Chapter 70

'A fruit salad.'

Alex watched as Taeral walked in with a big bowl of freshly chopped up fruits and greens.

"You know magic too don't you?" Alex asked the old elf as he chewed on a piece of fruit.

"I know as much as is afforded to us by the mother of the elves and god of nature. Our magic knows no bounds, but there is a price to pay for more, powerful magic." She said while watching Alex eat the fruit with no care of how he looked.

She pulled up a chair and sat across from him.

"It sounds like you're over exerting the amount of mana that you can contain." Alex said as he paused thoughtfully.

"And what does that mean?"

Alex snapped out of his daze as he realized he had three sets of eyes watching him.

'Effortless magic?'

"How do you train your magic?"

The old elf looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "We study relics left from our god, from before she ascended."

"These relics can contain incantations, or are magical themselves."

"So… there is no self experimentation, meditation, or, or anything, just repetitions of the past?" Alex asked, an incredulous look on his face.

"experimentation as you say it, is outlawed among the elves, many have tried and the danger it brings is never worth any of the small gains. We do however have our methods of training the mind in order to allow us to cast our magic."

'Wait!'

Alex concentrated his lightning mana in his hand and held it up. "Can you feel my magic?"

"I feel something, but it just feels like you're getting ready to attack. I would have to ask you to not do any presentations within my home."

"You can't see mana. But you can use magic by saying a few words and training your mind. Has this always been possible, or is it only because I went through a rift?" Alex held his head tightly as he felt like his head was going to burst.

"It has always been possible." The old elf said not helping Alex with the headache.

"What is this rift, that you have mentioned?" She added bringing Alex out of his head.

"It's like a portal, that is invisible to the naked eye and it usually links two worlds together. Because they are invisible humans from where I live, we could only theorize that they existed because of the huge influx of random beasts appearing from nowhere." Alex said before breaking it down into smaller words as he saw three dumbfounded faces.

"I mean they're invisible doors that allow non-native animals to appear anywhere in the world."

"Why didn't you say that at first?" Taeral asked as she looked at Alex as if he had less than half a brain cell.

"It sounds like you would have to seek council with the gods in order to find these rifts." The old elf said while shaking her head.

"In all the centuries that I've lived, I have not heard of anything of the sort."

"In all of what?" Alex asked nearly dropping his bowl of food.

The old elf sighed as if finally understood something. "You're really not from this world are you?"

"Elves can outlive the lives of several humans."

Alex looked at the two younger elves for a moment. 'It's just like advanced mathematics, it doesn't entirely make sense, but when you take everything as truth you begin to thrive at it.' A switch flipped in his head as he began thinking entirely differently.

"You need my help with magic and I need help finding a way back home." Alex said while repeatedly tossing and catching a slice of a red fruit.

"That does seem to be the case." The old elf agreed.

Alex breathed in as he began readying a mouthful of words. "Where I'm from, humans have a chance to awaken an affinity. An affinity is a thing within us that allows us to perceive certain invisible magic in the air. Through a lot of abuse on myself, I was able to forcefully awaken four, light, darkness lightning, and space." Alex said as three obvious energies and a forth strange one as well.

The three elves listened attentively as if they were being told a fairy tale.

"Spacial energy is confirmed to be a mixture of light and darkness, although my recent ventures tell me that theoretically it is also a mixture of every other affinity mashed together. Anyway because we can perceive magic and it's energy we are able to control it precisely and train ourselves to master it." He looked up at the older elf.

"That's where the main problem is. Elves must have a form of affinity but are not able to use it correctly, due to physical limitations. But in order to tell if that is correct I have to watch as you… um, cast a spell. Can you use any, spells that are of the same elements that I'm limited to?"

"Light and lightning." The elder said before standing and stretching.

"Taeral, gather his belongings for him and take him to my training room."

The elf nodded and pulled Alex up.

Alex noticed something odd as he was directed out of the room. 'I feel lighter… but not any weaker.' He wiggled his fingers from his free hand in front of his eyes. He found that they felt more coordinated than ever before. He hopped up and down getting him a confused look from Taeral who was still pulling him along.

"Fatigue is still building up, but it is a lot less. It's as if all the training I have done didn't fade as easily and I became built for running long distances. Is this how that elf moved that quickly yest… a few weeks ago? A different reality. One that has less limitations, physical limitations that is."

'It feels like somebody hooked up a computer to reality and scrambled everything.'

"Are you going to keep mumbling to yourself or are you going to get changed?" Taeral questioned while pushing a crate into his hands.

Alex heard a giggle and turned around to see that the blue haired elf was also here. "I'll get changed." He looked around. "Right here?"

"You have clean undergarments on, don't worry about us we're just doing our task."

