21 – A Real Magus

What was magecraft?

Most magi in Nasuverse would define it as the "converting magical energy into a phenomenon—a Mystery—that abnormally transforms the external world".

But if you tried to find a definition of "Mystery", there was no commonly accepted answer, perhaps because it was a mystery.

What exactly gave magecraft power? How does it convert the magical energy into Mystery? In normal science, physical laws could be observed, tested, replicated, and comprehended as set of consistent principles.

With magecraft, although magi did apply scientific and logical methods to it, it simply didn't work in a perfectly logical manner even if it was usually consistent, and reason for that was because of Mystery.

After all, it could hardly be considered "abnormal" if it did comply perfectly with science and logic.

If it is believed that the subject of Mystery "exists", or "could exist", then the World permits its existence. Even if it was not a definite belief, but merely the suspicion or inability to refute its non-existence, then it was something that could be a Mystery, and so long as science could not unravel the Mystery, then it would have power.

This was the paradoxical idea behind hypnotic "faith" allowing magical energy to transform the external world into "what it could be", while scientific "comprehension" turned the mysterious abnormality back into "what it should be".

The magus's art was to temporarily deceive themselves and the World around them. But where it was relatively easy to deceive oneself, and activate the magic circuits, it was not so easy to deceive the World.

Unless the magus possessed something like a Reality Marble, they could not simply force the World to accept their belief as true. They were limited by the collective faith of all humanity, of animals, other lifeforms or even inanimate objects.

Therefore, it was necessary to drawn on elaborate rituals, formulas, and rules. To build their magecraft on a Thaumaturgical Foundation, a magic system, which allowed the magus to distill the power of the infinite Root into specific finite phenomena which the World would permit, at least temporarily while it was confused.

Or that was what the magi of the Clocktower theorized.

In reality, many of these ideas could not be effectively tested and verified, but conveniently many magi believed these theories on how belief gave magecraft power. And there were magi from other Foundations that rejected it outright, such as the Yin-Yang theory of the universe.

Nevertheless, we still used a lot of these basic ideas when developing our own magecraft spells. I thought it was strange that any of our spells worked when we were in alternate realities in which those Thaumaturgical Foundations presumably didn't exist (because if they did, there would be magi using them…), but they did work somehow and I had no explanation for why that was so.

However, it quickly grew evident that a different approach would be needed to unlock the powers of the water stone, as Agate failed to make any significant progress.

And that was why I was submerged in a lake with Armoriont-grown gills, meditating while attempting to commune with the spirits inside the water stone.

I did so on a hunch that spirit magic in general, which this probably fell under, was more about immersing oneself in nature than to impose anything on it.

For the first few hours, nothing particularly interesting happened, except for the feeling of contentment that came from the spirits.

But eventually, as I simply let the spirits do whatever they wanted and tried to follow their will instead, we started to float around.

As I let the spirits take the lead, I was opened up to a much deeper connection.

I observed without seeing, without analyzing. Just moving with the water.

There was peace and serenity within the calm waters, yet power hidden in its depths.

Life was abundant and light gave it strength, some absorbed, some reflected, some refracted.

Earth and metal dissolved and diluted. The greatest poison was nothing when spread through an ocean of water.

I was drawn in to an incredibly vast network, a cycle of movement and of uncountable numbers of lifeforms.

From the lake, the currents slowly drifted and took me into flowing streams.

Water was formless, but it was shaped by the world around it, moving along the path of least resistance.

Great monuments of stone eroded over the eons, the hardest of rock unable to stand against the endless patience of water.

The spirits whispered to me all along the way, though I couldn't really understand them in any linguistic sense, I got feelings and impressions about what they wanted me to understand.

Days passed faster than I would have believed possible, like I was caught in a dream or a trance, far deeper than any meditative trance I had achieved before.

But at the end of it, I had understood a great deal more about water, the spirits, and nature as a whole.

And I also understood that I was to them an aberration to the natural order.

If Derflinger, an artificial spirit, could sense that I did not belong in this world, then what about actual nature spirits?

Although I was hesitant to ascribe any form of emotions to these entities, as I did not think they were conscious in the way that humans were, they certainly did not like me. And they didn't particularly want to help me.

They didn't like Agate either, the chaos wand I made from Louise's Void-element blood, or even the remnants of the ring of Andvari's silver band.

Perhaps the only reason they tolerated me was that I offered so much lifeforce energy to them and also destroyed the Ring of Andvari which had controlled them. Both of which they were greatly pleased about.

