The Good Teacher

"As you already know, I've had to make a few assumptions in defining my model. The limitation of the recording device played a huge role in this since its range was limited to the Solar System," Marie started.

"How come? The projection showed the positions of the stars and other celestial bodies beyond the Solar System," Krish pointed out.

"They did, however determining their states with just the visual would not render accurate enough information to support the modelling procedure. In fact, I am starting to suspect that even the actual three-dimensional captures of the planets in the projection were erroneous due to time differences," Marie theorised.

"What time differences?"

"Well, you should have a better understanding of how the Celestial Recording Platform captures the three-dimensional state at a point in time. I hypothesise that it emits mana and captures the reflected mana to store the position and colour at discretised points. Am I correct in that assumption?" Marie inquired.

Krish nodded apprehensively and said, "Sort of..."

"If that is the case, then is the emitted and reflected mana faster than the speed of light? Is it instantaneous or does it take time for the mana to reach its target and then return to its source?" Marie rattled off.

"That... appears to be so."

"I suspected that would be the case," Marie murmured. "I added a correction to the positions of the celestial bodies by assuming that the mana behaves like light and travels at its speed in a vacuum. An interesting find, I might add - it definitely warrants further research (something Markus would appreciate). You see, the positions of the planets in the projection are shifted from their actual location since the recording captures their state at a later point in time," Marie explained.

"Nonetheless, because I've had to limit data collection to the Solar System, we are omitting the influence of the bodies beyond the limits of the System. The direct effect of this imposed limitation is the time duration for which my model can maintain its accuracy."

"Which is?" Krish probed.

"Two hundred years, give or take half a hundred. It depends, really. But a decent upper limit, with the best case scenario, would be three hundred years," Marie affirmed.

"Not bad!"

Marie raised a finger and accentuated, "Of course, this is subject to improvements as we add more and more to the model I've built. The closer we get to modelling the entire world, the wider the time frame becomes."

"Regardless, it is a good starting point. Even I very rarely look past a hundred years - that too only on rare occasions," Krish commended. "So how do we intend to bring The Heavenly Eye into this?"

"It is a matter of synchronisation. I need to tether the temporal anchor corresponding to the target I wish to divine the future of with The Heavenly Eye, to the model of the world initialised at the same anchor point. Then, I should be able to extrapolate the Constants using the model as my guide."

"And how will you accomplish all of this?" Krish inquired with a mix of concern and confusion.

"Trial and error," Marie shrugged nonchalantly.

"You are messing with fire, Marie. You KNOW just how dangerous interfering with Constants can be," Krish reprimanded sternly.

"I am not going to investigate or gaze into them if that's what you're worried about. No. I'm, more interested in the... metadata of the Constant event," Marie rephrased. "You know? The time, place, event, nature, and so on. In fact, I think you could do it for me if you're worried I'll get into trouble."

"I trust you, I'm just concerned for your health. Things can go wrong at the drop of a hat if you aren't mindful."

Marie revealed a rare smile and scratched the back of her head sheepishly. "So, when should we begin."

"No time like the present, I guess." Krish closed his eyes and gestured for his Disciple to begin.

Marie took five long breaths, emptying and refilling her lungs to their entirety multiple times.

"I am going to divine the future of the True World Sect. I find that this method works best if we can find an anchor point that falls within the time period spanned by the recorded dataset. For instance, with people, it would be preferable to use their date of birth as an anchor point - I could go even further and use their time of birth and it would improve the accuracy and breadth of the prediction (this is one way to push the model's accuracy for three hundred years). I will use the date that the True World Sect was conceived as the anchor point."

Krish raised a finger and pointed out, "Why would you use the conception date as opposed to the date the Sect was legally registered as the anchor point?"

"First off, I don't even know if Sect Leader Larks has registered the Sect yet. AND, registration is just a formality. The Sect was born way before that when the idea first left Sect Leader Larks' lips," she retorted. "Ideas are fleeting, formalities are... well just formalities, but words and actions have power. The moment they leave your lips, they ripple across fate's tapestry."

With that, she retrieved the gold-rimmed book with endless sheets and flipped through the pages, repeatedly mumbling the date when Mister Larks thought up the idea of starting a sect.

"Found it! Alright, let's see here. Gaea's position was..." More words started to cascade out of her mouth systematically. Her left hand held the open book while her right started to scribble at the last bit of empty space available on the combat field. As more and more numbers and diagrams filled up that region, a profound phenomenon started to transpire in her mental space.

