Princess Celestia, I believe I've found something interesting, I've never heard of spells or artifacts that enhance magic like this before.
If we could reproduce it, it could enrich the lives of unicorns across Equestria, discounting the benefits it could have for the Royal Guard.
Entry Number Four, Day Sixty-Five
Oh yeah, this one's not getting out any time soon. The last thing I want right now is an amplifier like this getting into the wrong hands. Maybe I'll release it to the public after I've defeated all my enemies or something.
I've figured out a way to make my magic hit harder. And it's honestly a pretty simple method. It's all about optics. Light alteration. I can cast all of my spells tethered to Unicorn Lights, which means that anything that can affect light can thus affect my spells. I first realized the potential when one of my spells bounced off a mirror and made me just a little bit balder than normal.
Unicorns can naturally make their horns emit lasers, but what they can't do is narrow those lasers without intense focus and practice, something that just isn't combat viable. Until now, anyway. Why do it yourself when you can do it with golems? Thus, I've created what are basically magic circles. Masses of enchanted levitating powder, made of the highest quality clear-sapphire crystal I can have produced, and enchanted with regeneration and clarity charms. I shout a code word, and the flakes of gem arrange themselves into whatever magic altering construct I need, combining with one another to form floating lenses, prisms and mirrors to harness a spell I fire off and transform it's light into far more destructive and refined forms.
I believe I'll call this type of enchanted, reshaping powder... a "Noble Phantasm"
I'll have to get into the habit of matching spells to "Divine Words", since the enchanted dust responds to verbal commands.
The first and most important codeword, of course, being "Ultima". Named after Final Fantasy's famous spell, I've set this codeword to make the enchanted powder form a circular screen which converts light passing through it into stuttered pulses. Why is this so important? Namely, because lasers have a major flaw. when striking an object, the debris and plume of gasses created by a laser striking it can actually obscure the object, stealing from the laser's efficiency. By stuttering the laser, I can make a spell like Black Flame chew through an object nearly twice as fast as it had been able to before.
Indeed, any spell that emits dust, a plume of plasma, or which relies on intense heat to destroy a target would benefit by being passed through the Ultima Magic Circle first.
The second codeword, "Backlash Wave", arranges the golems into a specialized combat mode, in which they intercept any unicorn light being emitted anywhere near me, reflecting and refracting it into a beam pointed in the same direction as my head. This mode ensures that I can turn spells that my enemies cast back against them, combining their power with mine and resulting in potentially devastating attacks. In theory, at least. I don't have any unicorns on hand to test it.
Codeword number three, "Death Beam". This codeword is one of the simplest, as it simply forms magic circles in front of me which act as lenses, turning my magic attacks into much thinner magic attacks. A thinner, more potent laser of magic can boost the effectiveness of my spells where they impact at very little cost to myself, especially when I'm performing some sort of sweeping effect, instead of focusing on a single target.
And, finally, among my general use codewords, a codeword near and dear to my heart, "Z-Target". This codeword is special, as the enchanted powder will begin to reshape itself in such a way that if I cast a spell, it will be split up among several targets that I focus on with my eyes beforehand, allowing me to make a spell weaker, in return for allowing it to instantaneously strike multiple targets at once.
The current flaw of Divine Words is the powder itself. It is too small to hold the more intelligent systems I've invented recently, and I hesitate to make be controlled by a true, solid golem core, for fear that it might be destroyed in the middle of a fight, leaving my combat capabilities crippled. As it stands, I cannot combine codewords, and to add new codewords, I have to make an entirely new batch of enchanted powder. For now, however, this will certainly give me an edge that I desperately need. I'm not sure if it can hold up in combat, but Divine Words, along with some other research I've been performing, will give me a major advantage, one that will let me survive if I encounter powerful foes in the future.
Ultimately, the nature of my Noble Phantasm is one of utility. It gives my magic a much needed boost in accuracy and refinement, a set of training wheels that can prop up my lack of skill with artificial skill. By improving this indulgence, and increasing my own personal power in tandem with the efficiency given by this creation, I'll finally have a foothold to gain enough raw combat potential to defend myself in this world. But a creation like this can't be proven useful in test chambers, it can't be proven lethal against training dummies. I'll have to forge this weapon on the battlefield, sooner or later. Only by pushing the limits of this magical technology and myself, only by using every trick, every cheat and exploit that I can find, will I be able to match the terrifying monsters that seek me out.
I don't ever want to feel like I did that day again.
Is is indeed interesting, Sunset, but unfortunately, without Crystal Ponies, I fear reproducing this particular invention of Weiss's may prove... Difficult.
Nonetheless, I find myself curious, and will have my artificers see if they can reproduce it. I always have wondered why he used those magic circles . Now I know.
can Weiss cast any crystal pony magic?
