Shadow Slave

Chapter 879: Signs of Lightning

Sunny glanced at the old scientist with interest.

"Causality? Do you mean its reason?"

Professor Obel smiled.

"No, nothing so philosophical! What I mean is that we are exploring the cause and effect of various phenomena having to do with the Spell, as well as correlations between them. Of course, our study mainly has to do with the Nightmare Gates, but since nothing exists in isolation, we need to consider the system in its entirety."

Sunny considered his words for a while.

"Is this how you make the Obel Scale work?"

The old man shook his head with an amused look.

"That thing? No, not quite. The so-called "Obel Scale" is a primitive work that I and many talented colleagues of mine created in the early days of the Spell. It is relatively effective for what it is supposed to do, but the solution is purely practical. It can track and predict manifestation events, but does not shine a light on how and why they are happening. Back then, we had no time to ponder such things. We needed to come up with an immediate and effective measure, limited as it might be."

He sighed, and then said in a wistful tone:

"You see... a caveman can observe lightning and know that being hit by lightning is dangerous. Therefore, he can learn to recognize the signs of an approaching thunderstorm and take shelter from it. However, without understanding the principles of why and how lightning appears, a caveman cannot invent a lightning rod, build a Faraday cage, or harness the power of electricity. So, that is how our work here differs from the "Obel" Scale. That old solution is simply a tool to recognize the signs of a thunderstorm and assign a numerical value to the probability of a lightning striking in a particular spot, while we are trying to understand its principles."

Sunny listened to the elderly scientist attentively. When else would he get a chance to converse with someone so learned and knowledgeable? Luckily, Professor Obel seemed to either be fond of educating young people in general, or was simply in a talkative mood.

Deciding to use this chance to learn something new, Sunny asked:

Obel

The old man chuckled.

of a Nightmare Gate produces, right? Depending on the Category of a Gate, it differs in potency and characteristics, spreads

tentatively nodded, prompting Professor Obel

if we know what to look for, we can detect faint aftershocks of a Gate impulse before it actually appears. Of course, that requires a vast and expensive network of sensors

Sunny blinked.

do you mean when you say that the impulse spreads through

man looked at him and remained silent

a river, young man. It always flows forward, from the past into the future, and we travel forward with its current. Now, imagine that someone threw a rock into that

was not hard to understand... however, it was

about it

of a harp. Someone plucked it in the middle, sending a vibration spreading both up and down. Downward was

Fate, and the neverending expanse of its countless strings, each stretching from nowhere to infinity. A certain event happened,

old

appeared

to revelations, perhaps, work based on the

bit, and then

I think I understand?

Professor Obel smiled.

without understanding the cause. And the cause... why, it is much harder to comprehend. Truth be told, I don't think that humans like us can even conceive of it in its entirety. In fact, the predominant school of modern thought states that the Nightmare Spell is acausal by nature, meaning

He grimaced.

a daunting task, so we limit the scope of our research to a small fraction

face darkened a

even that has proved to be an insurmountable task, I'm