《Magic By Intent》 1. Morphing the Field, First Sparks Kryss looked over his ritual space for what felt like the thousandth time, making adjustments. This particular pass was made with dowsing rods, just as the last one had been a crystal pendulum. The layout was covered in symbols and mostly concentric patterns. The custom warehouse in which it all lay was patterned after the Great Pyramid of Giza on the outside. Within the patterns of the ritual floor space were many hundreds of symbolic items which (he hoped) represented a conceptual pattern of what he was trying to accomplish. They wouldn''t have made sense to anyone else. Kryss himself was the focus of the ritual and the target of all the symbolic meanings was his own mind - his essential awareness, his soul self, his sub and/or super conscious mind, possibly his Christ consciousness or his oversoul. In some ways this was all an elaborate prayer, in some ways an experiment in altered states of consciousness, and in some was a demo of quantum physics theory. Most of his adjustments were made by feel. He had a lot of experience with similar workings. That was how he could afford the warehouse and its contents. Slowly, over the years, his patterns had made certain types of gambling and stock investment (also gambling) more profitable. But today he was working towards an entirely new goal - unlocking his own inner mysteries. To that end, he was laying out the patterns of intention, and would soon be putting his own body and mind through calculated trauma designed to restructure his way of looking at reality. As anchors for his hopes and intentions, several iconic books were arranged near the innermost circles of his ritual array: Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Illusions, by Richard Bach The Natural of Personal Reality, a Seth book The Conscious Universe, by Rupert Sheldrake The Hero''s Journey, by Joseph Campbell The Keys of Enoch, by J.J. Hurtak Journeys Out of Body, by Robert Monroe These were some of the central pillars of intent. In the inverse circle, he had books such as: The Peter Principle The Limits to Growth The Population Bomb Ishmael as warnings and wake-up calls. Further from the center were the SF/Fantasy and gaming materials, and the more common new-age and "secret society" works. At the far edge were dozens of computers running games and MMO software of all types, from the ancient Rogue and Master of Magic, to Skyrim, to Age of Conan and Blue Protocol. Yet another outer circle held tabletop gaming books, painted figurines, and scenario maps - along with hundreds of assorted dice, and dozens of types of blank character sheets. Kryss had been on a pure-water fast for a week now, and had obtained a carefully calculated dosage of DMT to take in time with the Focus-10 state meditation via hemi-sync. Deep in the background, a light-language DNA-transformation tape was playing. It was Saturday, Oct 22, at 11:50 PM that the equinox would take place, so Kryss settled into his comfortable meditation bed at 11:15, getting in the zone via hemi-synch, and took his DMT dose at 11:35. The vibrations in his body that were normal for him in meditative states slowly ramped up and he could feel pressure, and then pain, build up in his chakra regions. Just as it was about to become unbearable and force him out of mediation, there was a sudden jerk and release, and he was floating in serene darkness. 2. Initialization - Setting the Patterns in Motion Kryss floated, bodiless, in the general region of his ritual ground, wordless thoughts spinning, making and breaking uncountable connections every instant, guided incompetently by his vague understanding of what he wanted to achieve. It had all seem so clear when expressed in distinct words bounded by his physical brain and limited human nervous system. But here, where no such limits or bounds existed, such thoughts seemed hardly worth his attention. Fortunately for that small part of him that was Earth-Kryss, the efforts that he and a tiny lesser infinity of other-Earth-Kryss-like beings had put in had reached a threshold, and a spirit-fractal was formed, one that might, eventually, flower into a guiding oversoul for the creation of a new subset of REALITY, branching off the current path-pattern of materialistic-bound Earth humans. And so the way was cleared through the energy veils of humanity to access a universal vibratory energy that had never been authorized for incarnate humans before. And thus, deep within Kryss, a new crystal was formed in select neurons of his central nervous system, along with catalyst codes that would allow such crystals to stimulate their own reproduction over time, if properly used. And so the first step of quantum spiritual awareness was taken, and the production of entanglement pairs began. All Kryss himself knew was that he had touched some level of awareness beyond human expression, then everything went black and he CRASHED back into his physical body as if from a height of several feet, painfully jolting his every nerve and leaving him dazed and in pain, cramps appeared in every part of his body, and even his bones ached. Despite all that, Kryss was elated - he could feel that something deep within him had changed. He felt a closeness and bonding to his ritual works that hadn''t been there before. Ravenous hunger hit him as he slowly stretched and recovered from the multi-layered impact of his experience. He had prepared a small lunch to satisfy