Although by immersing myself in the water cycle they had become a little more cooperative and allowed me to perform minor, dot level water manipulation, I had begun to think that perhaps I would need to get rid of these spirits eventually. Just because they cooperated with me now didn't mean that they wouldn't suddenly rebel if a Greater Spirit or some other more intelligent nature spirit convinced them to do so.

And given that they were nature spirits, I assumed that they were attached to this reality and empowered by the World. What would happen once I left it?

All of a sudden, I felt rather eager to leave. Once they were forcefully disconnected from this World, perhaps they would be more conducive to submitting to my will…or die so I could freely use the ocean of mana within, I thought while chuckling darkly.

Better to have the stone as a mere elemental energy source than to be reliant on uncontrollable entities that only assisted me under nebulously defined contracts. Unlike the Geas spells that I cast, there were no clear contract terms and I had no idea really what my contract spell did besides forming a mana connection with these spirits.

For a while, I contemplated whether to remove the water stone from my body. But in the end, I left it be as there wasn't anything stopping the spirits from attacking me from a distance, as Cromwell had demonstrated, nor did I have any means of sealing their power. I wasn't about to stop carrying it completely, so it would make no practical difference in protecting myself whether it was outside my body or not, and I might as well reap as much benefit as I could from it.

O O O

Deep underneath Londinium Castle, my new secret workshop had been constructed with the assistance of mages whose memories were erased with Tiffania's Void magic.

I didn't plan to keep anything particularly valuable here, but nevertheless I also had the mages apply some defensive and anti-scrying enchantments, which were similar to the ones used at the Academy Vault.

The important part was to keep the nature of the experiments a secret, which is why I told Tiffania to erase these mages' memories after they constructed the workshop for me.

As I discovered when I made a wand using Louise' blood, the ritual that created the nobles' wands converted their blood and other reagents into what were essentially artificial external magic circuits.

After conquering Albion, I acquired the secrets to the nobles' wand creation process, so I didn't have to deal with the risk of using the Chaos energy from agatespace.

Compared to natural magic circuits or even the nerve circuit I made with Shirou's method, these wand-circuits were far more limited.

A true magic circuit was simultaneously an interface which allowed the soul to control and absorb magical energies, an pathway to the soul through which Od could be drawn, a reactor that processed the raw energies of Od or mana into the activated form of magic energy, an amplifier of the energy's mystic potential, and a reserve of energy inside the body.

These external circuits were not neither interfaces nor pathways to the soul. A circuitless person couldn't command any magic with a wand because they need some other way to control magic energy and direct it into the wand.

But they were reactors, amplifiers and reserves. They could mix raw Od or mana into magic energy, and they were foci that helped mages amplify the mystic potential of magic energy. They were also made with blood, which can retain magical energy.

In the form of wands or staves, these external circuits were of limited practical use.

There was no need for it to act as a reactor because the spiritual magic circuits already processed all the collected raw Od or mana into magic energy, and the bottleneck was at the prior step, of absorbing the raw Od and mana. It didn't matter how fast you could process if you couldn't collect enough raw input.

It was slightly useful as an amplifier when the spiritual circuits were of low quality, which was the case for my artificial circuit—if I didn't have Agate.

As a reserve of energy, because it was dead and old blood outside the body, the energy still quickly evaporated, even faster than storing in vials of blood, as some early experiments showed.

But how would this change if instead of remaining external, I implanted them back into the body and connected them to spiritual circuits along with a living circulatory system?

Although magi counted the "number" of magic circuits a soul had, in reality they weren't discrete singular pipes. Just as a soul didn't have a definite physical shape, neither did spiritual magic circuits. Instead, they were spread all over the body and could interface with any part of it.

However, I knew that Shirou's method of creating circuits did involve cannibalizing the physical nerves so there was a specific physical manifestation of a part the spiritual circuits when they were channeling—a part that the wand-circuits could be physically connected to.

In the most extreme case, it should be possible to substitute implanted wand blood circuits for the nerves in that method, but I didn't want to risk any soul damage so I wasn't going to connect them directly to my soul.

First I crafted wands using alternative biological materials and organs the Armoriont could produce to see what effects there were, whether the wood could be substituted for other things and reshaped into forms other than being rigid straight sticks. Thinner, smaller, and more flexible was the goal.

It didn't take long until I found a way to integrate it directly into the Armoriont. It took much longer to figure out how exactly to connect it to my own artificial magic circuit without me consciously directing magic energy into it—this was accomplished by lining the "wand" organ with newly grown special nerves connected to the nerves that I used for my artificial circuit.

