The Cast let out a loud sizzle before a flash of light lit up his tent and sent sparks flying in all directions. Wu spun his head hard to avoid the light, though that violent movement might have given him a bit of whiplash as a result. "Oooh boy." Wu massaged his neck muscles and looked at the burning piece of absolute mess in front of him. So it turns out, science is fucking hard, no matter which world you are in. He had been approaching the issues of miniaturizing Casts for a few days. The very first step was deceptively easy, and that provided him with a false sense of security that's coming back to bite him in the butt. When he wrote the Casts of a simple store/release from Lera on a much smaller scale, it simply reduced the size of the Wave that could have been contained within the Cast. However, if he just miniaturized all but the very last segment of the Cast, only the signals that go into the last segment are smaller. By inserting a standard amplification Cast segment, he is then able to increase the strength of the signal to match the Cast that would have been normal-sized. This resulted in a Cast that's tiny through the majority of its circuits and only returning normal towards the end. With this, Casts the size of a single page of Lera's book of Casts can now fit into a much smaller piece of paper the size of Wu's palm. But in theory, he can make the Cast as small as button-sized segments which are the actual end effectors of the Cast. So all that he will keep is the part of the Cast that interacts with the environments, and basically nothing else. This was when he started working on ways to miniaturize Cast writing by taking inspiration from printing presses and machines. There are only a few certain sets of standard Cast lines that are used to construct all the crazy Casts in this world, and it's the intricate and geometric combination of the individual lines that truly mattered. This meant Wu should be able to somewhat automate the process through the set of printing presses connected to precision levers made from wood. By adjusting the position of the lever, Wu is able to precisely mark down the exact positions that the lines needed to be in by moving the handles far out on the other end. Then the next step is to print down the lines of Cast in the exact order required. However, despite his best efforts, none of his attempts had succeeded. The first few attempts were because of a mistake in his writing, but as he worked more, he realized that there are even more issues with miniaturizing the Casts. "So...I have been trying to use the Cast ink to make my own Casts, but...there is a certain point where the quality of the Cast ink became too bad for the Casts to run properly," Wu said, showing Lera the massive system of levers and printing press as her jaws were dropped on the floor by it. "Um...it might be because of the way the ink is mixed..." Lera said, "The ink is made from a special type of charcoal from Ripple trees. But if you make it that thin, it's likely that the ink isn't mixed with the best of quality?" Ripple trees are the most common trees around Olympus prime, and they are a great conduit of the Wave naturally. Wu nodded, then he added a step of blending the ink until they became finely pressed dark granules with only hints of moisture within. And he repeated the process again. This time, a small orb of the Wave floated right above the final compartment, and it popped when Wu sent another small jolt of Wave through the Casts. "YAAAAS!" Wu threw his hands up and turned to Lera who's watching through the communication Cast with exhileration, "I LOVE YOU! LERA!" The scenery on Lera's end changed rapidly as Wu now saw the bottom of Lera's bed and her bag of luggage that's stuffed underneath. Her shaking fingers then finally found their way to the communication Cast before her red face showed up in the corner, "W-What are you saying?! You can't just say things like that out of-" "Just you wait, Lera." Wu smiled before he turned to Lera and made a pistol with his fingers at her, "I will become the Ironman. Pew." Then, the communication Cast shut off, and Lera was left all flustered and confused in her room. In the meanwhile, Lily Watts popped her head in through the room and asked curiously, "How's your boyfriend doing?" "He's not my boyfriend!" Lera said quickly as her hands reached for the pillow and hugged it in her arms. "Sure~" Lily chuckled and tossed a berrange her way, "Well done in your training today, Lera." Lera nodded before peeling the skin of the berrange , tossing it on her table as Lily leaned against the door. After the deal of returning Charlie to the Ville college was settled, Lera was expecting a far worse treatment than the one she's been receiving. However, Lily quickly revealed to her how much her brother's antics actually annoyed her, and she's glad that he will be taught a lesson and have her own status be boosted all at the same time. In that sense, Lily was using Wu, Charlie, and Lera for her own gain. Lera was still alarmed for a little while, but after Lily helped her train with her Cast array and pointed out a few hiccups in her designs and combinations, she slowly grew to trust her more and more. "Did you find anything interesting in the libraries today?" Lily asked, fixing her hair to the side as a pair of boys walked down the corridor and glanced towards her with a longing gaze, "I really just can't be asked to do the studies for my mandatory classes..." "You really should!" Lera smiled, her eyes now shining as her mind flashed back to earlier in the