post-fasting urges when he was done, but it hardly even touched the deep hunger he now felt, so he quickly changed to normal street clothes, grabbed his essentials, shut down the computers and lights, and headed for his car to go home. The hunger made him break one of his normal rules and stop for snacks on the way home. Walking in to the 7-11, everything felt strange, the people felt like mannequins or robots, the building felt like cardboard, and most of his usual snacks held no appeal despite his appetite. He ended up leaving with juice, beef jerky (the most plain, unflavored kind they had), and some assorted fresh fruit. The mere thought of anything with caffeine had suddenly become repulsive, as had most of the sweets and baked goods. Just walking past the cigarettes had nearly caused him to throw up. Driving itself seemed more automatic than usual, his skills and instincts were intact, but he was almost entirely unable to actually focus on the task and missed well-known turns twice of the way home. Fleeting glimpses seemed to haunt him of other roads, turns, and options, of buildings that didn''t look right and scenery that felt out-of-place. Yet when he focused on such things, in every case he could clearly recall, all was the same as it always had been. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Arriving home, his cats gave mild mews, acknowledging his return and informing him all was well with the household. He then headed for the kitchen and made a huge serving of scrambled eggs, which he devoured with toast and butter, even though the toast had a minor feeling of wrongness about it. His drinks seemed limited to unsweetened juices, whole milk, and water - but he got the idea he could managed to consume enough of normal foods to get by in casual social situations. He''d have to do a true shopping expedition tomorrow and start making lists and assigning tolerance ratings, he thought. For now, though - sleep called. From the moment he lay down, a strong sleep paralysis swept across Kryss'' body and a kaleidoscope of images swirled through his mind. While such experiences in sleep or meditation weren''t unknown to him, the scale this time was very disorienting and he felt a falling sensation as his body literally "fell" asleep. His last wakeful awareness was of an angelic gaming "Dungeon Master" asking him "So, have you decided how you want your stats to work yet?" as he sat before a huge tabletop game of some kind, with all sorts of dice, cards, wheels, and other randomizing equipment filling the table, and with a group of beings of light and darkness clustered around, waiting to learn how character generation was going to be handled this time. He awoke the next morning feeling a bit stiff, bracketed closely by his beloved felines, but fairly clear-headed as he got up and put himself on automatic as he did his morning bath and shower routines, and fed the cats. As on the drive home, everything in his home seemed both out of place and yet perfectly normal at the same time. The hunger of last night was gone, and the food restrictions seemed to have loosened a bit, though he still had to avoid most caffeine and stronger spices, still, a simple bowl of oatmeal caused him no discomfort or concern. The cats seemed more attentive than usual and wanted to play and to compete for his lap, and he felt a strange energy flow from his hands as he pet them and played bat-paws with them. It slowly dawned on him that he could now FEEL some kind of energy flowing within and immediately around his body, and he could use it to feel the presence of his cats as they entered or left it, or moved within it. It brought back memories of a similar feeling briefly glimpsed over the years when he had done meditations aimed at seeing auras. Now, he couldn''t yet SEE anything, but the FEEL was far more solid and reliable than he had ever felt in those experimental days. Kryss was sure now that his ritual had changed him, but that he simply hadn''t given it enough direction to produce specific results. Even so, he felt that the primary goal - connecting his awareness to the greater universe, had been accomplished. He just hadn''t been aware of just how overwhelming the "greater universe" was. He realized now that just the tiny, restricted, glimpse he had been given would have killed most people or driven them insane, but his decades of seeking had left him open to enough that he was able to grow instead of breaking. Better yet, a small portion of that glimpse had stayed with him, and it wasn''t fading away as he had feared it might. If his morphic theory was correct, he had started an ongoing crystallization process that could continue to expand if provided with proper growth conditions. So the next step would be to head back to the warehouse and try to optimize and direct the next growth sequence. 