Then he realized he needed to change the ice’s shape just a little bit. Holding both hands over the ice, he began shaving ice off the block’s perimeter a little at a time. When he flipped the bucket upside down, a block of ice 25 centimeters in diameter and 10 centimeters thick dropped out.
He picked it up and held it in both hands as he continued visualizing. He thickened the center and thinned the outside to form a convex lens. After thirty minutes, he finally achieved a shape that satisfied him.
“Heh heh heh. Victory is mine, and all thanks to the hydrogen bonding!”
No one knew exactly what Ryo had been victorious against.
While hydrogen bonding joins water molecules togethers, it’s also responsible for other links, such as DNA’s double helix. In science class, students learn that pairings between adenine and thymine, guanine and cytosine, are joined together by hydrogen bonds, resulting in the double helix structure. Isn’t hydrogen bonding amazing?!
Now he could use the ice lens he’d created to focus the sunlight to burn the black bark of the hemp palm. Making fire with ice felt deliciously wrong.
He’d worried that the ice might melt, but as long as he kept pouring his magic into the lens, the ice remained solid. That might be the difference between natural ice and ice created by magic.
The sun’s rays cascaded down brilliantly on the fairly large ice lens. Then, in less than two minutes, the hemp palm bark caught fire. At long last, Ryo had a way to make fire.
“I know this is stating the obvious, but magic really is amazingly handy.”
Of the three things necessary for survival—fire, water, food—he had acquired the first two through magic, even if he had to resort to relatively primitive techniques in conjunction with his magic to make a fire...
“I wonder where the water comes from. It must be from the molecules in the air...I think.”
It was so hot in the Forest of Rondo that it would be more apt to call its climate subtropical rather than temperate. Humidity was high too, which could be attributed to the moisture level in the air. Ryo thought these factors might explain why he’d been able to produce water so quickly despite being a beginner at water magic.
On Earth, humidity existed in some small percentages in desert environments as well, meaning the presence of moisture even in the dry air there. If magic could be drawn out of the water in such locales, then it truly was a remarkably convenient tool.
But...what if that wasn’t all magic was capable of? Could it create something from nothing? He knew something couldn’t be born from nothing. Precisely speaking, although he called it “nothing,” he actually meant a state with an absence of matter but presence of energy.
Fake Michael had told him physical phenomena were practically the same between Earth and Phi. Ryo pondered if formulas that worked on Earth would also work here on Phi. For example, Einstein’s most famous theorem: E=mc², where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light.
“Multiply mass by the square of the speed of light and you get energy.”
In simpler terms, it means that energy can be generated from matter. Prime examples included nuclear power and atomic bombs. The thing to note here though is the equal sign. As one learns in middle school, if bound by an equal sign, the left and right sides of an equation are identical. This is called equivalence.
In short, if energy can be derived from matter, then the reverse must also be true: matter can be derived from energy. Of course, even on 21st-century Earth, the technology still hasn’t been created to accomplish matter derivation from energy. At best, scientists can generate electrons through pair production.
To begin with, even a single gram of matter generates enormous amounts of energy. This means that even if one can control enormous amounts of energy, ultimately, the final product is just one gram of matter. You might wonder how enormous. Well, consider the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Evidently, only 0.7 grams of mass were converted into energy. So if all that energy was converted back into matter, the result would be...only 0.7 grams of mass.
Be that as it may, the convenience of magic exists on Phi, which suggests the possibility of techniques to generate matter from energy in the abyss known as magic. Needless to say, this suggests a connection to the same mysterious phenomena that created the universe, where “something came from nothing” and matter was generated from energy.
One’s dreams could really be limitless in this world then!
Having secured another “victory” via hydrogen bonding, Ryo set his sights on greater heights—hot water. Given what he knew now, he was confident this would be an easy battle. If he’d made ice by stopping the vibrations of the water molecules, all he had to do to heat the water up was reverse the process. In short, increase the oscillations.
During his school years, he had conducted this exact experiment for his summer research project. Of course, he hadn’t used magic back then... In any case, he had poured water into a thermos, closed the lid, then shook it vigorously! After around two thousand shakes, the temperature of the water had increased by almost one degree.