day, "I thought the tower of Constellation was big, but the King Library was just..." It was a building that was built in the dead center of the artificial island, and it looked like a well-built half-spherical building up top before extending all the way to the bottom of the artificial island more than 40 levels deep. It can be said that the knowledge of the entire world is collected here, and there isn't a single published book that's not stored here. What's most exciting about the library is... "How you have to pass a test before accessing to the next level!" Lera said, "I almost passed level 3 today!" "Look at you. You little book worm." Lily stretched her arms and yawned, "If you find anything about Perfect Synchrony, let me know, okay?" "Yeah." Lera nodded, thinking back to the impressive form demonstrated by Lily during the fight that not even Fatera and Ver could touch. When she first dived into the depth of knowledge within the library, her initial thoughts were that she's just wasting her time away from the battlefield gaining actual combat experience. But as she continued to read the documentation on the intricate workings of Manifesters, Casters, and Channelers as well as research on the interesting way they each fight, a lightbulb was lit up within her. Thinking that combat experience is the only way to make her stronger is such a shallow process of thinking. It is not to say book knowledge is the only thing that she would need, but her way of fighting had always been built upon a solid foundation of knowledge and experience that comes from her diligent study throughout the years. She won't get the individual quirks about her opponents directly from the books, obviously, but that doesn't mean she can't learn about the special tendencies and strategies employed by each of the different categories of Wave users. Casters tend to have a rather predictable set of deployment strategies for their Casts, Channelers often needed to power up before their attacks, and Manifesters usually visualize their Manifests before giving it any instructions. Then, each of the categories of Wave users all have their own limitations as a result... So following that logic, Lera then started experimenting with new Casts that are targeted for each of the individual categories of Wave users, as Lily helped her with testing out a few ideas from time to time. "Aura of Weakening!" Lera said, reaching her hand forward as a grey figure emerged from her Cast array and latched onto the flaming body of Lily. Then, working subtly and quietly, the grey figure she made slowly crept in between the tight lines of control between Lily and her Manifest. As she tried to move forward, she actually marched out of the range of her Manifest as the grey figure intercepted the intent to control. "Ho?!" Lily fell onto the ground before she caught herself and rolled back onto her feet, "What the heck was that?!" "That's my special sauce for you!" Lera said as Lily reached out towards her Manifest internally and imposed her will. The flames came to life before it swallowed the grey figure whole, the flames returning to her body as the firey pattern over her right eye pulsed with life, "Well...you are very strong too..." "But nothing has ever made me eject from the fire manifest before...That was weird." Lily admitted, looking towards Lily with an impressed smile, "Ata girl!" Lera smiled back at her before her mind immediately traveled to Ver and her Kraken. Would something similar work to impede the connections between the two, or are they actually a lot closer than most other Manifest-Manifester pairings? "ACHOOO!" Ver sneezed loudly and put her hand up as a group of students surrounded her in the woods, "Ah...apologies." "You dare walk straight into our turf with no invitation?!" The student leader said, cocking his arms around as the tattoo Cast over his body lit up all around, "I suppose I will show you a good time." "Trust me when I say this." Ver rubbed her nose lightly before she tied up her dark blonde hair into a bun and undid her eyepatch, "This is not personal." Then, as a dark whirlpool formed around the entirety of the camps and the burning tendrils of the Kraken destroyed everything, Ver wondered why she just sneezed that hard. As the bodies of a few of the defiant local gang members flew in the air like specs of dust being stirred up, Ver can't help but yawn at the difficulty of her recent missions. In her more recent jobs, she had been taking on various student organizations as a hired gun, and she didn't care for whom she picked a fight with as much as how difficult those fights actually are. Working from the bottom of the list of jobs, she worked her way slowly upward until she eventually single-handedly invaded a college that's currently governed by a Triad of student organizations. So long as nobody is killed, and Law of Combat is upheld when issued, Khan never cared for what really happens 'down on the ground'. "Just you wait! The boss will kill you!" The snotty leader cursed before he was thrown through a tree by a massive jet of water, "That's what you will get for crossing the Rising Phoenix Gang!" "Yeah yeah." Ver walked over his body and made a move onto the floating structure above. Just like Wu who gets stronger by doing research and experimenting, Lera who gets stronger by studying and improving her Casts, Ver gets stronger by going into the fields and picking fights. Each with their own ways of fighting, the three eagerly waited for their reunion. Then, far out on the horizon, the threat of PORA and the Winter Wars loomed.