3. Gamemaster Design Contemplations - Executive Level Far beyond the ken of anything resembling an incarnated human, a being set itself to work, joyfully. The seed of a new fractal of existence had been produced in one of the many nurseries it helped oversee. The task now was to nurture that tiny seed so that it could withstand the stresses it would encounter as it started to grow and interact with all the competing paradigms that sought to modify the awareness of the countless incarnate whose intentions were allowed to shape that corner of reality. This seed had vast potential for expansion, and thus would be deemed "cancerous" by many of the surrounding paradigms, once it expanded enough to intrude on their awareness. The last seed produced in this fragment of human reality, designated "Atlantis", had crashed, ripping apart even the soul essences of many of the incarnate that had accepted that pathway. Still, the base "human" template had survived and expanded, to the point that it once more attempted to reach beyond even its wildest potential. It couldn''t do this and remain "human", of course - the fires of transformation would make it into something else entirely, if it survived at all. But the being was optimistic, as these newest generations of humans had found new conceptual tools. If anything, it was their very ignorance that might save them. Atlantis had KNOWN what they were doing - they simply over-reached, due to pride and ego, thinking that simply because their souls were infinite, that they could withstand exposure to the next layer of infinity - not realizing that infinities (of course) scaled up infinitely rapidly. The shattering had been spectacular, and the fallout from it had created the isolation of human incarnates from other technological incarnates living within those physical universe structures. None of THEM wanted to risk such soul-erasure, having to reset for possibly millions of years before their experiences could be redeemed from the depths of the Akashic libraries. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. THESE humans, however, were weak in their convictions and confused - but were none the less brave explorers, taking insane risks they couldn''t understand, let alone imagine the consequences of. THIS seed-matrix soul group would never even contemplate seeking worship and racial dominance - the most common stumbling block. Of course, the seed would quickly grow to encompass those only too willing to embark on that path, so the rules needed to be such that those efforts would just provide competitive spark and direction to the seedling - i.e. turn the parasites into fertilizer, in mundane terms. It was worth contemplating that these "cat" creatures were the first to be exposed to concentrations of the new pathway energies. They were a common semi-aware incarnate design and could be used as carriers for the catalytic effect. And they would also serve well as dimensional anchors, keeping their respective human incarnates from getting lost in irrelevant alternate universes as they tested the flows of the cosmos. For now, the cosmic being made only the most minute of adjustments, shifting the felines towards being more drawn to dense quantum entanglement fields, and instilling a small bit of worry in the quantum-field itself, giving it a field-intent to hide itself from those without their own crystal entanglement generators. 4. Back to the Warehouse The drive back had much the same surreal quality as the trip home had, but Kryss had mostly adjusted and paid closer attention when it was time to make turns, so nothing of note happened. As soon as he parked, he could feel "aura-like" pulses from the direction of the warehouse. Aside from the lights and computer, he had left everything in place around the ritual, and it appeared that some kind of energy flow had continued. Even before turning on the lights, he felt a strong sense of flow throughout the building. But nothing actually visible. As the place lit up and he saw his arrangement fully once more, he could feel strong positive and negative feelings about each part of the setup, on a "feng shui" level. He HAD incorporated touches for feng shui in the design, but it hadn''t been a priority, as that paradigm didn''t resonate well with him. And what he felt now didn''t match what he had read - it seemed to have more to do with the meanings of the objects, rather than their colors, shapes, or design. Kryss quickly decided to "go with the flow", and start moving things around according to what "felt right". It seemed that certain things attracted other things, and wanted to be near them. The Keys of Enoch wanted to be close to origami, wave physics, and musical instruments, for example, while The Nature of Personal Reality wanted to be "balanced" with Illusions. In a similar manner "hard" SF wanted to be balanced by LitRPG, and gaming and randomization materials wanted their own circle, where few other materials were to be allowed. AI references, of course, grouped near the computers and wi-fi. Fantasy wanted to be spread out, interacting with all kinds of input. After nearly 2 hours of modifications, Kryss returned to the center, relaxed, and opened his mind. Immediately, he felt pain as something unbalanced ruined the flow - he followed the feeling and removed the offending article (a rainbow flag), and tried again - with much the same result (another flag this time). Checking further, it seemed nearly anything to do with pride or loyalty were disruptive items, no matter what the cause or statement they represented. Even dollar bills were disruptive - though most coins were not. Kryss FINALLY managed a stable meditative condition hours later, again with the help of a hemi-synch tape. This time was different - he was fully aware, and was standing on the edge of a vast abyss. The invitation was obvious - he had to choose to cast himself into the void, with his goals firmly in mind. That stopped him for a while - what WERE his goals, really? He came here via obsessive curiosity and a need to uncover secrets. Thinking about