Chapter 117 - 116 - Experimentation(Part 2)

"Hey, I just realized something," I remarked, breaking a silence that had lasted a few minutes, "Do you think the Nullification Wave would work if an Anomaly activated their powers on you with direct physical contact?" 

"Hm? What do you mean?" Responded Katie. 

"Well, I noticed it when I was testing out my powers at home after I first unlocked them...affecting something when I'm actually touching it is a lot easier than when I do so from a distance. Of course, I've never opted to do so in a fight against a living opponent, since I have the option to do so from a distance, there's no point in taking the risk of trying to affect them from up close, not to mention that I don't want them to hear my activation chants...I'm good at inaudible chanting, but still, why risk it, you know?"

"Oh, I see...then let's try that out," She suggested, standing up. 

"Alright, I'm pretty curious too," I replied as I stood up and took hold of her arm, chanting out loud, "<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>." 

To my surprise...it actually worked. So, looks like the Nullification Wave is useless if an Anomaly activates their powers through direct contact. Hm, though in the case of illusions like Yugi Suzuki's powers, she'd still be able to snap out of it afterwards. 

But with my time freezing, that's not possible...in other words, if I activate Pause while in direct contact with my opponent, the Nullification Wave won't do a thing. Oh, well, guess I should unfreeze her now... 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Play>." 

Huh? She's...still frozen. And what's more...gravity feels normal, and it looks like the laws of physics are working normally too...which can only mean one thing...she's the only one frozen in time, the rest of the world is progressing in the normal time flow. 

Yeah, my I-Watch is working, and the time is ticking, so time definitely isn't frozen. Crap, how do I get her back to normal? This is bad, what do I-...no, wait, calm down. I can feel it, my XFE is slowly getting depleted...I froze her by touching her when I recited the activation chant, so if I do the same when reciting the chant for Play, it should-. 

"Hey, I'm back, and I've got company," Suddenly came Director Silva's voice from behind me. 

"Yo, what's up?" Greeted Sakura. 

"Oh...hey," I responded indifferently. 

"Wha-...that's all you've got to say!?" She exclaimed indignantly. 

"I mean...yeah," I replied with a shrug. 

"Hmph, jerk," She huffed with a pout. 

"What's, uh, going on here?" Remarked the director, as she noticed Katie frozen, "I didn't know you could do this."

"Yeah, I didn't know either, just found out by accident. Huh...I wonder what'll happen if I freeze time while she's frozen," I considered, before deciding to just go for it, "Now, then, <Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Pause>." 

"Huh, been a while since I saw this," Remarked Sakura, walking over. 

Katie's still frozen, so no effect, huh...alright then, let's return everything to normal... 

"<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Play>," I chanted, returning the time flow to normal, before walking over to Katie, placing a hand on her shoulder and chanting again, "<Activate Anomaly, Tier Two: Play>." 

"...looks like I failed this time," Sighed Katie, realizing she'd been frozen. 

"Yeah, and in fact, you were the only thing frozen in time, everything and everyone else was in a normal time flow," I explained. 

Hm, from the feel of it, trapping a specific target in a time stop drains my XFE at a slower rate than freezing the entirety of time does. Though now that I think about it, this application of Pause is kinda redundant...after all, if I want to trap or seal someone, I just need to use Cut on them, since no matter how long I wait before bringing them back with Paste, I won't use up any additional XFE after the initial amount used to activate Cut. 

"So like an advanced form of paralysis?" Katie surmised in reply. 

"Well, I...suppose you could say that. Anyway, the bottom line is that it doesn't look like the Nullification Wave technique works if activated through direct physical contact. Though if you're up against an Anomaly in a duel, you could use it to keep them from affecting you with their powers, and then, before they can get close to you, counter with your Manifestation Overdrive," I suggested. 

"I guess that could work...but the problem is that the Manifestation Overdrive is too inefficient, it puts a huge amount of power into a single blast and just staying in that form drains XFE at a rapid speed," She sighed wistfully. 

