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For more primitive psychic entities, the lure functionality of this baton was all that was needed. It would keep them wholly occupied and docile while he did whatever he wanted in examining them.

There was a false belief that many seemed to have regarding psychic abilities--even among psychics themselves, Jercash knew--that intelligence was directly correlated with it. This was not true at all. Purely instinctual, unthinking beings could absolutely still exhibit telekinesis and much more.

Such as with feldeaths, for example.

So this baton was nearly ideal for that task. Not so much for feldeaths, perhaps, but for less powerful creatures? Sure.

That was why it was also a fairly good metric for measuring intelligence. If they could resist the lure, then they were either very strong or very smart. And strength was quite easy to gauge, too. Dangerous, but easy.

The other main function of the baton was aura displacement. Strictly speaking, aura was not something that could be directly destroyed or even disrupted, as it was not one singular thing but instead an amalgamation of characteristics blending together.

But displacement was a slightly different trick. Aura was intertwined with spacetime. So manipulating space meant manipulating aura, at least partially.

This was why "domains" had come into the picture, Jercash figured. Strengthened "fortresses" of aura, where displacement was made more challenging. Historically, they had probably been developed as a defense against displacement attacks.

But that didn't make them perfect counters. Domains could be very strong, yes, but only when thoroughly cultivated. And moreover, displacement techniques, by comparison, seemed like they still had plenty of room for advancement, too.

As far he'd been able to tell through his historical research, the study and development of displacement had hit something of a wall over the eons--and multiple times, too. It struck him as no coincidence, either. Likely the doing of the pesky birds--though perhaps that was just his own bias talking. Whoever it was, they didn't want anyone developing even better counters against them.

Unfortunately for them, Jercash had been all over it for decades now. With a bit of help from Lozaro and the boss. Sadly, neither of them seemed to share quite the same interest in the subject as him, but that was fine. They had plenty of important projects of their own to worry about.

And he kinda enjoyed having something like this all to himself, anyway.