[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/pG8LVDV.png[/img] [sub][@Sho Minazuki][/sub][/center] There were two things that Otis disliked: bullshit and defeat. Right now, this Kyoto trip, educational as it was, seemed to be featuring plenty of both. And he would not let this stand. After returning to the hotel and having committed everyone’s faces to memory, from the older Yatagarasu member to ‘Shinzou, high ranking member of the yokai group Sennen-no-Matsuri’ (curious, that an assassin group would be named after a festival meant to celebrate scholarship), Otis promptly wolfed down his food and went up into his room. His empty room. No Tsurara, no Koyuki. Three separate futons, but only one that’s in use. Eiseikato. He’ll bother the teachers about it in the morning. Maybe prod them with questions until they get him the exemption he wanted. Call it scientific curiosity, but it’s mostly just stubbornness at this point. With a thump, he sat down cross-legged in front of a table and swung his window open to let in the night air and the moonlight. It was warm and humid still, a summer heat made pleasant by a cool breeze. Good conditions. The Strigidae turned his head 180 degrees to the right, then 180 degrees to the left, plopped open his pouch full of magecrafting tools, and got down to work. The most transferrable concept he learned today was the Seimei Star Talisman, capable of turning a magical effect into one that pervaded the area around the charm with a simple circle. Elegant design, one that ran counter to Otis’s own philosophy of concentrated micro-inscriptions. Next, he pulled out one of his bullets, an Invoke: Phoenix cartridge. With a chisel, Otis carefully knocked open the base of the bullet and let the catalysts within out. Invoke bullets allowed for instantaneous firepower beyond what the catalysts for summoning an entity usually would allow, but that didn’t change the fact that these were still the proper catalysts for summoning a Phoenix. With practiced strokes, the tawny-haired youth drew out a small summoning circle. Icarus was a Phoenix, and that gave him the classification of ‘yokai’. Otis was a Strigidae, and that gave him the classification of ‘beast’. What was the difference, and how did one tell that difference? He slapped down a notepad, whispered the words to complete the summoning ritual, and in a poof of smoke, a small phoenix the size of his hand popped onto the circle. It chirped charmingly at Otis, who tossed it a slice of salmon from dinner. [color=f7941d][b]“Just stay still,”[/b][/color] he said, allowing his mana to slide into his nerves and eyes. [color=f7941d][b]“Scan.”[/b][/color] Irrelevant information that he could’ve grabbed from any Arcanis encyclopedia flooded into his vision, but rather than read what he already knew, Otis tried to slow down the processing of the spell itself, carefully breaking down each individual component of the spell as he sussed out the specific magical formulation that scanned one’s race. If something could be cast, something could be magecrafted. He turned it on himself next, recording details again of what exactly the Scan spell was reading, and then, from his notes, figured out the differences. There was an x-factor here, a factor that separated the spirits from the beasts, and the more accurately he could narrow down that factor, the more efficient and precise the magecraft he was trying to make would be. He cast and analyzed the fire element to remove that from the equation. He baited and scanned an actual bird to remove that from the equation. Immortality was unlikely to be scannable, but considering how Koyuki, Tsurara, and Icarus all naturally had the ability to live forever, that could be a factor worth looking into actually. Otis let out a breath, didn’t even want to look at the clock, and got back to work. The construction will be a pendulum. Spherical in shape to multiply the effectiveness of the Seimei Star Talisman’s ‘circular’ enhancement. Demons were always of the night, so he’ll coat the inscriptions with moondust. The guiding function will come from his Fairy Bolt – Seeker design, efficacy reduced so that it didn’t snap the cord. The Scan inscription will be specialized to only search for the specific trait of ‘immortality/spirituality’, supported by the energy-reading function that came with the Eyes of the Dead talisman from the Tsuchimikado craft. Otis poured over his outline carefully, simulating each step within his head. He popped open his tin can of sweets and mindlessly crunched down on a handful of jawbreakers. The baby phoenix, bored of a summoner that told it only to stay still, had long disappeared, but Otis didn’t mind. With hammer, chisel, and amber eyes that never blinked, the Strigidae began to carefully carve away, one gentle tap at a time. A night slowed down into hours slowed down into minutes slowed down into seconds. But the Strigidae continued to work, with a focus that crushed all worthless thoughts to dust. All worthless thoughts, save for one. [color=f7941d][i]Fuck these adults.[/i][/color] … Otis did not sleep. But he was fine. He didn’t need sleep so long as he had a steady supply of sugar and caffeine. Convenience stores sure were convenient! And when the sun finally rose, he rose with it, dust off a night’s worth of labour and marvelling the craft he had committed himself to. Everything was pain, and he’d still have to do some trial tests, but for now… Actually, no! He can do everything else on the fly, but he definitely needed to test that out now! So, grabbing bread from the Lawsons that he had become very well acquainted with over the last night, he brought the pendulum with him to the scene of the crime: Kiyomizu Shrine. It was both a spiritual place AND a place where some yokai did some shit. Definitely a place to start, and more than that, a place to rest! Because after his twenty minute brunch break, Otis was going to go on a tour of all the power spots in Kyoto, collecting data on the efficacy of his new device, making adjustments where he needed to. Time for Round Two with Eiseikato.