Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 16 –

As soon as the duo from the Icy Dew Mountain had departed into the passages of their choice, Terry was left alone in the cavern.

Terry exhaled loudly in a sigh of growing annoyance. “Never thought I’d miss the ghouly Alricks as company. These battle-crazed martialists are driving me insane. Even being stuck alone in a dungeon would be better than this.”

He slowly walked towards the last open passage. He left his gaze fixed on the illusionary wall.

Impressive.

“Perfectly cloaked magic,” muttered Terry. Even he with his astute senses remained unable to see the mana at work here.

If it wasn’t for my mana touch, I might have been fooled for longer.

Terry’s eyes darted towards another passage. “How did the women from the Blazing Sun notice the change?” He shook his head and shrugged. “Who knows? Doesn’t really matter.”

Should I? He hesitated to step through the remaining passage.

“Worked out last time, didn’t it?” Terry muttered to himself. With mustered resolve, he retrieved a foldable tertium cube and folded it to cover four sides while leaving the other two open like a tunnel.

Terry moved the tertium tunnel piece into the passage and then transfixed it with a strongly empowered Immovable Object spell. Afterwards, he jumped through the opening and caught himself in the air with the rest of his equipment. He did not want to touch the floor before examining it first.

Terry glanced back. His mana touch told him that walls had been moved and collided with the immovable tertium. His sight was being tricked like before by the active illusion.

“Alright, as long as I keep this spell active, I should be able to return into the main cavern if I want to.” Terry averted his gaze from the tertium and focused on the floor.

If I cannot trust my mana sight, I should reserve more time for scouting with mana touch.

He walked in the air with the help of his boot mechanism and the Immovable Object spell.

“Greetings, challenger.” A monotone voice rang from the walls.

“Hmph.” Terry was dismayed that he had triggered something despite avoiding contact with the floor.

“The road of cultivation can be long and arduous,” continued the monotone voice. “A genius that dies young is no genius at all. Correctly judging your own abilities and limitations is an essential skill. Before you, there are two gates: a gate of life and a gate of death. Back out now and skip the trial. After you have embarked on your path, it will be too late.”

“Uh-huh.” Terry ignored the voice while scouting ahead. “What ‘gates’? Just two tunnels.”

One is narrow and eventually leads to a mana distortion in front of a wall. A teleportation field.

“Wastes, unanchored transfer again.” Terry dismissed that tunnel as a first option.

The other is wider and longer… He walked forward in the air.

“You have made your choice,” declared the monotone voice. “No more return.”

Terry reacted as soon as he felt the sensation in his mana touch. He rapidly hurled out a pair of septimum throwing needles from his leg straps. The needles transfixed in the air and stopped the moving walls short in their tracks.

“Seriously,” grumbled Terry. He approached the walls and placed tertium slabs to take over obstructing the movable rock. He would rather sacrifice a lot of tertium than any of his septimum equipment. The septimum had a much lower base activation delay for the Immovable Object spell and was also way more expensive.

After making sure his retreat was secured, Terry continued down the wider path.

Terry stopped in front of a mana formation inside the floor that was visible in his mana sight. Visible, but barely so. His eyes swiveled suspiciously from side to side.

“Is this a trick?” Terry muttered to himself.

The illusions before were perfectly cloaked. Why is this magic not cloaked to the same degree of perfection?

This mana also looks different from the tiny mana inscriptions I saw at the bottom of the lake. It doesn’t look like the inscriptions I know.

Terry retrieved a pebble from his storage bracelet and hurled it at the floor with the mana formation.

Nothing happened.

“Alright, but I don’t care. I’m still not touching that.” Terry continued walking in the air and avoiding the floor.

As soon as he had reached the half-way mark of the mana formation in the floor, something changed. He felt himself pressed into his boots as if gravity in the area had increased or as if the ceiling was casting Kinetic Push downwards.

“You have done well to recognize the danger, but no matter how great your movement techniques are, sometimes danger cannot be avoided.” The monotone voice spoke again.

Fortunately, Terry’s boots remained immovable and even with the increased pressure, he was at no risk of touching the floor.

In fact, Terry even had the leeway to test the formations’ effect by throwing pebbles into both directions. The change in gravity appeared to be effective over the whole mana formation, including the half that Terry had already passed.

“Whatever,” exclaimed Terry. He walked forth on the immovable layers of septimum contained in his boots. Step by step. Spell by spell. His footing was always secure.

In the last quarter of the formation field, Terry nearly stumbled. Not because of the gravity, but because of the faint washed out mark that he had spotted on the tunnel wall.

