Chương 494: B8—Chapter 1: Atsupa

Al wanted so badly out of a Genomey world that he didn't even touch the Gate, and looked as excited as he was capable of. Which meant not much, but for Al, it was the equivalent of jumping up and down and waving cheerleader pom-poms. I touched the Gate only out of curiosity, since we all knew that no matter where it led, we'd take it. When Mahya did, her face fell. She opened her mouth to say something, glanced at Al, and closed it with a click.

Travelers Gate #368557200 Destination: Atsupa Status: Integrated Mana level: 19 Threat level: Very low The other side opened onto a wide grassland plain with grass up to our knees, broken only by the occasional boulder—two of those serving as the anchors—with mountains rising in the far distance. I took a deep breath, and my whole body relaxed, like something unclenched that I hadn't even noticed was tight. Maybe the colors were normal. Green grass, brown earth, gray stone.

None of Marita's crazy palettes or eye-straining contrasts. Still, it was breathtaking in its own way. I missed the endless nature of low mana worlds. The gnomes had plenty of wild lands too, but they always came with twists. A forest was never just a forest. It was a scary forest. A lake never stayed a lake. It came with huge floating leaves, full of opinions, and a desire to bounce us off. It was interesting, sure, but it wasn't the same. In low mana worlds, nature was just nature. Endless and beautiful.

You didn't need to check the sky for lightning birds, the water for mana-sucking coffee-bean doughnuts, or the forests for massive nightmare bears waiting for a snack. You could walk, breathe, and think without running threat assessments every five minutes. Yes, I agreed with Mahya that places like this were relatively boring. But boring was quiet, and quiet was peaceful. And peaceful was exactly what the doctor, or a Healer in my case, prescribed. Some downtime. Space to breathe.

Time to let ideas settle and projects take shape without the world trying to eat us in creative new ways. A black creature jumped out of the grass and bit my hand. It couldn't even break the skin, and its jaw strength left much to be desired. It didn't hurt or anything, just a mild feeling of pressure, like an overly enthusiastic hair clip. The creature stayed attached to my hand, dangling there as if this was going exactly according to plan. I lifted my hand closer to my face and examined it.

The body looked vaguely rabbit-like, all compact and springy, but the face was more like a Chihuahua's, complete with bulging eyes. To really sell the look, it had a pair of small demon horns poking out of its skull. More of them jumped out of the grass. Suddenly, there were several hanging from Mahya's hands and sleeves, one clamped onto Al's coat, and another dangling from Rue's ear. Rue growled, low and dangerous.

The one attached to him froze, visibly reconsidered its choice, pissed itself, let go, and hopped away as fast as its legs could manage. I pressed on the jaws of the one still hanging from my hand and tossed it aside, stronger than intended. I expected it to fly maybe a meter or two. Instead, it sailed over ten, trilling the entire way like it was on a very unpleasant amusement ride. That seemed to send a clear message to the rest of the "attackers."

They detached almost in unison and scattered back into the grass, this time chirping loudly as they hopped away at top speed. Interesting critters. The Map showed three large continents connected by long land bridges and wide stretches of shallow water, forming a single enormous landmass. The coastlines were jagged, with vast bays, long peninsulas, and inland seas cutting deep into the land. Rivers crossed entire regions before reaching the sea, branching through plains, forests, and rocky highlands.

Beyond the main landmass lay two smaller continents separated by wide seas, with countless islands scattered between them. We had arrived through the Gate on the northeastern edge of the main landmass, close to the open sea. From there, the land stretched inward through broad grasslands, dense forests, and mountain ranges that ran for hundreds of kilometers.

The only other Gate on the same landmass was marked on the far northwestern side, near a massive bay and surrounded by uneven terrain and natural bottlenecks formed by the land bridges. Reaching it meant crossing nearly the entire landmass. There were two other Gates, each on one of the smaller continents beyond the main landmass, separated by wide stretches of open sea. Right now, we weren't interested in them. We had three big continents to explore. We stayed in the grasslands for almost two months.

They were wide and open, with no people in sight, and even the weather cooperated. Warm days that weren't too hot, with occasional rain. Mahya wanted to work on her spaceship, and the open plains gave her all the space she needed. I wanted to advance my acquisition of the enchanter profession, and Al wanted to learn basic smithing to create proper metal bases for enchantments.

