Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei LN - Q&A/Discussion about Magic & Technology

[Nicaea]

Echizen, this is what the wikia says about parade:

Parade is originally an illusion magic that writes coordinates into a false body that is a superficial duplicate that can't be differentiated with the caster.

So when you apply it to yourself you actually create a false eidos by writing coordinates that create a fake eidos on top of yourself, as if you would use data fortification. It's the false body part that is linked to it's ancient magic origin.

Because the coordinates of parade don't really "exist", it's hard to target people like Lina.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Pegasai

Perhaps I need to rephrase again lol
I know how Psion-based magic works to change Eidos. However...the LN implies that Spirit-Based Magic is somewhat different from the normal Psion-based magic.

1. Does a spirit/pushion body have its own supply of psions to alter Eidos? If so...again...what's the purpose of taking over a pushion body when direct casting would be much faster, easier, and simpler? Is it just a pure increase in power?

2. If spirits don't have their own supply of psions, then does a pushion body alter Eidos in a different mechanism from normal magicians; for example: do they use Pushions to alter Eidos, which was the entire point of my question(s)...

If Spirits DO use pushions to alter Eidos, this suggests that normal magicians with superior control of pushion could theoretically do this as well.

1. No. The magician supplies the psions. This roundabout method of casting is more efficient, making the magic stronger, and surpasses modern magic in stealth.

[Echizen777]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

Echizen, this is what the wikia says about parade:

So when you apply it to yourself you actually create a false eidos by writing coordinates that create a fake eidos on top of yourself, as if you would use data fortification. It's the false body part that is linked to it's ancient magic origin.

Because the coordinates of parade don't really "exist", it's hard to target people like Lina.

I understand better now. But given that lab 9 subject was the fusion magic, it means that they have other modernized ancient magics other than Parade, right?

Originally Posted by Jirachier

Yanagi was said to BARELY do so, regardless of what Lina can do you have to understand that the speed of flash cast is insane, bypassing an entire step is huge, if you read volume 13 when he fought the parasites for example his flash cast speed was said to surpass the ten master clan, not rival. Keep in mind Flash Cast is only viable for non innate magic. For his innate magic we do not know who is faster, I really don't get why we keep discussing this one point when no one knows who is faster, there isn't a single mention in the entire light novel comparing Tatsuya's speed with Lina, and no as I explained before Gram Dispersion does not count because of the unique conditions required for its usage.

You can surpass someone and still rival him. And no Tatsuya's speed was not said to be superior to the Master Clans, it was the Parasites. Their attacks were that fast and they hit him but due to his Regrowth he was able to retaliate.

Spoiler for Quote:

His proud creations were being retired one after another.

Two Parasite dolls struck from the flanks at speeds that not even Magicians from the Ten Master Clans could react to by firing oscillation waves. These two dolls possessed the demonic power of “sound” and could use subtle oscillation waves at will to disturb an enemy’s sense of balance, or use violent oscillation waves to shatter their hearing. Correction, if wielded at full power without any thought given towards time requirements, being released at high efficiency would manifest Phonon Mazer even without a specified Magic Sequence. The demonic power at their disposal was just that powerful.

The attacks from his beloved dolls were taking effect. The dolls’ attacks penetrated the shock absorbent layers on the newest combat armor devised by the military and wounded the Magician’s innards. Just now, the lurch from the Magician was definitely not for show, but he was able to counterattack in the next second even after sustaining the attack.

If it's an unrestricted all out death match against Kudou or Maya, sure. All the teens are one level below him.

How is Katsuto from a different generation just because he is 2 years older ? It's an entire generation, that's like 10 years, that's the kind of number that can make one person be from a different generation, not 2 years.
And nothing in vol13 made any implication that Regrowth would be able/unable to survive Phalanx, not that it would even come to that.

It was mentioned his MCA is monopolized by Regrowth when receiving fatal attacks, Phalanx barriers crush the targets infinitely until annihilation. If he is hit by Phalanx he will be unable to do anything since a single hit is fatal.

Maya doesn't just down, sipping tea and be like "hey, I have a fun idea, I'm going to seal half of Tatsuya's psion for kicks". As I explained before in this same post, having twice as much psion does not impact Tatsuya's ability to use ANY of his magics, NONE. If MB is what is being sealed then it can ONLY be done by lowering Tatsuya's overall mastery over Decomposition, MB is a modern magic it does not need massive amount of psion. If that was the case are you implying that every strategic magic needs more than half of Tatsuya's absurd amount of psion ? How did Lina use HMB several times then, does she have 3 times the psion of Tatsuya or something ? Material Burst like any modern magic only uses a small amount of psion, if you want to make a person unable to use their strongest magic you HAVE to lower their overall magic ability just like how Cocytus for Miyuki is only usable when she has all of her magic control.

Here is what would have happened if she recognized Gram Dispersion "Oh no, he can use Gram Dispersion, I wish I had Tomitsuka's psion armor or Phalanx", Gram Dispersion isn't some counter magic where you can conveniently block because you know of its true nature, unless you have extremely specific barrier type magic it can't be blocked except with being faster. This is by the way the magic Tatsuya used successfully not to defeat Lina but just to stop her fight with Miyuki, when he did use it against her in a fight it was even better for her that he was trying to because he wasted time using it unsuccessfully because of the speed issue.

I didn't mean it would have been very important but she has already a top tiers counter magic with her Parade. Tatsuya needs considerable effort to see through this, he was not even able to during their first battle. Depending on how she uses the computing power he can become unable to hit her.

Spoiler for Quote:

Tatsuya carefully examined her form. There was no way he had spent this past half of a month playing around. He had practiced against Yakumo’s ‘Matoi’ making a pile of countermeasures to the information altering magic ‘Parade’.

Perhaps it was a result of that training. The effect of Lina’s ‘Parade’ now stopped at outward appearance, and he understood the coordinate information was not going to be rewritten. With this resistance, even if the coordinates were falsified, Tatsuya thought he could keep her in his CAD’s sight.