'Whatever.' He thought as he pulled out his uniform. He stuck a finger through the hole that was left through it. 'They spent a long time working this and I broke it in less than a year.'

He closed his eyes and concentrated, the hole scrunched up a few strands of loose strings looped through the fabric.

After a few seconds a makeshift patch was made on his uniform. 'It should be strong enough to to handle it.'

Alex sifted through his stuff I'm the crate before holding a sketchbook. A rough drawing of a set of armor appeared as he opened the book to a marked page. Several hundreds of runes converged on their uniform as he flipped the pages and copied his work onto it.

Alex turned around as he put the newly upgraded armor on. Light mana circulated within him and surfaced as he brought it into contact with his armor. He smiled as he felt the effects of his light affinity go above and beyond what was normally possible. 'Invisible mana lines. If I can, make a smaller version, then I can upgrade my chain blades as well.'

His gaze landed upon a small bag. 'Timothy's refined beast cores. These are the only ones I had on me at the time, normally I could just open a portal and have access to the rest I had saved up.'

Alex held up a box of vials. 'I was supposed to deliver these a while ago.' He packed his belongings up and turned to the two elves who were still watching him curiously.

"You have a lot of books." Taeral said as he turned towards her.

"I had just left school, I don't pack them around casually. I think I'm ready to go now." Alex said waving away the uneasy feeling within himself.

'I guess it's just my temperament, Clay would probably go crazy with excitement knowing he was in a world where fantasy became reality.'

A large courtyard appeared as Alex stepped out of a door. The elder turned to Alex as he stepped out, she had a wooden staff in hand.

"What are we starting with?" He asked as he approached.

"Lightning."

"Okay, you can… start casting your spell I am ready." He said as focused on all of the nearby lightning mana.

He couldn't help but get confused as she began speaking in a different language altogether, he was about to open his eyes but as he felt energy come from up above, he focused himself again.

A thick line of mana fell from the sky and entered the old elf. It swirled violently for a moment and entered the wooden staff before being expelled. Alex flinched slightly as a loud snap of thunder assaulted his ears.

"That is enough. I think I understand what is going on."

'This has to be the scam of the century… centuries, I don't know. Whoever these guys pretending to be god are are completely pulling everyone here around by their ears.'

"What is it that is going on then?"

"So where did this god of the elves go when ascending?" Alex asked.

The old elf thought for a moment. "If it's like any other case, she was likely expelled from this realm as her power became too much for it to contain."

"You sure she didn't just rise up and disappear somewhere up there." Alex said while pointing upwards.

"That's not how ascension works. Those who contain divinity and are very powerful, get forcefully pulled into the realm of gods, try not to say anything rude, many people who have tried tend to find themselves smitten."

"You're serious about them being gods."

"Of course I am."

'Either one god is lying to me, or something isn't quite right.'

"This… magic that you are using. It's, well, it's not your own power. When you did your prayer or chant thing, the mana was forcefully channeled through you. It's a violent process and it makes sense as to why trying to change it would be a terrible idea. What I am trying to say is that your magic is like a sort of borrowed power, back where I am from people have tried to do this, but it ended up being written as history books as a tragedy that shouldn't be repeated. Although, this elf god seems to have somehow discovered a way to allow you to safely do so."

"That can't be."

"You don't mind if I try to demonstrate this do you?" Alex asked, only getting a nod in response.

To the old elf's surprise Alex began chanting the exact same incantation she had just said.

Alex wondered if he was doing it wrong, but ceased his worry as he felt something heading his way. Both of his arms shot up and he tried to take control of the lightning mana.

A static feeling filled the air as Alex failed to absorb any of the mana. He forcefully expelled it and using his spacial energy he connected it to the ground. He covered his ears and braced himself as an explosion of lightning shook his surroundings.

"That."

"Is nothing like the energy within me." Alex said as a bolt of arcing electricity appeared in his hands.

"It's also almost impossible to control it, meaning it's either under the control of someone else, or it really hates me."

'How do I help someone sense something that isn't sensible? They have to have an affinity, in order for the energy to absolutely not kill them. How do they use that?'

"The dome." He muttered.

'Of course, it senses energy and prevents it from being used. If I can hookup it's sensory rune formations and connect them to a visual output.'

'Then I can just make them see things, it's up to them to be able to perceive the mana without it.'

"I have something in mind to be able to help you perceive the energy."

Alex turned to Taeral. "Do you have any extra materials of the stuff the cage was made of, you know the thing which had runes carved into it?"

The elder spoke up from behind him. "Bring some living wood."

"What are you thinking of doing?" She asked.

"A bit of copy and pasting from my own world. Technically it's illegal, but since I'm not at home I doubt I'll ever get caught." Alex said as he opened up a book.

"I swear, humans would find a way to take ownership of anything. If the rune guild found out that I copied the runes from the dome, well to keep it short I would not be here or anywhere."

