The human body is made up of billions of neurons which all act as messengers of information.

Sensory neurons would receive stimuli from the outside world and send these inputs of information all across the body.

For example: Mechanoreceptors on skin cells responsible for the transduction of touch and pressure information. Photoreceptors in the transduction of visual information. Thermoreceptors in the transduction of temperature information and etcetera.

One of the main areas that receives this input information is the human brain, which acts in loose analogy to that of a biological computer.

Processing and transcribing the information to the rest of the body in order to manifest some sort of output or outcome.

Let's take thermoreception for example: Thermoreceptors on our skin receive temperature information from the outside world. Sensory neurons will send this information from the skin to the brain. From there, the brain processes this information and decides whether it’s too hot or too cold. If it’s too hot, the outcome would be for the individual to take off some clothing. If it’s too cold, the outcome would be for the individual to add an extra layer.

So then what about Special Inscriptions? These magical abilities that seem to vary from individual to individual? Simple. The Inscriptions would be classified as an output or outcome.

So then what would be the input? And what would be the brain’s role in processing this information?

In fact, the answers to these questions are still being debated to this day. But Angel shared a peculiar theory that he was quite convinced by.

The input that allows for the output of Wolf’s Barrier Inscription or Dreya’s Portal Inscription comes from an ‘entity’ known as the Collective Consciousness, also referred to as “God” or “the aether” by differing sects. A person would absorb this ‘mysterious power’ from the Collective, process it in their brains and then ‘cast’ their unique spell.

It was similar to that of Ten’s divine blessing, which allowed him to extract power from a pool of ‘mana’ that the Goddesses had given him access to.

The reason these powers varied drastically from person to person is due to every individual’s unique brain chemistry. Built off a myriad of factors such as genetics, upbringing, environmental conditions, cyberwear implantations, pharmaceutical modifiers and etcetera. 'Protocols' play a huge role as well, allowing for the precise curation of many of these factors which can promote predictive outputs.

So how does neural potential play into all of this? It is believed that by increasing one’s neural potential, it will do two things:

1. Increase the amount and diversity of possible input pathways; meaning a person is able to extract more ‘information’ from the pool of the Collective.

2. Increase the processing power of the brain to become more efficient in converting this input to the desired output.

The reason why Ten needed to take NGF (a sensory enhancing drug) and alternate between sensory overloaded and sensory deprived states was because it would train and adapt his body to take in ‘more information’ from the Collective. In a way, he was enhancing his ‘mana pool.’

Continued meditation and repetitive practice using one’s Inscription would then help with increasing his brain’s processing power. In a way, he was enhancing his ‘mana cost,’ ‘mana regen’ and even ‘skill library.’

His combined knowledge of Elysion and Bladecraft Seven mechanics helped bring these once-distant concepts into focus. Every interaction he had with Angel was like an eye-opening revelation. And slowly but surely, he began to collect foundational pieces of a much greater structure he was trying to solve.

These were the mechanics of this world. The magic ‘system’ of this world.

He’d doubted Angel at first. But perhaps… Wolf’s decision wasn’t so bad after all.

On the last day of Ten’s class, he would finally meet Angel in person again. Passing the final exam with flying colors.

“Is it over now?!” Mag bursted into the classroom without warning.

“RAHH!” Angel fell out of his chair startled.

Ten gave a thumbs up to Mag.

“W-who are you?!!” Angel blurted out as he rearranged the brown paper bag over his face.

“Oh come on Angel! You should know who I am by now!”

Ten paused for a second. To think that Angel didn’t know who Mag was… Then again, he barely ever left his room. 

“Wait.. you don’t know who Mag is? He’s been in the Fourth for quite a while now…”

“M-mag? Y-you mean you’re Magman?!”

“That’s mean Angel! Even though we’ve both been in the Fourth for some time now… to think you didn’t even know who I was!” Mag laughed.

Angel was frantically trying to explain himself, but Mag’s social presence was just too intimidating, causing him to bolt back towards the comfort of his room. Yet, somewhere in Angel’s heart was a sense of ease. Knowing that two of his online friends lived just a couple of hallways down from where he was.

It made things just a little more tolerable.

A distant memory began to replay in Angel’s head. It was from his days as a BANE researcher.

***

“It seems the results are pretty clear sir… test subjects that are going through withdrawal tend to have a higher success rate when they are tasked with overcoming slightly inconvenient challenges.” A woman in a white labcoat said as she was reading off a floating screen.

“As I’ve surmised… distracting tasks are a great coping mechanism for those experiencing the mental instability of withdrawal…” Angel smiled triumphantly.

“It is when the ocean of the mind becomes turbulent… that a well placed anchor can save the ship, that is your sanity, from capsizing…” A deep sly voice chuckled.

It was an old senior associate of his; who was originally a test subject raised in a ‘protocol’ centered on pirates, treasure and sailing the high seas.

Angel kept this previous revelation in mind when he was working on Ten’s new mechanical arm and its calibration settings.

He was… quite the misunderstood genius.

Suddenly there was a notification sound.

Tenshi is online.

Magman is online.

Angel cracked a small smile as he stared at the screen of his computer, ready to farm another dungeon with two fellow members of the Fourth.

And thus, Ten’s crash course 101 on Neuroscience and neural potential with Angel came to an official close. As the next couple of days passed, Ten found himself slowly being drawn more and more into the virtual world of Bladecraft Seven.