These magic notes are Interesting, the way the story goes between the past, present and these notes makes me what to know more about everything that is going on.
Interesting, looks like it really didn't end well between Weiss and Sombra as he had hoped.
9679890
Not if it requires a Crystal EARTH pony. He's still a unicorn, after all. But he can cast some Crystal Magic.
9679923
He was referring to his meeting with Celestia.
Power and efficiency are two different concepts. Power is how much you put into it, so in the case of a laser the amount of light that is actually emitted by the source. Efficiency is how much of the light is used. You will always lose light as it passes through lenses, but you can change how concentrated the light is, this changes how much light is hitting what you want to hit.
Point is, you were using 'power' and 'efficiency' interchangeably.
9679926
Since when is Weiss the type of person to know basic information like that?
I can change it if you like, but it's very intentional of me to make Weiss constantly make mistakes like that.
Edit*
I'll just go ahead and edit it, if that didn't come across as I intended.
I don't know how to feel about these chapters because they kinda make Sunset and Celestia seem scummy in my opinion, here's this guy putting a lot of time, resources and effort into saving your existence and you go and read his personal diary and notes behind his back while looking for ideas to steal.
Very ungrateful in my opinion.
9680230
Well, yes, but Sunset Shimmer WAS a total scumbag before discovering the magic of friendship. It's explained as much in the show.
As for Celestia, it's already been established that She and Weiss take nothing but the purest pleasure in hating and harassing one another for fun.
There's reading your diary and secrets behind your back, and then there's teleporting fat statues of you in the middle of your court and smashing it up as a prank. Weiss is literally robbing her old home and squatting in it, for example.
It might seem cruel, but I hope I've at least alluded to the fact that they're engaged in a very complex game of constantly trying to enrage and one-up each other.
9680269
Yes, I can see that through your writing but Weiss is using the things he steals to help his ememies, I don't see Celestia and Sunset helping him with his research in fact Sunset is doubting him and second-guessing when it's been established Weiss is the foremost expert in the field.
I love your story and all it's just this kinda rubs me wrong.
9680285
Celestia has been doing arguably the most helpful thing, which is to ignore what Weiss is doing. He's breaking enough laws with his reckless abuse of dark magic and illegal medical operations to fill a prison if one pony did each thing on the list. Her turning a blind eye to the laws he's breaking is a surprisingly difficult task, considering his antagonism and blatant disregard for Equestria's laws.
It would cause real, undeniable problems if Celestia officially sent large amounts of aid and resources to a massive criminal to help the student that betrayed her trust and escaped into exile.
Weiss established a number of times that he isn't an expert in the problem Sunset has, from him using outdated books, crude methods, and having to actually mail other professionals in order to commission the work he has planned.
The only advantage he has is a plan, one which was, until Sunset pointed it out to him, based on outdated spellbooks and dangerous dark magic and combat magic being cast on her for a very long period of time.
The most important thing being that she was right, and that there are modern and improved methods, which Weiss was going to ignore by instead solving her problem by kludging together thousand-year-old teleripper spells and greed-infused dragon regeneration.
There's also a scene in "Purple's Clues" in which Sunset mails Celestia to have her directly aid Weiss in spite of all of that, by using their own connections to contact the magic users that would be needed to produce Weiss's planned relic.
However Noble Weiss's goals may be, his actions, reputation, and behavior make it extremely difficult for a Princess of Equestria to openly help him for any reason.
Edit*
I'm glad to hear that you're a fan! Discussion like this helps improve the story, so I'm always happy to do so.
9680300
Your point is made.
Your the author so I'd assume you know your story best (or else there would be something strange going on).
If anything just take it as me being invested in your great story.
9680344
Well, when you have critiques to make, I'm overjoyed to hear them. Stuff like this, like I said, helps me improve the story!
I'm glad to hear you enjoy the story enough that you can pose hard-hitting critiques like that, and indeed, even if I have reasons, sometimes, those reasons might not be good ones!
I'll be sure to keep your comments in mind in future chapters, and I may even consider exploring the point you brought up more deeply as a result.
9680353
Oh, and by Weiss being the expert I meant on paradoxes.
9680364
That's a much better point, I misunderstood what you meant. I'll admit, if Sunset expressed Skepticism about Weiss's knowledge of Time Magic, then that was a mistake on my part.
I thought you meant her Skepticism towards his medical knowledge. That's on me.
9680230
I mean, to be fair, it's his personal diary filled with notes on dark magic and super weapons. They have legitimate reasons to want to read it aside from Sunset being a bitch and Celestia's relationship with Weiss being based entirely on mutual antagonism.
9679924
He co-opted zebra magic somehow. Did he have a particular reason for not including pieces of earth pony and Pegasus in his body, or did he just not need it when he had the shadow realm behind him?