APPROXIMATELY FIVE MONTHS LATER WITHIN THE BOOK OF JO-LAN…
It was dawn and the Students were resting within the Temple at the Central Island of the World within the Book Of Jo-lan. Suddenly, Harry walked in and tapped Josec who was still asleep.
"Wake up Jo" Harry called.
Josec stirred but remained asleep. Harry tapped a little harder. Josec finally opened his eyes.
"What's up Harry? It's still too early" Josec said.
"Why don't you take a look at your Book Of Jo-lan? There appear to be new functionalities within it" Harry said.
"Hey, are you trying to say the engineers finally completed the functionality that allows us to augment the abilities of our allies?" Josec asked.
"Well, I can't tell for sure but there appear to be a number of new functionalities" Harry said.
Josec took out his Book Of Jo-lan and flipped its pages.
"These functionalities should be in the 'Common History' Index right?" Josec asked.
Harry nodded.
Soon, Josec was scanning the pages of his Common History Index. Within it were a number of functionalities under the titles 'Joki Storage', 'Joki Sharing' and 'The Psychorage Fusion Improv. by Augmented Projection'".
"Hey, there are more functionalities in here than the engineers told us about before" Josec said.
"Yeah, isn't it cool?!" Harry exclaimed excitedly.
Suddenly Buern's voice was heard yelling,
"Why don't you guys shut up! Can't you see some of us are trying to get some sleep?!"
Ironically though, Buern's yell awakened everyone else.
"What's going on?" Estelle asked.
"There are new functionalities encoded into the Book Of Jo-lan" Josec explained.
"What?! Really?!" Buern exclaimed excitedly and soon everyone had gathered.
"'Joki Storage', 'Joki Sharing' and 'The Psychorage Fusion Improv. by Augmented Projection?" the Students scanned the new functionalities.
"We'll probably have to see the engineers in the morning to find out what these new functionalities entail" Fleur said.
Jason and the others agreed.
When morning finally arrived, the Students journeyed to the island that appeared to be a vast factory. It had expanded significantly in size. Awaiting them were a number of engineers.
"Hello Josec, Harry, Buern, Estelle, Jason, Fleur" a representative of the engineers greeted.
"Hello" the Students answered.
"You being here must mean you've discovered the new set of functionalities encoded into your Books Of Jo-lan right?" the representative of the engineers said.
"Yes, we did. There are three new functionalities. We were expecting one. You must have really put in a lot of effort to come up with the other two" Harry said.
"Yes, we did. But to be honest though, the other two functionalities are not separate from what we spoke to you about earlier on. They are actually extensions of that concept" the representative of the engineers said.
"How?" Harry asked.
"Umm, how to put it…this will be kinda tough to explain. I suppose we should start at the very beginning. We'll begin our explanation with 'Joki Storage'. In our study of joki and Psychorages, we came to the realization that the domains of the Psychorages of each Jo-lan Warrior were massive pools of elemental energy that could be channeled to a Jo-lan Warrior by a Psychorage through the bond between man and Psychorage linking the domains of the Psychorage within the Book of Jo-lan to the human inhabiting the Physical World. However, when a Jo-lan Warrior psychorages, the bond fuses the wills of the two, allowing the Psychorage to manifest in the Physical World. While battling in the Physical World, the elemental energy of the Psychorage can be depleted over time which is why a Psychorage returns to the World within the Book Of Jo-lan to recharge its energy through meditation. We realized that for one person to utilize the joki of an ally, the ally would need to be transmitting their joki to the person in realtime. This isn't all that bad but there's the danger that some interference in transmission in the midst of a critical battle could leave an ally vulnerable. For instance, if two allies in two different locations were to be battling different adversaries and were sharing joki to boost each other's abilities, if for some reason one of them became unable to transmit joki, the other or both of them would immediately become vulnerable to a foe's attack. Hence we came to the conclusion that in order to bypass that problem, it was necessary to invent a means to store joki so that if transmission failure were triggered by unforeseen circumstances that befell one ally, the other could still draw strength from their ally's joki stored in a separate location" the representative of the engineers said.
"I see, makes sense. It eliminates the danger that a downed or captured ally will be unable to transmit or share joki and allows them to aid other allies even when they are not physically present" Harry realized what the engineer was getting at.
"However, to do this we had to create an alternate plane or reality adjacent to the domain of a Jo-lan Warrior's Psychorage. These planes exist in the 'Unique History' of a Jo-lan Warrior and are exclusive to that Jo-lan Warrior and their Psychorage. The alternate plane which we will term as the 'Storage Plane' is linked by a bridge to the domain of a Jo-lan Warrior's Psychorage allowing them to store joki whenever they can so that when they enter battle as a single entity through the art of psychoraging, the Storage Plane could act as a reserve of energy that can be drawn out when the energy within the Psychorage's domain is depleted" the engineer explained.