It started with a single point that stretched out into a line, into a circle, and finally a sphere. More and more points spawned around it and started to undergo the same transition from non-dimensional, to one-dimensional, to two- and then three-, until suddenly the fourth dimension kicked in and everything started to move.

There was no colour, there was no light. There was only darkness, with silhouettes moving in an elegant dance-like orbit. A large body in the middle, surrounded by smaller bodies, surrounded by even smaller bodies - a nesting doll of orbiting bodies.

This was the model of the world Marie's mind cooked up with the equations and formulae at hand. Although, it was only a microcosm of the world at large.

"But it will do," Marie repeated, less so as an assertion, mostly just to convince herself.

Marie was now standing at the metaphorical edge of the cliff. She had to take a leap of fate... quite literally. After suppressing her anxiousness, she started to circulate her mana through her core and towards her eyes. Her pupils started to turn a lustrous gold shade as the Heavenly Eye opened.

"What is the future of the True World Sect?" Marie tossed out into the world. Her words initiated a ripple and strings of fate started to stretch out, visible only to her gaze.

'Since Master does not see these strings, they must be corporeal - a construct of my mind. So...' With some difficulty, she receded back into the model of the Solar System spinning around in her mental space and brought the strings of fate with her.

At that instant, another change transpired (one that she didn't think possible). The strings of fate converged and turned into a transverse wave. The wave kept undulating with an indescribable form. Marie figured it was probably the superposition of all the possible fate sequences in one.

Now, Marie could merge the model of the Solar System and the waveform of fate together as it was a non-trivial mathematical process. Her mind started to whirl up to speed again and processed this action. Incrementally, the jittering wave started to disperse as it melded into the model.

BOOM!

A massive explosion resonated inside Marie's mind. The planets within her model started to vibrate, the Sun started to expand and contract, and everything started to shake! A splitting headache assaulted her that nearly brought her out of her mental space, but through sheer willpower, Marie held on. She had to see this through... whatever it was.

Then, like the first bloom of flowers in the dreary landscape after the melting of snow, a tinge of colour started to spread out upon the void-black canvas of pure rationality. And it did not stop. No, it was spreading like a wildfire at the peak of a scorching summer.

"The model was missing a piece all along! How could I be so stupid?"

Fate. That was the piece she was missing. Just like her Master would say - fate is one of the fundamental laws of this world.

The golden sheen of Marie's eyes subsided, but the world did not lose its vibrance. Once the colours settled, and the world was as vibrant as it could be, Marie's eyes caught a faint glow of gold flickering from Gaea. The flicker came and went, but it wasn't missed. Marie immediately rewound the world and paused it at the point where the gold was brightest. Then she zoomed into the source.

Within seconds she breached Gaea's atmosphere and hurtled downwards. She realised that her trajectory was taking her to a familiar location, Mount Tai. However, what she saw there shook her to her core.

At the base of the mountain, where the village was supposed to be, lay a burning ruin strewn with corpses both complete and incomplete. The flowing blood formed a stream, and in this stream lay the broken bodies of her family. Markus was missing an arm. Jean was dead. She did not want to know the state of Matron Reva, Dora and Kano.

Floating above the stream, stood the imperious form of Sect Leader Larks with an uncharacteristic rage warping his demeanour. An aura of death and dominance emanated from his form, and his gaze was razor-sharp. Following his gaze, Marie saw an army of mages dressed in a myriad of shades indicating a plethora of affiliations. Marie's grasp of the world wavered causing it to resume.

"Gouge out your eyes, tear out your limbs, break every bone in your body, suffer in pain most unbearable without losing consciousness and when your body, will and soul are broken, only then... Kill yourselves," a demonically hoarse voice resonated around her, originating from Sect Leader Larks. Marie's breath hitched as, in the next instance, every single person comprising the battalion did exactly as commanded.

A cacophony of screams and shrieks rang out, as Sect Leader Larks gazed on unemotionally. People pulled their skins from their flesh, twisted their joints in angles unimaginable and sliced their tendons with blunt nails, many dug into their sockets and retrieved the ruined gelid forms of their eyes... Those that could not handle the pain fainted, but their bodies continued to mutilate themselves involuntarily.

"T-This! Whatever this is... I cannot let this happen," Marie muttered in shock as she digested exactly what she was witnessing.