Chapter 94: Luna figures it out

Dark mana flows along the extended fingers of my left hand. After leaving from my fingertips, it begins to spin in a circle twisting the fabric of space. One gate has just been created, but since there's nothing it connects to, it just looks like a black circle floating in the air.

I repeat the process with my left hand to make a second gate, now all that's left is to connect them. Since I'm touching both of them, it's easy to simply follow the instructions and move a small amount of the mana from one gate to the other. One side of each gate continues to be solid black, but when I look at the other side now I can see my own head from behind.

"They really are connected."

Hehe, I can touch the back of my head with my nose. Now let's test if I can erase them, it could be dangerous if they just stayed there forever.

...

After a few tests, I was able to confirm that I can indeed erase the gates whenever I want. I don't even need to be in contact with them or even see them, the only exception is when there's a solid object going through them. When I tried holding a pencil halfway into a gate, I couldn't close it no matter how hard I tried, I also started to feel a force pushing the pencil out that kept getting stronger with each passing moment. I guess that's a good thing as it means that nobody will be cut in half accidentally, but it also means that I won't be able to use this as an offensive spell against monsters. Also, as it appears that the distorted space tends to go back to normal by itself, the gates will most likely close on their own after a few hours, I left a few open to test that.

Anyway, what I've done so far was the easy part. Next, I need to figure out the part of the notes that had been destroyed, or I won't be able to use these gates to travel long distances. Because right now, I can only create them directly in front of my hands, this means that I need to walk to the spot where I want to make the second one, which completely defeats the purpose of having gates in the first place.

Normally, it's possible to cast a spell at a distance by first preparing some mana so that it becomes 'mana that will turn into the spell' and then sending it to wherever one wants the spell to happen. But the 'mana that will turn into a gate' can only be sent to a distance of around half a meter at most, and the only way to increase this range is to prepare more mana in a similar state to push the mana for the spell. The problem is that this extra mana can also only move for half a meter, and the mana that does the pushing needs to be twice the amount that's being pushed.

How can I explain this? Let's say that, to make a gate, one unit of mana is required, and that unit can move half a meter on its own. To move a full meter, I would need another two units to push the first one that extra half, a total of three, and if I want a meter and a half, I'll need six more units to push those three for a total of nine. Basically, for each half of a meter, the mana cost of the spell will triple. Needless to say, if I want to use these gates to travel a larger distance, the amount of mana necessary will quickly become absurd, a distance of a hundred meters would require several times the amount of mana in all of the universe.

And yet, according to these notes, this spell should be able to let me go even from one continent to another. This cannot be a problem with the amount of mana I have available, there has to be a more efficient way of doing this, but what could that be?

A way to easily send that mana a long distance away...

A long distance... wait! Don't tell me...

Yes! Mana can also travel through the gates! This means that with an extra 'in-between' gate for each half meter, I could open a gate anywhere I want.

With the technique of instant spell replication, casting the same weak spell a few thousand times in an instant is easy for me, as long as all the parameters of the spells are exactly the same and it's not something like an attack spell that can interfere with its copies. But something tells me that this is going to severely limit the number of mages that will be capable of creating these gates... Anyway, with this method, the cost of the spell should increase linearly with the distance instead of exponentially, I only need two units of mana for each meter.

...

"That's still way too much."

Agh! I thought that I had it! Is there any way that I can reduce the cost?

Well, the bigger the gate, the more mana it needs. If I make the gate as small as possible... But it needs to be big enough for me to be able to pass through it. Maybe I could make it narrower and go sideways.

"Uf."

Uh... My chest is getting stuck. Now that I think about it, is it possible that I'm actually wider front to back rather than shoulder to shoulder?

No, no, what am I saying, that would be ridiculous. And this still uses way too much mana anyway. There has to be something that I'm still missing.

Mmm, actually, I only need one gate to be big enough for me, all the others only need to let mana go through them. And I just remember that those notes also mentioned how to make a gate for only mana, I didn't know what that was for when I first saw it. In reality, trying to open a normal gate would fail if there were any solid objects in the way, so this was necessary anyway.

