Chương 148: Lightning Finally Learned to Behave

Sieghart spent most of the journey back toward Seraphina inside the carriage cabin, surrounded by scorched metal rods, cracked stones, and several improvised targets that had already suffered through too many failed experiments with Lightning Magic. Alchemy remained somewhere in the back of his mind, but Sieghart deliberately refused to touch the subject while Ronan remained nearby and alert. Lightning was troublesome enough without adding another corrupted mystery.

More importantly, Sieghart still hated that Spark occasionally treated his own hands like acceptable targets whenever the current discovered an easier path than the one he intended. He gathered another charge above his right palm and aimed toward a narrow metal plate attached to the opposite wall, carefully shaping the spell before allowing the electricity to leave his fingers.

The bolt cracked through the cabin, curved unexpectedly halfway across the distance, struck a metal hinge beside the target, and sent enough current through the carriage frame to make Sieghart's fingers tingle unpleasantly. Sieghart flexed his hand while staring at the untouched plate. Resistance prevented the mistake from seriously injuring him, but surviving repeated stupidity did not transform that stupidity into acceptable magical control. Every other element possessed habits he could work around.

Fire spread, water followed pressure, wind moved through gradients, earth needed structure, and ice responded well whenever he controlled temperature and shape together. Lightning behaved differently because it constantly searched for conductive paths on its own, turning tiny imperfections in Sieghart's control into entirely new destinations before he could correct the spell after release.

He tried surrounding Spark with a narrow mana channel, creating an invisible tunnel from his palm toward the plate and reinforcing every side except the opening facing his intended target. The current followed the channel for several centimeters before punching through one side, splitting into branching arcs that struck the floor brace, window frame, and Sieghart's thumb almost simultaneously inside the cabin.

Another sharp crack echoed through the carriage, followed by the brief smell of heated metal and the much louder sound of Ronan swearing from the driver's seat outside ahead of him.

"Can you stop trying to assassinate the carriage?"

"I'm training." Sieghart ignored him initially and leaned backward, allowing the tingling in his fingers to fade while he finally stopped casting long enough to examine why every attempted solution kept failing. More mana would accomplish nothing. Stronger lightning would simply create a more powerful uncontrolled discharge, which sounded excellent if Sieghart wanted to electrocute Ronan, both horses, himself, and possibly the carriage simultaneously.

Perhaps Wind Magic could prepare the air itself, creating a controlled path with altered pressure or density that encouraged the electrical current to travel exactly where Sieghart wanted it every time. The concept made sense using what Sieghart remembered about electricity from his previous life, but any visible magical corridor would announce the attack's direction before the lightning ever reached its target. Against slow opponents that hardly mattered.

Against enemies comparable to the Orc King, giving even a fraction of a second of warning could transform a lethal technique into wasted mana and another opening. Sieghart crossed his arms and reviewed his recent breakthroughs. Water Jet had come from compression, Impulse from directing force through movement, and Glacial Fist from giving an existing element a stable physical structure. None of those advances happened because he bullied the element into behaving differently.

Instead, Sieghart had created another structure around the element and allowed that structure to solve the troublesome limitation. His eyes opened slightly wider as one possibility finally surfaced. Perhaps controlling Lightning Magic directly was unnecessary if he could control the magical structure carrying the electricity instead during flight.

Sieghart slowly raised his left hand and looked at it for several seconds before the answer became obvious enough that he felt mildly embarrassed for overlooking something so familiar earlier.

"Telekinesis." He formed Spark above his right palm again, keeping the electrical charge small and deliberately refusing to aim it while blue-white arcs crawled impatiently between his fingertips without escaping anywhere. With his left hand, Sieghart activated Telekinesis and focused upon the spell itself rather than the iron target, searching for the mana pattern maintaining the unstable electrical phenomenon before release.

The first attempt produced almost nothing because he instinctively searched for weight, surface, and physical resistance, qualities Telekinesis normally used when manipulating stones, tools, weapons, or other ordinary matter nearby. Sieghart adjusted his focus and ignored the electricity entirely. Instead, he mentally gripped the mana structure surrounding Spark, treating the active spell like a nearly weightless construct whose shape constantly threatened to unravel. Something clicked inside his perception.