Once the initial hypothesis was proven, many exciting possibilities opened up to me. Implanting multiple such circuits, accessing multiple affinities, enhancing their quality…

After two weeks and numerous quietly disappeared prisoners, I took a major step in my development as a magus.

I got top quality blood from Square class mages from both volunteers and prisoners under the guise of religious offerings and squeezed in 30 circuits with all four classical elemental affinities into my body.

They were all around B rank in mystic amplification quality and capacity, mostly branching along the spine where my artificial spiritual circuit was based.

I also implanted another 3 each using Louise's and Tiffania's blood with their affinity to Void. Whether or not that Void affinity was anything like "Ether" or useful for my magecraft system remained to be seen, but at the least their blood made A rank quality circuits.

That made for a total of 36 blood-based physical circuits, and one artificial nerve-based spiritual circuit.

What did that mean?

A magus' magic circuits' total output could be broken down into the following main properties:

Absorption rate: The rate at which the circuits can generate raw Od from the soul, from converting food/biological energy, or absorb raw mana from the environment to be stored as Od. The rate of absorption from the soul and is generally stable, whereas the rate of raw mana absorption depends on the richness of mana in the environment.

Reaction efficiency (or Amplification): The ratio of magic energy produced from each unit of raw input

Reserve Capacity: How much Od can be stored at equilibrium, where the net natural diffusion rate is zero or negligible. Natural diffusion refers to the natural movement of mana from a higher concentration region to a lower one, and does not include the active absorption of mana from the environment by circuits in operation.

Retention: How well the circuits retained magic energy instead of allowing it to diffuse. A higher retention means the energy evaporates slower at all concentration levels.

Channeling Capacity: How much magic energy can be channeled at one time. The channeling capacity was generally much higher than reserve capacity—if a magus had access to alternative sources of magic energy, this was the limit on how much they could channel at any given time. For example, if a spell cost more than their channeling capacity just to activate, then they couldn't cast it even if they were being transferred energy from an energy bond. It was also possible to go over the limit at the cost of damage to the circuits.

There is no reaction rate because as far as magi knew, the reaction happened essentially instantaneously and simultaneously with the absorption of Od or mana.

The part where this system of measurement broke down was that energy could only be defined in relation to the work it could perform. But Od and mana did not perform any work, it was refined magic energy that was used to fuel spells.

Therefore, to calculate Od or mana levels, it was necessary to work backwards from a resulting spell effect, estimating the magic energy used, and figuring out the reaction efficiency.

The problem was that the quantity of magic energy used didn't directly correspond to spell potency. That was dependent on a large amount of unmeasurable factors such as skill, affinity, origin, traits, regression to the age of gods, mystery, time of day, the alignment of the stars, the complexity of the incantation/ritual, history of use, other magi knowing the same spell, collective beliefs and legends, degree of self-hypnotism, etc.

In the end, we could come up with numerical estimates, but they were more guesswork and bullshit than rigorous scientific findings, and why magi tended to assign broad Ranks to an entire person instead of precise numbers on each circuit.

So instead of trying to calculate the absorption rates or reserve capacities in terms of Od, it was easier to express them in terms of the resulting output magic energy, especially when comparing circuits. For example, instead of saying the capacity is 1 Od, converting at reaction efficiency of 1, to produce 1 magic energy, we can just say 1 magic energy worth of Od at whatever reaction efficiency.

Moreover, Od and mana themselves weren't fundamentally different either, it was just a convention to describe mana inside the body or outside.

Therefore, to simplify things, I will henceforth just use "mana" or "MP" to refer to any of Od, raw environmental mana, or magic energy, the way most non-Nasuverse works do, except when it's necessary to make the distinction.

Having said that, by Agate's estimates, an average magus had:

20 spiritual circuits

Absorption rate: 25 MP/day

Reserve capacity: 25 MP

Because MP would evaporate faster when gathered in higher concentrations, an absorption rate of 25 MP/day didn't necessarily mean the magus would fully recover in one day. How quickly they actually recovered also depended on the circuits' retention property, and the concentration of mana in the environment. But to simplify things, we can assume that for an average magus, it did take approximately one day to recover in a low-mana environment such as the modern Earth of Nasuverse.

