Sirius sat inside his little miniature workshop in the prison he has come to call home for the past three months. After almost dying several times, he decided to reorganize all of his cards so that he could be more effective in using them.
Right now he was experimenting with reinforcement magecraft so that he could bring it to the level of alteration, and use that in combination with his alchemy to see if a hypothesis of his could be right.
Transfiguration. A complete change in form and appearance instead of changing the state as opposed to transmutation. With transmutation, he needed certain materials to make certain actions, like the rock spears he like's to use.
With this it wouldn't be a stretch to call it very limited reality manipulation. He may be able to induce nuclear fission making a small thermonuclear bomb with his alchemy, but with the transfiguration he could go farther.
He could make matter into anything he wanted as long as he got control over it. He obviously wouldn't be able to manipulate Merlin's or Vivian's bodies but people like Gawain or Lancelot were in the field.
"Just a little farther....." Sirius mumbled with bloodshot eyes and overgrown stubble on his face giving him a bum look.
The rock in his hands glowed and lines of circuitry lit up on it, causing it to shake in his hand. It's form started to change into a more metal like. Once the spell was over, what was revealed was iron, not rock, just solid unrefined iron.
Sirius sat there with the thing in his hand for a solid ten minutes before he reacted. "I did it. I succeeded in making it change more than just it's state, but also it's structure....."
He didn't stop there and went farther this time with another rock and made this one into a steel dagger. Then he made it into a steel short sword, and he went and destroyed it all by making it into a large amount of bubbles
"Still follows the law of conservation. Since matter can be converted to energy and vice versa, the large amount of bubbles means there was 'more' matter and energy in the steel short sword than in the bubbles...And it seems that I am limited to smaller amounts of matter for the conversion, even with my mana core."
He noted all of it down in his notebook he made and went on to make more things with the new magecraft he made. He had one thing wrong with the spell and that was the fact that alchemy works on equivalent exchange, he cannot create something out of nothing without the right ingredients or have the energy to substitute.
One creation of alchemy could help with this, the Philosophers Stone. A stone made up of the souls of several beings, the more souls that make up the stone, the more power. Sirius couldn't make the stone before and he can't now as he doesn't know how to manipulate souls. But soon he would as he was looking into it, it might take a bit but he will definitely come up with something before he leaves.
All he had to do was make that and he would soon have his limited reality manipulation magecraft. He may be able to do 'impossible' things with his true magic, but that was nothing but a support tool until he better understood it past the hiding feature.
After all their is no one he can rebound ideas off of since he is the only sixth magician in the world, and will be the only one unless he passes it on before he dies, and that might not happen given his personality.
...
"Sigh...I fucking hate this place." Sirius was ambushed by several skeletal and rotting monsters as he went out on his trek to scavenge for some things that he could make edible.
Using his alchemy, he snapped his fingers causing explosions of flames to consume the attackers. Then another wave came overcoming the flames, only to be pierced by the spears of glowing reinforced metal that thrusted out of the ground.
"Spell was a success." He noted down and blocked a sword strike that came above him from a knight suited in black heavy plated armor. It's sword was bigger than it's body and Sirius's sword cracked on contact. He had to induce a shockwave of air so as to put distance and reconstruct his sword.
The knight hefted the massive greatsword on it's shoulder and took form, ready for conflict. Sirius on the other hand, after creating his sword again just looked at the black knight and snapped his fingers, causing the greatsword to shatter into dust along with the marker he put on it to transmute it.
Then he displaced himself and decapitated it, easily ending the fight. Sirius sighed as he watched the hordes of monsters make their way to him. Soon he would be overrun and would have to retreat again, just like last time. If only there was a way to clean the place out completely.
He would use the thermonuclear spell but with everything being trapped, he would be vaporized along with everything in the Pit. He has been looking into symbolistic spells though, as he could conduct certain rituals with greater magecraft to induce a similar but safer phenomena. His Ategenos spell was a great example, and he would use it here had it not been for the fact that the monsters bodies are already unnatural.
"Time to go back to the workshop." He stomped his foot into the ground causing the earth to open up and swallow everything but him. Now he was alone in the dead Pit, the environment was starting to take it's tole on his psyche.
It's constant pitch black darkness that had him scanning the air with his magecraft constantly looking out for hostiles. The thousands of sentient beings watching him, waiting for him to drop his guard so they could feast on his corpse.
It was tiring and he was honestly starting to hate his master for it. Just a little. But something changed today, a certain presence emanated through the area spooking all the monsters and eldritch horrors away. Even Sirius was sweating quite a bit when he felt it's presence, as it was heavy and bloody.
It felt like Sirius was standing amongst thousands of souls being tortured in a prison. It felt horrifying listening to the thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of souls being torture in pain.
His dragon core came to life cycling heavy amounts of prana into him, ready to induce a mana burst and reinforcement to fight off this terrifying existence or run. Sirius never rids the option of running unless people would die upon doing so.
But right now he was by himself and since he had absolutely no shame, he was ok with running away. He likes life, and he has several goals left unfinished, getting his memories back from Truth, resurrecting his dead family is another. The last one is to create his own family with Vivian.
So he refuses to die until he has succeeded.
But that resolve was soon tested against a formless being. It's body was pure darkness that seemed to stretch on with hundreds of thousands of eyes looking at him and mouths curling in amusement at the sight of another prey for it to feast upon.
'Well.....Shit.....I am kind of fucked aren't I?' He questioned to no one in particular as he watched the formless being transfer into a more physical form.
When it was done what was revealed was a pale man in black suit with a maroon shirt underneath. His face was covered by a large black fedora. He looked Sirius up and down almost as if he was inspecting the kind of meal he was about to eat.
"What a curiously odd looking soul you have. Almost as if certain parts of you were emptied only to refill again just not back to full capacity." The monster murmured, his words booming in the quiet atmosphere.
Sirius right now was priming thousands of spells in sequence like he was playing a game of chess as he observed every move he and the monster could make.
"Though you do have a good amount of od thanks to that dragon heart you got and your magic circuits are just." He chef kissed to the air in happiness at the meal he was about to eat. "Do you have any last words....human, dragon, whatever the fuck you are?"
Sirius stood with his sword at the ready. "How's life been for you?"
The monster smiled and was about to respond only for his head to burst and ooze blood and bone fragments everywhere thanks to the miniature air explosion caused by Sirius.
"I would say it's pretty good, not gonna lie." The monsters voice came from a mouth that opened on it's body. "I would say yours is pretty shit though."
The fight had truly began.