Telekinesis found resistance where no physical surface existed, producing a faint mental sensation comparable to holding a vibrating object through an invisible glove around his fingers. Sieghart shifted his left hand slightly. Spark moved several centimeters sideways above his opposite palm, remaining condensed instead of branching toward whatever conductive object happened to be closest inside the carriage.

He stared at the obedient electricity for several seconds, then pointed his right palm toward the metal plate and pushed the entire spell structure forward using Telekinesis as precise guidance. Spark crossed the cabin in a perfectly straight line and struck the center of the target, dispersing through the metal without sending even one stray arc back toward Sieghart's fingers. The lack of pain surprised him almost as much as the accuracy.

Sieghart immediately repeated the experiment, creating another Spark and wrapping its mana structure inside the same psychokinetic grip. The second bolt struck another plate cleanly. The third traveled diagonally across the cabin, while the fourth curved slightly around a hanging strap before touching the target positioned behind it. That final attempt made Sieghart stop.

Telekinesis was not merely preventing the lightning from wandering; it was allowing him to decide where the complete spell traveled after leaving his hand. He performed another series of tests and confirmed the limitation. Telekinesis controlled the spell during flight, but once electricity entered a conductive target, the current resumed following ordinary available pathways. That meant firing into someone standing in water beside allies remained dangerous.

Psychokinesis solved delivery, not whatever happened after the lightning reached flesh, armor, metal, wet ground, or another conductor. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Stronger charges also demanded stronger Telekinetic control. Whenever Sieghart increased Spark beyond the pressure his Mentality could comfortably contain, tiny arcs began leaking from the invisible sheath surrounding the spell.

That made Mentality unexpectedly important for Lightning Magic. Magic determined the attack's power, while Telekinetic precision decided whether Sieghart could deliver that power without becoming part of the circuit. The solution pleased him because both parameters were already among his strongest, and Telekinesis itself granted additional Mentality whenever he managed to increase its level.

Another sequence of sharp electrical cracks filled the cabin as Sieghart tested straight shots, shallow curves, sudden corrections, and different distances while enjoying the complete absence of accidental shocks against himself. Ronan finally opened the narrow front window and looked backward with visible suspicion, keeping one hand on the reins while the horses continued along the increasingly familiar southern road ahead of them.

"Why are there suddenly so many cracking sounds?" Sieghart paused with another Spark hovering above his palm, its unstable arcs held neatly together by the invisible Telekinetic pressure surrounding the spell like a flexible magical barrel around electricity.

"I made some progress."

"That somehow worries me more."

"Probably because the mission is over and I can think properly again." Ronan stared at the blue-white light, then at the growing collection of black marks across the practice plates attached to the carriage wall behind Sieghart from repeated electrical tests now. Sieghart opened the side window after Ronan returned his attention to the road, allowing fresh air inside while looking for something farther away than his cramped cabin targets ahead outside.

A broad gray boulder stood alone beside the road roughly sixty meters ahead, large enough that missing would become genuinely embarrassing now that Sieghart had supposedly solved his accuracy problem. He waited until the carriage approached the proper angle, then extended his right hand through the open window while Telekinesis gathered around the lightning forming above his palm once again.

This time Sieghart compressed Spark differently, stretching its mana pattern into a narrow shaft with a pointed front instead of preserving the spell's usual branching shape during controlled flight now. Blue-white electricity folded inward under psychokinetic pressure, becoming denser while small arcs attempted to escape from the sides before Telekinesis forced them back into the main structure repeatedly again now.

Sieghart added more power gradually, testing the invisible sheath with every increase until the spell resembled an arrow made from condensed lightning rather than a chaotic electrical discharge between his hands. Static lifted the hairs along his forearms, yet nothing shocked him. The projectile remained suspended outside the window, its pointed tip fixed directly upon the approaching boulder beside the road.