Another one of these marks? Terry creased his brows.

I get dungeon marks. The first dungeon divers placed them during the initial mapping of a dungeon. When dungeons first appeared, there was little choice, because they didn’t have any alternatives.

What’s the point of these marks though?

Terry was still getting an incongruous feeling from this secret realm.

Eventually, he chalked it up to the whole thing simply being too unfamiliar.

Perhaps my mind is just trying to interpret these in terms of what I’m more familiar with.

Probably pointless.

Focus.

Terry shrugged and finished crossing the mana formation.

“Now that you have tasted the pain of your foolishness, do you want to escape?” asked the monotone voice.

Terry scrunched up his face.

How can this realm soul or spirit or whatever be intelligent enough to detect that I’ve crossed the formation field while at the same time, it’s too stupid to detect that I never made contact with the floor and whatever ‘pain’ it was supposed to inflict?

“Wait…” Terry narrowed his eyes. “Why is this thing even still speaking to me? What ‘escape’? What happened to ‘After you have embarked on your path, it will be too late’?”

Mind games.

“Screw this.” Terry scowled and continued walking forward.

After continuing for several minutes, Terry’s mana detection field warned him of incoming projectiles from ahead. His instincts reacted before his conscious mind had a chance to think and a second later, the translucent projectiles were transfixed in the air for Terry to examine.

Nearly invisible needles, only a slight reflection of the light, like a water’s surface.

“Traces of poison-aspected mana and a liquid coating, presumably poison as well.” Terry’s expression darkened. “If this tunnel is human-made, then the creator is a piece of shit.”

Works for me though. He swiped the projectiles into his dimensional storage. One can never have enough throwing weapons. Or blades. Or secret weapons. “Or rope, or boulders…” Terry’s mutterings stopped. “Even pebbles, I guess.”

My hoarding habit might be getting out of control.

“As long as there is space in storage, who cares?” Terry mumbled and continued walking. “Hard to see needles should come in handy, even if the traces of the poison aspect make them detectable in mana sight.”

If your mana sight is sensitive enough to pick the traces up that is.

“The smallest setbacks can linger in your soul to form mental demons that will break you apart.” The monotone voice interjected. “Negligence and hubris are a cultivator’s downfall.”

Terry halted his steps and looked incredulously at the walls. “Is this supposed to be some veiled hint at the fact that these projectiles were poisoned?”

He rolled his eyes and inhaled sharply. “Is this how martialists educate the next generation? Throw them into an asylum with all the others and then have them jump through lethal hoops while suffering vague ramblings in the background?”

“Ugh…” Terry groaned loudly and took up the pace to get through the tunnel more quickly.

***

“Cultivation means to defy the heavens to begin with! You did well to push through your doubts and…”

“Yeah yeah, zip it already.” Terry had enough of the monotone voice monologuing in the background. He was finally at the end of the tunnel and hoped that this would represent the end of whatever trial the creator had cooked up for this section.

Terry saw a circular platform at the center of stone that was covered in tiny inscriptions. Mana-infused liquid was flowing through countless small lowered areas, all intertwining and swirling around each other to create a complex pattern of mana.

“Is this supposed to be the dao chamber?” Terry mumbled to himself while his eyes and mana darted all around the cavern.

“Huh, another mana distortion.” Terry noted the location. “Should be an exit.”

I wonder if the other teleportation field leads to the same location as this one. Or was the first one a trap?

Is this one a trap?

Mind games.

I hate unanchored transfers.

Terry grumbled inwardly and examined the central platform more closely without stepping on it.

“Assuming this is the dao chamber, I should perhaps make some preparations.” Terry retrieved a mechanical watch from his storage and placed it on the floor. He noted down the time on it in one of his notebooks.

I don’t know if it’s possible to get out of this ‘meditation’ state at will. I also don’t know how much the perceived time dilation will be.

“I don’t even know if it would work for me,” added Terry while retrieving more items from his storage.

I would rather not have my active spells run out before I can do anything. I would prefer to keep an exit under my control…

Terry had a good grasp of how long his compressed spell structures would be able to stay active as long as no one interfered directly with them. The tertium items were still blocking the passage from closing behind him.

During his stay in Thanatos, Terry’s spell control and mana foundation had improved significantly, more so even than in previous years.

While his mana touch discovery and items like the concealment necklace for regeneration training had played an important role in his spell control improvements, the most important factor was probably the fact that Terry had been forced to fight without any items when he had started in the Proving Grounds. There was only his mana foundation, single spell, and body.

