Controlling Destiny - 8 Cultivation Sure is Taxing

A tier 5 encryption circle! Although a tier 3 encryption circle was pretty simple, each tier’s difficulty rose exponentially from the previous.

It could be said that tier 4 was twice as hard as a tier 3 and so tier 5 was as such many times harder.

Ultrix rubbed his forehead in frustration. [What could be so secret about this book that the author even encrypted it with a tier 5 encryption runic?] He thought to himself.

However, after much contemplation, Ultrix decided to go ahead and attempt to solve the encryption regardless. After all, it wasn’t as if he had a time limit or anything, and the encryption came with an infinite amount of attempts.

Ultrix grabbed a couple of sheets of paper and started decrypting the rune again.

The rune was quite different from the previous and instead of turning rings, this time it seemed to be a series of logic equations.

[Huh?] Thought Ultrix to himself. [How does logic have anything to do with encryption and magic?]

Ultrix momentarily scratched his head in confusion and then walked to examine the bookshelves yet again for guides to logical sequencing.

Flipping through the books yet again, Ultrix found a guide titled ‘Logistical Logics’.

Upon reading through the book though, Ultrix was extremely confused. The book introduced all kinds of weird words to him which included quantificational schemata, prenex form, and quantifiers.

To make it even worse, the logic symbols on the rune did not match with the ones shown in the book either.

Ultrix took in a shaky breath and rubbed his forehead in frustration. “How the hell am I supposed to figure out any of this if I don’t even have a half-decent guide?” He mumbled quietly to himself.

Taking yet another look at the encryption runic on the book, Ultrix looked for any clues that could help him. There seemed to be a line underneath 3 lines of what seemed to be in a runic language.

The first runic line had a number 1 in front of it and the one beneath that had a ‘2’. Directly beneath these two lines was a straight line, and underneath that, there was a third line that had 3 dots.

Copying the 3 lines of runic onto his paper, Ultrix looked at the equation and started analyzing it for similarities.

Comparing the variables to those found in the logic guide, he quickly deduced that the first 2 lines were premises and that the last line was the conclusion.

After recognizing the equation, the rest was quite simple. By turning the first 2 lines into prenex form and negating the conclusion, Ultrix was able to solve for the equation and deduce its validity.

As Ultrix worked through the equation, he wondered why the author would have chosen these two types of encryption ciphers for the book.

However, try as he could, Ultrix could not figure it out. He ran his fingers through his hair and thought hard about what matching and logic had to do with instantaneous rune drawings.

Eventually, though, Ultrix gave up on thinking too much about it. He decided that he should probably decipher the encryption runic first and read the entire book before worrying about such details.

Writing the final few lines down on his paper, Ultrix concluded that the schemata were valid.

Looking back at the rune that was on the book bind, Ultrix crossed his fingers that he had solved the schemata correctly and inputted ‘valid’ at the bottom of the 3 lines.

The 3 equations swirled in a circle and then slowed down slowly as if the book was processing the information.

Finally, with a slight whooshing sound, the 3 schemata disappeared.

Ultrix was ecstatic. With trembling fingers, he slowly began to prie open the book when he realized. . . the book was still shut!

Ultrix’s face darkened and he inspected the book again. [There can’t possibly be another even harder encryption runic, can there?] He thought to himself.

His body shuddered uncomfortably as he thought of the notion of just having to go through even higher-tiered encryption again.

Luckily for Ultrix though, there were only three words on the runic circle this time.

“Show Your Work.” Ultrix read out loud.

[Show my work?] Ultrix thought to himself. [How can I do that?]

Ultrix once again went back to reference the book on encryption runics, and he quickly found the answer.

To show his work, Ultrix simply had to press his pointer finger against the middle of the runic circle and it would search his memory and thoughts and deduce whether or not Ultrix had simply guessed the correct answer or worked out the equation.

“There’s even such a method of doing things?” Ultrix could not help but exclaim in shock when he realized that the runic was practically reading his mind.

Ultrix hesitated from pressing his finger against the runic circle. After all, having all your thoughts exposed was a frightening idea, even if it was simply to a book.

However, Ultrix gritted his teeth and decided to go with it anyways. [There can not be progress without losing something,] Ultrix thought.

