Chapter 65: Act 1 – The Burning City
Forging space.
It was already an incredibly difficult task, but now, with the aftereffects of Sigarmata having broken space still lingering, it had become even more challenging.
The waves of dimensions were making it increasingly difficult to connect the current dimension with others.
If one were to take a bit more time to wait until the space stabilized, it might be possible to try again. However, considering the impact of the ripples caused by Sigarmata, it was projected that this would last for at least a year.
It was absurd.
Did that mean he wouldn’t be able to do anything for an entire year?
A year was far too long to wait.
What would happen to Sigarmata in a year when the waves of dimensions stabilize was completely uncertain.
Might it be better to utilize this influence instead?
As Luke’s research on the laws of space was yielding some results, he headed straight to the Rienne Forest.
————
Luke arrived at the Rienne Forest without telling anyone.
This would be yet another experiment kept confidential.
In the end, what he intended to do was illegal magic, which, according to the rules, was considered action without authorization.
Class Magic, despite its usefulness, came with many troublesome institutional aspects.
Although he believed such rules and regulations were necessary within the structure of the current magical society, it significantly infringed on the autonomy of mages.
Even performing a single experiment required reporting all necessary materials and getting approval from a committee?
That was simply a hassle.
Still accustomed to the perspective of a Circle Mage, Luke found the entire process exceedingly inconvenient.
Moreover, even seeking permission was problematic since institutional regulations prohibit practical magic over Class 3 before the age of 13.
Being registered as a 10-year-old, he had no legal means to handle Moonlight Stones.
Unless he submitted a request for proxy experiments directly to a research institute.
However, doing so would let others know about his dimension.
Would other mages seeing the items contained in his dimension leave it alone?
Of course not.
The results would do him no good at all.
His claim over his belongings would become ambiguous.
At best, he would only share ownership.
And that was unacceptable.
Why should he share things that were originally entirely his?
He had no need or desire to do so.
Mages, fundamentally, are greedy about the things they have in their possession.
Unless they planned from the beginning to give something to someone else, they wouldn’t freely share their belongings.
Luke was no different.
He was still doing this instead of returning the Moonlight Stone he received as a gift from Shirud out of reluctance.
“Alright, I’m ready. Are you ready, Pyris?”
“Yes!”
The reason Luke had chosen the Rienne Forest specifically among many woods was because of Pyris.
First of all, it required an immense amount of mana, which was abundant in the forest. Additionally, this forest had been most significantly affected by Sigarmata in the past, meaning traces of Sigarmata’s influence would be buried under strong mana signatures.
Furthermore, due to the intermittent mana storms and the Dragonpier left by Sigarmata, there were no monsters in the area.
Thus, the monitoring by the Forest Keeper was much more relaxed than before.
Wasn’t it the optimal location?
“If I help you today, I can see Meruru anytime I want in the future, right?”
“Of course. From now on, I won’t interfere with whatever you do on the computer.”
“Will you really buy me a super big ice cream?”
“Sure, I’ll buy you one that you have to hug with both arms.”
“Really? Pinky swear?”
“Yep, I promise.”
Pyris satisfied her curiosity only after wrapping her pinky around Luke’s.
Really, he wondered where she had learned that.
Even without such a pinky promise, he would definitely keep his word.
Well, it was true that there had been a small squabble the other day regarding Pyris and the computer, but he hadn’t precisely said “when” he would let her off, so it couldn’t count as a promise.
Thus, he could argue he hadn’t lied.
…However, honestly thinking from Pyris’s perspective, she might have found it a bit petty.
Luke cleared his throat and adjusted his voice, pointing to the Moonlight Stone placed in the center of the clearing.
“Anyway, when I say so, you need to draw the forest’s mana into the Moonlight Stone.”
“Got it!”
Around the Moonlight Stone were the monuments and magic circles that Luke had set up in advance.
This was the theoretically optimal magic formula derived from the computer’s simulation results.