it, he knew that such delving into secrets both brought power and disrupted power structures, and that one needed power of some kind to deal with the consequences of prying into secrets. But he also knew that power was a trap, like wealth, and that too much of it was even more harmful than none at all. What he had here represented vast power - if it could be harnessed for practical purpose. For himself, he wanted the ability to investigate the universe and to avoid the attention of those who would want to deter him. He also wanted TIME - far more than a normal human lifespan would allow, and that alone would represent another power trap when it was noticed - unless it became common... So his FIRST INTENTION became "Health and Longevity via Awareness and Learning". It wouldn''t matter WHAT people learned, or how - simply learning and becoming aware of more of the universe would promote health and youthful vitality. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. His second great need was to maintain and expand the fruits of his learning - especially those he had just gained. Letting them slip away was just not an option. So the SECOND INTENTION was the "Preservation of Enlightenment", which would help "lock in" gains of awareness, but could be released at will, in case one found oneself too far along a dead-end path. He could feel that this was possible even beyond physical death, though the mechanism of the effect was currently far beyond his grasp. And his THIRD INTENTION arose from his gaming background - the creation of an interface upon which to chart his progress. He didn''t dare define it more closely than that, because he didn''t have enough understanding of how the universe worked to make presumption about what defined an entity or its abilities, but he wanted/NEEDED a guide. He was feeling very lost. He could feel that he was already straining the limits of intent, and quickly cast himself into the void before second-guessing could erode his choices. And thus he heard a Voice from Beyond "Requests heard. Evolution in progress" as everything vanished in a blur of mental and physical pain. Many hours later, he woke up feeling fine, but needing a quick run to the bathroom. As he moved, he felt his entire body was covered in a thin coat of repulsive slime, which has saturated his clothes. Sadly, his warehouse had no shower, only a sink, but there were a couple towels in the bathroom. Since no one else was present, he just stripped down and coated himself in hand soap, removing the grime with the first towel and drying off with the second, then soaking each article of clothing, washing then laying them out to dry near the main radiant heater. Once halfway clean and relaxed, he closed his eyes and sought to access the requested interface. A jumbled flux appeared in his mind''s eye, slowly refining itself as he relaxed. Eventually, a picture formed of a small red bubble enveloped in a flow of cool plasma, with occasional sparks and lightning being given off. Later, words appeared near the image: Basic awareness Origin Imbue Just 3 lines, 4 words, but it worked! Basic awareness was fairly obvious - it was what he had been using, after all, but he felt it had grown quite a lot since yesterday. Origin felt confusing, but mostly seemed like a Title or Achievement, but also held overtones of growing ability (maybe an evolving Passive?). Imbue was a straight-out castable ability, his first "magic" spell, and he was VERY excited to try it out. The red bubble was his "mana", and it was somehow maintained or fed by the plasma. The sparks and lightning were mysterious, but he got the impression they were at least partly involved with communication or transmission. As the visuals cleared further, he could make out a faint red haze constantly spreading outwards from his red bubble into the world at large, maintaining it at a constant size as it continually brought in energy from the plasma. Waiting for the clothes to dry, he ate his lunch - trying out "Imbue" for the first time on his food. Results were quick, several tiny areas on his food suddenly stood out as "rot" - bad things to eat. He could "power" the effect for about 10 seconds before it faded, and he could feel that his red mana pool was nearly gone. It took about 3 minutes to re-fill to 90% (diminishing returns were obvious as it filled). He picked the worst offending spots off the food before eating. He didn''t have any dire feeling about them, but felt better avoiding them. He went back into the bathroom to check the mirror and look for any obvious changes - and found them immediately. Most of his old skin flaws had their progress reversed, or had vanished entirely. He quickly guessed that the "slime" had been toxic drainage from all the many tiny infections common in the skin of all humans. That quickly brought up the question to mind - was this happening to others? To everyone? Kryss fired up his favorite networking research computer and started the online searches. 