Arcane Exfil-Chapter 58: Gravity

Arcane Exfil-Chapter 58: Gravity

Cole grabbed the keys to Elina’s Forëa. She’d left it behind when she hitched a ride with the others to OTAC, and honestly, he figured ‘borrowing’ it beat walking for an hour. She’d understand. Probably. As long as he topped off the tank afterward.
The drive gave him time to think, which was either a blessing or a curse depending on how his brain decided to spend it.
What the hell was he even going to
do
at OTAC? His first thought – and really, the best one he could come up with at the moment – was ‘training.’
He hadn’t developed anything substantially new since the Rocket-Propelled Fireball and Plasmaball techniques from before the Vampire Lord fight. Sure, he’d picked up multicasting and thought acceleration, but those were force multipliers – applying what he already knew faster and in parallel. Useful, absolutely. But not
new
, per se.
Actually, scratch that. Telekinesis was new. He’d just picked it up with the rest of the team.
Which got him thinking about the fundamental forces.
Telekinesis was force at a distance, right? Moving mass without direct contact. So what was he actually manipulating? Not gravity – that was constant, always pulling down. Telekinesis let him push, pull, twist, whatever direction he wanted. More like… applying arbitrary force vectors to objects. But if magic could do that, what did that mean for the actual fundamental forces?
Gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear, weak nuclear. These were the four pillars holding up reality, according to physics.
He didn’t know much about the nuclear forces beyond the general gist – strong force held atomic nuclei together, weak force was involved in radioactive decay, something about quarks and gluons that he’d never needed to understand at that level.
But fission and fusion? Yeah, he knew those. His last mission before getting isekai’d had literally involved a dirty bomb. Split heavy atoms, release energy and radiation. Fuse light atoms, release even more energy. Simple concepts, apocalyptic results.
But how was he supposed to experiment with that in magic? Even if he worked with Lady Kathyra and her microscopes, figured out how to actually split atoms with mana or force them together... then what? How does he scale that into a usable spell without vaporizing himself – and probably Alexandria – in the process?
It was the Davy Crockett problem all over again – the nuke so small and portable that the blast radius exceeded the launcher’s effective range. Congratulations, he’s just irradiated himself and everyone in a several-mile radius. Tactical brilliance.
Cole shelved the nuclear option. Knew the principles, sure – split atoms, fuse atoms, release obscene amounts of energy. If he did it right.
But ‘doing it right’ required precision he didn’t have, and ‘doing it wrong’ meant turning himself into a very brief, very bright, possibly
very awesome
example of why he shouldn’t fuck around with fundamental forces.
Even if he worked with Lady Kathyra and her microscopes, figured out the mana manipulation required, and did whatever else necessary to get a chain reaction going… how exactly was he supposed to test it? Set off a small nuke and hope he survived the experiment?
Hard pass.
So, that left electromagnetism and gravity.
Electromagnetism was interesting. Opened up a lot of options – enchanted coilguns, railguns, throwing metal around like he was Magneto. Manipulating metal probably wasn’t too far of a stretch from telekinesis, honestly. It had the same basic principle of force-at-a-distance, just more specialized.
But electromagnetism wasn’t exactly the weakest of the four fundamental forces. It was the second strongest after the strong nuclear force, which meant working with it might be harder than he was ready for.
If he was going to start somewhere, he might as well start with gravity and build his way up.
Not that he was planning to throw around black holes – that seemed like a fantastic way to destroy the entire planet and everyone on it. But even simple gravity manipulation had utility.
Increasing gravity could crush targets, slow them down, and compress objects among other things. Decreasing it could launch obstacles – imagine throwing a cannonball with the weight of a baseball that suddenly regains the weight of a building mid-flight. Plus, gravity reduction was apparently a prerequisite for flight magic, which would be nice to have.
Perfect timing with the decision, too. The OTAC compound came into view. Cole parked the Forëa and headed inside.
Lady Verna’s office seemed like the right place to start. If anyone could point him toward gravity manipulation resources, it’d be her.
He arrived at her doorstep and knocked. A muffled “Enter” came from inside.
Verna looked up from a desk buried under paperwork, quill in hand, expression somewhere between resigned and exhausted. “Sir Cole. How curious that you should appear; I was beginning to think the day might allow me a moment’s peace.”
“Bad time?”
“These days?” She set the quill down with a soft thud. “Every time is a bad time. Sir Fotham would have me herd your team again for mana measurements; Lady Kathyra’s built another of her delightful catastrophes and insists upon my counsel. And your company, Sir Cole, has ensured I shall never see the end of my correspondence. I am quite convinced of it.”
Cole fought back a smile. “Well, if it helps, I’m not here about paperwork.”
“Ah, yes, I’m certain this shall be far simpler.” She leaned back in her chair. “What is it, then?”
