Chapter 24: Experiments and Efficiency

  It’s been a week since the first teleportation in the Sunless Reach. I spent most of it alone, sitting by the ruins with my journal open and the stars gleaming silently overhead. The nights in the Reach are endless, and I often get lost in my research, barely keeping track of time.

  It was perfect, and I did a lot of testing during that time.

  First study: Mana decay.

  I left Star-mana inside my spear for two days, just letting it sit there, untouched, placed gently on the stone floor inside the dome. I didn’t use it for anything, not even pick it up. Then, I tried using the Star-mana inside the spear to teleport.

  It worked.

  The magic held.

  That meant Star-mana didn’t decay in the spear. Unlike in my body, where it started blending and settling within minutes, the spear kept it unchanged. Like a battery, I could charge it ahead of time.

  Second study: Mana cost efficiency.

  This one took longer. I’ve been meditating a lot on my mental state, on how I form my wishes. The results surprised me.

  It turns out the more focused and certain I am, the less mana it costs. There’s definitely some emotional component, like I suspected. When I picture the destination vividly and formulate an exact wish, it’s almost like this magic respects that clarity. The drain becomes manageable.

  Vague wishes bleed energy.

  Precise intent saves it.

  It’s not just about visualizing the space; it’s about believing I can be there: Al Yaqin. That certainty cuts the cost by a third, sometimes more.

  Third test: Mass teleportation.

  I got a chicken from one of the mountain villagers. Of course, I paid for it; I am not a thief. I held the spear in one hand and the chicken in the other, focused on both of us, and wished: "I want to appear next to the dome with the chicken." It worked.

  Mostly…

  The chicken made it through just fine, clucked once, fluffed its feathers, and hopped around my camp pecking for food.

  But at what cost?

  It nearly flattened me. I collapsed afterward, breathing hard, limbs shaking. It was like sprinting while carrying someone on my back. The drain was exponential.

  Conclusion: I can teleport with another living creature, but it costs a lot. It’s probably possible to bring a person, but I’d better be sure it’s worth it. Last resort only.

  On a small note, I’ve done a lot of killing since I arrived in this world, mostly rats and spiders, but I also killed the moon hare. Still, there was a different kind of guilt in killing an animal that trusted me enough to jump into my hands.

  That chicken soup was not worth it.

  Fourth study: Other wishes that didn't involve teleport.

  I could somehow tell, intuitively, that my power wouldn't respond if I wish for anything other than teleport, still I needed to try just to be sure. It didn't work my star mana didn't even interact with them at all.

  Fifth study: Astronomy.

  Not everything this week was magical testing. I’ve spent hours lying on my back, just watching the sky. And I’ve noticed a few things.

  The laurel crown constellation, the one Vena showed me during our first sleepover, doesn’t move at all, not with rotation, not in orbit. It’s fixed, like a celestial compass. No matter what direction I face, it hovers in the same part of the sky.

  Other objects do move bright points that drift slowly across the stars. I counted five of them, maybe six: Planets, I think. They’re large and stable enough to have visible orbits.

  One of them is especially big and bright white, too bright to be a planet, possibly a star.

  If this is a solar system, and it seems to be, then I’m standing on a planet orbiting a single real star. This means the two suns that provide daylight in Hano aren’t natural stars. Magical constructs? Maybe something artificial.

  I’ll need a telescope to confirm any of this. Maybe Nina can help.

  Astronomy isn’t my specialty; I was more of an astrology kind of girl. Most of what I remember comes from Earth documentaries, late-night Wikipedia spirals, and YouTube shorts with Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson. But it’s still exciting. Just seeing the night sky from a different world makes me feel small and thrilled all at once.

  There’s more to discover up there and even more to understand.

  And somehow, I’m part of it now.

  Teleporting back to Hano took a bit of planning. I waited for a shooting star and loaded my spear with as much Star-mana as it could hold. I didn’t want to waste energy on the return trip. The moment the next streak lit the sky, I focused, pictured Nina’s workshop, and made the wish:

  “I want to appear near Nina, without breaking anything.”

  A heartbeat later, I stood between a row of giant lace fans and musical instruments made of wood. Nina was bent over a furnace, shaping some glass lances.

  She didn’t even blink. “You can teleport now. Neat?”

  “Yep,” I grinned. “You were right when you said my soul resonates with teleportation.”

  “I knew it was uncannily compatible with the Nightmare Soul I used in your spear.”

  “Right! I don’t use normal mana, but something else.” I held up my spear. “And I can store that energy in it.”

  “That makes sense,” she nodded. “It’s not bloodline magic, so it doesn’t use regular mana.”

  “I was hoping you could help me make it hold more energy.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Let me see.”

  She took the spear and examined it carefully.

  “Hmm… I can’t feel the energy you’re talking about at all.”

