D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

--- Lily ---

Lily groaned as she leaned back in bed. It was very nice and seemed to calm her down as she was. Thyme had explained everything well enough… except for one particular detail. "So what's with the nurse outfit?"

"Ah, it was determined that an attractive nurse would put patients in a better frame of mind. In your case, it was very easy to determine which nurse form to use," answered Thyme.

"Right… I suppose it would be at that. So… what happens now?" asked Lily.

Thyme shrugged and said, "Well you're out of the round. I can still speed through your healing if you want, but as there's no more fighting to be done the extra mana you might gain from it is essentially useless. I recommend you simply relax and take your time enjoying the room.

I'm not able to provide you footage of what's going on due to the fact you were eliminated, but you can watch the highlight reel, or request a viewing room once everyone is back and the inn,"

"Probably just going to sleep then," said Lily with a shrug. Just as she was about to transform though, she remembered the issues she'd been having with it. "Actually wait, do you know why I was having issues transforming after adding the boat to that bag of mine? I couldn't work out if it was the complexity of the enchantments or if the weight of everything was causing issues,"

"Would you like a more complete explanation or just the answer to your question?" asked Thyme.

"Complete answer, obviously," said Lily with a grin.

Thyme jumped straight into the explanation, "Great, it will give you something to focus on while you heal and it's something I can explain without getting in trouble. So… the issue is caused by a combination of things. The biggest factor is actually the bag. It's not a properly enclosed space like a storage ring, but an expanded bag. Now, it's not necessarily easier to make one or the other.

They take different skillsets, but expanded bags tend to use less mana in their enchantments so they can be made from cheaper materials.

"Now, in normal circumstances, if something was too big to 'come along' with your transformation it simply won't. It'll just fall to the ground nearby, or perhaps on top of you if it's really that big. This can be bypassed by using storage rings. As I said earlier they're completely enclosed space.

So… it isn't quite as though the space is hidden inside the ring, it's more that the ring acts as a beacon for a pocket of space that someone created. Sometimes that space is located inside the ring, sometimes just outside of space and time. There are other ways of going about it too, but they aren't all that important.

"And for this at least, it's mostly semantics because even if the space is inside of the ring, your transformation doesn't really treat it like it's inside of the ring. The is because such space is always slightly out of phase with reality. It's what prevents things from exploding if you were to tap two rings together.

If it's enchanted properly it usually means you can't put rings inside of each other… because yes they would explode.

"Now, bags on the other hand? Putting them inside of each other will also explode… unless you put a smaller bag inside of a larger one. For some reason that's fine. You can also put storage rings in expanded spaces… but both of those can be a risk. The enchantments tend to degrade faster and fail spectacular once they go out completely, but it is possible to do.

Especially if it's all maintained properly.

"In your case, what's causing the issue is that while the bag is expanded it is… only sort of the correct size according to the laws of physics. It's usually fine, especially when it's closed… but natural transformation like you're capable of? The kind that takes no mana? Well it can get a bit wonky around things. I suspect it's because it's a factor of your soul instead of just your body,"

*Hang on. If it's a soul thing than how come I can do it? I got a whole new body, two new bodies actually… so I just sort of assumed it was a body-based thing. Unless… well the body and soul clearly interact. Is that why I couldn't transform straight away? The mechanism for the transformation hadn't properly added itself to my soul?

That's… wild to think about.*

Thyme noticed Lily's slight daze and waited for her to get her thoughts in order again. "I can see you have a few questions about the last part. I don't know all the details myself, but it is almost certainly soul based. Which has a lot of implications. The biggest one being that your limit for what you can and cannot transform with should be at least partially dictated by how strong your soul is…

"But souls are also sort of immutable? There's a lot you can't change about a soul. Anyway, it means that your transformation will just about always work. There are very few ways to stop it from going through. The best one is ensuring that there isn't enough space for the transformation to take place.

The built in safety mechanisms to prevent you from crushing yourself when transforming will stop the transformation quite well. There are a few enchantments that can sort of fake the reaction as well…

"But once again, that's more for your safety so you'd want to keep it around. Now, in this case the issue that's happening is your trying to transform with more stuff then you should, but the expanded bag is telling the world 'Don't worry there's only X space here' but your soul is struggling to actualise the change.

Not enough to be a problem, and it might even be a good workout for the soul, I don't know. What I do know, is that it starts to cause issues.

"Now, having something overly enchanted would cause this problem, and having something too big can also cause it. I suspect it was a size issue, but I could also see it as having been an enchantment issue, especially with the boat shrunk down. That'd be a LOT of concentrated enchantments in one place. Perhaps it's a combination of the two. No real way to tell without a lot of experimenting.

"That's the bare bones of the explanation. If I went into detail it would involve a lot of math that wouldn't… hmm… no it might interest you because you've got an unawakened spatial affinity but even then, this can get complicated. Most of the people who actually make the damned things don't know all of the details. It just isn't necessary for them, and as I said it IS complicated,"

"Can you show me some of the equations?" asked Lily. Thyme shrugged and pulled out a chalkboard. Then in a blur of speed the entire thing was covered in symbols that Lily could mostly recognise… and a few that she couldn't. Which was fine really, she'd just have to learn. "So how many equations is that?"

"One, and this is the simplest one when you get into the sort of spatial mechanics of those items," said Thyme.

Lily's stared open-mouthed at the chalkboard. "How… how does anyone actually DO anything with that?"

Thyme shrugged and explained, "They don't. It's not relevant… just about ever. It's more of an academic curiosity. Something that scholars study. Sadly, we don't even have new information from investigating things like this. Most of the equations are for things that space mages have already advanced past.

"The sad truth of the matter is… when you attune yourself well enough to an element? You can sort of just… work things out. It's like there is a path carved for you already by the universe and you can follow it. Most people have different paths, and working together can be a great way to expand your knowledge… but digging into the specifics of things seems to be against the ideal of magic.

Or at least, if it ISN'T against the ideal of magic, it certainly isn't the ideal,"

"What do you mean by the ideal of magic?" asked Lily.

"It's shorthand for 'The Pinnacle of Magic'. Some people believe that magic has… an end? Or at least that it has a place it wants you to be. I think that's silly. Plenty of mages die early on in their lives, even the ones that spend all their time studying their element.

I personally suspect that if there really is a path we're following, then it is not magic that made it, but the people who came before us, probably before our dimension was founded, and those ideas sort of got… baked in," explained Thyme.

"Is… that something you can test?" asked Lily.

"Probably not," said Thyme.