5. What Now? Kryss turned away from the keyboard - the world remained the same as usual, so far as he could see. Same political BS, same social BS, same crime rates, ect. The only real uptic he saw was in his own stock accounts - he''d had a good day on the money front - at least according to the futures market, actual Monday morning trading wouldn''t start for a few hours yet. Logging in to Etrade, he brought up his portfolio. Yes, the effect was there - he could feel a few stocks that he was drawn to or needed to get away from, so he had placed the orders for execution on market open. Still feeling awake and energized, he started cleaning up the ritual area. He felt sure he had done about all he could with the current patterns he had made, and started with the books, picking up and sorting them back onto shelves. A few titles really stood out - "The Magic May Return, by Niven" and "The Great Explosion, by Eric Frank Russell" made him stop and think more about goals and consequences involved in what he was doing. Just picking up The Keys of Enoch made him feel confused and dizzy, while Illusions brought clarity - no wonder they had been balanced against each other, he thought. Some things he just threw out, like the rose representing the Church of Divine Man (creating and destroying roses was their thing, after all), and bits of sage and mint. Most he filed away, like gaming maps, Reiki symbol patterns, all the gaming toys and figurines, and assorted collectibles. Several times in the cleanup, he tried using Imbue, finding that its main effect was to amplify Awareness with regard to the target - i.e. a very basic diagnostic spell, which also seemed quite versatile. The more he used it, the more his "impressions" or "feelings" about the target solidified towards "knowing" details about it that would otherwise not be obvious. It even identified one of his game computers as having a nasty virus, but wasn''t quite specific enough for him to fix it - yet. He also found out that frequent use blurred results and made him start guessing instead of "knowing". With his current skill, about 2 castings an hour was all he could expect optimal results from, and more than 10 made any results near-useless. He also found that any target of Imbue remained "connected" to him in the back of his mind until he intentionally severed the connection. At last, cleanup mostly done, it was dawn Monday morning and he drove home. The cats, Shadow and Midnight, welcomed him eagerly - especially when he opened fresh cans of food for them. Then he ran a hot bath and just soaked for an hour - removing all the leftover gunk from his cleansing. Laying down afterwards, he just relaxed, letting his mind wander. As he let go of direction and intention, he started to feel all the connections he had formed today - but they faded away when he tried to actually think about them. Relaxing again, he drifted off for a few hours, just letting things wash over him without trying to pick apart the details. Waking up, the first thing that struck him was knowing exactly where his cats were. That wasn''t exactly hard, as they were both in the bed with him, but the detail and certainty of that knowing was surprising. Still without opening his eyes, he again brought up his "Status" display. It was mostly the same, with a slightly larger red bubble and more tine lightning bolts. And there was a sub-skill to Imbue now called "diagnose". Using it on himself, he was momentarily flooded with information he just couldn''t follow - some kind of full-body holographic image flooded with intricate colors, flows and patterns. Ok, well, he could tell this was a fantastic ability, but obviously understanding his body was far, far beyond him. Maybe start small? Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. An hour later, he found that he could, somewhat, comprehend the "diagnose" of a single patch of skin maybe 1/4 inch across, and even that was stretching his mind with all the diverse life forms, cell patterns, blood flows, nerve endings, and so on. He would have to know what to look for and learn to only look at what was meaningful in order to make this ability useful on living things. Happily, after he got up and did some basic housecleaning, he found that "diagnose" worked very well for spotting flaws or contaminations in and around ordinary household objects. When the mail came, he found it could also let him "see" inside sealed envelopes! That knowledge in hand, he decided to go shopping. Arriving at his local Safeway, he could immediately feel energy flows around almost everyone and everything when he spent just a tiny bit of "mana" to actively observe. Most of it was faint and baffling, but there were certain currents or colors that had strong toxic feelings to them, and others that promoted harmony and drew him to them. He started making lists of the "best" feeling things, and another list of stuff to avoid. Strangely, some had BOTH feelings to them, which he assumed meant it depended how they were used or prepared. When he got to the meats area, he wished he could afford to tell people what he saw - about 20% were strongly toxic, even though a seemingly identical package right next to it might feel perfectly healthy. With eggs, about 5% were "bad eggs". Juices were much the same. Most processed foods were just "mild yuck", and tended to be the same no matter which package or brand you chose. Most fresh veggies were good stuff, but there were random strong toxins mixed in here and there. After an hour and a half in the store, Kryss went home with a large load of "good" and "neutral" foods, including snacks to bring along to his evening gaming group meeting. While tempted to share some of his discoveries with his friends, he had very little real "proof" yet, and only 2 of the group were really long-term friends of his. Maybe the Thursday group, he thought to himself. Meanwhile, maybe he could learn some of what these