174 success
Layton fell into silence the casing that enveloped him cut off all his senses to the outside world, he was trapped in an enclosed space, his senses unable to process any information from the outside world leaving him in utter and absolute silence close to nothingness the unusual state seemed to try and crush him in both mind and body, and in fact, it seemed to succeed as Layton’s organs started to fail his body immediately losing its vitality seemingly following the silence. This occurrence naturally wasn’t Carl’s doing but as a result of Layton’s own actions. Immediately he was imprisoned he quickly left bits of flesh on the layer of qi that formed the casing that imprisoned him forming a sort of natural array that simply formed and created a new magnetic field to keep his body in place while his thoughts melded deeply with his bio magnetic field that was furiously retracting into his body leading to his organs to lose their vitality and bonds slowly disintegrating, his magnetic field shuttling through the decaying cells, his perception breaking through to the layers of molecules that comprised of the cells he didn’t stop there but forged forward breaking into the atomic layer, the atoms there being forcefully disintegrated from the chemical bonds that bound them together and the magnetic field that had now constituted of Layton’s mind and thoughts immediately replacing the broken chemical bonds.
The easiest process to create an atom with new properties was by simply manipulating the number of proton neutrons and electrons in the nucleus of an already existing atom, the changes in the value of these 3 figures naturally affected the unique properties the finished result would attain. Layton however presently could not do this as he couldn’t touch or control the proton neutron and electrons in the atom, he could only achieve his goal in a roundabout manner which was by using his thoughts which was now the magnetic field around the atom to propel them into each other smashing the atoms in his body much like in a particle accelerator, while selectively creating a favourable environment and using his will to slowly influence the results in a bid to attain his wish. This was naturally a long and exhaustive process but Layton was sure to complete it, he had already done some minute experiments to the effect before unfortunately the result was short lived and not perfect mostly because of outside influence such as the laws of the plane and the fact that the created particle was not sufficiently supervised by his mind, but this time it was going to be different the main obstacle of his mind being one with his magnetic field without his death had been resolved ensuring the speeds of his thoughts were not limited by matter guaranteeing he would have sufficient time to complete the process. In addition, the qi enclosing what was formerly his body ensured his breakthrough would not be affected by the laws of the plane and its will which might cause random mutations and changes to his desired result.
After what seemed like an eternity of boring repetitive work Layton finally achieved his desired result, with its emergence the magnetic field that was Layton’s thoughts immediately moved surging towards his only success disregarding its new duty as a replacement bond to keep the atoms bonded together and converged on the newly born atom, wrapping it tightly imprinting his information, mind, thought process and memories into it. During this process Layton seemed to be squeezed into a small but infinite space his thoughts unable to gather his mind loose, it seemed his emotion and reason were slowly but surely collapsing into nothingness but then the next moment a surge of peculiar radiation and energy surged out of this single atom affecting everything around it instantly turning the surroundings atoms into its shape along with the radiation was the brand ingrained upon it and with that, a new bond was recreated between the atoms around much like natural chemical bonds but instead it was the previously withdrawn magnetic field that signified Layton’s mind and thoughts, with its reemergence Layton was revived, the atoms immediately restructured and recombined, recreating and recasting Layton’s DNA, cellular structure, body and clothing.
Carl stared at the statue in front of him weirdly, just a moment ago he had unmistakably felt the breath of life of Layton had completely extinguished, although he wasn’t too gifted in terms of perception but Layton was wrapped in his qi which was akin to his body and mind so he could naturally feel Layton’s state, not less than a second after Layton was captured he immediately felt his opponent’s vitality seemed to be snuffed out and his soul seemed to vanish.
Carl was naturally aware of the power of his qi although it could quickly erode and assimilate the surrounding matter it wasn’t easy to erode an existence with sufficient strength, and even if the erosion succeeded it would only slowly pollute and absorb the opponent’s energy spirit and physique turning it into qi until the eroded individual loses its form and life turning into ‘qi’. This process naturally was a quick one and so it would be hard for the qi he used to trap his opponent to quickly kill Layton especially since he possessed a protective magnetic field on him at all times that was able to fight the erosion. What this naturally meant was that Layton’s current state wasn’t brought about by his qi but from something else, just as he thought of this he felt the solid qi wrapping Layton out of his control as it cracked and fell off revealing the spotless Layton. Carl saw Layton give him a slight smile as he snapped his fingers, with Layton’s snap a sea of flames immediately appeared interfering and attacking the qi swamp around. It was naturally Layton’s doing he had sent a short undetectable fluctuation containing his thoughts to the atoms around him making them agitate performing fission and fusion releasing immense energy and nudging the expression of that energy in the form of flames.