Alex very carefully cut out around a hundred sheets of paper out of the book. After checking to see if the ground was dry, he began to lay them down as if fixing a puzzle. He was nearly halfway done when he stopped and looked at the sheet in his hand.

"This is one of the parts." He carefully built up the surrounding pages.

——————

"Tell me why we have been watching him draw random shapes on those papers." Taeral asked after sighing.

"He said they are human runes."

"And they're somehow supposed to allow you to see this mana? If such a thing existed, why have we never heard about it."

The elder shrugged her shoulders.

"I am going to go on patrol, have fun watching him you two."

——————

"He is still going." Taeral muttered as she entered the courtyard. It had been raining ever since she had woken up, so she expected that he would have gone inside at the very least.

She looked more closely seeing that he wasn't alone. "You're still watching him? How is he still writing on soggy parchment?" She paused as she noticed that the ground surrounding him was completely dry.

'Magic. Of course.'

"It's my job to watch him. What if he falls unconscious again?" The blue haired elf asked.

"Besides, it never gets old standing out here and watching the rain fall everywhere around me and not on me. It is like he split the clouds."

Taeral looked up her eyes blinking as the rain still smacked her in the face. "Seems like he is picking favorites."

Alex looked up slightly as he heard talking. "I think… I think I am done."

Alex picked up two sheets of paper labeled as light and lightning and put away the twenty extras sheets.

'I had to use the training holograms as the visual aspect, every other piece of technology used processed crystals which I doubt these elves will have. Unfortunately the holograms formation uses a beast core as its projection device, and I only have two of those on hand. According to the others there are no rifts and therefor no beasts on this planet. On the bright side, if I get back home before I have to graduate, then I'll have something that will be hard for any other school to compete with.'

"He said he is done, he hasn't even touched the wood."

"Shh, he is doing it now." The blue haired elf said as she watched Alex pick up the log.

"He is just looking at it." Taeral pointed out in a hushed voice.

"His magic is is invisible, if you haven't noticed."

"I got that part, but that doesn't mean his runes are to."

"Does it?"

'That's one done.' Alex thought as he slowly pulled out the refined beast core and inserted it into a slot he had just carved out.

A light hum was heard and Alex stepped back as he waited for the device to turn on.

The elder appeared next to him just as a clear light pierced the surrounding air and ghostly globs floated throughout the nearby surroundings of the device.

'It's not very precise, but why is it clear in color?'

'Timothy said they were different and refined… personal use?'

Alex held the second core in hand and tried to absorb the mana within, but failed to do so.

He scanned the core with his spacial affinity and carefully drew the mana into himself.

'This is pure mana! The same stuff used runewriting tools!? I didn't think it was safe to take in. Although now knowing what it is is giving me a lot of ideas that Timothy probably hadn't expected me to use them for.'

Seeing a surprised look on Alex's face the elder couldn't help but ask. "What is it?"

"Well, the device is working as well as I can get it to for now, but I just learned that these cores aren't normal. Usually they would tune out of energy and become unusable, but these, these use pure mana which can be created and put back into it."

'Yup I'm creating the worlds first rechargeable beast cores in all of existence. Well maybe not all of existence, I just learned that elves exist, so a highly intelligent species isn't out of expectations anymore.'

"Sorry what this means is that this device should be able to be used forever, even without me here to take care of it. Once you can perceive mana, you should be able to recharge it… forget that, you only have to be able to control those mana particles that it is projecting right now." Alex said as he began carving a rune out.

"The first thing you need to try, is moving the particles around like this."

One of the clear blobs started moving randomly. It started bobbing as Alex spoke. "Up down, up and down."

"Then try two, Four, and if you master it then you can move on to attempting to do it with your eyes closed. This rune is the one that transfers mana into pure mana, you have to be careful with the amount of mana forced through it because it is a little more fragile than other runes."

"So this is what mana looks like?" The old elf asked.

"Almost, the device isn't perfect. This is an estimations of what it feels and just from what I'm feeling and it's showing, I can tell you that I see quite a few differences."

"You don't mind if they join me in this do you?" She asked.

"The more that try, then the better the chance of success. If only one group of people tried to find the cure for cancer, then we would've been stuck with it for centuries, but after all fields of research paid attention to it the threat was removed entirely."

"Seems like your world of humans is the same as the ones here. They fight more amongst themselves than anyone else."

Alex only nodded in response. 'It doesn't help that there are people fueling the flames and conflicts so that they can gain wealth. I guess that some things never change.'

Alex sat down out from beneath the rain and watched as the three elves attempted to move the lightning mana.

'Probably should have told them that this was only lightning mana. Well I'm sure that they can figure it out.' He thought as he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes to get some rest.