He set up on the deck with various tools, some metal golem balls, and the stone forge made from the malleable stone with the firestone inside. Curious, I walked over and watched him turn a half-finished metal plate in his hands.

"Why bother with metal?" I asked.

"I've been enchanting wood just fine." Al brushed the ash from his fingers before setting the piece down.

"Wood and stone are serviceable, but they are not ideal once you begin layering enchantments." He tapped the plate with a knuckle, producing a dull sound.

"Metal holds its structure under stress. It distributes mana more evenly, and it does not develop micro-fractures as readily when the flow fluctuates. When an enchantment fails on wood or stone, it cracks. When it fails on metal, it usually survives long enough for you to notice and fix the mistake. And if you do not notice it, you can always remelt the metal." He glanced up at me.

"In short, metal is more forgiving. And when one is experimenting, forgiveness is valuable." I had originally planned to set metalworking aside, but after hearing his explanation, it was hard to argue with his logic, so I joined him. We tried various ways to produce an even metal base until Mahya saw our struggles and lent a hand. I thought she would actually teach us smithing, but no.

Instead, she dumped the biggest pile of metal parts I had ever seen in my life, most of them purchased from the gnomes, waved at it, and said, "See what type of bases you want, and we'll go from there." It took Al and me four days to sort through the whole thing. We argued, tested, discarded ideas, then circled back to them again, until we finally settled on three simple bases that made sense for what we wanted to do.

A flat, round disk for general-purpose enchantments, a narrow bar for tools and fittings, and a ring for small personal charms. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Once we made our choice, Mahya stepped in and took over with her own forge and a collection of large stones. She laid the stones out on the ground, then carved the molds and shaped each cavity to match the bases we had picked.

She worked methodically, preparing the mold material, packing it down, and pressing each base into it to shape it. After that, she cut a few simple channels for the metal to flow and the air to escape, checked the edges, and set the molds near the forge to harden. By the time she was done, we had a small line of solid molds ready for pouring.

"Don't rush this part," she said, brushing stone dust from her hands as she checked the edges.

"If the mold is sloppy, everything after it will be sloppy too." She showed us how to prepare the molds first, warming them just enough so the metal would flow rather than shock-cool on contact. Then she showed us the correct way to pour, keeping it steady and guiding the molten metal into the cavity without splashing.

"Slow," she said, without looking up.

"Let the metal settle. If you fight it, it will fight back." When it was our turn, Al went first. He moved carefully, shoulders tense, following her instructions to the letter. The pour was not perfect, but it filled the mold cleanly. Mahya nodded. I went next, and she corrected my grip before I even started.

"Closer to the balance point," she said, adjusting my hands.

"You want control, not strength." By the end of the session, cooling molds stood all around us, and the sharp, metallic smell of fresh castings filled the air. None of the bases were flawless, but they were solid. More importantly, we understood the process well enough to repeat it without breaking anything or setting ourselves on fire. Al kept practicing with the metal, but I handled a different task. My Storage still held various things I'd picked up at flea markets on Earth and in China.

I had sold or donated a lot, but not everything. There was still an extensive collection of glassware and metalware, some linen and towels, and other odds and ends that I could easily sell in a low mana world. I set all those things aside and began enchanting them. Of course, not the linen and towels. Knives got the sharpness rune, glass got the durability rune, and iron got the anti-rust rune.

Al said that once the Guidance offered the class, it would be possible to progress by enchanting items made by others, so I created a small stock of enchanted goods for that stage. Fingers crossed, it would come soon. I didn't enchant everything, just enough items to start the process, and set the rest aside so I'd have something to work on when I was bored, instead of reading a book or staring at the ground from the balloon.

Mahya kept working on the mana engine she started back in the Genomey world to qualify for Arcane Mechanist. I offered my help more than once, but she refused each time, worried that any outside interference might delay or even cancel the Guidance's free class offer. She was careful to the point of obsession. Careful enough that she even avoided using the new spells we had picked up from the dungeon, afraid that short-cutting anything, even temporarily, might count against her. I thought she was being paranoid.

Eventually, I pulled up my Profile and read her the relevant section on class progression, pointing out the parts that actually mattered.

"It says shortcuts don't count as progress," I told her, skimming the text and tapping the air where the lines hovered.

"But it also says that if you study what the spell does and then recreate it yourself, that work does count. You just can't double-dip." She didn't even look up from the engine part she was adjusting.

"Exactly," she said.

