Chapter 181: Silent Mirage
He raised the hand above the ground, waving it around slightly to see if the effect was static.
Fortunately, it wasn’t.
His ALU adapted to what he was seeing, making small corrections to compensate for the new background, though not immediately.
There was a slight lag before the new corrections to the camouflage were made. It got better the more Zephyr waved his hand around, as though his ALU was finding the quickest and shortest route to calculating for differences — shaving off unnecessary steps, unnecessary spell-merging at the bit level.
Eventually, even that slight lag was totally gone, only recurring if Zephyr made extremely rapid movement.
"Well that part is settled." Zephyr stood, applying the visual camouflage spell to his whole body.
His ALU had fully adapted to the spell, and the strain was now negligible enough that he didn’t have to even think about it at all.
So he dusted his hands, moving on to the next spell. "So... next would be sound, right?"
Yes, host. Remember, sound is nothing more than vibrations traveling through the air. Cancel the vibrations, cancel the sound.
Zephyr hummed in response, holding a hand up and snapping his fingers repeatedly. He had his eyes closed in concentration, visualizing the sound as ripples through the particles in the air.
The most direct way to stop them would be to target the particles themselves, remove the particles that propagated this vibration, essentially creating a vacuum.
But that was an endeavour not achievable for Zephyr yet. He would be fighting against the atmospheric pressure that held those particles in place itself.
So counteracting the waves with an opposing equal wave just like Aegis had suggested was the only logical solution.
He listened to the sound of his snapping fingers, picturing it as a disturbance in the air.
He visualized a field around himself, one made with mana directly, releasing short pulses that tried to match the sound being released.
Zephyr frowned after a while. He had thought this was going to be one of the easiest to execute... which it actually seemed to be — he could already match the sound waves with an opposing one. But the problem of lag had reared its ugly head yet again.
Sound propagated differently depending on the source. Some could be sharp, harsh, buzzing, while others could be deep, low, a hum. It could even be a combination of both. Zephyr had been snapping his fingers repeatedly and even that didn’t produce the exact same sound every single time.
For the most part, sound could be very unpredictable, so for his ALU to be able to calculate and create the equivalent pulse for every different sound wave, there needed to be a buffer.
The sound needed to be allowed ample time to actually travel before being canceled out, otherwise, all Zephyr’s ALU would be doing would be predicting what kind of sound wave something might produce.
"Tsk"Zephyr hissed, expanding his mana field to the 3ft limit he could manage comfortably.
He left the first feet for any sound he made to travel, while the last two were for the opposing pulse to take effect and cancel it out.
It was a difficult one to test because he had no one to give him feedback. From his point of view, he could always hear every sound he made — the sound of his breath... of his feet against the ground, the air fluttering against his shirt, all the micro movements, the slight scruffs and shuffles he made.
He could still hear these, but outside his 3ft field... it was dead silent — at least he believed it was.
He killed the process, halting the spell totally, before starting it back up again. Over and over, making different kinds of sounds each time until he was sure his ALU was handling it well.
His reasoning was based on the previous light camouflage spell, where his ALU took a bit of time to optimize the process better. Since Zephyr couldn’t particularly tell whether the spell was as effective as he believed it to be, that was his only option for now.
"Well, this’ll be a pain to merge..." he muttered with a shake of his head.
Your ALU should handle these two simultaneously at least, host. Though they go about concealment differently, they are still both field-spells.
The last two though, would likely operate like solid spells instead.
"I thought that’d only be for the heat-radiation camouflage?" Zephyr paused.
No. I don’t think creating a field would be the best way to mask your smell.
At the end of the day, since all you’re doing is redirecting your trail of particles, why not just make a transparent, solid layer—
"—that targets and traps them before they can even spread." Zephyr continued Aegis’ train of thought.
Exactly.
"Hmm. So, two field spells and two layer spells."
He went to work creating the construct just like Aegis described and not too long after, ended up with a spell that coated his body entirely.
Instead of the chimney method of dispersal he and Aegis had thought of before, he later went with something different. A ’backpack’ of some sort. One that held all of Zephyr’s scent and smells in a container, like a gas tank.
"Well... I never expected any of my spells to be like... this when I was starting out..." he chuckled.
If not for the fact that all these spells were transparent, one look at Zephyr and you’d be hard pressed to call him a mage.
Zephyr hadn’t interacted much with lots of mages — powerful mages. Besides Old Bjorn from back home, Smiling Devil, the Grand Commander... there weren’t really any other mages like himself that he’d met.
But despite this, he knew his approach was totally different compared to theirs. His spells were ’function over form’, rather than the other way around.