Terry might hate to agree with Damian, but without the distractions of his weapon and inscription training, he had had a lot more time to focus on his mana-related skills.

‘The best technique is whichever one you keep training with.’

Terry recalled something his mother Isille had said when he and his siblings had started their first day of weapons training, a statement she had attributed to her own father.

“Yeah well, I still need to cover my weaknesses.” Terry retorted to himself. “And I have plenty.”

My defense has gotten a lot better. Otherwise, I would not have made it out of Thanatos.

My offense still sucks hard, especially at range. If the fight in Thanatos would have been about more than just standing my ground until the teleportation activates, I would have lost miserably.

“Stupid Thanatos stealing my mana sublimator,” grumbled Terry. He missed the item that the elven woman Poppy had sold to him in Tiv’s Chara Settlement. Even though using up mana cores was tremendously wasteful, the mana sublimator had been the most powerful mana-based attack that he had ever had access to.

Terry prepared a bucket with water and transfixed it above the central platform. He made sure that this Immovable Object spell would deactivate early enough for him to backtrack and recharge the spells that secured his exit into the initial cavern.

“Time to give it a test.” Terry sat cross-legged on the platform.

Nothing happened.

Terry puffed his cheeks and looked around. “Oh, right. That would make sense…” Terry sunk his mana into the platform underneath. Instantly, he felt his consciousness sucked away with his mana, similar to the sensation of scanning the items in his dimensional storage.

“Congratulations, challenger.” A monotone voice echoed directly in Terry’s head and suddenly, Terry found himself in a world of nothing but white emptiness.

“Creepy…” Terry’s mental image of himself exclaimed. He examined his equipment… and his body parts. Everything was where it should be. He tentatively burst his mana but it caused no reaction. “This weird space supports the mind magic theory.”

“We have evaluated your performance. You have not hesitated in your path and reached the goal rapidly. You qualify for the highest level of time dilation. A hundred hours of experience here will take only an hour outside. You may train here for up to seven days total.”

“Wow.” Terry blurted out. “That would be nearly two years. What’s the catch?”

I’m still not believing that this is real time dilation either.

“Which technique do you want to train? Please demonstrate it, so that we can adjust the space accordingly.”

“There we go.” Terry frowned slightly. If this only works with martial techniques, I’ll have a problem.

“Once chosen, you may not change the technique to train anymore. Choose wisely.”

Terry crossed his arms and closed his eyes while thinking.

I could just train my spell, I guess? But what if it doesn’t work with spellwork? Would it allow me to choose something else or would the chance be lost completely?

Assuming it works, would further spellwork training really be the best idea?

What else? Discharges? Similar questions to spellwork…

The Unstoppable Shift combination? Would that even be considered as a single technique? Even more uncertain than the individual parts.

Mana foundation training?

No…

Terry made up his mind. Deep down, he knew exactly what he wanted to train. He knew what he was lacking. He knew what he had been forced to neglect during the past year.

Terry retrieved a silvery roll with dense inscriptions from his storage item.

Martialists are using plenty of weapon techniques, which means that this space should in theory be able to handle item usage.

In theory.

Shortly after, Terry was equipped with four divine hammer inscriptions, two on his forearms and two on his legs.

Terry channeled mana into the inscriptions to summon layers of divine mana. He created them in circles around himself while switching round-robin through his different bandages. He felt a bit nervous at the lack of response from the monotone voice.

“Are you sure that you want to train this technique?” The voice finally spoke. “We are not detecting any mana resonance. Even though this space is not able to fully replicate the real world, it is close enough for anything up to mid heaven-tier techniques. Demonstrate another technique if you want to switch.”

Terry grinned widely and happily waited for the voice to continue.

“Acknowledged. The space will be adjusted accordingly. All unrelated mana will cease to exist here.”

“Huh?” Terry stared at the nothingness ahead. A feeling of nausea washed over him together with slight disorientation.

Terry anxiously noted that he was not able to sense mana from his other equipment anymore, not even from his storage items.

“Oh mana.” Terry’s eyebrow twitched. Please let this be mind magic. If I just broke my dimensional storage, I’ll—

“You may start your training now.” A pillar of red light appeared at one location, standing alone in an ocean of white. “You may interrupt your training at any time, but a cultivator should learn to focus. Frequent interruptions will reduce both your insights as well as the time remaining in this space.”

“Reduce the remaining time by how much?” Terry asked reflexively before frowning at himself. “I forgot that this thing doesn’t know how to reply.”

Terry stood up and walked to the pillar of red light. He discovered that the pillar was surrounded by a red line drawing a circle around the pillar. The line was shrinking as time passed.

