A Relatively Powerful Mage

Imri apologized to the major. In his excitement, he had completely forgotten about the scheduled communication with New Chicago.

“It’s fine. Being able to move troops instantly to strategic locations is going to be more useful than anything they could help with,” Major Harper said, dismissively waving a hand.

“I’ll have a modified version of the gate made for the radio tower,” Imri promised, adding it to his ever-expanding task list. Now that he had the general concept down, it would be simple enough to create.

He left the major and began working on it right away. He hadn’t gotten more than an hour of work when his walky-talky crackled to life.

“Lord Padar, the council would like to talk with you,” the man said of the device.

“Is it a Sentinel attack?” Imri asked in annoyance, knowing that communication would have been very different if that was the case.

“No, sir,” the man said.

“Then it can wait,” Imri said.

After a brief silence, the man spoke, “I’m sorry, sir. They’re being very insistent.”

Imri sighed and stopped working. It always irked him to leave something half-finished, and bouncing from task to task was inefficient. This had better be good.

As it turned out, it was a good use of his time. A group of refugees had arrived, all of them former captives of the Chixel. On top of that, they had news about Sylvi.

“She’s doing what?” Caroline asked, a mix of disbelief and anger in the normally subdued alchemist.

“She’s infiltrating Trosano with a small group of people. I also have a message for Mr. Padar from your brother,” a woman said.

“Vallo? Is he ok?” Imri asked instantly.

“He is fine. He is with Sylvi infiltrating Trosano,” the former captive said with a grin.

“He would do that,” Imri said, shaking his head. His brother had always been his opposite, outgoing and adventurous to his introverted and introspective.

“This is a gift from a Chixel named Ettes,” the woman said, dropping a ring into Imri’s outstretched hand. “Their message was, ‘This one knows what Imri had to do. This one doesn’t blame Imri for Rhesk’s death, and hopefully, this gift will prove that.’ Apparently, the item has an enchantment that can translate between our two languages,” the woman explained.

It was an amazing gift, and Imri would have been more excited if he hadn’t already been overworked. He added reverse-engineering the enchantment onto the list. He was a bit surprised that Ettes hadn't held a grudge, but he trusted Sylvi's judgment.

“That isn’t the only thing,” Laura added after the refugee left the room. “Our lookouts have reported a large group of people coming north; by large, I mean well over a thousand people.”

“Well, that will solve our population requirement,” Imri said with a shrug.

“You're not worried about that large of an influx in population?” Emery asked. Imri just let out a weary sigh.

“Our steady population increase has been good. We’ve had plenty of reserves to shoulder the additional burden while they become integrated. However, this will nearly triple the population. As things stand now, necessities won’t last more than a few days,” Steve said.

“I’ll hunt some Drake’s for the meat,” Imri promised.

“The inn also asked for a scaled-up version of that freezer you built. If we didn’t need to add ice to the makeshift freezer constantly, that would free up a good amount of capacity,” Steve added.

Imri left the meeting as soon as it became apparent that this was the last of the tasks that would be thrust on him, at least for the moment. He walked his usual route around the outskirts of the Nexuse’s area of effect. He used his Transcendant Meditation to clear his mind and gave the effect of resting. He was in for a long night.

He continued where he left off with his radio portal. It still irked him that he had to reset his thinking and go back over the work he had already done, which would have already been done if he hadn't been interrupted.

In addition to the inefficiency of jumping around, he found his mind moving sluggishly. What should have been a simplified version of the project he had just completed took the better part of the night. He made numerous sloppy mistakes that resulted in rework.

When he finally finished the device, he felt relief rather than the typical pride that accompanied completing an enchantment. He cursed when he saw the mana efficiency. Despite being at a higher level, this version of the enchantment wasn’t as efficient, and Imri was almost certain it was from his shoddy engraving.

“Are you alright?” Emelia asked, startling Imri, who hadn’t even noticed her presence.

“I’m fine, just annoyed that this enchantment didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped,” he said dismissively.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asked.

“I don’t need sleep. I have my Transcendant Meditation skill and a decently high Constitution and Willpower that should keep me going for longer without sleep,” he pointed out.

“Even if your meditation skill is that effective, I doubt you’ve been using it for more than a couple hours each day,” she countered.

“I’ll be fine. I just need to keep pushing through. I promise I’ll rest when things settle down,” he said.

“We both know that won’t happen anytime soon,” Emelia said. Imri just nodded, not having any other rationale. Emelia came up to him and wrapped him in an embrace. “Just don’t overdo it. You’re still human; you can’t be Atlas,” she said before kissing him tenderly.

“I’ll get some combination of sleep or meditation that totals 6 hours,” Imri promised.

“Good, I’ll hold you to that,” Emelia said.

After breakfast with Emelia, he went on to one of the easier items on his list, hunting Drakes. It would be a good mindless contrast to the more finicky runework. He chuckled as he realized that hunting a D-grade monster that no one else could kill had become a mindless chore to him.