Naturally, he couldn’t be optimistic. This only affected Lina’s appearance, this was not the time to take things easy or be careless. Rather, there was probably no room for error. Undoubtedly, he couldn’t guarantee that he had the necessary magic power to keep the coordinate information from being rewritten.

(In short, the magic took that much of his capacity.)

The USNA army’s most elite magician battalion, ‘Stars’ gave the code name ‘Sirius’ to their head. Namely, the magician who possessed the strongest magic power. This girl must have all the resources for that magic that powerful concentrated in her.

[bietchie11]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

Echizen, this is what the wikia says about parade:

So when you apply it to yourself you actually create a false eidos by writing coordinates that create a fake eidos on top of yourself, as if you would use data fortification. It's the false body part that is linked to it's ancient magic origin.

Because the coordinates of parade don't really "exist", it's hard to target people like Lina.

And do you know who wrote that wikia?
It's me when i were drunk.

Totally trustworthy man!!!
Don't believe any government's official website, believe in wiki!!

[pampz21]

Originally Posted by bietchie11

And do you know who wrote that wikia?
It's me when i were drunk.

Totally trustworthy man!!!
Don't believe any government's official website, believe in wiki!!

Why bruh? Wiki is always right. I wrote some of it after all.

[bietchie11]

Originally Posted by pampz21

Why bruh? Wiki is always right. I wrote some of it after all.

Exactly!!!

[Jirachier]

There's nothing in text that I remember stating that gramdispersion is slower than his other decomposition magic, whether he has to read the targets information body or activation sequence give an actual quote showing a speed difference if you want to prove it.

Originally Posted by Volume 4

Magic Dissolution (Gram Dispersion) This magic takes a Magic Ritual and decomposes it into a group of Psion particles without a meaningful structure. Due to the nature of a Magic Ritual acting on the information of an object accompanying a phenomenon, if the information has not been exposed, it is impossible to interfere with the magic. On the other hand, if the Magic Ritual is decomposed, the phenomenon will not occur. To analyze the magic before the magic is activated in the present age where invocation takes a fraction of a second requires the ability to [See] and analyze the magic structure. Since the user is typically required to understand the magic being used beforehand, it is thought utilization of this magic is impossible.

If Tatsuya wants Gram Dispersion to succeed he needs to analyze the opponent's magic and activate Gram Dispersion before the target magic activates.

As for your first point, there's nothing indicating that his flash cast speed would be faster than Linas activation speed. You claim it surpasses master clan speed, even if that's true Lina is obviously in that category of speed. Miyuki is at the pinnacle of the master clans in all forms of magic and her activation speed is slower than Lina's, there's no way Lina couldn't be classed as superior to master clan activation speed.

Miyuki is very powerful but she is not at the pinnacle in every category, she is good at MANY things, but there are things where the twins are better than her. You have to understand that Flash Cast is different than regular casting of magic, but whatever.

The fight like all fair fights/duels starts mid range as seen in Miyuki vs Lina and every duel in the series, including Tatsuya and Linas first fight. So lets say it's a rematch same distance same location. The fight starts the exact same, Lina is faster, he can't interrupt her with gramdispersion as proven in the text.

Again with the assumption that Lina is faster. We simply do not know who is faster, yes Tatsuya can't use Gram Dispersion fast enough but it only applies to that one spell in this case.

He can't simply decompose her first at the start, if he could have done so he would've instantly hit her joints at the start instead of losing his arm and using the surprise factor.

Tatsuya does not want to kill Lina, that is the whole point of this. He didn't want to turn her into dust. He needed to target specific locations on her body, miniscule points and use extremely pinpoint Decomposition so it hits those parts and make her lose consciousness, it's like comparing the difficulty of someone just taking a knife and stabbing you with a surgeon that is trying to do very difficult work.

So he loses quite possibly half his body or more from her first serious attack, his auto regeneration kicks in so he loses the chance of a future surprise attack with his regeneration. He's forced to take cover like in their first fight, yet this time Lina continues a constant barrage of attacks delivering constant damage to him. Here it's flat out stated he shouldn't of avoided damage when he ducked behind the hedges. "During the time the hedges were mowed down, he also shouldn’t have avoided receiving damage. Despite the fact that in order to take away the enemy’s ability to resist, the accumulation of damage was a cornerstone. " So instead of showing mercy and giving him time after the first shot destroy part of his body she continuely bombards him at superior speed interrupting his magic, Tatsuya continues to take any measure he can to avoid a hit that completely destroys his body while trying to find reasonable cover. The fight then becomes whether or not he can find an opening to avoid taking consecutive damage so that he actually has a chance to try and counter. Against a serious Lina for Tatsuya to have any chance at victory he would have to find an opening to avoid her consecutive high speed HMB attacks and then counter like he did in their first fight ex except this time lethally.

It's always the same thing, for some reason when people imagine Tatsuya fighting someone seriously, Tatsuya is just hanging back getting hit by magics while doing nothing. Lina was indeed trying not to kill him, she wasn't minding destroying some of his limbs in the attack. What Tatsuya had trouble doing was knocking her out, that's the entire problem as to why it took him so long because doing so is only possible with extremely precise decomposition.
I would like someone who thinks Lina is so strong to answer me, how do you expect her to avoid Tatsuya's Trident spell ? Lina's HMB is too fast for Tatsuya to stop(while sealed, i have no idea if things are different when unsealed), that is a fact that I've never disputed, but Tatsuya's Trident can hit her any time Tatsuya pleases, it would turn her into dust and she absolutely no way of stopping it.

It was mentioned his MCA is monopolized by Regrowth when receiving fatal attacks, Phalanx barriers crush the targets infinitely until annihilation. If he is hit by Phalanx he will be unable to do anything since a single hit is fatal.

First of all, Mist Dispersion vs Phalanx would result in a stalemate so it's not like the barrier will even come close to reaching Tatsuya. But even if we assume Tatsuya letting Phalanx hit him, it doesn't necessarily means the impact is strong enough to kill him on the spot. That's like saying Tatsuya got hit by a speeding car, he might survive.