energy flows indicated during the course of the game session. Checking in on his "status", his red bubble had grown, and "Basic Awareness" was now "Basic Awareness 2", which certainly seemed to fit his improvement in how he could "see" and "feel" the energy flows around him. Also "Origin" now showed "Innate sensitivity" as a sub-feature, and it seemed to be a constant effect, not something that used mana or needed to be activated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unknown to Kryss, a psychology grad student at the local university was looking over the day''s Zener Card results - the usual "ESP test" indulgence his prof gave to first-year psych students. Today, they were showing a serious improvement spike, which meant he was going to have to look into who was cheating, and how. An 8% increase wasn''t unheard of in statistics, but with over 200 recorded sessions, it was nothing to ignore. 6. Game Night Adventure Bob and Alice were longtime friends of Kryss and enjoyed the "real-world" mystic background he added to their fantasy gaming sessions - it often lent an extra layer of believability to the role-playing of their AD&D expeditions. He also tended to bring good snacks. As well, they had benefitted from his occasional stock tips, so they knew the guy had some sort of special knack going for him, as he had made a living without working for over 3 years now. Bob quickly noticed Kryss seemed distracted tonight and was gazing intently at assorted people and objects as they waited for their last member, Trent, to arrive. Cindy and Don had arrived only a couple minutes after Kryss, and Don was setting up the table and maps for the night''s gaming. Kryss casually mentioned that they should sell, or even short-sell, any gaming or gambling stocks they had interest in, and Bob made a post-it note to do so tomorrow. When they asked Kryss why, he just said that a whole new way of cheating seemed to be on the horizon, but that he didn''t know yet how the details would pan out. Trent soon arrived, and the group got settled around the table. The current party quest was for a magical tome that had been captured by orcs in a raid on a merchant caravan. It was thought to be held in a run-down castle controlled by the local orc lord. The party set out and managed to find the castle after dispatching an orc guard patrol. There was then some debate about trying to infiltrate and steal the tome, vs trying to wipe out the orcs and take over the castle and all loot it might hold. They decided to hope stealth worked and try to steal the tome and any other loot they came across in getting to it, rather than hope they could take out the entire settlement, which they guessed at nearly 100 orcs - they would just run out of spell and healing power, they feared. They managed to get into the castle, but in scouting for where the treasures were held, the sounds of Cindy''s paladin armor gave them away, and alarms sounded. After running battles and taking out 30-some orcs, they found themselves barricaded in the treasure room at the end of the evening''s play session. The party would have a whole week to think up ways out of the trap for next Monday''s game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kryss had been fastinated all evening watching the interplay of energy across the game. On every dice roll, he could see futile colors of intention coming from the players, hoping to influence the outcome. But he could see a disconnect - like everyone was sending a signal out, but not getting a response or forming a connection with the target. He activated Imbue several times over the evening, and could tell it had an effect, but it still didn''t seem to actually guide any dice results. The initial connection could be made that way, but the actual force and guidance would require something more. After the others left, Kryss let Bob and Alice know he had made progress on the clairvoyant front, and showed them he could guess a hidden card accurately. They seemed impressed, but it felt like they still suspected he had just found some trick or illusion - not that he could blame them. Now wasn''t the time to "prove" anything - just getting them interested was fine. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Getting home, he settled down for a "normal" night''s sleep for the first time since his ritual. Of course, it didn''t work out that way. He quickly found out that he had to learn to "turn off" his expanded awareness if he expected anything like normal sleep. If he didn''t, his mind kept brushing against sensations from elsewhere - and he wasn''t ready to find out what that meant or how it worked. Sleep came most easily if he started out in a self-directed lucid dream, he found. i.e. he would just create a fantasy in his mind, follow the plot, and gradually release control and awareness until it became a true dream and he was actually asleep. The cats woke him mid-morning, demanding food and attention by batting his hair back and forth - reminding him it was well past time for a haircut. After batting kitty-paws and doing play chases for a bit, he fed the cats and had breakfast, getting more used to the altered tastes and sensations. He even threw out several cans of cat food that simply "felt bad". Checking out the internet, the world still seemed to be mostly as he''d last seen it - an endless struggle for money and attention. On Youtube, though, there were more meditation live-streams than usual, by