With my new circuits, my own values had improved as follows:

1 spiritual circuit to 1 spiritual circuit + 36 physical circuits

Absorption rate: 1 MP to no change

Reserve capacity: 1MP to 320 MP

Based on this, it would take almost a year to refill my capacity on my own.

Fortunately, Agate could help me refill, and she had an absorption rate of 600/day, of which almost 400-500 went into maintaining core functions depending on how active she was, and reserve capacity of 1000. So she could refill her own reserves in around 10 days and mine in 3.

That put our combined maximum output without resting at 1,320 which was better than an elite magus from an old family, even though we recover a hell of lot slower.

Derflinger could also absorb mana too, but the way he did it was different and he couldn't give back the energy in a form that we could use for spells.

Nevertheless, I could now cast the omni-directional flight spell that Agate used to move, without her help so long as I had the reserves stored up, making wind stones and the Armoriont wings technically optional accessories for speed, energy efficiency, and lengthier flight time, rather than a strict necessity.

Moreover, even if Agate couldn't help me fill my reserves, my own recovery rate wasn't actually 1 MP/day.

It was possible for magi to consume their own lifeforce for more MP under dire circumstances. As long as they didn't overdo it, they could recover by eating food and resting well. The rate at which lifeforce could be converted to Od was extremely high, which made this a feasible technique to use in battle.

Due to the drawback of lifeforce itself recovering much slower than the typical absorption rate, and causing various physical vulnerabilities during the recovery phase, including potentially lethal side effects when overtaxed, most human magi considered this a last resort technique.

When comparing the energy from the soul to the lifeforce of the body, it was obvious that the former was superior. Magi with many high quality circuits possessed orders of magnitude more MP than magi who were merely physically superior, and magi families therefore emphasized breeding for circuits rather than physical genes or intensive athletic training.

To reach a level where the biological lifeforce was a significant and viable regular source of MP, the magus' body had to surpass the limits of human biology.

And that was something that I had achieved thanks to Panacea's enhancements from Worm and the Armoriont.

My digestive system could work extremely fast, allowing me to consume many times more food than a normal person if I wanted to, and the Armoriont could do it even faster, even using photosynthesis and eating normally indigestible materials.

Therefore, by feeding the Armoriont a large amount of biomass, assuming I didn't need any of it to heal wounds, I could refill some MP. At the maximum digestion rate, I could refill about 5 MP per hour. Still pretty slow, but much better than a normal human that would take several days to recover after draining their lifeforce for the same amount.

I could also just split a second Armoriont to feed on biomass when I was busy doing other things, and come back to drain energy from it.

Not bad for a month's work.

'Hurray! You're a real magus now!' Agate thought while sending mental fireworks, when I was done trying out my new capabilities.

Sadly, simply having these new affinities and higher MP levels did not mean that I had all sorts of new spells to use. Without being able to cast magic the Halkegenian noble way, and without magecraft spells to learn, it would take a very long time to independently recreate the relevant mysteries.

This was even harder than the spells we developed using the wind stone, or the expected uses of the water stone. For the wind stone, the Breeze and Flight spells only piggy-backed off of the natural float effect the stones provided—I couldn't cast them without the stones yet even if I had the wind affinity. For the water stone, it would be the spirits doing most of the work, not me.

But that was okay, the road to phenomenal cosmic power could only be taken one step at a time. Compared to the magi who bred circuits and researched for hundreds of years to advance their mysteries, I had to admit that my own progress seemed astonishing already.

So absorbed into my magical research, I was happy to stay holed up in my workshop for several more months, if not for an unpleasant surprise.

'I can't store any more Primordial Grain! I don't know what's wrong, it keeps disappearing whenever I get more.'

She first notified me of this problem a couple of weeks prior when we had 8 trips' worth, so the past two weeks had accumulated nothing. As I was in the middle of critical research, I ignored it, but once I was done with my implants, I had to contemplate the implications.

Agate had little understanding of Primordial Grain besides being able to use it to create the tunnel through Kaleidoscape, and she didn't know what materials, spells, or structures she herself was made of that allowed her to store it in the first place. This was essentially an unsolvable problem until we could find Zelretch.

Now, I actually wasn't particularly eager to meet Zelretch again—who knew if he would approve of what I'd been up to, what sorts of entertainment he would force on me, or if that Planeswalker was hanging around his trail—so I'd have be content with being unable to store more than 8 planar trips.

That in return meant that staying in this plane much longer without planeshifting felt like a bit of a waste, and I decided to make preparations for the next planeshift.