"Wow, that's a lot of explanation for the Storage Plane" Josec noted.
"You can think of the 'Joki Storage' concept as a personal device that allows a Jo-lan Warrior to store joki whenever they can for use in the future when their joki is depleted during battle. It's similar in concept to a 'Storage Facility' or a 'Bank' of sorts" the engineer explained.
"I get it" Estelle said.
"I see, so storage was the major hurdle you needed to bypass before 'Joki Sharing' or the 'Augmentation Of Allies' Abilities' concept could be realized" Buern said.
The engineer nodded.
"If you want to view the 'Storage Plane', draw joki from it, or store joki within it, you can access the 'Joki Storage Index' in your 'Unique History'" the engineer explained.
Without warning, Buern suddenly accessed the Joki Storage Index in her Book Of Jo-lan. In an instant, they were all teleported to a brilliant world that contained a large pool that was almost empty. A channel connected to this pool flowed towards the River Of Recollection which was Marina's domain and the pool appeared to be gradually filling with Water.
"The Water you see flowing into this pool is actually your Psychorage's joki" the engineer explained.
"Marina's joki?" Buern wondered.
"You can also flow your joki into the pool if you want. It's exclusively yours and Marina's" the engineer said with a reassuring smile.
When Buern finally disabled the Joki Storage Index, they found themselves back on the Island Of Engineers.
"Next, I'll explain the 'Joki Sharing' concept" the engineer said.
The Students nodded.
"Why don't you access the 'Joki Sharing' Index within your Books Of Jo-lan?" the engineer instructed.
The Students obeyed. In the next instant, they found themselves within a very vast realm overflowing with elements. Within this realm were nine extremely large pools. Each pool had countless channels connected to it and these channels flowed outwards extending into various regions within the Book Of Jo-lan.
"This realm is a collective storage facility for all Jo-lan Warriors. These pools each represent one of the nine dominant elements the concept of the Elemental Balance revolves around; the nine dominant elements around which the abilities of all Jo-lan Warriors are forged. Jo-lan Warriors of a particular affinity can store or retrieve joki from a pool that matches their affinity. All Jo-lan Warriors of a particular elemental affinity can store their joki in pools matching their affinities so that they or allies can draw from these vast reserves of energy whenever their energy is depleted. It is also possible for a Jo-lan Warrior of one affinity to draw strength from a pool of a different affinity once they master the Psychorage Improvisation and are able to match the wavelength of the elements stored in a pool of that affinity" the engineer explained.
The Students' eyes widened in excitement as the full implication of his words dawned on them. Harry's heart suddenly began to pulsate.
"Hieron is excited" Harry realized.
"Finally, I will explain the last functionality, 'The Psychorage Fusion Improv. by Augmented Projection" the engineer said.
The Students nodded.
"You can access the functionality now" the engineer said.
The Students obeyed.
This time, they found themselves within a realm that had a single pool.
"Within this realm, allies can pool their joki together. You can fuse joki with any ally with whom you have some form of connection to or who has some form of connection to your History; in other words, any ally with whom you have some form of shared or 'Common History'" the engineer explained.
The Students viewed their Books Of Jo-lan and found a list of people they'd met on their journey, people who had some connection to them or to Jo-lan.
"Select the people you want to fuse joki with" the engineer instructed.
The Students selected one another within their Books. Immediately they did, six channels appeared and various elements began to flow into the pool. Gradually, the elements began to take form assuming the form of the Armoured Golden Phoenix.
"Wait a sec, we haven't even psychoraged or attempted a Psychorage Fusion so how is the Armoured Golden Phoenix here?" Buern asked.
"That's not all. The Armoured Golden Phoenix is a form we assume but here, it's autonomous. The form appears to be sustained by our joki alone" Harry noted.
"Why don't you try syncing wavelengths to one another?" the engineer suggested.
The Students obeyed and realized that they could perceive everything to exactly the same degree the Armoured Golden Phoenix could. They found themselves staring at themselves through the eyes of the Armoured Golden Phoenix.
"That's the Psychorage Fusion Improvisation by Augmented Projection. You can fuse Psychorages and control the fused Psychorage remotely through your joki alone without the need to necessarily transform yourselves. This ability allows teams to scout wide areas with their Psychorage Fusions or battle adversaries by relying on joki alone" the engineer explained.
"Very interesting! It appears you successfully integrated the new functionalities into the Book Of Jo-lan. Impressive! It will certainly extend the capabilities of the Mutating Several Layered Zone Of Absolute Defense" Harry said.