I didn't mean it would have been very important but she has already a top tiers counter magic with her Parade. Tatsuya needs considerable effort to see through this, he was not even able to during their first battle. Depending on how she uses the computing power he can become unable to hit her.

If she could hide herself she would've done so. There is no computing power to use differently, her magic has simply been seen through.

[somerand]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

If Tatsuya wants Gram Dispersion to succeed he needs to analyze the opponent's magic and activate Gram Dispersion before the target magic activates.



Miyuki is very powerful but she is not at the pinnacle in every category, she is good at MANY things, but there are things where the twins are better than her. You have to understand that Flash Cast is different than regular casting of magic, but whatever.



Again with the assumption that Lina is faster. We simply do not know who is faster, yes Tatsuya can't use Gram Dispersion fast enough but it only applies to that one spell in this case.



Tatsuya does not want to kill Lina, that is the whole point of this. He didn't want to turn her into dust. He needed to target specific locations on her body, miniscule points and use extremely pinpoint Decomposition so it hits those parts and make her lose consciousness, it's like comparing the difficulty of someone just taking a knife and stabbing you with a surgeon that is trying to do very difficult work.



It's always the same thing, for some reason when people imagine Tatsuya fighting someone seriously, Tatsuya is just hanging back getting hit by magics while doing nothing. Lina was indeed trying not to kill him, she wasn't minding destroying some of his limbs in the attack. What Tatsuya had trouble doing was knocking her out, that's the entire problem as to why it took him so long because doing so is only possible with extremely precise decomposition.
I would like someone who thinks Lina is so strong to answer me, how do you expect her to avoid Tatsuya's Trident spell ? Lina's HMB is too fast for Tatsuya to stop(while sealed, i have no idea if things are different when unsealed), that is a fact that I've never disputed, but Tatsuya's Trident can hit her any time Tatsuya pleases, it would turn her into dust and she absolutely no way of stopping it.



First of all, Mist Dispersion vs Phalanx would result in a stalemate so it's not like the barrier will even come close to reaching Tatsuya. But even if we assume Tatsuya letting Phalanx hit him, it doesn't necessarily means the impact is strong enough to kill him on the spot. That's like saying Tatsuya got hit by a speeding car, he might survive.



If she could hide herself she would've done so. There is no computing power to use differently, her magic has simply been seen through.

"Using Decomposition, after identifying the design of any Eidos, Sequence, or object, he can decompose the design. For physical objects, he can translate the physical object into signals, and then erase the base design at his leisure. For an information body (magic spells), he can directly disassemble the design."

Whether it's Gram dispersion or normal decomposition he still has to analyse what ever he's decomposing before the magic takes effect. There's no difference in casting speed between gram dispersion and his normal decomposition. There for Lina will hit him first no matter what he does as seen in their first fight, he isn't fast enough to hit her first.

You ask how Lina avoids trident? Tatsuya can't cast it while taking heavy damage, it has been flat out stated to interrupt his casting for long enough to give his opponent an opening and it should go without saying, the fastest caster in the series, if serious about killing can easily capitalise on that opening time. Once Lina hits Tatsuya once she can easily continuously bombard him, dealing constant damage and interrupting his ability to use trident. After she blew his arm off she stopped attacking seriously, that was flat out stated here.


" He had lost from the moment the beam had started coalescing, and if there had been wider dispersion of plasma when she fired then Tatsuya probably wouldn’t have just lost only his right arm; as much as half his body could have been burned away. Of course, even if it was, his body would probably be instantly restored; however, that had become his winning move and without the sleight of hand with his right arm, he wouldn’t have been able to launch a surprise attack. "


She could've extended the plasma width, blowing away half his body and completely interrupting his magic. Also here it's stated "During the time the hedges were mowed down, he also shouldn’t have avoided receiving damage. Despite the fact that in order to take away the enemy’s ability to resist, the accumulation of damage was a cornerstone. ". In a serious fight Tatsuya would've straight up lost half his body, with killing intent she then would have proceeded to constantly attack him while he was forced to constantly regenerate from lethal attacks that completely interrupt his magic. The simple fact is that in a mid range fight Tatsuya may never have gotten the moments opening that he needed to actually use trident. If Tatsuya manages to break away from Lina barrage for a tiny amount of time I agree he would win, but that's way easier said that done when a person is barraging you constantly with HMB.

It's straight up stated by him that he might not have made it, just accept that he doesn't have this ridiculous 10/10 win rate against her that you claimed before. He might be able to break away and find an opening to defeat her depending on the location ect, but he certainly doesn't have a guaranteed victory against her, which is straight up stated in the novel.....

[IceHism]

This would explain why Tatsuya can't just turn lina into dust in a second. I'd imagine that it would take a lot more time than usual

Spoiler:

Under normal circumstances, in order to interfere with an object under the influence of someone else’s magic, it was necessary to have interference power that obviously exceeds the other person’s magic power.

In the cases where the other magician was physically touching the object, the level of difficulty went way up. So it could be said that it was close to impossible for the CAD and Armament devices to be instantly destroyed by magic for a number of reasons.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that this is why the men were surprised.

The magic used by them was the magic that would make the rubber bullet electrified upon firing and release their charge on impact. The target of their magic hadn’t been the guns but the bullets. The bodies of the guns were connected to the CADs but the breech-blocks, the percussion devices and the rest were mechanisms completely isolated from the CADs.

Originally, for the sake of maintenance, the weapons were constructed to be easily taken apart into pieces

[Echizen777]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

If Tatsuya wants Gram Dispersion to succeed he needs to analyze the opponent's magic and activate Gram Dispersion before the target magic activates.

As somerand said, Tatsuya needs to do this for every magic. He is only able to use his innate abilities thanks to this, ES by default makes him able to do this and read Activation Sequences upon sight, that's why Miyuki sealing his eyes would make him unable to use magic. And there is the example of Brionac laser, he was ready to Decompose it meaning that he had already analyzed the magic. But even if he had been fast enough to do this it would have only been worse because Gram Dispersion is powerless against it.

