Lord of the Dead in the Land of Lust

CH7 - Third Wheel

The return trip to Ansur was of note, not because Ainz and Hara encountered anything in particular, but because of the results of a few experiments that they conducted on the way.

The first experiment that they enacted was in regards to The Naginata that Hara had found. The material it was made of was not simple steel, and a number of simple tests proved both this, and that it had a natural affinity for channeling Magic somehow. Ainz expected and made it clear he figured that it was possibly made of Mithril, But Hara had declared that impossible, claiming that Mithril did not conduct magic. While confusing, that lessened the number of possibilities, but without actual portions of various materials it was difficult to proceed further without risking damaging the weapon.

The second experiment they conducted was testing to see if Hara could utilize magic from Yyggdrasil. To do this Ainz explained the magic at length, exactly what it did, how powerful it was, how long it took to cast, use, reach its target and so on. The result was about as expected, with Hara being unable to use his spells, even the simplest of them, as if her very being refused to accept it. Ainz could feel the magic gathering when she would try, but it simple fizzled out harmlessly as if it was blocked by something.

Which was better than the spell exploding in her face, but was still annoying to see.

The final experiment they attempted was in a small clearing beside a creek with hills on either side of them, modest, but enough to shield them from view if anyone was nearby. The potential of the experiment was too important to allow those unrelated to know of it after all.

"Alright, I will now cast the spell Hara, please watch if anything strange occurs, but keep a safe distance, understood?" Ainz asked as he stood by the creek, while Hara was sitting on a small boulder nearby to his right, out of any possible line of his spell.

"Understood," Hara stated as she sat holding her Naginata across her lap, seeming rather attached to the artifact from her family home.

Ainz nodded lightly and looked at a tree ahead of him just across the creek, the target of this experiment. But first he needed to prepare the tree. "Petrification!"

I response to his spell a Brownish golden Circle of magic appeared around the tree and began to slowly spin, turning the tree from live wood into solid stone in a few seconds.

"There, now I will try the real test," Ainz spoke up for Hara, who nodded.

The information that the shard of Tamamo-no-mae had given him was curious. The idea that those powerful enough could straight up bend the rules of magic to their whims was an idea that broke most things he knew. In Yggdrasil, every spell worked exactly as it was supposed to. They each had an exact mana cost, range, cast time, damage value, recharge time, and many other numerical values that made them work in the constrains of the game. Abilities, racial skills and item effect could of course augment these, raising or lowering amounts usually by percentage amounts, but they still had vey exact values in all parts of it.

From what the Book Hara had explained, and what she said herself, it was clear that as this was a reality, there was no easy, or accurate, way to quantify mana, recharge speed, and other values that he expected. This of course led to a singular question in Ainz's mind.

Could he create his own magic in this world even if he could not quantify it with values as he did his magic?

It was a question he was now about to begin experimenting with, by attempting the reversal of a common support spell. Instead of Petrification however, attempting to use a spell whose name was more easily reversed would likely result in a likelier end. "Stone to Flesh!"