Chara was utterly astonished.

  She was just looking at some iingly colored rocks when out of nowhere, a stream of information transmitted itself directly into her sciousness. The hing she knew, her mind was being filled with all kinds of knowledge about the earth, shape, texture, carbon, position, pressure, temperature, humidity, patterns, crity, beauty, and all kinds of other miseous nonsense.

  She wasirely sure what she was supposed to do with this information, or where it came from, but whe it all together, it gave her a rough idea of the cept of “diamond.”

  Scared me to death!!

  After being in profound silence for the better part of a week, upon suddenly receiving the psychological equivalent of a file transfer, it would not be an exaggeration to say that she was nearly startled half to death.

  Uuu… Wasn’t I just looking at rocks? What the heck was that… whined Chara.

  Once she calmed down, she began analyzing the situation. Given the circumstances, she did not believe her most ret jump scare was without a proper cause. However, given that the only things arou the time of i were herself and ahen pilr, was there really ao keep guessing who the true culprit behind this i was?

  Hmph. Fool me once, shame on you. Let’s see what you’re hiding underh that earthy facade… accused Chara as she gred indignantly at the offendih formation.

  It was the same one taining the clumps filled with the bright and visible color that she was iing earlier.

  Full of suspi, she focused her perception and submerged it into the stohe se that reseo her was one hly shaped rocks embedded sporadically throughout ahen n, without a single alien to be found.

  Skeptical, she narrowed her perception onto the area with the color that was very bright and visible. Upon a closer examination, she realized that the clump’s peculiarities might not be limited to just its unusual color. For example, uhe rest of the stone’s interior, the mist ihe bright clumps was very uniform and sistent, with very few irregurities.

  It was too spicuous. How could Chara not suspect it?

  Hello… Chara to Earth…?

  She waited a couple seds for a response, but nothing happened.

  She sighed, I guess it really is just some strangely colored rocks…

  As far as she could tell, there was nothing particurly special about these rocks aside from their unusual impression areme sistency. Uhe impression that she had hit a dead end, she was on the cusp of giving up when she had a realization.

  Wait, could those be diamonds?!

  Although she had only voiced this question in her mind, she was already certain of her jecture. As, rather than being cheerful for unc the culprit’s true identity, what she revealed was an even deeper mystery.

  inally, she had assumed there might be something unusual hiding in her surroundings. However, upon disc the primary suspect to be a shiny rock, she was forced to cede that the impetus behind the diamond i may lie within herself.

  In that case, then what did I do that could have caused all that knowledge to go inside my head?

  Was it because I was looking? No, probably not. I was looking just now, but nothing happehis time…

  Err, was it because I had a question? Umm, no. That also seems unlikely. I have questions all the time…

  At a loss for how to proceed, she decided to just go ahead and try recreating her earlier as to see if anything happened. She didn’t hold out much expectation, but still figured it was worth a shot, if only to firm it didn’t work.

  Chara focused all of her attention on suspected diamonds before voig an internal question.

  What are you?

  Suddenly, a small amount of the particles in her body glimmered faintly before vanishing. The hing she khere was a stream of information flowing directly into her sciousness, just like before.

  [Diamond]

  Ah. Ah! It worked! It really worked! Chara was eted, but after her excitement faded, she realized that she was still he wiser as she still had no clue how or why that happened.

  Wait, why did some of the mist that makes up my body light up and disappear?

  Perhaps, because she hadn’t seen the mist i with anything meaningfully, she subsciously sidered the fog unreal, leadio only think of the curious substance as a means for her perception.

  It was only after such a strange experiehat she began to question the identity of the mysterious dream-like fog. From one moment to another, Chara felt like the fog around her suddenly became much more deep and profound. It was like the more she khe less she uood.

  In any case, now that she had realized that the enigmatic substance held a deeper mystery, she started to iigate right away. With renewed sideration, she began to carefully scrutinize everything she had observed about it until this point.

  Let’s see. It’s radiating out of my body and flying everywhere. It es in various hues, and each cives a distinct impression. Also, on top of having different hues, they be used to do other things… Eh. Ah! Uwa! Since when am I this dumb?!

  Chara quickly dove into her memories and tried to recall the tents of various fantasy books she had read throughout her life.

  These are like the literal vanil magic elements in every standard fantasy story! How did I not realize it sooner?!

  When she reassessed the mysterious particles uhe assumption that they were mana equivalents, a lot of seemingly disected and ued details suddenly aligned perfectly.

  Well, let’s see. The most obvious parallel would be the solid and stable color being the earth element. As for the rest… The dark and gloomy color is darkness, the bright and captivating color is light, the cold and chilly color is ice, and the free and urained color is wind. As for the lively and eic color… uhh… I want to say lightning, but then why is it infused within the earth?

  Because of a certain monster colleg game and the greater media, Chara had been ditioned into thinking of lightning ah as mutually exclusive cepts, even though academically, she was aware that this was not the case.

  Well, whatever. Then this means the earth, light, dark, ice, wind, and lightning elements have been ated for. That only leaves… umm, fire and water…

  To be frank, when most people think of magid magic tricks, a sizable portion will probably think of trolling fire. This is especially the case in the text of high fantasy where traditional spells like “Fire Ball” and “Explosion” have been a staple for years. No matter how dangerous, humans in general seem to have some kind of innate obsession with trolling fire, and Chara was no exception.

  Hmph! So what if I haven’t found a color that corresponds with water or fire? That’s still six out of eight. That’s like… 75% correbsp;calcuted Chara, while deliberately not aowledging the possibility that there could be more tha elements, thereby l her correess even further.

  Despite her many failings, she did have the mind that she might be jumping to clusions. But after giving it some thought, she cluded it was not a problem.

  What will definitively prove if this is mana or chi or whatever is whether or not it be used fic. As for how I’m going to aplish this… Uh, it’s still a work in progress… evaded Chara.

  Having decred her io use magic, she began to carefully sider what was in oweewo flukes. She was hoping to deduce the ditions for activating magic.

  Hmm… During both instances, I was asking a question. However, this seemed more like an impetus rather than a requiremeher way, when I attempt to use magic, I’ll try repg it with a statement. Asking a question feels kinda weird. Like, who am I even asking? The Devil?

  What else… Oh! Both times I was looking at a thing… Maybe when I’m trying to use magic, the thing I’m trying to affect has to be within my perception or something. At least, it would certainly expin why none of my previous questions garnered an answer… surmised Chara with a touch of dissatisfa.

  Her feelings aside, the only differeween then and now was her awareness. If her hypothesis were to be correct, then the reason why her questions failed to activate magic before, is because she didn’t have a suffit e with a thing that taihe desired information. Duriest attempt, since she had both the subject within her perception, and it taihe desired information, the magic activated seamlessly.

  Chara lightly wondered what would happen if she didn’t uand the information, but since she didn’t have a way to test that now, she threw it to the back of her mind for ter.

  maury