Chapter 4582: Bridging the Gap (Part 2)

"It worked only because you had reached a sufficient level in developing your mana organs and mastering Swirling Wind. If you didn’t, you’d have gotten hurt."

Tista swallowed hard at the idea.

"What about Tezka’s sequence?" Lith asked. "We miss the Dimensional Store, but we also missed the Spirit Store for the other two sequences."

"That’s because you connect with the Rune Stores with your mana, child. They work so well because the user acts as the Spirit Store, completing the circuit." Baba Yaga replied. "As for Tezka’s sequence, unless you possess a still unknown dimensional mana organ, it would do you no good.

"It should help your little ones master dimensional magic, though. Make sure they use them like this." She arranged the Rune Stores in a vertical circle with the Air, Earth, and Water Stores forming the bottom half and the rest forming the upper part.

"That’s brilliant. This way, the spell acts as the Dimensional Store. It gets fueled from below and boosted from above." A wave of Solus’ hand opened a Warp Steps leading far into the Trawn Woods. "Or not. I didn’t feel anything."

"With your level of mastery of dimensional magic and the tower standing right next to you, I’d find it weird otherwise." Lith pointed out. "The Rune Stores are a teaching tool. They are useless to someone who has nothing left to learn. Let’s call Kami."

A minute later, Kamila joined them, and after being brought up to speed about Silverwing and the potential of applying the crystal sequences to the Rune Stores, she put the theory to the test.

"It works!" She Blinked almost as quickly as a student passing the dimensional magic academy course with flying colors. "This way it’s much easier than before. Let me try Switch."

Not only did she succeed at Switching as well, but it also took her a handful of seconds instead of almost a minute.

"The volume of the elemental flows is the same, but coordinating and directing them at the right places is much easier with this sequence. We should try this with Selia."

A few minutes later, the huntress was shocked by meeting the legendary First Magus and cried tears of joy from her own achievement.

"I did it!" Selia needed sheer willpower to keep her sniffling from interfering with the perfect Warp Steps she had opened in front of her. "I managed to conjure a Steps in less than a minute."

"This is good to hear, child, but in your shoes, I’d start from the basics." Baba Yaga said. "Try the Loop spell and check how it feels."

Selia nodded and did as bidden.

"No offense, but I’ve done this so many times that I don’t think- Gods!" Selia was right about Loop.

After practicing for so long and conjuring it countless times, the Rune Stores didn’t affect her cast time. Yet she was also wrong. The Loop spell produced with the help of the Rune Stores was the same as always, except for one difference.

"The flow of the elements is much clearer and vibrant than before." The huntress said. "Even without Life Vision, I can feel where I’m mixing them wrong. I can feel where they tangle or clash instead of merging harmoniously. If I use Life Vision, I can see it!"

"That’s great, Selia, but you should not use Life Vision with dimensional magic." Lith said. "Mana perception was my weakest subject at the academy because I relied too much on Life Vision.

"Moreover, in battle you need to look out for your enemies, so you can’t afford to stare at your spells, or you’d be a sitting duck. Train without Life Vision and use it only as a last resort to identify your mistakes, but fix them without it."

"Thanks, Lith." Selia practiced following Lith’s suggestion, and her Loop spell improved by leaps and bounds in a handful of minutes.

When she moved on to the Pilfer spell, she conjured it more easily and smoothly than ever, allowing her to spot the small energy entanglements that the mistakes she had already fixed by perfecting Loop had hidden until then.

"Please, Lith, I want a set of these squishy things." Selia said once she was forced to return the Rune Stores. "I’ve made more progress in twenty minutes than in an entire month of regular training."

"I’ll do what I can." He sighed. "They are not mine. I can only ask Dhiral."

"Just to recap." Solus said. "Saefel sequence nurtures human mana organs, Quylla’s sequence overcharges them, putting them under strain like intense training, and Tezka’s sequence helps only dimensional magic beginners."

"It’s a bit rude when you put it this way, but yes." Silverwing said, and Kamila and Selia snorted.

"Don’t forget the other good part." Menadion chimed in. "These things also work great for Eldritches and Demons. When I use the Rune Stores, I can connect with the world energy without Lith’s help.

"They lower the difficulty we Sigil Demons experience when practicing human bloodline abilities like Swirling Wind, and even allow us to replenish our energy by ourselves. They... somehow bridge the gap that isolates Abominations from the world energy."

"Which is both great and terrifying." Ajatar shuddered. "I wonder what the Master’s hybrids might do if they got their hands on the Rune Stores."

"Yeah. I feel the same way." Lith sighed, knowing it had already happened.

***

With Silverwing as a guest and the information she had brought from the Fringe, Faluel came to the Mansion so often that Lith had a room prepared for her as well.

"We know the Hordes hold a hint to the white core, and so does Ajatar. The question is what they are and how to combine them to get someone to the white." She stared at the data about the Hordes that Solus had collected in Jiera after helping them save the fungal creature along with Ajatar’s scans taken with the Infirmary.

"Why? Are you interested in reaching the white core?" The Sapphire Dragon asked as he studied the data with his Dragon Eyes.

"Sort of." The Hydra replied. "My Mother is certainly more interested in eternal life than I am, but I’d lie if I said I’m not tempted. Yet until I evolve into whatever Dragon I’m supposed to be, everything else has to wait.

"You heard Lady Yaga. If I reached the white as a Hydra, my future children would inherit my Hydra bloodline. Dragonhood first, white later. Assuming we can figure it out, of course."

"Sounds like a decent plan." Ajatar nodded. "The Hordes are quite clean-cut. They are formed by thousands of small spores, each with their own mana core. When they merge, they can produce a power that exceeds the violet."

He replayed the recording of the Hordes fighting Vareen the Plaguespreader, and stopped the images when a Horde focused their spores into a single point, emitting a bright white light.

"As for me, I’m just as simple. I used Spirit Fusion to break the boundary between matter and energy during my evolution and gained the ability to do it at will as a Sapphire Dragon.

"While Spirit Fusion turns you into a mass of ethereal mana, I retain my physical mass and can convert my own life force into mana and vice versa."