Miyuki is very powerful but she is not at the pinnacle in every category, she is good at MANY things, but there are things where the twins are better than her. You have to understand that Flash Cast is different than regular casting of magic, but whatever.

With Flash Cast, he can use systematic magic at top tiers speed without a CAD, it doesn't mean that he is faster than all magicians equipped with a CAD and who have a fast activation speed, Decomposition and Regrowth are faster. Do you think Yanagi is the fastest caster then?

First of all, Mist Dispersion vs Phalanx would result in a stalemate so it's not like the barrier will even come close to reaching Tatsuya. But even if we assume Tatsuya letting Phalanx hit him, it doesn't necessarily means the impact is strong enough to kill him on the spot. That's like saying Tatsuya got hit by a speeding car, he might survive.

Phalanx is enough to crush a bipedal tank, it would crush his whole body. How can 3 shots rival 10 barriers? At best he would destroy 3 and the destroyed barriers would refresh after this. Tatsuya has certainly the abilities to dodge and counter but Trident is not superior to Phalanx in a direct confrontation.

If she could hide herself she would've done so. There is no computing power to use differently, her magic has simply been seen through.

She had stopped her Parade while using Brionac. That's what permitted Tatsuya to attack her like that. I quoted how difficult it was for Tatsuya to target her with her cloak and that's for someone with ES, curiously she didn't use Parade against Miyuki either. He would have not been able to knock her out without taking her by surprise and if she had not been so naive. He didn't want to kill her too, but even if he had wanted to do it, just tell me how he would have been able to attack before Lina, even being grazed was enough to destroy his whole arm.

[Nicaea]

Originally Posted by bietchie11

And do you know who wrote that wikia?
It's me when i were drunk.

Totally trustworthy man!!!
Don't believe any government's official website, believe in wiki!!

At the same time you aren't proposing any other alternative.

[Jirachier]

"Using Decomposition, after identifying the design of any Eidos, Sequence, or object, he can decompose the design. For physical objects, he can translate the physical object into signals, and then erase the base design at his leisure. For an information body (magic spells), he can directly disassemble the design."

Whether it's Gram dispersion or normal decomposition he still has to analyse what ever he's decomposing before the magic takes effect. There's no difference in casting speed between gram dispersion and his normal decomposition. There for Lina will hit him first no matter what he does as seen in their first fight, he isn't fast enough to hit her first.

You're quoting the mahouka wikia that is full of errors, just in that one page someone wrote under "Mist Dispersion" that it's the magic which counters Maya's, when in fact it's Gram Dispersion. Mist Dispersion decomposes things, is it going to decompose light ?

The identify part of the design was in vol2, and it said Magic Sequence and Activation Sequence. The sentence ended there and in the next one there was talk about how Tatsuya's decomposition can also work on objects.
Tatsuya has AOE Decomposition, if Mist Dispersion truly required ES to be used then this wouldn't be possible to achieve, ANYTHING that enters a the area of effect will be decomposed and it has to be done at an insane speed. Tatsuya was also expressing how since he has AOE decomposition now he can protect himself when trying to use MB, if decomposition truly required ES then that wouldn't be possible because Material Burst cannot be used without it, Tatsuya can't maintain both magics at the SAME time if they both are reliant on Elemental Sight, he'd be trying to use ES to locate a target while at the same time he's analyzing parts of several objects that are entering his area of effect.

You ask how Lina avoids trident? Tatsuya can't cast it while taking heavy damage, it has been flat out stated to interrupt his casting for long enough to give his opponent an opening and it should go without saying, the fastest caster in the series, if serious about killing can easily capitalise on that opening time. Once Lina hits Tatsuya once she can easily continuously bombard him, dealing constant damage and interrupting his ability to use trident. After she blew his arm off she stopped attacking seriously, that was flat out stated here.

First of all there is no reason to stop Tatsuya from using it while taking damage. What exactly is interrupting his casting ? the fact that he is in pain ? What's been stated was that when he's in pain there is a very small time lag, that's it, why can't he Trident afterwards ? I love how every Lina's supporter scenario is Lina spamming her magic while Tatsuya just takes the hits.
And let's say she's the fastest caster in the series, so now because of that, can she beat Retsu ? Can she defeat Maya ?

" He had lost from the moment the beam had started coalescing, and if there had been wider dispersion of plasma when she fired then Tatsuya probably wouldn’t have just lost only his right arm; as much as half his body could have been burned away. Of course, even if it was, his body would probably be instantly restored; however, that had become his winning move and without the sleight of hand with his right arm, he wouldn’t have been able to launch a surprise attack. "


She could've extended the plasma width, blowing away half his body and completely interrupting his magic. Also here it's stated "During the time the hedges were mowed down, he also shouldn’t have avoided receiving damage. Despite the fact that in order to take away the enemy’s ability to resist, the accumulation of damage was a cornerstone. ". In a serious fight Tatsuya would've straight up lost half his body, with killing intent she then would have proceeded to constantly attack him while he was forced to constantly regenerate from lethal attacks that completely interrupt his magic. The simple fact is that in a mid range fight Tatsuya may never have gotten the moments opening that he needed to actually use trident. If Tatsuya manages to break away from Lina barrage for a tiny amount of time I agree he would win, but that's way easier said that done when a person is barraging you constantly with HMB.

So again, you take a quote where it says she MIGHT have burned half his body but in that same quote it says it would've PROBABLY healed anyway. Yes it did become his winning hand because his purpose is to CAPTURE her, he needed a distraction to make that possible, Tatsuya's specialty is assassination, not capture.
And as always you assume in a serious fight Lina destroys his body and Tatsuya just sits back and waits for the rest to be obliterated without casting any magic at all. You also keep assuming that Lina is faster than him, Tatsuya does not need any distraction if his goal is to kill her.

