Chapter 1526: Teleporters and Thinkers
It was Ning's 6th day of training, where he was trying to convert the content of a glass of water into a glass of wine.
The test here was for him to do the conversion without messing up the glass itself. Liquids were notoriously hard to convert, given how flexible they were and how there was no numerical value that could be assigned to a liquid in opposition to solids which could be easily numbered.
Ning focused on the liquid and felt the energy within him grow enough that he was comfortable using it. Then, he willed the water to change into the wine he had tasted just moments earlier.
The water immediately took on a darker shade, turning more and more purplish as Ning focused his thoughts on turning the water.
In the past few days, he had come to understand a basic aspect of the magic in this world that was somewhat similar to what he had learned in another place.
Intent. The will of an intelligent being to make something happen. So long as they had enough energy, they could make it work.
Ning understood this had something to do with the perception one got from a Soul or the Intelligence that formed when Matter and Energy were in one place. But beyond that, he knew nothing.
Still, what he knew worked, and he used it.
He willed with all his being to turn the water into wine, and it worked. The water fully turned purple, and Ning stopped.
Berraine took the glass from Ning and tasted it. A bright smile formed on her face. "Exactly how it should be," she said. "You've grown far more than I could have expected from you in just a week. With better training, you will reach a lot higher."
Ning smiled. "What's next?"
"Next?" Berraine asked. "Nothing I fear. We don't have enough Spark for any more training, and you know almost everything I can teach you."
"Of course," Berraine said. "Teleporters and Thinkers are the people with the highest possibility of becoming Sparkless after all."
"Thinkers too? Why? Don't they just become abnormally smart by taking a bit of Spark?" Ning asked.
"Yes," Berraine said. "It is true that Thinkers seem to require the least amount of Spark to operate, but from time to time, there comes a task where just logical calculations and thought process don't suffice. They need more. They need the actual answer to reveal to them, and for that to happen they need to use a tremendous amount of Spark at once."
"That is when Thinkers are more likely to go Sparkless when they force themselves to immediately come up with an answer that they otherwise could not possibly think of."
Ning was a little stunned. He had read about this before, he hadn't realized that it was this godlike.
"What sort of answers do they look for?" Ning asked.
"For example," Berraine said and handed Ning one of the oval-shaped rocks they had been practicing with. "What was this before?"
"An Egg," Ning said. That was what it had been before he had converted it to stone.
"Yes, and can you convert it back to egg?" she asked.
"No, I cannot," Ning said. There simply was no way for him to do something that complex, to create a source of life.
"You can't, not because it's impossible, but because its very, very difficult and you don't know how to."
"In those instances, when you know an egg is all you have to save humanity, a Thinker can take the massive amount of Spark and instantly come up with the answer that you desire."
"Using that answer, you can turn a rock into an egg," Berraine said. "Now do you see how valuable Thinkers are?"