Chapter 1101 - Conceptualizing Concepts

Jake’s loss was quick and entirely as he’d expected. The version of Artemis he was fighting now was not the same as the Lord of the Hunt from back in the Challenge Dungeon. This was the real Artemis with her full comprehension of concepts. The version back then had only been a mere specter of the real thing, and the difference was stark. The Emblem definitely wasn’t made for gods to duel mortals, as the sheer difference in conceptual understanding made it a total non-starter.

Without precognitive reaction times, that first arrow would have hit him in the eye. It wasn’t a question of being quick or not at that time; it was simply impossible to dodge with the stats he had within the Emblem.

It was like asking someone to dodge a bullet from ten steps away. The only way to avoid getting hit was to look at the barrel and dodge before the bullet was even fired. Trying to react only after the bullet had left its chamber wouldn’t leave enough time and end in certain death.

The arrow shot by Artemis – an Artemis with stats close to a pre-system mortal – was faster than any bullet shot by a handgun. It was a speed that didn’t make any sense at all from Jake’s perspective, and he guessed that was why she had started out with an attack like that for this exact reason.

“That first arrow was fast... way too fast,” Jake muttered in contemplation. “So fast that it really didn’t make any sense. It was as if it exploded into motion the second you let go of the string. I saw the string move, and the arrow didn’t even have time to get fully propelled by it.”

With his pretty high Perception, even with lowered stats, Jake had indeed seen the string of Artemis’ bow move. However, it had only barely moved forward a few centimeters before the arrow just shot out ahead of it as if rocket-propelled.

“I considered for a while what I could even teach you,” Artemis said. “I know you would benefit greatly simply from dueling, but I still wanted to help you more directly at least once. I may be overstepping with what the Malefic Viper finds acceptable, but I choose to accept the consequences if that’s the case.”

“Don’t worry, if he does get mad, I’ll handle it,” Jake waved off the notion. “Besides, I’m kind of dense and stubborn, so I doubt I’ll suddenly be corrupted by what you say.”

“Alright. What I’m about to talk about next all comes down to you believing things to be facts despite that not necessarily being the case,” Artemis said.

“What do you mean?” Jake asked with a frown.

“I’ve never experienced a pre-integration universe myself, but I have interacted with plenty who had. Having lived without the system gives certain unique insights and viewpoints, but it also births a lot of fundamental misunderstandings of how the world works, in particular when talking about physics,” Artemis explained.

“I’m aware that in the world you grew up in, you had rather simplistic mathematic equations that could accurately tell you most things. It was a simpler world in many ways, and I know one of the most fundamental laws was related to objects in motion and the energy they possessed while being in movement.”

Jake nodded along, naturally knowing about Newton’s Second Law. Mass times acceleration equaled force. He still wasn’t quite sure where Artemis was going with all this, though.

“If we go by this law, then answer me this: why did my first arrow that hit your thigh barely penetrate, while the one that hit your chest went in deep? The first one was faster, so fast it didn’t make any sense by your own account, and the arrows had the same weight, so shouldn’t the first one have done more damage?”

“Some other concept or magic was at work,” Jake shook his head. “You poured more energy into that second arrow, thus making it stronger.”

“Energy. Right,” Artemis nodded. “Then next question... why is light magic so slow?”

“Light magic is plenty fast,” Jake said with a frown. “It’s one of the fastest schools of magic there is.”

“But isn’t it still slow compared to actual light? And I’m not just talking about before the system. Look outside the window. You see the crown of Yggdrasil, but consider how far away it truly is. If we go by your pre-system terms, there would be many light years between here and there, so doesn’t that mean you’re now seeing how the Mother Tree’s crown looked like years ago? Except you’re not. If we teleported there, what you would see wouldn’t change. The concept of light, in its purest form, is near-instant. If you observe a star from across the multiverse, you see it just the same as someone standing right next to it.”

“Yet there’s also light magic that appears slow. So slow it can be dodged, even without precognition. That’s likely what you see when you battle mages who use this particular school. Yet, at other times, they can flash a spell that blinds you, this light hitting your eyes the moment it’s unleashed. Why not simply have every scorching beam of light have this same speed?” Artemis asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jake considered the question for a while before answering. “Because the amount of energy a person can pour into an attack is limited, and if it all goes to making the attack faster, the damage will be lesser.”

“Right,” Artemis nodded. “Now transfer that same concept to a physical object.”