It's straight up stated by him that he might not have made it, just accept that he doesn't have this ridiculous 10/10 win rate against her that you claimed before. He might be able to break away and find an opening to defeat her depending on the location ect, but he certainly doesn't have a guaranteed victory against her, which is straight up stated in the novel.....

IF he is trying to kill her while UNSEALED which will make him quite a bit stronger he is able to beat her every time, I honestly don't understand how anyone can think otherwise, it's Tatsuya. Everyone is so focused on one thing "Lina attacks and Tatsuya gets hit without doing anything"

As somerand said, Tatsuya needs to do this for every magic. He is only able to use his innate abilities thanks to this, ES by default makes him able to do this and read Activation Sequences upon sight, that's why Miyuki sealing his eyes would make him unable to use magic. And there is the example of Brionac laser, he was ready to Decompose it meaning that he had already analyzed the magic. But even if he had been fast enough to do this it would have only been worse because Gram Dispersion is powerless against it.

If Miyuki seals his eyes it would make him to use Material Burst, Gram Dispersion and Regrowth, he could still use Gram Demolition and Mist Dispersion. And I don't understand your argument that if sealing his eyes is the only way for him to read activation sequences, once that is sealed he won't be able to use ANY magic, what he won't be able to use are magics that require ES, that is all.
As for Brioniac, you're saying he could've been fast enough to decompose it but he halted mid-way right ? Isn't that something that just goes to prove that if Tatsuya could've decomposed successfully all he would've had to do was choose Lina from the start as the target and switch to Trident then she'd be gone.

With Flash Cast, he can use systematic magic at top tiers speed without a CAD, it doesn't mean that he is faster than all magicians equipped with a CAD and who have a fast activation speed, Decomposition and Regrowth are faster. Do you think Yanagi is the fastest caster then?

You do realize that the only thing that would make Flash Cast worth anything is if it's faster than CAD, otherwise why in the world would Flash Cast be considered as a special skill in Tatsuya's arsenal if just using a CAD can equal it.
For Yanagi, I assume that just like flash cast this insane speed is only available when using extremely simple magics, he was referred to have similar ability in this regard.

Phalanx is enough to crush a bipedal tank, it would crush his whole body. How can 3 shots rival 10 barriers? At best he would destroy 3 and the destroyed barriers would refresh after this. Tatsuya has certainly the abilities to dodge and counter but Trident is not superior to Phalanx in a direct confrontation.

The question is can Phalanx crush Tatsuya fast enough before his healing kicks in, which is insanely fast.
And what is this "3 shots vs 10 barriers" ? Are you comparing Trident the spell vs Phalanx ? First of all Trident the spell is made of 3 layers not because that's Tatsuya's limit but because the goal it needs to achieve requires those specific layers(One for Data Fortification, one for AOE and one for the physical human body). This comparison is absolutely impossible, if you even wanted to compare things which is still very difficult, you'd have to use the number 36 instead of 3 for Tatsuya since that's how many instances of a spell he can cast at the same time when he's not under constant fire(YES this is NOT a constant fire situation where he is being attacked from 3 directions, and even if it was it would only lower it to 24 while Tatsuya would also be putting Katsuto under the same situation and lowering his magical abilities too)

She had stopped her Parade while using Brionac. That's what permitted Tatsuya to attack her like that. I quoted how difficult it was for Tatsuya to target her with her cloak and that's for someone with ES, curiously she didn't use Parade against Miyuki either.

When using multiple magics at the same time your efficiency decreases, she didn't deactivate Parade as a favor to Tatsuya or to make it easy on him, it was a decision made by her to fight as efficiently as possible and the spell wasn't working that well anyway.
As for why she didn't use the spell on Miyuki it's because the author isn't the most consistent person in the world and to push his agenda of making Miyuki put up a fight he will ignore the fact that Lina has parade, you might try to argue that well Miyuki has AOE magic so it didn't matter anyway but the thing is not only was Lina unaware of that detail so she should've at least tried to use it but second Tatsuya also has AOE Decomposition.

He would have not been able to knock her out without taking her by surprise and if she had not been so naive. He didn't want to kill her too, but even if he had wanted to do it, just tell me how he would have been able to attack before Lina, even being grazed was enough to destroy his whole arm.

"knock her out" is the key word, he was restricting his own abilities because he wasn't trying to kill her but needed the surprise to CAPTURE her. Being Grazed is enough to destroy his whole arm, being hit by Trident is enough to erase Lina from existence.

[Zoks]

She didn't use Parade on Miyuki because it's pointless to use it on her. Miyuki is an AoE caster. She doesn't need to target the person to cast her magic. Tatsuya on the other hand was trying to capture Lina while not revealing what he can do, so obviously he had to limit himself to targeting Lina directly. If he wasn't holding back, he could have just decomposed the ground and then used his Flash casting to spread it everywhere to find Lina's position, without having to rely on the grenade (before any of you say he cannot do that, go back to Volume 3 where he is considering doing something similar with the infiltrators during the first night of the 9SC.)

[bietchie11]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

At the same time you aren't proposing any other alternative.

You didn't ask.

How about reading the actual LN texts?

In Original (Japanese), would be even better.

I know i always cite the actual LN texts to support my arguments.

[Ravagerblade]

Originally Posted by bietchie11

You didn't ask.

How about reading the actual LN texts?

In Original (Japanese), would be even better.

I know i always cite the actual LN texts to support my arguments.

but you do know that the narrator in the story is unreliable right? I.E. take things with a grain of salt.

[somerand]

Originally Posted by Jirachier

You're quoting the mahouka wikia that is full of errors, just in that one page someone wrote under "Mist Dispersion" that it's the magic which counters Maya's, when in fact it's Gram Dispersion. Mist Dispersion decomposes things, is it going to decompose light ?