Since he knew water temperature could increase by forcibly increasing molecular vibration, success was basically guaranteed at this point. He would attempt it now using the same bucket.
Faucet. He said the spell in his mind this time—he’d need practice both chanting the spells out loud or using them silently!
Just like when he’d made ice, Ryo filled up the bucket with ten centimeters of water. Then he held both hands over it and visualized the H₂O molecules. Except this time, he made them vibrate!
...
“Huh?”
There was no real change in the water. No steam rose to indicate its temperature had risen. He cupped some into his palm and noted that it was still lukewarm.
“Why didn’t it work?”
Was his mental image of the water molecules not strong enough? He made his visualization more distinct and...vibrate! As for the results...
“Still not hot, huh?”
The process should be exactly the opposite of turning water into ice.
“What else did I do when I made the ice...”
Ryo thought back to the steps he’d taken.
“Ohhh... I bonded the molecules together before stopping the vibrations. I guess I have to reverse that part too?”
Once more, he raised his hands over the water in the bucket and created a mental picture. This time, he first imagined undoing the hydrogen bond between molecules, allowing them to move freely. Then, he made sure to force each molecule to vibrate.
Pshhht. A geyser of hot water suddenly erupted from the bucket.
“Ah! Hot, hot, too hot!”
He somehow managed to dodge the gushing geyser. He knew he’d be in trouble if he sustained any burns since water magic didn’t have any healing properties...
Nevertheless, he succeeded in making hot water. However, a real, practical problem remained in that Ryo was afraid to jump right in to testing out his unstable Water Heating Technique (as defined by Ryo) in the bathtub. It would be a disaster if he destroyed the stone tub in the process.
So, what was someone supposed to do in a situation like this? There was only one answer.
“Practice, practice, practice!”
He needed to become much more proficient with this skill. He’d have to experience success and failure in equal measure first, then gradually increase the number of his successes. The only way he’d become confident was by being successful again and again.
Lunch was the same as dinner last night: dried meat from the silo... For some strange reason, it was the only nonfrozen food there... While he munched on a piece, Ryo dedicated himself to producing water and repeating his heating technique.
Approximately three Earth hours later, with the sun sinking down to the horizon, he suddenly felt dizzy and struggled to remain standing.
“I think I’m going to pass out...”
It was the first time his store of magical energy ran out. He drank some of the water he had just poured into the bucket before stumbling into his bedroom, where he collapsed unconscious on his bed.
“To make up for yesterday, I’ll use up all my magic after my bath,” Ryo said to himself on his third day in Phi. He spoke the words out loud to really drive the promise he was making to himself. As expected of a former Japanese person, he felt dirty and disgusting after having fallen asleep without bathing the night before.
Then he realized something.
“I only have the clothes I’m wearing right now...”
Fake Michael hadn’t included any extra attire for him in this house. Perhaps Fake Michael was the sort of person (being?) who wasn’t all that concerned with clothing.
“That reminds me...what was he wearing?”
Had it been something like a toga wealthy people in ancient Rome wore...? If that were the case, Ryo would only need a very large, long piece of fabric to wrap around himself. But...there was nothing of the sort in the house. Well, actually, that wasn’t entirely true. An appropriate piece of fabric did exist—except Ryo was using it as a sheet. He definitely couldn’t use that because he needed it for sleep!
“It’s not like anyone’s around to look at me, so the worst-case scenario is I go naked.”
Never mind that even Adam and Eve had their private areas covered by leaves in the paintings depicting them...
“Maybe I can hunt an animal and use its pelt as a loincloth or something?”
Ryo had always been the sort of guy who never cared about what he wore, so he wasn’t all that bothered by his prospects (or lack thereof) of finding a second set of clothes. He had fire, water, and food too, which meant it was finally time to...devise a means of attack using water magic!
He had two months of food in the silo, giving him some time to become strong enough to step outside the barrier and find a permanent source of food. The only weapon he possessed was the knife Fake Michael had left for him.
On Earth, Ryo had been renowned for his knife skills—not. He had absolutely no confidence in his ability to hunt animals or defend himself from monsters with only a knife. Heck, even on Earth, it would probably be impossible to take down a normal wild boar with just a single knife... It was sheer insanity to think he could wander through this forest on Phi armed with his knife. Water magic was his sole viable alternative.