“How?” Jake asked, genuinely not getting that part. In his mind, a sword swung quicker also hit harder. That was just what made sense and what he also usually encountered when fighting. Most of the strongest attacks Jake had ever faced were also the fastest, with only a few exceptions.

“To comprehend that, you need to broaden your understanding of physics because what you currently believe is limiting you,” Artemis answered. “The laws of physics simply don’t work the way you think they do anymore.”

“But it does work like I expect, at least ninety-nine percent of the time. I’ve seen pre-system physics work pretty damn well,” Jake said with a frown, remembering the weapon deployed by Arnold against the Prima Guardian. The Rods from God was a weapon that worked purely off physics and was literally just dropping something incredibly heavy, going incredibly fast.

“I never said physics doesn’t work the way you expect it to most of the time. I’m saying that the law of physics you believe in doesn’t,” Artemis said as she helpfully took out what looked like a small cotton ball from her inventory and tossed it to him.

Jake inspected it thoroughly and looked up at Artemis. “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Just confirm there’s nothing fishy about it,” Artemis said as she reached out a hand to take it back.

Taking another moment to inspect the cotton, Jake indeed saw nothing wrong with it. It didn’t even have any energy of note but was a perfectly ordinary and uninteresting fluffy little thing. Handing it back to Artemis by placing it on her palm, she promptly flipped it over as it began floating toward the ground slowly.

“Try to stop it from touching the ground,” Artemis said.

Jake did as asked and attempted to catch it with his foot like it was a falling balloon, but the moment it touched his foot, he felt as if he’d just tried to stop the fall of a dwarf star. His foot was pushed down and nearly crushed between the floor and the cotton ball before Artemis moved her own foot and pushed Jake’s out of the way.

He was about to say something as he expected the ball to crush the floor and level the entire palace, but what instead happened was that it landed softly on the ground, bouncing slightly before a small gust of wind made it roll to the side.

“Before you ask, no,” Artemis said with a smile. “I didn’t do anything to the cotton ball between it touching your foot and the floor. All I did was decide and make its velocity constant. Naturally, I poured in conceptual energy to do that.”

Waving her hand, the cotton ball teleported to appear in her palm again as Artemis looked at Jake. “Hold out your palm in front of you.”

Jake once more did as asked. He watched as Artemis made the cotton ball float upwards in the high-ceiling meditation chamber before stopping at the top, about eight meters up. It was right above Jake’s outstretched palm, and he wondered what Artemis was up to.

“I poured in the exact same amount of energy into this cotton ball as the last one. I’ll now launch it down with full speed into your palm,” Artemis said, Jake trusting her, especially seeing as his danger sense didn’t react.

“Keep an eye on it,” she reiterated, and Jake kept watching the ball closely. “I’ll launch it down in three... two... one... now.”

Jake was ready for something to happen as he kept looking upwards. When Artemis said now, the cotton ball disappeared from sight, but a moment later, Jake spotted it through his sphere and he also felt it.

Looking down, he stared at the cotton ball sitting in his palm. From his point of view, it had just been teleported there, and he hadn’t even felt the impact... but he knew that wasn’t what had truly happened.

“Do you understand what happened there?” Artemis asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“I can guess,” Jake muttered. “This time, you channeled all the conceptual energy into pure speed, making the ball descend impossibly fast at the level of it nearly being teleportation.”

“But did it hurt?” Artemis asked. “Because going by pre-system logic, that cotton ball should have torn off your entire arm. No, actually, seeing as it surpassed the pre-system speed of light, it wouldn’t even have been possible. Yet it was.”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Jake shook his head, and now he also understood what Artemis had done in the arena. “Those first arrows you shot in the arena, you dedicated most of the energy you poured in to get more speed at the loss of power.”

Artemis smiled at this answer. “That’s remarkably close. When you normally shoot an arrow, everything is balanced. You unknowingly channel in concepts of what you believe archery is, and the limitations and power of your simplistic understanding of physics affect every shot. Every arrow you shoot is, theoretically, perfect. The balance between damage done and speed of flight is optimal, but what if you can tilt that balance a bit to either side? What if you can make the arrow faster but deal less damage? Or make it slower and deal more? It seems counterintuitive, but it’s not.”