“I’m thinking about picking up gravity magic. Figured you could help point me in the right direction.”
“Gravity magic.” Verna’s brow arched. “And why, pray, have you fixed upon that particular discipline? Surely there is some rationale behind it, however eccentric.”
“Seemed like the right place to start. Weakest of the fundamental forces, so less likely I'll accidentally kill myself.”
“The weakest—” She paused, head inclined in thought. “I have not the faintest notion what you intend by that expression, though I confess the sentiment itself is sound enough. Gravitational work is comparatively simple.” Her mouth quirked. “It is gratifying, at least, to see you approach the matter with sense.”
She sighed then stood, abandoning her paperwork like she’d never intended to deal with it in the first place. “Come. Let us find a training field.”
They headed out, navigating OTAC’s corridors toward the exterior grounds. Late afternoon sun poured through the windows – good timing for outdoor training.
“I should make it plain,” Verna said as they walked, “that gravitational magic is not my chosen field. I am versed with the fundamentals and can manage a demonstration, but I make no pretence of mastery.”
“Oh, that’s totally fine. Fundamentals work perfectly.”
“Well then. I assume I needn’t waste time explaining why things fall down?”
Cole chuckled. “Yeah, definitely not.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. the violation.
“Good. Though I confess—” She gave him a sidelong look. “When you spoke of gravity as ‘the weakest of the fundamental forces,’ as though that were simply fact… what precisely did you mean by that?”
“Earth physics. We figured out there are four fundamental forces holding reality together – gravity, electromagnetism, and two nuclear forces that operate at the atomic scale. Gravity’s the weakest of them by an absurd amount.”
“Atomic.” Verna tested the word. “You speak of the minute structures visible under magnification? The building forms of matter? Or something smaller still?”
“The building forms, yeah. Atoms make up molecules – you’ve probably already seen those under your microscopes. Turns out atoms themselves are made of smaller pieces, but that’s getting into the weeds.”
“Fascinating.” She said it without the slightest trace of irony. “And just how much weaker is it, in your reckoning? Quantify it for me – if, that is, such a thing can be measured.”
“Well, I don’t remember the
exact
numbers. Maybe I wrote it down somewhere in one of my notebooks, but it’s something like… ten to the thirty-something times stronger?” After seeing Verna tilt her head at that, Cole clarified, “Like, imagine a one, but with thirty zeros after it. That’s roughly how much stronger electromagnetism is. Anyways, the gist is that it’s the weakest of the four.”
Verna looked a bit too pleased with the information, as if she’d been made privy to some spicy tea-time gossip. “Sir Fotham would be quite beside himself if he were here for this conversation.”
Cole could imagine why, but he still had to ask. “Why’s that?”
Verna laughed. “He’d have you shut in his laboratory before the hour was out, and you’d not see daylight again until he’d dissected your every thought.”
Yeah, not ideal whatsoever. “Good thing he’s not here, then.”
“Quite.”
They emerged onto one of the outdoor training fields. The grass had seen better days, and practice dummies were scattered around like someone had given up halfway through organizing them. Target stands sat at varying distances – close, medium, far enough that Cole could actually test range if he needed to. Plenty of room that if something went wrong, the collateral damage wouldn’t hit anything important.
Verna looked the area over, seemed satisfied with what she saw, then turned back to him. “Shall we begin, then?”
She gestured to a smattering of stones scattered across the field – small ones, medium ones, a few that looked like they’d be a bitch to carry. “Take a stone. Whichever strikes your fancy.”
Cole surveyed the options.
If he was testing gravity manipulation – making things heavier or lighter – he’d want something where the change would be obvious. Too small and he might not feel the difference clearly. Too large and he’d be fighting the weight before he even started modifying it.
Something in the middle, then. Heavy enough that increasing it would force him to use physical enhancement, light enough that decreasing it would be immediately noticeable.
He picked up a stone about the size of a bowling ball and tested it in his hands – solid weight, maybe twenty pounds, definitely manageable. Yeah, this would work. Double the gravity and he’d feel it immediately. Cut it in half and the difference would be just as obvious.
“Well, then. It is rather fortunate you’ve already mastered telekinesis, for gravity proves a far simpler creature. Its pull is constant; steady, and quite impossible to dismiss. You need only instruct it to press a little more, or yield a little less. Exert greater pull, and the stone grows heavier; lessen it, and its weight diminishes.”
Okay, so he’d just be… turning the dial up or down – modifying what existed instead of creating something new.
Which meant less energy expenditure, probably. And if it was modifying a field instead of actively pushing, then once he set it, would it maintain itself? Like setting a thermostat versus manually adjusting the temperature every second?
Verna seemed to have read his mind. Or probably just saw the confusion on his face.
