! Ten year olds have very expressive eyes already, but like now it’s almost like in an anime! Snapped on a mobile phone, I’ll print it and hide in an album. I’ll need teasing material in, like, five years.

Ok, now she is unpaused and ready to hear relevations about the wonders of the world. By the way, thank you, many-legged maniac, now I have someone to blame for “sudden enlightment” and “revival of childhood memories”.

41.

I am an idiot. How could I ignore the problem solving principle: go from simple to complicated? Now, why do I try to find an adventure upon my arse in the dark city park instead of a safe experiment in “laboratory conditions”? What happens if I stumble upon someone really strong? I won’t defent myself with a stunner from the Corpse Eater or Water Spirit. Also, I extremely risc to reveal myself. I don’t need such riscs, shoo, shoo!

Ok, an exercise for the elementary school. We have a “weaving” that works on “magic”. Add to this that I can disregard the power— magic— mana— whatever loss from the glass. It’s logical, if I can create a “magical device”, I would be able to create a battery for it with my “ferry”.