Chapter 7: Contradiction is truth!
"Apparently, if a human brain is fully focused on one thing, a slight shock can cause a momentary paralysis to them." He said, moving the pawn one step forward. "It's like when you get your brain rattled during a fight if someone hits your jaw, it makes your consciousness go fuzzy."
"And? I already know that." Sona replied, moving her knight three blocks to the right. "Is there a meaning in this conversation?"
"There is." He nodded, staring at the chessboard in silence. "I was just thinking of applying the same concept during a fight, but not with direct contact."
Sona frowned, seeing her King getting checked before she moved her rock to protect it.
"And how will you achieve that? By magic?"
"Of course not." Noah answered, "But maybe something like this would work?"
She concentratedly stared at the board, when Noah's hand appeared in front of her face and he clapped.
Her eyes widened, a slight buzz entering her ears and her mind going blank momentarily. The moment she realized what had happened, Noah was no longer sitting in front of her.
Two hands crawled out of her back, loosely hung over her shoulders. With his chin placed over her lustrous soft black hair, Noah said.
"See? It works. Who knew that a technique that I saw in some anime would end up becoming reality."
"You were building up my focus all this time for this?" Sona asked with slight astonishment in her voice, realizing that he was purposely making the chess look more puzzling to make her more focused.
Normally, she would never focus so much on chess since Noah has been playing with her for a year now, she already knew most of his playing style like the back of her hand.
But today, all of it took a sudden change. His normal playstyle changed into something she felt completely unfamiliar with. It was all a jumbled mess—completely random.
She knew Noah would never make a random mistake in chess, which forced her to think that he might be onto something, he might have developed a new technique to defeat her in chess maybe?
With such a mindset, Sona was forced to put extra focus on the board game then she would normally do. It was like she had reached the peak frequency of her focus, and as Noah said, a slight disturbance in the frequency was all that he needed to make her enter a momentary paralysis.
"Eh? No." But Noah denied her hypothesis with a wave of his hand. "I was just too busy thinking of ways to bring this technique to reality, so I never really focused on chess, to begin with. I was just randomly moving the pieces."
"..." Sona felt her eyebrow twitching with annoyance, finding herself to be an idiot who thought it was all a planned-out plan.
"Anyway, I had just made a breakthrough in my magic last week. You want to have a training session with me? I'm eager to try out how much I've improved."
Sona's eyes shone, finding a way to release her frustration was always welcoming to her. And nothing beat anything like beating Noah, she always felt like something was taken off of her chest.
"I'll call Tsubaki and others then." She was about to send a telepathic message to them, but Noah stopped her.
"No need, just call Tsubaki while I'll call Kiba." He said, walking back to his seat but not before lightly kissing her head, making the bespectacled woman blush. "I don't think there is any need to call everyone, I just want to try out my swordsmanship mostly."
She thought for a while before nodding her head, calling Tsubaki while Noah used <<Message>> to call Kiba. He felt like he just achieved nirvana while using 2nd Tier Magic.
'It feels great to be able to use 2nd Tier Magic…'
|—Training Field under Sona's house—|
'Maybe I should learn Teleportation…' Finding himself in a completely new environment within a blink of his eyes, Noah couldn't help but think.
He had thought over this topic before, whether to learn magic manually or not, but in the end, he gave up.
It was not like he didn't try it before, but he did try it that's why he gave up. Human Magic in this world was such an amalgamation of math, chemistry, and physique that it made Noah puke reading the magic theories.
Such sophisticated and complex stuff wasn't his cup of tea. Sure, if he tried and put all his time into learning magical theories, formulas, and magical circles, he might become a talented mage in his late life.
But was he willing to spend his time in a closed four-wall room all his life? The answer was no! He was a reincarnator, and such people cheat.
Anyway, once he unlocked all Tier, his magic would have already left the very boundary of the mortal realm. Even bringing death back to life wouldn't be impossible.
That is why he spent most of his time learning and practicing swordsmanship. And he didn't regret that decision ever.
So the moment the thought of learning Teleportation Magic appeared into his mind, he pushed it aside.
'Once I enter Tier 3, I would have access to my first teleportation magic — <<Dimensional Move>>. And it is many times better than this world's teleportation, requiring no complex mathematical shit—just a thought.'
"I'm really jealous… I also want a training field for myself." He said, looking at the vast arena.
"If you want, I can ask my sister to build one for you under your home too," Sona said, already changed into her training clothes.
"How about I move here instead?" He smirked and said. "We both can live together, eat together, work together, sleep together, and train together. How romantic."
"If you did that, I doubt my sister will let you live." She answered with blushed cheeks, neither denying him nor allowing him.
"I think Serafall wouldn't mind our relationship." He thought for a second and said. "She might even join, knowing she can have fun with her Sona-tan."
