"Then I'll begin."
Sariah started casting and every researcher rushed forward to stop her.
"W-Wait! You need to tell us what it does first!"
They'd moved too late as a purple wave of magic rushed through the room.
"What did you do? Wait, why did it twirl at the end? Can magic twirl? Maybe twirling magic will increase the power of spells? Increasing power should be done with beasts, perhaps a bull image would work best? If we make a magic that strengthens the body with the image of a bull will a person grow horns?" The first researcher rambled on at a million words per minute.
"This isn't good, what does that magic do? Why does it look like water? If we add a water element to the spell, will it cause more confusion? If we confuse others, will they have swirling images in their eyes? Can swirling eyes confuse others?" The second researcher got lost in his thoughts while muttering continuously.
"Why do curses most often come in the color purple? But there are also black and red curses, what do those do? Can we make a brown curse? Would it make the target stink? If it only makes them stink, is it still a curse?" The third researcher muttered to himself.
As they chattered on Chronos tried to figure out what had just happened. From what he could tell they were extremely distracted and kept coming up with random ideas that were further and further from where they had started.
But not all of the ideas were bad ones, at least the confusion using images wasn't off the mark. If they could turn that into a proper spell it would be a fairly powerful illusion curse.
While they were chattering Sariah took out a notebook and started recording various ideas that they spouted off.
"Um, Sariah, what is this spell supposed to do?" he hesitantly asked.
"[Wandering Thoughts] is a curse that causes thoughts unrelated to the current task to pop into the mind. Each distraction causes another loosely connected thought to form and eventually the individual spirals out of control unable to finish any previous work."
Chronos didn't understand, wasn't this exactly what a curse user would want from a distraction type skill?
"Then how does it produce weird effects?"
"It works great out of combat but most of those in combat enter a type of trance that helps them ignore the effects.
It seems to work exceptionally well on mages and researchers causing random tangents and branching chains of thought. However, some of these tangents are successful research directions and can produce significant results. On the other hand, some of them just reveal your fetish like that stinky mage.
The curse doesn't decrease intelligence or impair concentration; it just loosens the rigid structure of a person's mind."
"So rather than a curse it works more like an enhancement for new research directions."
That was interesting and useful in the lab. But Chronos couldn't be sure if it could still be called a curse or not.
"An enhancement?" Sariah muttered, "That's right this could be a new direction for my own research project. I could turn it into a curse that grants a permanent enhancement."
Chronos thought that was a bad idea as she would never get anything done if she used it, but he trusted Gregory to stop her before it came to that.
While the researchers were getting more and more distracted Lyla called out to Chronos.
"Chronos, come here, I want to test a new defensive skill to see if I can ward off your freezing skill so that I can ride you more easily."
"Alright but it's not actually a freezing skill."
"Hm, then what is it?"
When trying to defend against an offensive skill the more knowledge you had about it the better off you would be. Lyla had prepared to handle a freezing type of skill, if it wasn't actually a freezing type, she would have to change how she handled it if she still wanted to ride Chronos.
"I'm not entirely sure, actually no one in my clan really understands that skill. We know that at the strongest level it creates a floating moon above us because our records tell us so. However, even my mother has failed to reach the highest level. We once asked a water mage to evaluate the skill for us too, they told us that its powers weren't related to water or ice magic."
Lyla frowned, "So your clan has had this skill for a long time but has no clue what its core parts are? How am I supposed to defend against something I don't understand?"
She crossed her arms looking annoyed but there wasn't much they could do about it. No one in living memory or clan records had mastered this skill. Only some of the oldest legends in the clan talked about the highest ranks of [Cold-Moon Pressure] and they knew those were true because their bloodline reacted to them.
The only reason the skill hadn't been forgotten was due to it being one of the few area-of-effect skills that the Beklaedning clan could use.
"I don't think it'll be a problem. Your defensive skill is order aligned, that means any power that doesn't benefit you should be kept outside of the skills range."
"That's true, it would still be easier if I knew more about it. Ah, whatever, let's give it a try."
Stranding a few meters away from Chronos she activated her new skill.
[Aegis Soul Armor]
A suit of pale-golden holy armor appeared on her body. It was covered in geometric magic symbols that gave off a repelling power. Looking closely at it Chronos saw that there were several missing runes and symbols on the armor meaning that it wasn't a complete armor yet or that it could grow more powerful in the future.
"I'm ready, use your technique."
Nodding he activated his skill.
[Cold-Moon Pressure]
He carefully controlled the cold air with his aura to prevent it from harming others. And watched as Lyla's armor didn't stop the air's movement, but the air failed to find an opening in the armor.
As it gently glowed the armor kept the air 1 cm from her body at all times.
"Oh, that's not bad." Chronos said while rubbing his chin, "It's as strong as a third rank armor and it keeps the chill out. It looks beautiful as well. How is it holding up against the mental attack?"
"Hm I'm feeling a small pressure on my mind. It doesn't feel bad, certainly nowhere near as strong as when I was riding you in the tear. With this I can fight beside you more often." she cheered.