O O O

When I finally returned to Londinium, I found the kingdom still running smoothly without any new major problems or revolts, and nobody had declared war on us yet.

That was a relief, but also a bit unsettling. A little over a month had passed since I'd taken over the kingdom, and while my rule was growing more secure, it felt almost too quiet.

As far as our ambassadors' reports went, it seemed that all of the other kingdoms declined to officially recognize the new government, but did not reject diplomats either.

There was an unfortunate lack of good intelligence agents abroad working for Albion, and I lacked the skills to build an efficient spy network, so there was little I could do to find out their true intentions, short of sending Agate out for what could be days or weeks at time, which I was unwilling to do.

Were they waiting on the sidelines, watching, or were there already plans against me underway that I simply couldn't see?

On the other hand, I had to admit that perhaps it was me that had a distorted sense of urgency, as a result of the almost non-stop action I experienced in Worm. But actually, didn't politics and wars normally develop over a much longer time scale?

I consulted the history records Offensive Bias had downloaded on Earth Bet, and found that historical crusades on Earth had taken many months to organize, and often did not begin until at least a year after the initial calls for crusade.

As far as I could remember, the alliance against Albion was organized much quicker than that in the canon, but admittedly that was during an active war after Albion invaded Tristain first. So long as I did not make the first move, though it might have been wishful thinking, it seemed plausible that it would take a lot longer for the Brimiric nations to deal with me.

After giving Tiffania some final instructions, I set forth for Tristain.

O O O

"Oh, Sir Axion! You have no idea how glad I am to see you, alive and well! After hearing of the events in Albion, I had feared the worst!" Old Osmond exclaimed upon my entrance to his office and ushered me in to a seat.

"It is good to see you as well, Headmaster Osmond. Unfortunately, you were right to be fearful. I am alive yes, but most certainly not well," I said in response.

"Oh my, what ails you, Sir Axion? And do you know of Miss Longueville's whereabouts? She should have returned weeks ago, but I've heard nothing at all from her. I don't know how I ever managed without her skills, I am in desperate need of a good secretary again!" He said while gesturing to the massive piles of disorganized paperwork lying around his desk and even the shelves and floor.

"I'm afraid that Miss Longueville has passed away. It was my failure," I said gravely.

Osmond had a look of shock on him. "How did it happen?"

"It began on our way to Albion, where she confided in me the true reason for her visit and asked for my help in rescuing a friend from the chaos of the civil war. I could not in good conscience refuse her heartfelt plea, so I agreed to assist. We traveled to a secluded village in the woods, near the city of Saxe-Gotha. There, we met her friend, a kind young woman no older than the students here. She had been taking care of a number of orphaned children all by herself in that village. The most striking part was that she was a half-elf by the name of Tiffania."

"A half-elf?! Tiffania? It couldn't be…!" Osmond exclaimed in recognition.

"That's right. I didn't discover the significance of her identity until later, but it was indeed Tiffania Tudor, daughter of the late King Henry. Or so we thought…and Miss Longueville paid the price for our mistake."

"What do you mean?" Osmond leaned forward attentively.

"While her guard was down, believing that the girl was her dear friend, the girl struck her with a dagger. It was then that we discovered the terrible truth. It was not her friend at all, but an imposter, some sort of animated puppet that took her shape, to be specific. Then the children transformed into mercenaries and attacked as well, for they too were nothing more than animated puppets that reverted to their true form as dolls when defeated. I was able to dispatch them, but Miss Longueville succumbed to her wounds, as I had no healing magics capable of saving her."

At that moment, I reached into the satchel on my utility belt to take out one of the dolls I had collected from the aftermath of the battle and put it on the desk between us.

Osmond examined it with a deep frown before putting it down. "This is most troubling. I will certainly research this further. Were you able to get any clues as to who controlled these alviss?"

"I have a suspicion, but I cannot be sure. There were no mages nearby that I could find within miles. However, the doll did say that it was with Reconquista, and that they had won the civil war. I had heard rumours of Cromwell possessing Void magic, so my first thought was Myozunitonirun. What do you think? Could this magic have been done by an ordinary noble?"

Osmond brushed his beard in contemplation. "Well, alviss are a common magic, and we use them plenty here in the Academy. There are also magics for taking on the appearance of somebody else. However, I don't know of any spell that could create such intelligent alviss that one would mistake it for a real person, and certainly nothing that could operate independently, and at what seems to be an extraordinary range too. But Myozunitonirun…that too is hard to believe…but perhaps…hmm…"

The headmaster seemed to get lost in thought. Did he already know about Saito being Gandalfr? He should have had at least some inkling of it, if Colbert had researched the runes already.

