Chapter 22
When I was on Earth, I used to spend some time playing RPG type games. I remember spending some weekends in front of the television, with popular JPRGs in the 90's. Granted, I was already middle aged by then, but I can see why so much of the youth got caught up in them. Especially when they moved them online and let players play with and/or attack other players. One thing I used to think was that having a status sheet, like you would see in those RPGs, could come in handy. Just say, or think, "Status" and see how much progress you've made, what skills you've learned, or what stats you currently have. I had spent a bit of time growing up trying to bring up a status screen, but I wasn't a lucky one who had a status, like some of the GameLits I had read in my later years.
While thinking these thoughts, I was struck with an idea. If the Emperor and them could come up with Patterns like the Copter/Flight Pattern, maybe I could come up with a pattern that scanned my body, and broke down my stats, health, and general information. I doubted I'd be able to see what skills I had learned, or how much experience until I 'level up', but knowing my baseline, and where I need to improve, could be very handy. It could. theoretically, even tell me if I was being affected by certain Patterns. If I did it correctly, it might even tell me where to look for said Patterns.
When I wasn't spending time with my new acquaintances, slowly undermining their faith in the monarchy government, I spent time in the library, trying to find other Patterns that I could adapt to my needs. Knowing that nobody actually knew what the patterns looked like, except me, I had to go based on the descriptions of what the felt as they built the Pattern. It was tough going, but I did find some Patterns that looked to be interesting. One such example was Inspect. It let me get a feeling for the strength of a person or animal in reference to my own power. Of course, it wasn't a visual thing, just a general feeling like "strong, weak, calamity, certainty."
With my ability to see the Threads, though, I wondered if it would be possible to tweak these patterns to give a visual 'interface' that would allow me to see the information at a glance, rather than just general feelings. If I could pull that off, maybe I could use a variant of it to Inspect myself and get a 'Status' page. First, however, I had to master the Pattern as it exists, before I can think about modifying it to what I wanted.
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Most of this pattern seemed to be Energy, with some Space and Time thrown in. Very little had anything to do with matter, so Solid, Liquid, and Gaseous didn't appear in this Pattern. Weaving the Threads, I concentrated on a nearby student. They looked up at me, almost as if they could feel what I was doing, but didn't say anything. I finished the Pattern, and it flared to life. A sense of confidence swept over me, as if I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I ever had to fight that student, whether with hands or with Patterns, I would easily win.
Nodding to myself, I began to examine the Pattern in more detail. Like a program, it had an input (the target), a processing stage (inspecting them against myself), and an output (a feeling of their strength). And just like a program, the input and output phase could be redirected. How, though, that was the question. Which Threads did I adjust, move, replace, or remove? Which part of the Pattern controlled the output? After some time examining it, I decided I would need to examine similar spells, or at least those with a similar output, to find the section I needed.
As time went by, I learned more and more Patterns. Some that gave similar info in a different way, some that gave different info in a similar way. I was looking for patterns, repeats, or differences where they should be similar. The only thing I found, was that none of them were alike. I wasn't sure, but I was beginning to suspect that Patterns may have very little to do with the end result. What it meant, though, I wasn't sure.
Modifying a current Pattern may not be feasible. The creator of that Pattern might know how they imagined it working, but I was not the creator, and I doubted my human thought process is the same as the locals thought process. But if I could tie programming techniques into Weaving, I might be able to create Patterns that anyone could learn and modify.
As I sat and thought about this, I came to a realization. The reason these Patterns were haphazard was likely because the only method they have to create them is to feel the Pattern. That process may be why I was unable to find commonalities. I couldn't trace the output stage, because the creator hadn't known what that would look like. This gave me the realization that many of the Patterns in use today, were probably inefficient. If that was the case, everyone was using way more Thread from the Spool than they needed to. Combined with Compressing the, and the Twisting I had learned earlier, it was possible to create a much more powerful version of any spell, at half the Thread cost.
Excitedly, I started working on just that. Before I could get far, though, I received a message. The front of the message just said Jorth. When I opened it, however, the words I read drained the color from my face.
Your parents' survival rests on your next assignment. Complete it, or they will pay.