“The difference in gravity magic lies not in the effort but in its direction: telekinesis acts upon the stone, gravity upon the space it occupies. You sustain it as with any spell, but your touch rests on the field, not the thing itself.”
Cole nodded.
“As with fire or frost,” she continued, “you begin with the image of change – heavier or lighter as you will it.”
Verna demonstrated. The rock near her feet sank slightly at first, flattening the grass under it. Then it started cracking the ground, like it had been swapped with an anchor. Then she reversed whatever she’d been doing, and gave it a toss. The rock floated for a bit before settling back down in slow-motion.
She nodded at the stone in Cole’s hand. “Go on, then. Let us see something dazzling.”
Right. No pressure.
Cole focused on the stone in his hands – or rather, the space around it. Tenria’s gravity was close enough to Earth’s that the difference didn’t really matter. Call it 9.8 meters per second squared, give or take.
He visualized the field intensifying around the rock, the gravitational constant dialing up in a localized sphere.
The weight increased immediately. His hand got heavier too at first – whole area effect, apparently. He narrowed the field down, tightening the boundary until it just wrapped around the stone itself.
That was better. He tested it with a simple curl, lifting the stone up and down. Sure enough, it was heavier – maybe twice the original weight.
“Ah, excellent. That… really ought to have taken you considerably longer than it did.”
He released the spell and the weight dropped back to normal instantly. “Yeah, seemed like the obvious move.”
“Obvious, was it? How marvelously humble of you.” She smiled slightly. “Most are apt to flounder for some time before they grasp the principle. I suppose all that time spent shoving things about with telekinesis has proven useful.”
Cole couldn’t help the slight grin. “Well, when you put it that way, I sound like a real prodigy.”
“Mm, as you say. Now let us see you manage the inverse.”
Cole focused again, visualizing the field weakening, the gravitational pull spreading thin and loosening its grip on the stone. He brought it down to about half a G.
The stone lightened in his hands, weighing around ten pounds now.
He kept lowering the field until it was barely there – just faint pressure against his palms, like holding a balloon that happened to be rock-shaped. He could probably chuck it across the field with an underhand toss and watch it sail.
The stone still had mass – which meant it still had inertia, momentum, all that – but the pull acting on it had dropped to almost nothing. Strange sensation, holding something that should weigh twenty pounds but currently didn’t.
He gave it a small bounce to test. The stone drifted upward and hung in the air for a good few seconds, then settled back down in slow motion.
Yeah, that was fucking weird. Cool, but weird.
“Now shall we test your reach? Form, if you will, a field some fifteen feet distant. Make it eight feet across, and lightened as before. I shall pass through it, that we may learn how truly you have marked its bounds.”
Cole stepped back, focused on a point fifteen feet out, and visualized the field – same principle as the stone, just scaled up to a cube eight feet on each side. He pushed the boundaries outward in his mind, defining the edges clearly, then dialed the gravity down to about Moon levels – about one-sixth G or so.
He grabbed a nearby rock and tossed it through the space to test.
The rock followed a normal arc at first, then it hit the boundary. The trajectory flattened immediately – still curving downward but much more gradually, like someone had stretched the parabola horizontally. It drifted through the reduced-gravity zone in a lazy, extended arc, then dropped sharply when it crossed back out, hitting the ground with a solid thunk.
Yeah, that worked.
Cole glanced at Verna. “Alright, you’re good to go.”
She walked up to it and crossed through.
Her next stride had just a bit too much spring to it – boots pressing off harder than necessary, launching her in exaggerated bounds like she’d just discovered what Moon gravity felt like and decided professional decorum could take a back seat. The grin breaking across her face just sealed it; she was absolutely having fun with this.
If she’d been born on Earth, she probably would’ve been first in line for an Artemis slot, volunteering for every moonwalk just for the excuse to bounce around in one-sixth G. Not that Cole could blame her. Everyone wanted to go to space, even if it wasn’t their life’s calling.
He smirked. “You having fun over there?”
Verna emerged from the field, her gait snapping back to normal the moment she crossed the boundary. She straightened, smoothed her clothes as if nothing had happened, expression shifting to instructor-neutral in half a second.
“Well, I could hardly assess it by tiptoeing, could I?” She fought back the vestiges of her grin. “That aside, your spell was consistent throughout. Well done.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Well then.” She cleared her throat, fully composed now – or at least making a solid attempt at it. “Remain here awhile and continue your practice. Vary the magnitude, alter the breadth, and learn where the strain begins. Do as you will until six, for I shall need you and the others in my office by then. Sir Fotham insists upon his measurements, and I’ve no desire to endure his lamentations alone.”
Right – the mana measurements. Cole had to admit it sounded interesting, if not promising. “Got it. Six o’clock. See you there.”

Chapter 58: Gravity