The identify part of the design was in vol2, and it said Magic Sequence and Activation Sequence. The sentence ended there and in the next one there was talk about how Tatsuya's decomposition can also work on objects.
Tatsuya has AOE Decomposition, if Mist Dispersion truly required ES to be used then this wouldn't be possible to achieve, ANYTHING that enters a the area of effect will be decomposed and it has to be done at an insane speed. Tatsuya was also expressing how since he has AOE decomposition now he can protect himself when trying to use MB, if decomposition truly required ES then that wouldn't be possible because Material Burst cannot be used without it, Tatsuya can't maintain both magics at the SAME time if they both are reliant on Elemental Sight, he'd be trying to use ES to locate a target while at the same time he's analyzing parts of several objects that are entering his area of effect.



First of all there is no reason to stop Tatsuya from using it while taking damage. What exactly is interrupting his casting ? the fact that he is in pain ? What's been stated was that when he's in pain there is a very small time lag, that's it, why can't he Trident afterwards ? I love how every Lina's supporter scenario is Lina spamming her magic while Tatsuya just takes the hits.
And let's say she's the fastest caster in the series, so now because of that, can she beat Retsu ? Can she defeat Maya ?



So again, you take a quote where it says she MIGHT have burned half his body but in that same quote it says it would've PROBABLY healed anyway. Yes it did become his winning hand because his purpose is to CAPTURE her, he needed a distraction to make that possible, Tatsuya's specialty is assassination, not capture.
And as always you assume in a serious fight Lina destroys his body and Tatsuya just sits back and waits for the rest to be obliterated without casting any magic at all. You also keep assuming that Lina is faster than him, Tatsuya does not need any distraction if his goal is to kill her.



IF he is trying to kill her while UNSEALED which will make him quite a bit stronger he is able to beat her every time, I honestly don't understand how anyone can think otherwise, it's Tatsuya. Everyone is so focused on one thing "Lina attacks and Tatsuya gets hit without doing anything"



If Miyuki seals his eyes it would make him to use Material Burst, Gram Dispersion and Regrowth, he could still use Gram Demolition and Mist Dispersion. And I don't understand your argument that if sealing his eyes is the only way for him to read activation sequences, once that is sealed he won't be able to use ANY magic, what he won't be able to use are magics that require ES, that is all.
As for Brioniac, you're saying he could've been fast enough to decompose it but he halted mid-way right ? Isn't that something that just goes to prove that if Tatsuya could've decomposed successfully all he would've had to do was choose Lina from the start as the target and switch to Trident then she'd be gone.



You do realize that the only thing that would make Flash Cast worth anything is if it's faster than CAD, otherwise why in the world would Flash Cast be considered as a special skill in Tatsuya's arsenal if just using a CAD can equal it.
For Yanagi, I assume that just like flash cast this insane speed is only available when using extremely simple magics, he was referred to have similar ability in this regard.



The question is can Phalanx crush Tatsuya fast enough before his healing kicks in, which is insanely fast.
And what is this "3 shots vs 10 barriers" ? Are you comparing Trident the spell vs Phalanx ? First of all Trident the spell is made of 3 layers not because that's Tatsuya's limit but because the goal it needs to achieve requires those specific layers(One for Data Fortification, one for AOE and one for the physical human body). This comparison is absolutely impossible, if you even wanted to compare things which is still very difficult, you'd have to use the number 36 instead of 3 for Tatsuya since that's how many instances of a spell he can cast at the same time when he's not under constant fire(YES this is NOT a constant fire situation where he is being attacked from 3 directions, and even if it was it would only lower it to 24 while Tatsuya would also be putting Katsuto under the same situation and lowering his magical abilities too)



When using multiple magics at the same time your efficiency decreases, she didn't deactivate Parade as a favor to Tatsuya or to make it easy on him, it was a decision made by her to fight as efficiently as possible and the spell wasn't working that well anyway.
As for why she didn't use the spell on Miyuki it's because the author isn't the most consistent person in the world and to push his agenda of making Miyuki put up a fight he will ignore the fact that Lina has parade, you might try to argue that well Miyuki has AOE magic so it didn't matter anyway but the thing is not only was Lina unaware of that detail so she should've at least tried to use it but second Tatsuya also has AOE Decomposition.



"knock her out" is the key word, he was restricting his own abilities because he wasn't trying to kill her but needed the surprise to CAPTURE her. Being Grazed is enough to destroy his whole arm, being hit by Trident is enough to erase Lina from existence.

Firstly he does need ES to use his innate abilities. Both decomposition and regrowth rely on Tatsuya reading the edios/structure of what ever he is decomposing or restoring. There has been no stated difference between reading activation sequences and the physical structure of objects. Hence decomposing both take the same amount of time.

Secondly you completely misunderstood why Tatsuya has an advantage over Maya.
It isn't gram dispersion specifically that gives him the advantage...



As stated here generally all forms of interference against Mayas magic fail.
"Just as it’s impossible to defend against by magic which shields against physical phenomena, it’s almost impossible to defend against Meteor Line with anti magic. Since it’s mediated via the physical phenomenon called light, preventing it purely via anti magic such as interference over an area is extremely difficult. If one’s interference strength in the single element ‘distribution of light’ cannot exceed Maya’s, ‘Meteor Line’ is unstoppable. As ‘distribution of light’ is Maya’s innate magic, interfering with it is far too high a hurdle. And once the magic has been activated, even if one tries to cause interference in the area of effect, the phenomena rewriting effect that ‘light has moved’ has already taken place. "

But Tatsuyas interference strength can actually prevail against her magic because his innate ability targets the information structure directly. So yes Mist dispersion with it's superior interference strength over her magic would be effective.

"However—as ‘Meteor Line’ operates by indirectly affecting the structural information of an enclosed space, it decisively loses out to Tatsuya’s ability to directly interfere with structural information. The magical barrier through which light passes crafted by ‘Night’ via interfering with the structural information is easily shattered by interference which directly affects the structural information. " Tatsuya has dominion over structural information, so his interference strength in regards to it is much higher than Mayas. Meaning he can easily negate her magic through superior interference strength.