And... It's STILL not enough. There's a limit to how compact I can make this mana while keeping it capable of making a large gate.

But the last step is obvious, there's a way to activate a spell without having to send all the mana it needs. All I need is for the mana to already be there.

That is to say, I need to leave a magic circle with the 'black gate' spell ready at each of the destinations I might want to travel to. Then, I'll only need to send a minuscule amount of mana to activate it. This means that I'll only be able to travel to places I've already been and left a magic circle at, but I will be able to go from one continent to another in an instant as the notes said.

That said, this is one of the more complicated spells I've seen.

A multi-step spell that requires space manipulation, instant spell replication, and magic circle crafting. Not to mention the mana control and accuracy necessary to activate the second gate from such a long distance. It's going to take me a lot of practice to be able to master it.

Maybe the reason why such a useful spell was left forgotten in this library is simply that nobody other than Zanon was able to pull it off.

"Well, I better get started then."

"Uh? Where am I?"

"Luna! You're awake!"

"Nera? Why am I in a bed?"

"We brought you here. Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

She looks like she's about to cry. Why would she be worried? All I did was practice the 'black gate' spell for a bit until becoming somewhat decent at it. Then I decided to rest.

"I don't get it."

"You locked yourself there for a week! And when I decided to check on you, I found you unconscious on the floor!"

"I wasn't unconscious, I was taking a nap."

"On the floor?!"

"There were no beds in there."

What was I supposed to do? Leave the library?

"And you have been sleeping for 24 hours! How is that a nap?!"

"I was tired, I had been practicing magic nonstop."

"For a week?! Without rest?!"

Nera is making her usual 'I cannot believe what I'm hearing' face. I guess it cannot be helped, being a princess, it's normal for her to be shocked when she learns what the schedule of a regular person is like.

"I tried to tell her that this was normal for you, but she didn't listen." Arana is also here, trying to hold back her laughter. "Just so you know, while you were having fun with your books, we've been working hard trying to turn this place into an actual country."

"Oh, sorry."

"Don't worry. It's not as if I was expecting much of you when I asked you to become a queen." Did she really need to word it like that? "But we're going to need you to show your face soon."

"Show my face?"

"You need to be introduced to the various demon lords of the wasteland." Explains Nera. "Xania already called for the leaders of the major tribes, we're expecting them to arrive in two days."

Oh, then I would not be able to do more research for the time being. That's a pity, I wanted to find out more about that place called 'the infinite abyss', or about that story about the 'day of water'...

Wait a minute, 'day of water'...

"We'll need to get you ready to cause a good impression."

There are times when I'm not paying attention to something important that should have been obvious, and then the realization hits me at an unexpected time.

'When the day of fire arrives, death and despair will rule.'

The second to last line of the prophecy... And the 'day of water' was when de goddess of water died...

"However, two days should be enough. As long as you don't get sidetracked with anything else."

"THE DAY OF FIRE IS THE DAY THE GOD OF FIRE DIES!!!"

"Eh?"

"VILDE IS GOING TO DIE!!!"

"Who?! What?!"

"Ara! I need to borrow Longleg again! I have to go back to the infernal caverns!"

"Sure, he's been getting so bored lately that the inside of my hat is filled with webs."

"Wait! You cannot go now! What about the meeting?!"

"I promise that I'll be back before two days."

"But we need to get you ready."

"Sorry, this is more important."

Maybe Vilde knows more about all of this. At the very least, I need to warn him. His death has been prophesied.

forli

When Luna was traveling around before I didn't want to make movement too easy, but now I think that it's fine to unlock fast travel.

I wasn't going to reveal what the day of fire was until much later. But I realized that it wouldn't make much sense for Luna to never ask Vilde about it, and considering his motivations, it wouldn't make sense for Vilde to not tell her. So I decided to make her find out this way instead, I needed an excuse to send her back to him anyway.