"Well...I bet there's other manifestation variations you can unlock. I mean, it's not like anyone knew about the Manifestation Overdrive variation till recently, so there could definitely be more," I pointed out. 

"Ahem," Interrupted Director Silva, "That all sounds very interesting, but first, let's test out whether or not the Nullification Wave works on manifestations, shall we?" 

Oh, right...forgot about that... 

. 

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About half an hour later, we'd confirmed that this technique has no effect on manifestations. Katie was able to nullify Sakura's attempts to copy her manifestation though, so with that, we had more or less a complete understanding of how the Nullification Wave works. 

It only nullifies Anomaly powers that try to affect you from a distance, while stuff like timing varies depending on the type of power. For instance, if I tried to use Cut against an opponent to decapitate them, they have to time the Nullification Wave perfectly, or else, you know, they're dead. 

But if we're talking about a power like paralysis or an illusion, then the timing becomes a lot less important, since those can be nullified even after inflicting you. And of course, if it's a manifestation of XFE, then there's no effect. 

"I'm not sure I follow all this, but from what I do understand, the Nullification Wave isn't something I need to worry about, right?" Inquired Sakura, after we summarized the information. 

"Not exactly, if they see it coming, then your opponent could prevent you from copying their manifestation. Though, taking your already-massive arsenal of copied manifestations into consideration, that's probably not going to be much of a problem for you," I replied, as we took a break to recover a bit. 

According to Katie, the Nullification Wave doesn't use much XFE, but using it in quick succession is tiring, like abruptly running at full tilt without pacing yourself...basically, it feels like even though you haven't used up all your stamina, you're still extremely winded. 

Since other Anomalies can't affect me with their powers, it's not a technique that's worth learning for me, it's just unnecessary. I just have to learn ways of countering opponents that try to nullify my powers instead. 

"Now that we've completed testing out the Nullification Wave, let's get back to the discussion that the two of you were having," Remarked Director Silva, a glint in her eyes, "Do you really think there are more variations to a Prodigy's manifestations?" 

"I mean, it's not impossible, right?" I responded with a shrug, "Though now that I think about it, shouldn't you know? I mean, the reason why Prodigies' manifestations are in the format they're in is because of the Awakening Chips that are implanted during the Awakening Procedure. Isn't that format pre-set or anything?" 

"Actually, as far as I understand it...the formats imposed by the Awakening Chips are handled by an advanced AI in the cloud. See, it was possible to track and spy on anyone who was implanted with one of those chips, so to prevent anyone from misusing that, we had the AI and management of the manifestation formats completely locked away in the most highly secure system we could program, far more advanced than anything the world has ever seen, and we then hid it away further inside a private cloud storage system that's pretty much impossible to be accessed by the public," She explained. 

This is all new to me...I, uh, don't think she's supposed to be telling us all this... 

"If the impossible happens and someone does manage to breach the security and access the data, the AI will immediately delete everything and cut the server off from all the Awakening Chips," She continued explaining, "If that happens, it probably won't affect any of you, but we won't be able to conduct any further Awakening Procedures, since we'll have no data to imprint onto the chips."

"Wait, what if someone, like, dissected one of us, took out the chip and then reverse-hacked it or whatever?" Inquired Sakura curiously. 

"Not a concern. Once the chip is implanted in a Paragon, it disintegrates and fuses with their body, it literally becomes a part of them. And when they die, the chip ceases functioning," Answered Director Silva. 

Yeah, I'm definitely sure she's not supposed to be telling us this. 

"Hey, uh...this is all very new info to us, sure you should be saying all this?" I interjected with a raised eyebrow. 

"I-...oh, crap. I'm, uh, going to need the three of you to never talk about the HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL information that I just revealed to you," She responded nervously, a slight look of panic in her eyes. 

It's not like her to mess up like that...guess all this experimenting with new techniques is making her giddy, huh. Well, can't blame her, I'm pretty intrigued by this whole thing too...I suppose we should get back to it... 

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