Also thirdly, it has been flat out stated in the light novel that taking lethal damage interrupts his casting all together: "Utilizing a full backup of Restoration could block the pain, but under those circumstances, Restoration would temporarily monopolize the entire Magic Calculation Area, crucially delaying any counterattack. It was precisely for this reason why Tatsuya shielded the vitals that impacted life and death. So long as his psions were not exhausted, he wouldn’t die even if suffered a fatal injury. However, if he did suffer a life threatening blow, then his survival instincts would automatically initiate a full backup and put every other magic ability on hold. If the opponent was a first rate Magician and Tatsuya had no support, the circumstances would only grow more and more dire."


If Lina continues to bombard him it's a fact that his magic calculation area will be dominated purely by regrowth and he wont be able to attack her. It's been proven that Lina is the faster caster and she can clearly blow away at least half his body in one attack if serious, as stated in the their fight, which clearly constitutes a fatal attack that would stop his magic activation.

You say "Lina destroys his body and Tatsuya just sits back and waits for the rest to be obliterated without casting any magic at all" He can't activate magic while half his body is destroyed, he wont be activating anything while his full body regrowth is in effect and guess what? In the time that his regrowth is restoring his body Lina is already activating another lethal attack, this process repeats it self with him losing his body and Lina continuing the attack. The winner will be decided on whether Tatsuya can manager to escape her bombardment for a moment or not.


In regards to flash cast, it completely bypasses one step, the cad step and that's it. ""Indeed...... That's practically brainwashing the brain into carving the images of the Activation Sequences into memory, then directly recalling the Activation Sequence from memory without the aid of a CAD. This ability completely bypasses the need for the CAD to spread and read the Activation Sequences......"

It doesn't make it instantaneous, the magic still needs to be activated from the magic calculation area, which Tatsuya is course two student level slow at. It makes no mention of him being at speeds that are unmatchable, in fact his flash cast speed is outrighted stated to be rivalled by Yanagi's activation speed... If Yanagi is able to match it what is your logic for denying the possibility that Lina is still faster than his flash cast speed. There's nothing indicating that his flash cast is superior to her speed, but I'd say it's logically ridiculous to say that Lina is slower than Yanagi. Lina is a Sirus level magician and the defining trait of her magic power is speed, just like Miyuki's is interference.

[Echizen777]

Originally Posted by Zoks

She didn't use Parade on Miyuki because it's pointless to use it on her. Miyuki is an AoE caster. She doesn't need to target the person to cast her magic. Tatsuya on the other hand was trying to capture Lina while not revealing what he can do, so obviously he had to limit himself to targeting Lina directly. If he wasn't holding back, he could have just decomposed the ground and then used his Flash casting to spread it everywhere to find Lina's position, without having to rely on the grenade (before any of you say he cannot do that, go back to Volume 3 where he is considering doing something similar with the infiltrators during the first night of the 9SC.)

What is bugging me is Lina's thought in V11, as if she had no way to counter it. He can decompose the ground but if we consider this then it will be endless, it's not like Lina could do nothing but throw daggers at him. Destroying the ground was possible for her too.

Originally Posted by Jirachier

If Miyuki seals his eyes it would make him to use Material Burst, Gram Dispersion and Regrowth, he could still use Gram Demolition and Mist Dispersion. And I don't understand your argument that if sealing his eyes is the only way for him to read activation sequences, once that is sealed he won't be able to use ANY magic, what he won't be able to use are magics that require ES, that is all.

All magicians link to the ES to use magic, without exception but Tatsuya does it better. ES is required for his innate abilites, that's the only mean he has for this. Sealing his eyes would make him unable to use his innate abilities, he will only be able to use Gram Demolition which is NS magic and doesn't require analysis. If he can't see with it he can't use Decomposition or Regrowth.

As for Brioniac, you're saying he could've been fast enough to decompose it but he halted mid-way right ? Isn't that something that just goes to prove that if Tatsuya could've decomposed successfully all he would've had to do was choose Lina from the start as the target and switch to Trident then she'd be gone.

No. I am saying that he was fast enough to read it so he should have been perfectly able to read the AS when Lina was activating her Parade in Volume 9, she did it many times and yet, he didn't succeed. Why? Because Lina is obviously faster. The problem is that even without her Parade he was not able to decompose Lina for the simple reason that he was not fast enough for this. It was clearly explained that he managed to hit her because he took her by surprise to delay her speed with Regrowth and because took time to reduce Brionac's power.

Spoiler for Quote:

In the last attack, she hadn’t aimed at the legs, the power had been regulated to stop before the underlayer of the skin burned. By changing the orientation of the Brionac, she had lost critical time. It was not the time lag from being surprised by the restoration of his right arm but rather the time lag produced by moving Brionac that was actually the fatal one.

Even with Tatsuya's surprise she would have been able to stop him in normal circumstances.

You do realize that the only thing that would make Flash Cast worth anything is if it's faster than CAD, otherwise why in the world would Flash Cast be considered as a special skill in Tatsuya's arsenal if just using a CAD can equal it.
For Yanagi, I assume that just like flash cast this insane speed is only available when using extremely simple magics, he was referred to have similar ability in this regard.

Flash Cast is useful because he can cast rapidly even without a CAD, what other magicians can't do for every magics. Flash Cast is always used without a CAD(used it to knock out Masaki, to run and rescue Honoka, to hit the USNA soldier with a Oscillation attack, to use Fixed Deceleration). They said only Yanagi can match him and it's only possible to modify the MCA with Miya's ability, they said "systematic talent" so it's ability to cast systematic magic. Anyway, Yanagi, who uses a CAD is able to rival Tatsuya who doesn't use one for Flash Cast, it's more than enough to say that you can be faster than him. Even assuming your assumption is true, it's not like Tatsuya can Flash Cast complex magic either.

The question is can Phalanx crush Tatsuya fast enough before his healing kicks in, which is insanely fast.

Of course it can. He gets crushed, his Regrowth triggers and it's over. If he is not hurt it can't trigger anyway.