Terry crouched down and used his finger to point at the end of the line and began counting. After a minute, Terry roughly measured how much the line had moved and tried to estimate how much time the total line indicated.

“Fits roughly.” Terry nodded. “A countdown for the remaining time.”

Terry removed his magic brooch and placed it at a position that showed the time when he had to leave in order to recharge the active Immovable Object spells in the real world.

Afterwards, he began practicing the usage of the divine hammer inscription. When he noticed that his mana did not seem to diminish in this space, Terry could not help but grin widely.

***

“So much for my smart safety implementations.” Terry grumbled and tried to ignore the wetness on his helmet and armor. His bucket solution, that had worked perfectly fine as an alarm clock when napping in immovable cubes in the sky, had proved insufficient to wake him up from meditation.

He noted that his equipment was still as he had left it here. He was still wearing the magic brooch that summoned shadow fabric. On his left arm, he was wearing only the bidirectional attraction glove and no divine hammer inscription. Just like before entering that weird space.

The clock he had left behind confirmed that only two hours had passed.

Terry frowned. If the meditation is that enthralling, I should make sure to block the passage with tertium slabs. At least the opened cube I left at the initial entrance. I don’t like the idea of sitting here without being able to react to anything.

One more reason to take regular breaks and get back here. Who cares if I’m losing some time in that space? I never expected something like that to begin with.

How come these martialists seem so fine with sitting around unprotected in such a vulnerable state in a place like this? Their whole attitude is completely—

“Guess I shouldn’t complain, I’m fine and I’m still on time.” Terry dashed through the passage to recharge his active spells. He subconsciously smiled when running on layers of divine mana.

Two hours outside had been two hundred hours of perpetual training with the inscription inside. He had never lacked for mana. He had never felt tired.

It was monotonous, to be sure, but Terry found excitement in progress, and sometimes even in failure.

Whenever Terry had desired for a change, he tried something new with the inscription.

Another way to channel mana through it.

Another way to stack or weave the layers.

All of his creative experiments had ended in failures, but they were all ideas crossed off a list, leaving Terry’s head free for new things to try.

“Every failure allows me to get that much closer to getting it right.” Terry muttered wistfully during his dash.

***

Three days later, Terry was dashing once more towards the original cavern. A sense of pride welled up in him whenever his feet touched the layers of divine mana. They had become much more robust, much less fragile.

If Terry had to rank his training goals by order of how much he felt he was succeeding, then it would be: range, durability, size, and movement.

Truthfully, Terry would be unwilling to even include movement at all considering he was still failing utterly at moving even the tiniest layer of divine mana without it falling apart instantly. He had little hope of making any large leaps during the remaining half of the allotted time and was counting instead on incremental progress of the aspects he already understood to some degree.

Terry knew that he only had three days left, even though the initial duration was promised to be seven. The missing day was the cost of what he was currently doing: interrupting his training whenever he needed to recharge his active spells outside.

At least I managed to quantify the cost with the help of that timer at the red pillar of light.

Terry tried to not dwell on it. Perhaps it really was a waste of an opportunity, but he still stubbornly refused to let go of his spells that were securing the passage back into the original cavern.

Perhaps it was to remind himself that the time spent inside the other space was not real, or diluted, or however that really worked. He was getting used to spending time with himself, even though he had to work hard to not let some of his past dungeon habits resurface.

Terry held onto his sanity but that required assurances. Assurances that the time flying by was limited to himself. He knew the time alone was a way to return to his family more quickly. That's what kept him sane. The knowledge that he was increasing his chances. This wasn’t time lost to his loved ones. He did not have to worry a hundred-fold about what might happen to his friends and family in the meantime.

With the frequent breaks, Terry spent rather a sequence of many weeks in training as opposed to what could have been nearly two years at once. He reserved some time for each break. Taking notes, eating, taking notes, sleeping, taking notes, reading, taking more notes.

“What…” Terry peered through the immovable tertium cube and paused. At the center of the cavern that led to the nine passages, a small mana-infused plant was growing.

Terry was certain that the plant had not been there in the beginning. He cautiously squeezed himself through the opening in the immovable cube and walked towards the plant.

Unexpectedly, he had to stop after a few steps. The closer he stepped, the more exhausted he felt. He even felt slightly thirsty all of a sudden.

Terry hurriedly retreated back to the other side of the tertium cube. He reflexively transfixed a tertium slab in front of the opening again. He was feeling increasingly conflicted about leaving this passage open at all.

***