Heat slowly started to crawl onto Sona's face, imaging the picture of herself, Serafall, and Noah in one room. She would be lying if she didn't feel hot thinking about it, but it still left her in quite an embarrassing spot.
"Why did you suddenly want to spar, Noah?"
While Sona was imagining a three men team fight, Tsubaki and Kiba finally changed into their training gear as they appeared in the hall.
"Just wanted to try something." Noah replied.
"Did you learn a new magic?" Tsubaki asked, quite interested in knowing it. After all, Noah's magic was quite unique. Sona even suspected it being a completely different magic system than humans.
"You will find out soon." He seemed to not want to disclose anything related to his magic, Tsubaki understood it.
With a nod, she entered the arena before calling him out. "Then I'll test it myself. It has been a while since we spar with each other."
"It only has been a month though." He answered, getting into the arena himself.
Practicing alone was okay, but he needed a sparring partner with which he could exchange blows. And since there was no one who could help him in magic—not that he required any—Kiba and Tsubaki became his main partners for sword fighting.
"Is it?" She raised her head before a small smile formed over her face. "To me, it is a long time."
"I should be the one to say that…" He smiled, sword appearing in his hand, getting raised brow from everyone. "I'm the only human here after all."
'Space Magic? It seems he really breakthroughs and is big this time.' Sona internally thought. Space magic was one of the hardest magic to practice, so to see Noah using it with such ease made them realize that this time, he definitely breakthrough a big gap.
"Ready?" While doing some practice swings, Noah asked.
Her smile widened, feeling excitement rushing her body as she nodded.
"Come!"
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He remembered the feeling, the feeling of living in the future. The moment when the memories about grandmaster swordsmanship were being implanted and merging with his consciousness, Noah found himself in a completely different world.
A world where everything looked awfully slow, a world where nothing would happen but everything would be recorded—a form of perception stagnation.
The whole world stopped moving at that time, and Noah felt he could read it, he could see it, and he could record—the intent of the world.
It was a brief second, but his mind still recorded that brief second into his consciousness. Noah came to the conclusion that it was the "see-through world" talked about in the Demon Slayer, or the world Gojo Satoru sees since his birth.
"Do you know, in a sense, we all live in the past?" He said, staring at Kiba, Tsubaki, and Sona. "According to some neuroscientists, our consciousness lags 80 milliseconds behind actual events. For gamers playing competitive multiplayer action games, that's roughly equivalent to the maximum amount of lag you can deal with before your reflexes start suffering."
<<Scare>>
"W-What?!" Tsubaki, Sona, and Kiba felt their heartbeat rising, their body quivering, and their hair standing—fear. They all felt unprecedented fear rising in their hearts, looking at Noah whose pressure seemed to increase to the point where it became unbearable for them to even standstill in front of him.
Of course, all of this was naught but an illusion created by the magic <<Scare>>, which gave birth to fear in the opponent's heart.
"In short, a normal being can respond to an event only after .8 seconds of it happening. Of course, you can train yourself to a point where you can decrease this response time, but you can never delete it."
<<Lesser Strength>> <<Lesser Dexterity>> <<Quick March>> <<Rabbit Foot>>
"The realm of living in the present, only a handful of people can reach it. A place where you can counter the result the moment it happened, but what if there is another realm after that?" He slowly started to walk, their nerves tightening with each step of his.
"A realm where nothing happens, but you already know what will happen."
"It doesn't make sense. If such a realm existed, there is bound to be someone who reached it once." Sona answered, demonic energy swirling madly into her body, ready to answer any unexpected circumstance.
"It does, Sona, just that no one has ever been able to enter it." He answered, not bothered by Tsubaki and Kiba who took positions left and right of him. "You know, before anything happens, an intent is created. You take a step forward, an intent to "take a step forward" is created. When you move your hand, an intent to "move hand" is created. In other words, before any action, there is an intent."
"What if you are able to read that intent the moment it is created? In a sense, you are living in the future then. Because you know what will happen by reading the intent."
"Are you saying… that you have entered this realm?" She questioned, sweat forming over her brows.
"What? Of course not. If I did, I could have easily beaten anyone under Satan-Class with pure physical attacks alone. That is the massive difference between someone who entered the "world of intent" and someone who didn't. But…"
"But?"
"But I've tasted it." A smirk formed on his lips. "The moment stagnation, a place where everything exists just for the sake of existing. A realm where a millisecond outside becomes as long as a minute in your mind."
"And…" His hand moved in a blurring fashion, catching Kiba's sword hand, "I happen to live in the present."
"Ugh…" Kiba groaned as Noah's kick connected with his body, making him realize that Noah's strength has taken a huge leap from what it was before.
"That is why I will win this match even without using any offensive magic."
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