And what is this "3 shots vs 10 barriers" ? Are you comparing Trident the spell vs Phalanx ? First of all Trident the spell is made of 3 layers not because that's Tatsuya's limit but because the goal it needs to achieve requires those specific layers(One for Data Fortification, one for AOE and one for the physical human body). This comparison is absolutely impossible, if you even wanted to compare things which is still very difficult, you'd have to use the number 36 instead of 3 for Tatsuya since that's how many instances of a spell he can cast at the same time when he's not under constant fire(YES this is NOT a constant fire situation where he is being attacked from 3 directions, and even if it was it would only lower it to 24 while Tatsuya would also be putting Katsuto under the same situation and lowering his magical abilities too.

Tatsuya never agreed that he could target 36 , he said 24 was his limit. And it's not the same thing, it's Tatsuya when targeting several targets simultaneously. Even Miyuki can target 24 at most when she her control is perfect. Besides, the situation is completely different, it is not Tatsuya targeting only one person but targeting several, he can't shoot 24 layers of Trident. It's very unlikely that Tatsuya would be better at targeting several persons of objects better than Katsuto, who benefited from the researches of the 3rd and 10th labs.

Spoiler for Quote:

This was an alternate form of “Heat Storm”. This was a type of magic that was another level higher than simply creating adiabatic compressed air blocks. They had activated this magic while Nitrogen Storm was ongoing, but this was still within the boundaries of their abilities right now. The main subject of the 3rd Research Lab was the control of multiple magics at the same time. The 3rd Research Lab originally intended to test the boundary of how many magics could be activated at the same time as well as raising that boundary as part of their Magician Augmentation Project. Among the Magician Development Labs, the 3rd Research Lab was a rarity in that they were open with their findings, allowing the 10th Research Lab to also benefit from this finding. For the Juumonji Family that had mastered Phalanx, this helped them incorporate more magic and resulted in the ability to use multiple magics. As for the Saegusa Family Magicians who moved to the 7th Research Lab, even if it was high level magic, using two or three of them at the same time was no difficult task.

So he can use other magics even when using Phalanx.

When using multiple magics at the same time your efficiency decreases, she didn't deactivate Parade as a favor to Tatsuya or to make it easy on him, it was a decision made by her to fight as efficiently as possible and the spell wasn't working that well anyway.

I know it was not to favor him and I know using several magics is more difficult but I really don't see how using 2 magics would have hindered her considerably when she can even use Parade under Miyuki's Zone Interference. It doesn't explain why she preferred to use a barrier instead of Parade when he attacked. I was pointing out that she could have protected from MD with it.

As for why she didn't use the spell on Miyuki it's because the author isn't the most consistent person in the world and to push his agenda of making Miyuki put up a fight he will ignore the fact that Lina has parade, you might try to argue that well Miyuki has AOE magic so it didn't matter anyway but the thing is not only was Lina unaware of that detail so she should've at least tried to use it but second Tatsuya also has AOE Decomposition.

Partially answered above. I still don't understand why you mention this AOE Decomposition so much when Tatsuya only talked about it for defense, Tatsuya said himself that she would have been able to defend herself against his possible AOE attacks anyway.

"knock her out" is the key word, he was restricting his own abilities because he wasn't trying to kill her but needed the surprise to CAPTURE her. Being Grazed is enough to destroy his whole arm, being hit by Trident is enough to erase Lina from existence.

Both didn't want to kill, so they can do anything as long as the other one doesn't die. Lina was the same and she was not trying to kill him. Had both wanted to fight to the death, she would have not lowered the power of her attacks and she was fast enough to counter his Decomposition, his only option was to take her by surprise to delay his speed. He would have been unable to launch an attack on her because she would have used her beam on him to stop him.

[Zoks]

Originally Posted by Echizen777

What is bugging me is Lina's thought in V11, as if she had no way to counter it. He can decompose the ground but if we consider this then it will be endless, it's not like Lina could do nothing but throw daggers at him. Destroying the ground was possible for her too.

Uh, I don't think Lina was under the impression she couldn't take Tatsuya in a fight, but rather she was approaching it the wrong way because she figured the intelligence on him was completely wrong. She was fighting him in a manner assuming he couldn't actually use his real magic because of its destructive nature, and then falsely concluded he never had that kind of magic and instead relied on mental assaults. Anyways, the point of that post was just to show why it's ridiculous to expect Lina to use Parade against Miyuki, not come up with various ways to fight against illusionists. If you know the person can take out the entire area you are in, why bother throwing up an illusion that prevents someone from directly locking on to the target? It's a waste of effort.

[Echizen777]

Originally Posted by Zoks

Uh, I don't think Lina was under the impression she couldn't take Tatsuya in a fight, but rather she was approaching it the wrong way because she figured the intelligence on him was completely wrong. She was fighting him in a manner assuming he couldn't actually use his real magic because of its destructive nature, and then falsely concluded he never had that kind of magic and instead relied on mental assaults. Anyways, the point of that post was just to show why it's ridiculous to expect Lina to use Parade against Miyuki, not come up with various ways to fight against illusionists. If you know the person can take out the entire area you are in, why bother throwing up an illusion that prevents someone from directly locking on to the target? It's a waste of effort.

I was referring to Lina's reaction after seeing Cocytus, not Tatsuya. She was thinking as if nothing in her arsenal could counter it.

[Zoks]

Originally Posted by Echizen777

I was referring to Lina's reaction after seeing Cocytus, not Tatsuya. She was thinking as if nothing in her arsenal could counter it.

In that case, blowing up the ground isn't a counter to Cocytus anymore than any of Lina's other spells. Check Volume 9 Ch. 7 where Miyuki is contemplating the differences between how Tatsuya can observe her and what she can do (something about the location of the mind). Miyuki would be able to find Lina's mind regardless where her physical location is actually located if Miyuki is in range.

Don't confuse not having a counter to not being able to win. Lina would just have to kill Miyuki from range before Miyuki can use Cocytus on her.