However, the mana required to forge space was truly immense.
The burden of the dimensions exerted pressure that increased the larger it was.
Moreover, currently, the waves of dimensions were amplifying that burden even more.
Thus, moving a massive dimension like Sigarmata was almost impossible.
But, his own dimension was a bit different.
That dimension belonged to a lower dimension concept within the material plane, and its scale was vastly smaller than Sigarmata’s.
So, if he could adjust the variables concerning the waves of dimensions, there was sufficient possibility.
And that task was precisely what the computer was assisting with.
Luke sat on the dirt floor, paused in manipulating the computer, and glanced to the side.
There, a being of a higher existence, a spirit, was awaiting his command, comparable to a mage in manipulating mana itself.
Perfect timing, perfect design, and perfect materials.
Although he felt slightly rushed, it wasn’t merely to expedite the return of the Moonlight Stone to Shirud that his curiosity could no longer be contained.
Getting immediate visual results once the conditions were met was inherent to mages.
Even if it meant risking failure because of the hastiness.
And after all, people typically learn from failure.
Luke input the variables he observed through magic sight into the computer.
“Alright, 20 seconds now.”
“Got it, 20 seconds.”
Now, Pyris, who could almost perfectly see the clock, nodded while looking at the clock Luke had hung on a tree.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, time began to pass slowly and surely.
20, 19, 18, 17, …and then, 3, 2, 1.
“Now!”
With Luke’s shout, a powerful mana storm surged through the Rienne Forest.
—————
“Stop!”
At Luke’s shout, Pyris immediately cut off the supply of mana.
It didn’t take long for the mana storm to dissipate.
He had taken sufficient measures to ensure the shock wouldn’t leak out, and most of the storm had been consumed by magic, so there was no reason for it to last long.
“Did it succeed?”
Luke quickly began to survey the surroundings.
Finally, he was able to spot a fragment of space forged from the Moonlight Stone not far from him.
“It worked!”
It appeared like a black glass shard, a piece of pure darkness that reflected no light.
This was the material needed for forging the ‘Shadow/Key/Sword’ made from the moon’s shadow—a fragment of space.
But…
“Though it succeeded, it’s fragmented… Hmm, this can’t be used.”
The fragment was so small it hardly measured a fingernail.
While it was clear that he had succeeded in forging, he hadn’t achieved the desired quality.
In the end, that meant it felt almost like failure.
A broken key couldn’t open a door.
‘What could the cause be?’
Luke immediately began to analyze the cause.
If he didn’t learn from failure, he couldn’t accomplish anything.
Examining the broken fragments of space, he thought.
Fortunately, the magic formula and circuits seemed fine.
After all, the act of forging space itself had succeeded.
As for the issue of quality, it probably was…
‘Was the error bigger than I thought?’
He believed he had completed all the calculations, but there may have been overlooked elements he didn’t factor in.
There were still many aspects of Class Magic grammar he had not learned or understood. The foundational grammar he could use did not lead straight to his goal but required detours instead.
Thus, rendering the same effects as “pressing down” in a Circle with legitimate permission was impossible, and the errors were much more sensitive.
“To reduce the error… I will need faster processing power.”
It seemed that the computer’s processing power, which could hardly even play games correctly, wasn’t sufficient.
Did he need to input more precise values…?
———-
How many attempts had it been? The sky that was once blue had now turned crimson, and the fragments of space continued to accumulate, finally building up to the size of a fingernail.
However, this was still insufficient.
The size was too small; it was too shallow to cut through dimensions.
He was gradually narrowing down the errors, but evidently, the computations of this computer remained inadequate.
Was it perhaps because the material was not Moonlight Stones that had naturally fallen?
“Big Sis, I really want to see Meruru now and eat ice cream too. When will this be over?”
“Ah, could you hold on a bit longer? It seems like we’re almost done… How about one last attempt?”
“Eeeeeeeek–!”