"Meh. It’s not like anyone can see it anyway. And it gets the job done..."
He quickly moved on to the last aspect, which was heat radiation.
Just like the way infrared could not be sensed from behind thick enough walls, Zephyr created a layer of dense, compacted mana over his body, like a skin-tight suit. One that reflected and hid his heat signature totally.
If one had an infrared or thermal vision device, even at night, Zephyr would be indistinguishable from the surroundings.
The only downside was its restrictiveness. For the duration he coated himself, it was exactly like wearing skin-tight leather over his body.
But besides that, there was nothing else.
After creating the four spells he could run in the background without strain, he moved on to try merging them with his ALU.
The obvious choice was to merge the visual camouflage and sound cancelling spell together — the field spells. The other two could be used only when he needed them, as they were more restrictive.
What would you like to name this spell, host?
"Oh? I thought you’d have lots of ideas, Aegis."
I do, host. I’m trying to meet you at a middle point. It’s your spell at the end of the day.
"I have one in mind already. Shoot me yours."
Multi-Sensory Obfuscation Field v1
"Wha— What’s that?!"
A precise and encapsulting name. Aegis responded, slightly affronted.
"It’s a shit name!"
What do you have in mind then—?! Aegis’ words were cut short as Zephyr pushed a thought.
—Silent Mirage?
"It’s a befitting name."
There literally is no mirage in your spell at all, host!
"Doesn’t matter. It conveys the idea clearly. Plus—" Zephyr held up a finger for emphasis, grinning, "—It sounds cool. That’s all that matters."
No. That is a gross oversimplification—
"It’s been decided, Aegis. Register the name as Silent Mirage." Zephyr cut Aegis off with a pleased smile.
...Silent Mirage it is then.
"I believe our work here is done?" Zephyr clapped his hands, activating {Silent Mirage} to run by default as he left the vicinity of the dungeon.
The spell strained his mind, but just enough that he could still run it in the background without thinking about it unless he wanted to.
His figure blended into the surroundings perfectly, both visually and soundlessly as he made his way back.
He dropped by the root-plants location — the food source, to dig up his stash before heading to his troglodyte home to store them safely. After which he started towards the monster settlement directly.
There was no longer a need to go there later at night now that he had a concealment spell.
On his way there, he spotted another team of the stout monsters waddling on their short, stubby legs in his direction.
He stopped abruptly, subconsciously moving to hide before he stopped himself.
It was the best time to test his spell.
He continued moving, his eyes already calculating the cleanest way to end them if they spotted him.
The fact that he was currently running {Silent Mirage} which only masked sight and sound made him wary. He had seen them sniffing around the surroundings before, so he knew they had to rely on their noses to some extent.
’They don’t smell me yet though...’ he watched them carefully as he drew closer.
Essentially, he was testing their range of smell.
But it wasn’t until Zephyr was within a ten feet distance that one of them suddenly paused, sniffing the air repeatedly.
Zephyr immediately activated the smell masking spell, before taking a wider arc towards the opposite direction to evade them.
They were already sniffing about his previous position as he walked past.
"Alright. About ten feet..." Zephyr noted with a smile, continuing his way.
When he finally reached the open, flat expanse right before the huge, rocky mound that housed the monsters, he walked across confidently, even as the monster guards and watchers scanned the flats carefully.
Zepjyr was taking the settlement in with more detail as he got closer.
’They actually look like a real civilization...’
Small details he didn’t notice from earlier in the day began to crop up now.
They knew how to plant...
There were differences in their attires, suggesting hierarchy to their society...
The more Zephyr saw, the more he formed a clearer picture. The monsters with lighter colored garbs were treated with more respect compared to the others.
"Oh, that one seems to be a big shot..." Zephyr noticed all the guards, watchers, and every single monster stop everything they were doing and pay respect to a white-clothed monster.
Zephyr frowned as he observed the monster.
Unlike the others, there was something about this one that felt... off.
He was making his way across a natural path connecting two cliffs in the rocky mound, flanked by two hefty-looking monsters.
He turned his head, staring at the flat, rocky plain as he walked, before focusing his eyes on a particular spot briefly.
A cold shiver went down Zephyr’s spine immediately, stopping him in his tracks.
"What the fuck...?!"
For the briefest of moments, their eyes seemed to have met.
"Did he just glance at me...?"
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A/N: A very special thank you to LunarEcho for dropping a review! I really appreciate it. No matter how little, those stars help in suggesting the book to someone else who might have an interest. So, many thanks!! 💯💯