To keep things interesting, he returned to using some of the less-used spells he had theory-crafted other uses for. As the Drake dove toward him, he used Spatial Expansion, creating additional space between himself and the monster. This resulted in the Drake missing him by a few meters, slamming into the ground right before him. Before it could recover, he finished it off with a Dimensional Tear that was just large enough to tear through the creature’s brain. The almost fully intact creature fell to the ground lifelessly. The wound was small enough that it almost looked like it was still alive, and hopefully, it wouldn’t scare the porters.

With a shrug, Imri continued his chore. For the second Drake, he used Low Gravity, causing the confused Drake to fly over him before landing on the ground. Imri waited until it came back towards him on the ground before finishing it off with another Dimensional Tear. He smiled as he checked his notifications.

Spell Rank Up

Low Gravity F to E

Spatial Expansion E to D

Spell Tier Up

Spatial Expansion 1D has become Dimensional Expansion 2F

Spatial Expansion 1D: Expand space in local space-time as defined by local anchors. The mana cost varies depending linearly on the amount of space created, the distance from the caster to the anchors, and the ratio of existing space to newly created space.

Dimensional Expansion 2F: Expands space in a dimensional pocket as defined by dimensional anchors. The mana cost varies linearly with the amount of space created, the distance from the caster to the anchors, and non-linearly with the ratio of existing space to newly created space.

Dimensional Expansion followed a similar upgrade to his Temporal Expansion. Instead of being a strictly better version, it changed the paradigm of the spell. In this case, it made his spell less dependent on the anchors. This meant he would be punished less for creating a large amount of space in a small anchor. It wasn’t a strictly better upgrade because the base cost increased slightly, which meant the old spell was more efficient at an extremely low ratio. However, Imri couldn’t see an application where creating such a small amount of space over a large area would be useful, meaning it was essentially a strict upgrade.

He didn’t want to push his mana expenditure, not when an attack might be imminent. Now that he had dual benefits for meditation, he allowed himself to take a break. As he entered the meditation, he nearly collapsed. He had been pushing himself, and he knew the strain on his body and mind was starting to affect him.

He wasn’t even fifteen minutes into meditation when his radio crackled to life. “Sentinel spotted, requesting immediate assistance and portal extraction,” a soldier said professionally, though a slight stutter made it obvious they were afraid.

Imri cursed and started racing toward the center of Celestia, absorbing mana from his crystal as he ran. As the Nexus came into sight, he covered the last part of the distance with a long-ranged Blink. His immediate appearance startled the soldier who had been waiting at the portal terminal.

“Open the portal,” Imri ordered as he strode the last of the distance to the arch. A moment later, the tear in space materialized.

He could see the Sentinel, only a few meters from the portal. It was the same oblong polyhedral shape as the last one, though significantly smaller at only a meter in height.

For a brief moment, Imri was hopeful that this particular Sentinel was also proportionally weaker than the first one he faced. Unfortunately, that was quickly dashed when he noticed the telltale sign of mana seeping through any gaps as the construct moved, and that was without activating his mana vision. His Identify also failed to return any information despite the absurd bonus granted by Omniscient Eyes.

Imri didn’t like his chances at less than 100 percent capability against this foe. However, no one in Celestia would stand a chance if he couldn't handle it. He rushed through the portal without hesitation, shouting the order to close it as soon as everyone was through.

He activated his Temporal Expansion enchantment, preparing for a tough fight. To his surprise, the construct didn’t immediately attack him. Instead, it produced several deep beeps and chimes. Weirder yet, he could understand it.

“Anomaly detected, commencing assessment,” it beeped.

“What the fuck?” Imri cursed.

His question went unanswered as the creature shot a volley of the strange metal at him. Imri barely managed to dodge by blinking away, his mind still reeling at the strange construct stating this was an assessment. What was it assessing?

Ultimately, it didn’t matter; he just needed to destroy this Sentinel. He repeated his trick of using his mana vision to see the exact location of the core. Unlike the last one, this one had it in the center of its mass.

Imri teleported close with a Blink, then quickly launched a Dimensional Tear straight for its core. However, before the tear hit the core, the Sentinel just vanished without a trace. Imri was confused, and for a moment, he thought he had destroyed it, but a strong mana residue lingered in the air where it had been. Examining it closely, he got a faint impression that the spell it had used was similar to his Blink spell but wasn’t exactly the same.

After concluding that it had used some sort of teleportation spell, he spun around just in time to see another wave of metal shooting towards him. Agony coursed through him as the metal shards bit into his side before he could react. Imri blinked away before he could be completely eviscerated by the continued barrage.

Fortunately, Imri’s armor had prevented the worst damage, though a few shards had penetrated the leather, and he was now bleeding profusely. He needed to end this fight quickly.