a wide margin, with quite a few claims that "activation was underway", or that "the indigo children were waking up" or other statements to that effect. Of course, there were ALWAYS such videos around, but the uptic and the number of live streams on the topics were well beyond anything he''d seen before. Seeing that Hurtag himself was one of the live panelists, Kryss dug out The Keys of Enoch from the ritual books he''d packed up the day before and flipped through it - using Imbue. He landed on page 247, which talked about a "light-parent body" creating a "super-spectrum", and of a "Master Control energy used to set Light vibrations". As always, reading the Keys was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle using only 1/4 of the pieces, but Imbue DID seem to fill in some of the gaps. For the next 2 hours, with some graph paper, dice, and hints from Keys, Kryss worked to see if he could actually control a die roll. The first hour was flat failure, though Imbue did show him what numbers the 20-sided die most favored. In the second hour, he managed to create a true "attachment" to the die, and even got a new "skill" in his "status" called "Influence", but actual results in controlling the outcome weren''t happening. He did have fun letting the cats play with the die and "feeling" it being tossed about as he sat back with his eyes closed. He was even able to find it and pick it up - eyes still closed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Professor Edwards was having a bad day. The zener card results weren''t following anything like the distribution they should have, and he wasn''t finding the usual overt cheating. Most of the results were normal, of course - random chance. But two of his students seemed to get the first few guesses correct on every run, before falling back to random. And now it was happening with a third student. Worse, if given a minute off between each guess, one of the students was able to get EVERY card correct! And he claimed not to know how - just that he could direct "energy" at the card and "know", but that "energy" ran out quickly. And the third student had picked up the same ability after hearing it described! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The World Series of Poker was buzzing that afternoon - the usual level of bluffs just weren''t working. Security was ramped up, people were questioned, but no explanations were to be had. Those calling the bluffs mostly simply said they just had a feeling it was a bluff, and what poker player wouldn''t go with their gut?? Gaming stocks started falling sharply in after-hours trading. 7. Elsewhere Sunday morning, shortly after the initial ritual: Dan turned off his computer and went to bed, inspired (as usual) by the magical nature of the many worlds of gaming he dabbled in. He started his usual pre-sleep meditation with the usual circulation of energy through and around his body, becoming fully aware of, and accepting, all the usual sensations, the hidden pains and flaws of a human body in its 6th decade. As was his custom, he sent healing and clearing energy throughout his system. He couldn''t prove it, of course, but he had always felt that this lifelong habit played a large role in keeping him healthy and active, free of any serious medical concerns, despite a "terrible" diet and mostly sedentary lifestyle. Dan practiced meditation and visualization in much the same way he played video games, read fantasy novels, or followed what cutting-edge science was up to - he was waiting for what he never expected to happen, a breakthrough in reality. So when it DID happen, he noticed. Only two minutes into his basic energy self-scan, he noticed the change - not only was the energy more clear and responsive than ever, it was growing - fast! Dan quickly started gathering it in and putting it to work. A quick wave of healing and clearing was first, of course, since he didn''t want all this energy draining into negativity or self-destructive thoughts, but then he turned to what had always been his dream - a psychic/magical "heads-up display" of the world around (and inside) him. He had no idea if any such thing was possible, but he was always one to reach for the stars when it came to his fantasy visualizations, and he was feeling very energized at the moment. Result were FELT quickly, but not seen - breaking through from visualization to an actual overlay of his visual cortex was no easy task, he quickly realized. Still, he decided "no compromise". He just wouldn''t be satisfied with "feelings" and "impressions" any longer - he wanted to SEE! Pressure built up. It was painful. For Dan, the pain just meant something REAL was happening and he redoubled his efforts. Several times, waves of dizziness and nausea threw him out of his meditation, but he persisted. Many times, images came up, showing him the way magic was moving within and around him, but would vanish when he opened his eyes - NOT ENOUGH!! At last, as dawn came that Sunday morning, Dan opened his eyes and could SEE. It was faint, but magic was everywhere around and within him, in far more depth than he could yet process. Better yet, he could reach out to things around him with it and see the interactions. Dan forced himself to remain awake, aware, and SEEING for a couple more hours to "lock in" the knowledge and feeling of it, while he snacked and changed out of his now sweat-soaked night t-shirt. He put on slippers and when into the back yard