Sieghart released the Telekinetic restraint forward instead of simply dismissing it, turning the invisible grip into acceleration that hurled the electrical arrow along the exact line he had chosen outside. The projectile vanished with a violent crack, crossed the roadside distance as a straight blue flash, and struck the center of the boulder before Ronan had time to ask what happened. Stone fragments exploded from the impact point.

A narrow hole appeared several centimeters deep while branching static crawled across the boulder's surface before dispersing harmlessly into the surrounding earth nearby. Sieghart watched the damaged stone slide behind the moving carriage, feeling the stable spell structure settle inside his understanding even before the familiar translucent notification appeared before his eyes again. New Lightning Magic spell acquired: Thunder Arrow — Level 1.

Compresses lightning into a piercing projectile stabilized through precise directional control, granting +2 Magic per level while improving penetration, velocity, electrical intensity, range, accuracy, and structural stability. Sieghart smiled slowly after reading the notification. Thunder Arrow provided exactly what Lightning Magic had lacked: speed, penetration, range, and enough structural control to keep the caster outside his own electrical circuit.

More importantly, creating the spell confirmed something much larger. Telekinesis could manipulate active magical structures rather than remaining limited to stones, weapons, tools, and other physical objects within ordinary reach. That possibility immediately expanded into dozens of applications. Fireballs could curve after targets dodged, Poison Spheres could move around barriers, and even Water attacks might receive corrections after release during combat.

Mana Swords already responded to construct control, but Telekinesis could potentially add another layer of movement, acceleration, or rotation without forcing Sieghart to rebuild the summoned weapon itself every time. The limitation would be concentration. Guiding one Thunder Arrow felt easy enough, but controlling several independent spells while moving, defending, and maintaining other techniques would strain Mentality quickly during real combat. Sieghart found that encouraging.

Limits based upon control could be trained, unlike mana reserves, and Telekinesis already rewarded him with additional Mentality whenever its own level increased through repeated practice. He looked down at both hands and wondered whether Psionics might eventually become the control system linking every branch in his absurd collection of magic into something far more coordinated.

Ronan glanced backward again and immediately noticed Sieghart's expression, apparently recognizing the particular smile that usually appeared before another experiment became somebody else's future problem inside the underground guild now.

"I know that face." Sieghart ignored the accusation and started preparing another Thunder Arrow, intending to test whether a curved trajectory preserved enough penetration to remain useful against armored opponents at considerable range outside. Then Enhanced Smell caught something through the open window, faint enough that Sieghart nearly dismissed it as residue clinging to their clothing from the rescue mission earlier that same morning. He stopped casting and inhaled carefully.

Beneath horse sweat, road dust, leather, vegetation, Ronan, and the cleaned traces of blood, another scent remained somewhere behind the carriage along the road. Alchemy. Animal musk. Preservatives. Blood. The combination had become unmistakable after two days crossing Chimerian territory, even though the source remained too distant for ordinary senses to detect clearly yet.

Sieghart immediately leaned farther through the window and looked backward along the empty road, searching hills, trees, clouds, and every patch of shadow capable of concealing pursuit behind them somewhere. Nothing moved behind them. No winged scout crossed the sky, no altered warrior appeared between trees, and no suspicious figure occupied the winding road stretching across the distant hills behind them.

The scent remained anyway, appearing whenever the wind shifted from behind before weakening again as the carriage continued farther south toward safer human territory and familiar roads waiting ahead now. Ronan noticed Sieghart's sudden silence and reached beneath his coat, his earlier irritation disappearing instantly once he recognized the expression on the boy's face and the returning tension there now.

"What?" Sieghart kept staring toward the road behind them while strengthening Enhanced Smell just enough to confirm that the unfamiliar scent was not simply lingering upon their equipment from earlier combat.

"We might not be the only ones heading south." They had escaped the settlement, crossed hours of hostile territory, flown away on a stone platform, and deliberately chosen a route meant to prevent anyone from following them back south. Apparently, something had followed anyway, and whatever it was had remained distant enough to avoid their eyes while carrying the unmistakable stink of Chimerian alchemy toward human territory behind them.