Eiro stood in front of another duplicate, who would, for now, act as a test dummy. He didn't want to just go out and find a random monster or animal to try this out on; that just seemed a bit cruel. The duplicate was currently standing there, just breathing in an regular pattern. And then, the proxy original Eiro let his magic flow into his tail; specifically, into his stinger.
His arcane magic broke apart the venom in his stinger. Eiro expelled it, and the venom blinked right into the other duplicate's mouth. But while it was a bit faster than just turning the venom into mist and controlling it, he couldn't go as deep as he wanted to. Since he could only blink things to places that he could see, bringing it directly to the lungs, as he usually would. So this idea was quickly scrapped.
So instead, Eiro took out a small throwing-knife. He threw it at the duplicate, activating the blink spell right when it left his fingertips. The knife was broken apart in the air, and brought to another place; conserving the momentum, but changing the orientation of that momentum, the knife was put back together right behind the duplicate, hitting him straight in the back.
Eiro couldn't help himself but grin a bit at that. This was good. He could do something similar with his eye with the help of the
Mirror of Duplication
that he was using as a lens, but it required a lot more fine control and placed quite a large strain on Eiro. But then, Eiro had another idea. He slightly edited the spell, linking in the mirror of duplication. Since 'sight' was already a large factor of this spell, that was rather simple to do if he used the one in his eye.
By doing this, Eiro was able to basically duplicate the destination 'slots', while keeping a singular starting point. This edited version was the 'Duplication Blink'. One thing was broken apart, and multiple were put back together. The duplicate from before pulled the knife out of its neck and threw it back over to the proxy original. He caught it and quickly prepared to throw it back again.
Just as before, Eiro activated the spell right when the throwing-knife left his hand. But this time, he had set five different target positions, and the arcane magic that broke apart the knife split into five, duplicating itself in the process, and then flowed over to each of the five positions. The five knives hit the duplicate, all at the same speed, just from different positions and angles. A few moments later, four of the knives disappeared, and just one was left behind.
"There we go, now that's a good use for the spell," Eiro grinned. This was probably one of the best combat applications that Eiro had found so far, just behind supplementing his movement and changing his position mid-combat.
Curiously, Eiro set out to use the 'Duplication Blink' spell in another way. He focused the spell on himself, and tried to move forward about twenty feet, duplicating himself in the process. While his body was broken apart once, when he arrived at his destination, two more Eiros were there. But something about this version of them was different.
"H-Huh? What just- Did you- What's going on exactly?" James asked, turning toward the demon nervously, and Eiro smiled, happy that it wasn't as disorienting as he feared. Eiro was worried that it might have been so bad that nobody beside him could adjust to it, but this seemed to be more of a mental confusion rather than a physical reaction. James hadn't expected it, and that's why it was as disorienting as it was.
"It's a step down from teleportation, basically. I call it 'Blink'," Eiro explained, and James raised his brows curiously.
"Oh? Did you use like, that stopwatch or something?"
"Oh, no, no, I didn't physically move you or anything, of course not. I used arcane magic to break your body down to an atomic level, and then transported those parts over to a new position."
James stared at Eiro with a blank expression, "What."
"Yeah, but you don't need to worry about it or anything, your consciousness stays intact and so does your soul. The spell doesn't do anything that jeopardizes your existence as who you are. It's technically on the same level as an extremely powerful healing spell when it comes to moral implications."
Though he wanted to prostest, James knew that it might be better to just not think about it too deeply, "Okay. Right. And you're sure that my mind and soul is alright? Like, am I the same James that stood over there like ten seconds ago?"
"Yes, 100%. I can absolutely confirm that."
"... Well, in that case, whatever. But that's a kind of weird sensation, to be honest. It feels a little... tingly," James pointed out, rubbing his hand over his arm.
Eiro raised his brow, "Well, that might be more of a side-effect of your unique physical constitution. The way your body reacts to magic is a bit different than others. If that tingling persists, please do let me know immediately."
"Nah, it's already fading, so don't worry. So, then what was that other spell you did just a bit ago?"
"Oh, that's a branching spell I simply called 'Duplication Blink'. Basically, once your body is broken apart, the arcane magic is duplicated however many times I determine, and then not only your original body but two duplicates that will completely copy your motions will be created for a few seconds," Eiro explained, looking at the man in front of him with a grin, "Why, want to give it a shot?"