As soon as Ultrix put his finger against the runic, the entire book started jolting slightly. Not expecting such a situation, Ultrix tried to jolt his finger back but found that he could not move. His body was frozen in place and there was a slight tugging sensation on his brain almost like a light muscle spasm.

However, the entire endeavor only lasted a few seconds, and moments later, the book automatically flipped open.

Ultrix’s entire body shook with excitement. He had to pass a tier 3 and tier 5 encryption process to get to this stage, so whatever this book had to offer should have been extremely important.

Looking through the first page of the book, Ultrix realized that it was a contract. The contract wrote: “By accepting a contract with this book, you understand that anything learned can not be unlearned and that with greater power comes greater responsibility.”

“Additionally, attempting to share any information from this book will result in the user forgetting everything that the book has taught them. This information is only for the eyes of the user who has completed the trials before, and can not be shared with anyone.”

“Do you wish to accept such a responsibility?”

Ultrix winced at the contract but decided to not hesitate on it any longer. After all, he was at such a stage already, and there was no point holding anything else back. “I agree!” He declared.

Ding! The book shook slightly and the contract immediately dissolved into a stream of light which quickly faded out of sight.

The page under the contract was empty, but after a moment words started appearing onto the pages without any warning.

The words were not read out-loud but Ultrix could still hear them in his head as if someone was speaking to his mind.

“The path to instantaneous casting requires one’s affinity to be at perfect compatibility,” The book began saying.

“To achieve perfect compatibility can not be done through mere skills but also unparalleled talent.”

As the book went on to explain more in-depth about how instantaneous casting was performed and mastered, Ultrix’s body trembled with excitement.

There was a glint of zealousness in his eyes and he felt his heart burn yet again with a passion that was greater than ever.

Calming himself down, Ultrix sat down and closed his eyes as he tried to remember each word that the book had said to him like it was the word of a deity.

To his pleasant surprise, Ultrix realized that he did not have to memorize any of it.

As soon as anything was said by the book, it became part of Ultrix’s memory and he could recall it whenever he wanted as if he could see it written on his brain.

As time went on and more and more knowledge flooded Ultrix’s brain, his excitement grew more and more. He felt like his affinity with combustion was growing like a wildfire, spreading through his entire body faster and faster covering it entirely.

Inspecting his clothes, Ultrix realized that sparks and slight embers were rolling off his cloak and falling to the floor.

Ultrix paid these embers no heed. In fact, instead of feeling uncomfortable, they felt natural to him, like how one does not notice hair falling from their head, Ultrix had not noticed these embers until he had paid closer attention to them.

Eventually, the book finally stopped talking and silence once again returned. Ultrix suddenly felt almost lonely once again, as he realized that he missed the book’s voice in his head.

As soon as the book stopped, it turned into a streak of light and completely vanished. This guaranteed that no one else but Ultrix would gain the information to the book.

However, very quickly Ultrix recovered from his loneliness and decided to go over his new-found knowledge.

He was very excited about trying to use what he had learned quickly, grabbed an iron needle and heated the tip.

To use instantaneous casting, the book had said that the user had to turn their entire body into a magic rune. However, the problem was that to fit the requirements of being a rune, one had to have perfect compatibility with their affinity or else the process would not only fail but create enormous back-lash on the individual, potentially crippling their affinity altogether.

Realizing this, Ultrix understood that it was probably why this book had been locked up in the first place. With such a requirement to fulfill, it was pointless to teach this kind of information to anyone for fears that the greedier ones who wanted power would want to try this upon themselves at the cost of their life.

Another issue highlighted by the book was that not only would a failure end up in killing the individual who tried it, but the backlash could also potentially be severe enough to end up disrupting the magical energy around the individual as well, leading to a crippling of the environment as well.

This was what the book had hinted at in the contract about greater power leading to greater responsibility.

Just as Ultrix was about to start the process of transforming his body into a magic rune, he suddenly felt quite light-headed. Confused as to why he was feeling so tired, Ultrix looked outside his window again. The sundial had seemed to have only merely moved ahead a couple of hours, and it was not even evening yet.

Even more confused, Ultrix decided to check his Identification Token, which always had the date on it. Taking a look, Ultrix nearly doubled over in shock.

Rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, Ultrix realized to his horror that more than an entire day had passed while he was cultivating!