  “Can you enhance it?”

  Nina made a face halfway between a shrug and a wince. “Maybe? If we had another Nightmare Soul, but I’d need to be in a Creation State to attempt it.” She frowned, rubbing the back of her neck. “And I doubt that’ll happen again so soon, especially with the same project.”

  “Right,” I sighed.

  “The spear has a pseudo-soul. It might grow stronger if you use it to kill nightmares or other teleporting creatures. But that’s a really slow process.”

  I pulled out my notebook and flipped to one of the more sketch-covered pages. “Also… could you help me build this?”

  Nina raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  “It’s a telescope.”

  She leaned in. “Oh! Like a microscope, but reversed.”

  I grinned. “Exactly! It has a longer focal length to collect distant light. I want to see some of the stars and planets I’ve been observing.”

  Nina nodded thoughtfully. “I could do this. I learned a lot about how lenses work on the last project, but we’ll need to test the precise curvature. You can leave it with me.”

  I left her to it and headed to the temple next.

  Vena met me just outside the makeshift lab, her robes tied casually around her waist, sleeves rolled to the elbows.

  “You’re back,” she said, hugging me before I could answer. “That spear trick was amazing. How did you do it?”

  I spent a few minutes explaining my newly discovered powers and how they worked.

  “Is the vaccine ready?” I asked once I finished.

  She nodded. “It’s working. The piglets are immune, and we’re getting permission to start field trials in slums near the river.”

  “That’s amazing,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Is Sana around?”

  “She and the other senior clerics are with Captain Lucy,” Vena said, her tone shifting slightly. “They’re demonstrating what we’ve discovered.”

  I blinked. “Lucy? Is she a freelancer?”

  “Yes. She’s… hard to explain. Sort of terrifying, but also kind. She is a blood mage with life and water affinity, giving her a strong offense with great healing.”

  I made a mental note to ask more later. For now, I let Vena drag me down the temple stairs and out toward Silnar’s place for a bite.

  Silnar’s restaurant was louder than usual, spices heavy in the air, heat radiating from the ovens, and chatter bouncing between wooden beams. We found Louis showcasing her Knife’s Edge Soulbook ability to a crowd of customers by throwing vegetables into the air and slicing them with magic before catching them in a bowl.

  When she saw me, she shouted, “Alice!” Then immediately dropped her act and rushed toward me and Vena.

  “That was new, huh?”

  “Yep. I’ve been practicing non-stop with that ability. It’s so much better than cutting with knives,” she said proudly.

  We hugged and caught up between courses of spicy meat, crispy roots, and finished with a plate of Kanta, Silnar’s specialty; a sweet, pudding-like jelly made from tree sap.

  It was the best.

  Later that evening, I met Nakera and Kuru in a side room at the Freelancer Guild lounge.

  They were poring over some maps, scribbled notes, and cups of strong caffeinated drinks.

  “The cult’s getting bolder,” Nakera said, tapping a circle drawn around the West Market. “They’ve been targeting the newly wealthy, people who lucked into contracts or inheritance. You were on that list before you showed your temple connection and joined the guild.”

  “They already tried to jump me,” I reminded them.

  “Exactly,” Kuru said. “We think they have an informant at the Bank or the Merchant Guild watching for new contracts. It might be possible to lure them out.”

  “Using me?” I asked.

  Nakera nodded. “Or that new Soulit girl, San Ja’a, I think her name was. She’s richer and a lot flashier.”

  I frowned. “You want to dangle us like bait?”

  “It would work,” shrugged Nakera.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  We fell into a quiet moment. I turned toward the window and looked out at the guild courtyard. It was strange being back in Hano: loud, busy, and real. But my mind kept drifting upward to the stars, longing for the quiet of the Reach and the cold clarity of the night sky.

  Am I more suited to a hermit’s life?

  Probably not. I enjoy having friends.

  That night, I slept in my dorm bed for the first time in a week.

  I missed the soft pillows and clean sheets. I slept like a log and felt fresher than ever by morning.

  I was ready.

  I touched the spear, felt the Star-mana still humming inside, and whispered:

  “I want to return to the Sunless Reach, near my camp.”

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  And I was gone.

  I decided it was time to explore the tower.

  I’d already found the entrance, but it was choked beneath centuries of rubble, a jagged archway buried in the earth. I circled the base twice before spotting a narrow window only a meter off the ground, just wide enough to wriggle through if I ditched my pack. One awkward scramble later, I dropped onto dusty flagstones and used a mana stone for light.

  I considered using my phone’s flashlight; its crisp LED beam outshone any mana-light I could muster, but I decided against it. If something happened to it, replacing it would be difficult… If not impossible.

