In the alternate world of Summertide, at our floating VIP cottage, the swimsuit-clad Maeda was going wild on our fantasy-chic jet ski—with one similarly swimsuited Yano on board behind her.
“Ahahahaha! This is so fun!”
“Eek! Whoa, gal, easy now! Kotomi, please, slow dooown!”
“Not a chance! This isn’t even maximum speed! We’re going to draw out this little fellow’s full power!”
“Nooo! Help meeeee!”
They bounced all over the water’s surface, sending big splashes of water all over the place! Actually, they were bouncing really, really high. Then, Maeda did a tailspin in midair and stuck the landing. After that, they bounced even higher in a wild arc. Her reckless driving continued for some time.
Maeda was clearly having a lot of fun, but Yano was almost bawling.
Emily marveled at Maeda’s driving skills. “Hoo boy! If she plays her cards right, she could go pretty far.”
She too had changed into a swimsuit and tried racing Maeda on jet skis, but she just couldn’t keep up. Racing games weren’t her domain, though, so she likely never had a chance.
As for me, I stood on the terrace where I could see all these cuties frolicking around in their swimsuits and focused entirely on my experimentation work!
“Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle!”
Draco watched me cast and called out the colors. “Chirp! Red, blue, green, yellow, blue!”
“Good. Thanks, Draco. That makes fire, ice, wind, earth, ice.”
I input the results into a spreadsheet on my laptop. This was pretty rudimentary, but I was casting a ton of Elemental Circles to measure the probability of each one activating. A handful of results could be influenced by luck, so I wanted at least a thousand pieces of data.
“Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle!”
“Green, dark blue, yellow, yellow, purple!”
“Hmm... Wind, water, earth, earth, lightning.”
At this pace, we would be at a thousand in no time! Rigorous experimentation was important. We had just gotten over about a hundred uses, but according to trends so far, there were eight possible affinities: fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, ice, light, and dark. Of these, fire, water, earth, wind, lightning, and ice were all about fifteen or sixteen percent likely. Light and dark were much rarer, showing up just two to five percent of the time.
Accordingly, the normal elemental circles merely added their respective elemental affinities to weapon attacks, like Akira’s Skyfall. The rarer dark circle bestowed a weapon affinity and absorbed HP. Any absorbed HP that went over the recipient’s maximum increased their max HP to match. In light’s case, it was the same but with MP. As those effects were more potent than those of the other elements, they appeared less often. Incidentally, the max HP or MP boost lasted about three minutes, but could reach up to double the user’s normal maximum.
Before coming here, I had done plenty of testing on my buddies, the Island Bunnies of the first stratum of Trinisty Isle! The details and durations of the effects were clear by now. From this point on, I would have to try changing weapons, casting locations, and amount of concurrent circles and see if it changed the percentages at all.
Was it entirely random, or were there conditions that would influence probabilities? I had to figure that out. The light and dark circles seemed pretty darn useful. If there was any way to use them more often, I definitely wanted to find it.
The dark circle especially drew me in. Increasing maximum HP meant making the power of my ultimates even greater, as hidden weapon arts increased in damage based on how low your HP was compared to your maximum. By increasing the max, damage would increase accordingly. Same went for ultimates that included hidden weapon arts.
Accelerating the drama in the drama cannon—how dramatic can you get?! Truly, summer was the season of drama and romance!
“Next up! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle! Elemental Circle!”
“Chirp! Red, purple, dark blue, red, green!”
“Fire, lightning, water, fire, wind. Got more comin’ your way!”
“What in the world are you doing?” came a voice from behind me.
I turned to find Shizuku, whom we’d met at the robot fighting game yesterday. Ms. Nakada was with her; perhaps she’d shown Shizuku the way here. Now that she’d agreed to our proposition, Shizuku was popping by to visit. It was fine and all, since this was summer vacation, but didn’t she have work or something?
“Oh, heya, Shizuku. I’m just experimenting to find out the probabilities for this new magic. It can have a lot of different affinities.”
“Affinities?” she said as if unfamiliar with the term.
Ms. Nakada launched into an explanation. “Yes, so you see...”
This lady really must be a VIP, I thought.
“Hmm. So you’ve determined that they appear in an irregular pattern?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’re practically using the scientific method. Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Yeah! It’s really fun!”
“Is that so? Aren’t video games best with flashy fights and the like?”
“It depends on the person, don’t you think? I like those kinds of games too, but doing all of this thorough preparation makes it so I can show off in the flashiest way possible. I mean, I’m in a class that requires me to do that, or else I can’t help out at all.”
“Oh?”
“Err, he’s a bit of an odd one out,” said Ms. Nakada. “He doesn’t tire out on it, though, so maybe he’s suited for laboratory work or analysis. He does have some of the best analytical abilities among all of our students.”
“Ohoho, I see. Very well. As promised yesterday, I’ve taken the opportunity to come and visit you.”
“Cool. Well, how about we head out now?” I turned toward Maeda and Yano, who were still playing around on the jet ski. “Hey, girls! Shizuku’s here, so let’s get going to Aswarth’s!”
“Okay!”
Thus, we put our fun on hold and prepared to leave the cottage. Just as we did so, however...
“But wait, I say!”
You’ve gotta be kidding me! Is he here?!