"Which means if something goes wrong, I risk getting nothing. No class and no working engine."

"You're allowed to learn from it," I insisted. She finally glanced at me, unimpressed.

"Allowed doesn't mean guaranteed." That was the end of the discussion. She went back to doing something with some tubes and cogwheels, and I stopped trying to help. Instead, I took out a stack of parchment and made a mental note that we'd need to get more. With all the enchantment work I'd done recently, our stocks were dwindling. I tapped the pages with a pen, trying to come up with ideas for enchantments that might actually sell in a low mana world. After some thought, I decided to make a light thing.

I couldn't exactly call it a light bulb, since it wasn't a bulb at all, but a flat, round disc of metal. Still, the idea was the same. I was fairly sure people here would appreciate something more practical than candles or whatever they were using in this world. Of course, we hadn't yet explored any of the settlements, but based on all the information in the Archive, worlds with this level of mana didn't have a developed enchantment branch.

It took me a few days to come up with a viable idea, but when I did, my expectations were high. The first few iterations actually came out not bad at all, which somehow made it easier to nix them and keep going. I kept playing with runes and script, tweaking lines and flows until it all finally clicked. My first idea was simple enough: an enchantment that made a metal plate glow, roughly like a fifty-watt light bulb, until the mana ran out and someone had to refill it. It worked. Worked well, even.

I was very proud of it. Then reality caught up with me. Very few people in worlds like this had classes, and even fewer had magical classes that could channel mana on demand. Expecting people to regularly recharge a light was optimistic at best. That idea died right there. My next attempt was more ambitious. I designed a proper magic circle that produced the same effect but pulled mana from the air instead.

I cheated a little and reused the same basic structure I had built for Mahya's gizmos on the balloon, just scaled down and simplified. It also worked, and again, not badly. I still scrapped it. At this mana level, the charm, or maybe artifact was a better word, needed close to twenty hours of charging to produce an hour of light. That ratio was not going to impress anyone.

After another three days of playing with script, erasing lines, redrawing them, and occasionally growling at the parchment, I finally landed on my best idea so far. Of course, it was also the most complex one. I had to restart on over twenty metal discs before I got it right, but this time, it felt worth it. It produced the same level of light, but instead of charging mana from the air, it charged light from the sun. The exchange rate was not bad either.

For every hour it spent in direct sunlight, it could give roughly twenty minutes of steady light, which was far better than anything I had managed before. The best part was the activation. The disc didn't need commands, mana input, or fiddling. Once the ambient light dropped to the level of late twilight, the enchantment kicked in automatically. Everyone was impressed. Enough that it made Al, of all people, take out one of the rune books and start studying it in earnest.

Previously, he had only agreed to learn the runes he needed for his house. Now he studied everything, walking around most of the day, rubbing his temples from the headache, and muttering under his breath. With my idea finalized, I started producing the light discs as quickly as possible, which, sadly, wasn't very quickly at all. We didn't want the base to be too large, so we settled on a disc about fifteen centimeters in diameter. The enchantment itself was anything but simple.

It used three overlapping magic circles: one for absorbing and storing light, one for releasing it, and a third that handled activation, stability, and safety, all rolled into one. As a result, I had to work with the smallest script I'd ever attempted. Of course, I could have made larger discs or asked Mahya to create a bigger mold, but I didn't want to. The size felt right as it was, and with practice, I improved. Slowly and painfully, but noticeably. And Al was right. Metal really was the best.

It took three remelted discs for me to agree with him wholeheartedly, and by the time I ruined my twentieth disc, I was blessing him every other day for pointing it out. While I worked on my various projects, Mahya made steady progress on her engine, even if she never settled on a final version. All of them worked, technically, but each one came with its own set of issues, so she kept tearing them down and starting over. Al progressed in smithing far more than I did and even started playing with basic enchantments.

Using the ring mold, he fashioned a fire starter. It didn't shoot fire or anything dramatic, just sparks, but it was miles better than flint and steel or anything else I'd seen in Shimoor. It recharged from the person's personal mana field and was activated by touching a specific rune. I helped him with that part, but only on paper. He guarded his chance to get a class or profession as jealously as Mahya and wasn't taking any risks. Rue had a different kind of fun.

He chased the devil rabbits, played on his Skyrush, napped in the sun, and stopped for lunch a few times a day. All in all, it was a promising start to a new world, a great mental break, and a chance to catch up on many ideas.