  The first chamber was small and circular, its walls lined with soot-black stone. Directly opposite the window, a rectangular aperture framed a swath of sky like a picture in a gallery. Above it, someone had etched a star pattern into the wall, delicate grooves that caught my light and glittered. Below that, curling characters ran in a long ribbon. I couldn’t read a single glyph; the strokes reminded me of cursive writing, flowing and elegant, more like calligraphy art than standard writing.

  I breathed out slowly. Okay, one room, one constellation.

  The next room confirmed the pattern. Another narrow doorway, another circular chamber, another window aligned to the heavens. This time, the carving showed the “Hunter’s Twins,” a constellation I’d noticed during my week of stargazing. I made up that name for fun. I traced the twin lines with a fingertip, smiling at the familiarity.

  Room after room repeated the motif, sky framed, constellation incised, and cryptic script trailing beneath. Some patterns I recognized instantly: a spiral shape I called Serpent, a bow-like shape, and my favorite constellation, the one I named the Sleeping Fox, for the two small triangles over a muzzle-shaped pattern. Others were new, but I logged each shape in my journal with quick sketches and notes.

  Eventually, the corridor bent inward, funneling me to a heavy basalt door marked by a seven-pointed star enclosed in a circle. Unlike the others, this one was intact, not crumbled, and it swung open with a whisper of dust.

  The central chamber was larger than the others and completely devoid of windows. Instead, the floor itself was the artwork: a shallow relief of an entire solar system. One large star dominated the middle, its surface polished to a mirror sheen that reflected my mana light. Ten planets circled it in neat spirals, each labeled with that same unreadable script.

  I thought there were no moons until I reached the ninth sphere near the edge. Three colored dots, yellow, cyan, and magenta, clustered around it like gemstones; the same colors as the two suns and the moon visible in the Contested Realm skies.

  I knelt, heart thudding.

  “So this… this should be where we are,” I murmured, brushing grit from the orbits. “We’re so far from the system’s sun that we can barely see it at night.”

  A laugh bubbled up. So what are the twin suns above Hano?

  “They must be satellites,” I declared aloud, my voice echoing in the empty tower. “Moon-mass mirrors or light stones... maybe something magical. They can’t be real stars or their gravity would rip this world apart. And if the sun is that far, those constructs must be the primary source of heat too.”

  Satisfied and mildly vindicated, I found a stairwell spiraling upward.

  Each landing repeated the earlier pattern: a few constellation rooms with sky-facing windows, then a central room dedicated to the system near the stars.

  “I wish I could read the text,” I sighed.

  I climbed slowly, cataloging the sky murals. Halfway up, something pricked at my nerves: the laurel crown constellation, the one that never moved, the one sacred to the Holy Faith, was absent.

  The realization lodged like ice under my ribs.

  These ruins predate the Faith. Did the Faith rewrite the heavens?

  That was an unsettling thought.

  Higher and higher, the dust thickened, the air turned cold, and at last the staircase opened onto the topmost floor. Starlight from open roof panels bathed a vast circular space. In its center stood a brass telescope larger than a wagon, split along its tube as if lightning had cleaved it, verdigris streaked the metal, and Shattered lenses glittered like frost across the floor.

  I stepped closer, mesmerized. Even in ruin, it was beautiful. It was proof that the ancient telepaths were more technologically advanced than the current civilization. I imagined what it had once shown, swirling nebulae, planetary crescents, and more.

  Something flared.

  Too close.

  A crackling hiss erupted behind the telescope.

  I pivoted… but a jagged bar of white-blue lightning slammed into my chest.

  Pain detonated under my sternum. Every muscle seized. I tasted copper, smelled my own singed hair, and my mana stone shattered, bleeding the space into relative darkness.

  Through watering eyes, I found the brightest source of light.

  A whorl of charged vapor and static, coalescing like a living thunderhead: a sky elemental.

  It pulsed again, preparing another bolt.

  “Nope.”

  I clenched my spear, still laced with Star-mana, and forced a thought through the agony.

  I want to be outside, near my camp, now.

  The wish ripped free, yanking on every thread of mana I owned. The tower, the elemental, even the thunder in my ears, vanished.

  I landed on cold rock beneath the open sky, gasping. My heart thundered like a drum. A faint smell of ozone drifted from my scorched leather, and my hair felt crispy at the ends.

  But I was alive.

  Probably because of my high sky affinity, my lightning drills with Garo, and because I could teleport.

  I rolled onto my back, staring up at the immutable laurel crown far above.

  “Note to self,” I croaked. “Next time… bring grounding rods. Or maybe Raik, so he could cast a fireball.”

  I caught my breath while the tower ruins loomed silent beyond the ridge, still full of secrets, still waiting for someone who could read the ancient script, or at least another fool who could fight better than I.