Listening to what Artemis said, Jake fell into thought. One of the biggest weaknesses of archery was naturally having to actually hit with his arrows. If he could make these arrows faster, he would be able to hit things more easily, and the damage being decreased wasn’t a massive issue as it shouldn’t affect his poisons.

Additionally, it would make his archery a lot more unpredictable if arrows flew at different speeds. Claiming momentum in fights should become easier, and it wasn’t as if foes could easily discern that the quicker arrows were less dangerous, making them great for forcing enemies away.

“Don’t get me wrong, what I’m talking about isn’t easy nor natural to most people,” Artemis said. “Your current understanding, even for those who grew up with the system, is the most intuitive. The most powerful arrows of an archer do tend to also be the fastest as they simply have a lot more energy infused into them. Additionally, if you use a powerful skill, trying to change the balance gets magnitudes harder.”

Jake nodded along to her words as she continued.

“I also want to clarify that your understanding isn’t wrong. It has a lot of truth to it, and actively messing with the conceptual energy within each arrow isn’t a feasible method of fighting. In most cases, having a faster arrow does also mean it will do more damage, just be aware that this isn’t due to some law of physics. It happens because that’s what you believe should happen, and the energy you put into the arrow reflects that. The same is true in all other aspects of battle. What I’m talking about right now is a gross oversimplification of the effect of concepts, but nothing I said is definitively wrong, and it should be enough for now.”

“Got it,” Jake nodded as he considered everything they’d talked about. Concepts were something Jake still had a difficult time fully understanding, even if he knew they were pretty much the bread and butter that made everything work.

Swords relied on the concept of sharpness to cut things, armor on the concept of durability and resilience to block attacks, and hammers on the concept of... smashing stuff to smash stuff. What Jake still struggled with was the entire concept of better understanding a concept to make it stronger.

The Sword Saint was the complete opposite of Jake in this aspect. He had spoken a lot to the old man about concepts, and one of the things he’d learned was that no one could truly explain why something was. The old man could tell Jake that he “deepened his understanding” of the concept of sharpness, but he couldn’t properly put into words what exactly he understood.

No matter what, the effects couldn’t be denied. From Jake’s understanding of things, concepts were one of the fundamental sources of power in the system, alongside stats and energy. When one made an attack, the three most important parts were how many stats one had that affected the skill, how much energy one had poured into it, and how deep conceptual understanding one had of what went into the attack.

When Jake fought Artemis in the arena, their stats were equal. The amount of energy they could pour into an attack was also mostly equal – with Artemis still having a solid edge. However, as both shot arrows of the same size and used the same weapons, the most impactful difference between the two of them was their understanding of concepts...

And there, the difference between them was truly that of a god and a mortal. It was the difference between someone using an inferior rarity skill and a divine skill to do the same attack. Even if both had the same stats and equipment, it wasn’t hard to see who was superior.

Artemis left Jake alone to ponder for a while until an hour later, they reentered the Colosseum. Their duel was slightly longer this time, with Artemis purposefully not hitting Jake as she kept showing off and allowing Jake to take everything in. Ultimately, he still met his end and had another conversation before it was back to meditation and thinking for another hour, at which point it was arena time once more.

This was how time passed for the next few days. Jake got more and more into the zone as Artemis showed off more and more things, many of which were far beyond Jake’s understanding or anything he dared even try to attempt as a mere C-grade.

Jake felt pretty confident that Artemis was doing this style of pretty darn confusing teaching on purpose. She wasn’t trying to hammer home one singular point or make him realize one specific thing. Instead, she was trying to make him think. Make him question how things worked with the hope that he could broaden his perspective. That he could begin to think in new directions from what he was used to.

The lesson that had resonated the most with Jake was still the first one about speed. It was the one Jake felt like he was closest to approaching, and further conversations on the topic only strengthened his thinking.

“Few concepts can stand alone. In nearly all attacks, we use some form of composite with aspects from many different concepts, often far more than we even realize. Every step you take relies on concepts. When your arrow is in flight, consider how many concepts it interacts with during flight. Dependent on the environment, there’s wind, moisture in the air, dust, light, gravity, space, and so many more. Penetrating through all these can be put under the umbrella of dealing with the concept of friction.”

It was all getting pretty damn complicated, but despite that, Jake began to form some actual ideas. One of them was related to a concept Jake had some familiarity with and had even incorporated into some of his other skills already.

If he wanted to lean more into making his arrows faster... in other words, making their travel time shorter... what was more fitting than the concept of time itself?