to see what plants and other things in nature looked like with magic vision, and was rewarded with a wealth of glowing colors and patterns. Once he was used to it, he was sure he''d be able to quickly tell the nature and health of most any living thing he encountered. Once he felt everything was stable, Dan went back to bed and quickly fell into a deep, exhausted, sleep. Upon waking, Dan instantly checked to see if his "mana vision" was still working. It was faint and fuzzy, but still there, so he immediately grabbed onto the feeling of it and worked to make it "more real" - this was not something to let go of, if he had anything to say about it! After about 15 min, it was working as well as it had before sleep took him - another half hour and it was noticeably better, and Dan allowed himself to get up and start the day. Upon using the bathroom, Dan saw that his pee had much darker, nearly black, energy around it, with bits of bright red mixed in - obviously waste products, he thought. Even after he was done physically, he let the waste energy stream continue to flow until the "pressure" of negativity and pain was released. He felt lighter, brighter, and could feel an inflow of energy from all around him, and upwelling from within as well. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The bathroom mirror was a bit of a strange experience, at first, as he was looking outward through his new aura, and then trying to see a reflection of it to get an outside view as well. Trying to get it right and see it as he wanted to took him another hour, and eventually resulted in two different "modes" of mana vision. The first way was to "tune out" his own energy from his vision, so he could see external energy more clearly, but that still didn''t let him see his own energy in the mirror. First, the mirror didn''t seem to "reflect" mana light as it did normal light - it only did so by intent. And second, when he tuned out his own energy from view so he could see through it clearly, it also tended to clear it out of the reflection. The second way was to see the mirror as a screen, like the heads-up display itself - a different viewpoint of the same thing. And he found he could switch back and forth from a "screen display" to a "heads-up display". After some practice, the mirror wasn''t even needed to activate the screen - he could just look at any fairly neutral surface. Next up was food! He found he could adjust the heads-up display to rate foods for how compatible they were for his current needs. Most were just blah sustenance, he found, providing minor health benefits, if any. Those with serious dark or red energy infused with them, he threw out. From the rest, he came up with a filling meal and headed out - the next project was people-watching. He needed to find out how the energy he could see related to actual humans in the wild. Leaving home and walking towards the nearest park, the first other human energy he saw was in passing cars, making it hard to get any detail, but at least he learned to "see" what human energy fields generally looked like - mostly towards the lower end of the spectrum, he thought, and muddy, but a few were sharper, clearer, and one was even a pleasant green. The occasional people on the sidewalk were generally more positive, but a few were bleak, with streaks of black or red. Dan came to associate red with pain and black with damage, though there seemed to be another red (he noticed on joggers) that might mean vitality or muscle-building. Most kids had more pastels, it looked like, but a few had indications of damage as severe as any adult. But after getting to the park and watching things from the bench for a while, he could see a lot more going on. While the surface view was mostly "nice", with people playing or relaxing, he soon learned the indications of drug dealing and addiction. He restrained himself from taking any action - certainly his "visions" didn''t constitute evidence and he was in no state to deal with such things personally - not directly, at least. But as he watched the depraved predators lurking at the edges of society, he began to plan ways of helping. As darkness fell, on his way home, Dan started practicing again. He simply couldn''t continue to ignore what he was now able to see, so it was time to REALLY learn to see, so that he wouldn''t make tragic errors. So, as he walked, Dan started to practice seeing people''s energies THROUGH their house walls. And in his mind, plans started to form. What else could he do with his rapidly-growing sensitivity and vision? And were there others like himself? That last point hit home - if others could do the same, could he find them? Did they have codes of conduct? Could THEY find HIM? That last one started worrying him, especially as he noticed his own aura seemed much stronger than average, which would be a dead giveaway to anyone with similar abilities. After all - he''d never heard of anyone claiming the kind of sight he''d just gotten, so it was either very secret or very new. Considering his own habits, and that it had come so suddenly, he was inclined to bet it was new - in which case it was going to hit society hard as more and more people discovered it. As he got home, Dan had decided his role - he was going to be a covert vigilante. He would find and "out" the evils in society and the abusers of the new energies. That was the plan - at least, and it made him feel warm inside, which was what mattered most.