  I packed up my gear with shaking hands, heart still hammering from the lightning strike. I was in bad shape. My ribs ached, and my chest still buzzed faintly, like I’d swallowed a live wire.

  I needed Vena.

  I waited for a shooting star, recharged my spear with Star-mana, and then wished upon the 2nd one.

  “I want to appear safely next to Vena.”

  The magic took hold, and I blinked into steam.

  For a full second, I had no idea where I was. Then I heard splashing. I felt heat on my skin. The air was thick with lavender and mineral salts.

  I was standing knee-deep in hot water, leather boots submerged, armor soaked, wearing my backpack, and holding my spear in my hand.

  Across from me, Vena froze mid-motion, her fingers tangled in her wet hair. She was naked.

  So were a dozen other women scattered around the Freelancer Guild’s public bath.

  A few gasped. Some stared. One woman just rolled her eyes and went back to exfoliating her elbows.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly, raising my hands. “Teleportation accident.”

  The room responded with a polite mix of giggles, groans, and shrugs. Mercifully, no one screamed. A few resumed chatting like nothing had happened.

  Vena sighed, flicking water off her fingers. “Let’s talk in your room.”

  As she stood, something absurd happened.

  A beam of soft golden light burst into existence and trailed up her body, obscuring everything from collarbone to thigh like a magical censorship bar. It sparkled faintly.

  I blinked hard. “Am I hallucinating? Did the sky elemental fry my brain?”

  Vena glanced down. “Oh. This?”

  She made a vague gesture at the beam. “I’m a cleric, remember? A living embodiment of purity.”

  “That didn’t happen last time we bathed together in the orphanage.”

  She shrugged, casual as ever. “Either a man is peaking at the bath… or more likely, one of the women here is attracted to me.”

  I gawked. “That’s how it works?”

  “Yep,” She sounded entirely too smug.

  I tried to look around to see if anyone was paying extra attention to Vena. I couldn’t tell for sure, I mean when someone is glowing bright with the light, of course, people would stare.

  When she stepped out of the pool, the light shimmered once and vanished as she toweled off. Meanwhile, I stood awkwardly in my drenched gear, leaking water across the tile like a half-drowned puppy.

  By the time she was dressed, I was pruned and soggy. She handed me a spare towel out of pity, then led the way back to my room.

  Once inside, I removed my wet gear and changed into a comfy tank top and shorts I had brought from Earth. Vena had me lie flat on the bed while she examined the burn across my chest. It wasn’t deep; my collarbone was slightly charred, but it still hurt like hell.

  She pressed glowing fingers to the edges of the burn, humming softly.

  “That’s nasty,” she said. “Lightning damage?”

  “Yeah. I got ambushed by a sky elemental.”

  “Aren’t elementals big? How do you get ambushed by something the size of a carriage?”

  “It was hiding behind a giant telescope,” I sighed.

  “Did you know the ancients had telescopes? It’s like a microscope, but for stars.”

  “Really? I wonder if they had medical knowledge like you.”

  She applied more healing magic to the wound, and I winced slightly from the sting.

  “If you hadn’t built up so much lightning resistance over the past few months...” “I’d be fried chicken,” I joked. “Extra crispy.”

  She finished healing me and gently tapped my forehead with two fingers. “Try not to nearly die for at least a week, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.” I hesitated. “And… thanks. And sorry about the teleport. I’m still getting the hang of it.”

  “How does that work, anyway?”

  “I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet.” I looked her in the eyes. “I don’t think I’m from the Seven Realms.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Not even the sealed realm?”

  “I doubt it.” I shook my head. “In my world, people stopped believing in magic. Instead, they created wonders using science and engineering. I didn’t… I kept believing in magic and tried to study it. Until one day, I was somehow able to wish upon the stars. So I wished for a world with more magic.”

  I smiled softly. “That was when we first met.”

  “Wait… you can just wish for something and it happens?”

  “No, not exactly. I can only wish for teleportation. Just… places to be.”

  “No restrictions? You don’t have to visit a place first? You could just wish to appear inside the Holy Palace of the Veil Kingdom? Or next to the Lady?”

  “Yeah, those things aren’t going to happen. I have no idea where I’ll end up. I can mitigate it somewhat with a well-formulated wish, but I’m not risking appearing next to a godlike figure while she’s fighting an ancient evil or something.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Oh… I have a better idea. Could you wish to be near the legendary sword of Calabrum?”

  “Much better idea… but it is still too risky. What if the sword was underground and I ended up buried alive?”

  “I guess you have to think of a foolproof wish,” she nodded. “But for now, you need rest.”

  She stood to leave, pausing at the doorway. “Goodnight.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  I flopped back onto the bed with a groan.

  That was an eventful day.

  Hopefully, tomorrow will be calmer.

  …Yeah, right.

  Not with the experiment I have in mind.