It was actually crazy that Sebastian was this fast.
Double as complex didn't mean that the Law would be comprehended in double the time.
Assuming someone played a video game in which they had to solve a puzzle with ten different pieces and needed ten minutes to solve it, doubling the pieces didn't mean that they would need twenty minutes.
One had to consider many more possibilities from the get-go. One might lose focus by trying to remember too much at once. One might not even be able to remember enough pieces to come to a solution.
By doubling the complexity, the puzzle would become impossible to solve for many people, while people who could solve the puzzle would need far more than twice the time.
Kyle had comprehended many Fragments by now, which gave him a reference regarding complexity in Law comprehension.
'If he needs five years, I might need 50 years. In fact, I might not even be able to learn the Law without entering a True Battle,' Kyle thought. 'To be honest, the chances that I need a True Battle are actually rather high. I would even put them at over 90%. There's even a chance that it's just straight-up impossible since I'm simply not intelligent enough.'
Kyle fell into thought, while Sebastian just looked at him with a raised brow since he hadn't said anything in quite a while.
'I actually played with the thought of trying to understand Yin-Wind or something similar before advancing, but that's probably out of the window. If Sebastian needs that long with his smarts and his gift, I will need to spend more time learning a Level Two Law than I have been alive.'
'I mean, I want to be strong, but it's not thaaaaaaat important to me. That's just overkill. You don't have to go that hard.'
"That's crazy," Kyle commented.
"Yeah, so?" Sebastian asked with a shrug. "I will soon be done with my comprehension, but we are still at the same level of power. You're a hybrid. I'm a specialist. You can catch up to me by simply learning three Level One Laws and making a Complex Level One Law out of them."
"As far as I have seen, we grow at about the same speed."
Kyle rubbed the back of his head with a sigh. "You're right."
"Anyway, I've helped you long enough," Sebastian said with a smile. "Let me get back to my own comprehension."
"Sure thing," Kyle said. "I'll know where I can find you."
Sebastian just nodded.
The two of them said their goodbyes, and Kyle went back underground. 'The Fragment of Fire Composition is the last one left,' he thought. 'I already know Friction. I'm not quite sure how many ways of creating fire actually exist. Sebastian said there are chemical reactions that can make fire, but I'm not sure if that actually works- wait. The fucking black stone is the best example. I'm dumb.'
'Yeah, well, gotta get started. One mini-Fragment at a time.'
Kyle summoned a big block of powerful Rank S Materials and put an indent into it.
Then, he grabbed a regular stone and put it in the indent.
Finally, he got his hammer.
BANG!
The surroundings shook, but since Kyle hadn't gone all out, not much was destroyed.
After Kyle lifted his hammer, he touched the tiny pebbles in the indent.
'Yep, sure enough, they are quite a lot warmer.'
Kyle released several more strikes and noticed how the pebbles started to glow.
Some strikes later, the pebbles turned liquid.
During this entire process, Kyle watched the Ether change.
'You know, this makes sense on Earth, but it's still weird in fantasy land. I mean, everything works based on Ether, right? So, how come hammering Earth Ether really hard just creates Fire Ether out of nowhere?'
'There isn't even any Metal Ether or Earth Ether missing, which means it didn't transform from one kind of Ether into another. The Fire Ether just appears. It's like it came out of nowhere.'
'Yeah, well, if I knew how this shit worked, I wouldn't be hammering this thing right now.'
Kyle continued experimenting like this for over six months, which was quite a lot of time for just a single part of the Fragment of Fire Composition.
However, that was because Kyle had been trying to find a more comprehensive answer for the past month after he got his first.
'Is it actually like that?' he thought.
He had searched for ways how Fire Ether could be created, and the most likely answer he had come to was hard to verify since it involved stuff he couldn't see.
'The Ether has to come from somewhere. The funny thing is that it doesn't matter what kind of material I hammer the stone with. The Fire Ether always appears the same way.'
'That means there is no Element-specific way the Fire Ether gets introduced. It's not like Wind Movement, where inertia only exists when the object is surrounded by air. It's actually the same with every material.'
'Either the Fire Ether literally just pops out of nowhere, which would be fucking crazy and weird. I mean, Sebastian kept going on and on about how Newton's first law of thermodynamics is still very much a thing and just as unbreakable as on Earth.'
'If Fire Ether just pops out of nowhere, that would disprove a big part of the base Sebastian uses to comprehend Laws, and as far as I have seen, he's pretty good at that and knows what he's doing.'
'This means this Fire Ether has to come from some kind of Ether, but since I can't see it, it can only mean it comes from a kind of Ether I can't feel.'
'Maybe there's an Element-Neutral Force Ether? Maybe it's Time Ether? Space Ether? Gravity Ether? Mass Ether? I don't fucking know! I can't feel this shit!'
Kyle remembered that one guy he had met during his entrance exam for the Stark Brotherhood.
'He had a Gravity Affinity, which means Gravity Ether has to be a thing.'
Kyle had tried to find a way to feel how the Fire Ether was created, but it just wasn't possible.
In the end, he just had to come up with the closest approximation of a model he could make and hoped that the Law of Fire would fill in the gaps.
'Well, onto the next form of fire creation.'
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