"In any case, I decided to fulfill Miss Longueville's final request on my own, and set off to investigate where the real Tiffania had been taken, or to at least confirm if she still lived," I said.

"Since you are only bringing this news now, I assume there must have been complications, given that the princess soon appeared in public? Did you make contact with her?"

"Complications indeed," I said with a bitter laugh. "I immediately flew to Newcastle where I had heard Cromwell was laying siege, and I came across an active battle. While both sides were distracted, I took the chance to investigate the Lexington. Unfortunately, I had not managed to discover anything of worth by the time that spell hit."

"The Lexington? But that was…" Osmond said with wide eyes that ran up and down my form. "You mean to say that you were caught in Muurleth's monstrous spell?"

"Yes. That is the reason I could not return sooner. You are aware of what they call the Curse of Doom, yes? I could not risk returning before I was sure that I had removed the curse from my body, lest it spread."

Osmond, still in shock, said, "I did not think anybody could survive that spell. That is simply incredible."

"However, I was forced to use desperate measures to survive, and severely weakened because of it. Even now, I have only physically recovered, but it will take much longer for my magic to return to what it was. As for the princess, I did not make contact with her. I did observe her situation for a short time, and it appears that she is not being held against her will at least. Seeing as she does not know me, and I have no particular proof of my association with Miss Longueville, I decided to leave her be. She is, after all, still a half-elf, and I know not where else she would be safe. As despicable as the new administration may be, she does appear to have been assigned adequate protection."

The old man nodded tiredly. "And perhaps that is best, Sir Axion. Even in Tristain, she would not find it welcoming with the features of an elf, I am sad to say. What do you plan to do now, Sir Axion? Will you be staying at the Academy again? A month has passed already, but I'm sure the Crown will allow an extension of your stay here."

"Your offer is appreciated, but I intend to go into seclusion again to recover, after visiting Louise and Saito."

"Very well. I wish you the best, Sir Axion."

O O O

"Sir Axion is so amazing!" Louise exclaimed with stars in her eyes as I gave her and Saito a similar recounting of events while gathered in her dorm room.

"It is nothing to be proud of, Louise. In the end, I couldn't protect Miss Longueville, and accomplished little to speak of."

"But you still defeated all those alviss! Anybody else would have surely fallen!" Louise insisted.

"Never mind that. How are your studies?"

At that, she deflated with a downcast expression. "I've gotten a little better with the new explosion spells, but I still can't cast any other spells. I couldn't figure anything out with the Prayer Book either. It's just blank!"

"Don't worry too much about it. Perhaps there is some sort of key we are missing to unlock its secret," I said. Although I had an idea that it may be related to the Founder's rings, I chose not to disclose it. There wasn't any good opportunity to persuade Henrietta to part with it yet, and I figured she wouldn't be willing to hand over yet another artifact of the Founder unless Louise had some meaningful achievements she could reward. Plus, with Tiffania now under my influence and my possession of the Music Box, it might be preferable to set up Tiffania with a ring instead of Louise. But that was something to consider later.

"How about you, Saito? Getting used to life here?"

"I guess. There isn't much to do around here though," he said with a shrug. "But I can live with that."

"Better to have nothing to do than to have enemies at your doorstep," I said.

"Enemies huh? That reminds me, can I talk to you alone for a moment?" Saito asked with an uncharacteristically serious face. He had been quiet for most of the conversation too.

"Eh? Why?" Louise looked bewildered, and a little annoyed. "I'm your master, why don't you want me to hear?"

"Just some things that only people from other worlds can understand," Saito said.

"Sorry, Louise, if Saito wants to speak alone, I'll speak to him alone," I said.

"Grrr…fine! I'll go for a walk then!" She stepped out quickly, clearly unhappy.

"So, what is it?"

"That guy that took over Albion…Muurleth. Do you think he's like us too? From another world?" Saito asked.

"What makes you think that?"

"I heard some of the teachers talk about some kind of new heretical alchemy he created that has a hundred and eighteen elements."

"Ah…yes, so you noticed that."

"And that spell too, we went into town last week and saw a drawing of it in a newspaper. Of the mushroom cloud it made, I mean. That looked like a nuclear bomb."

"I can't deny that. The short answer is, yes, you're right. Muurleth is from another world. In fact, I know him."

"You do?!" Saito's eyes widened. "He's from the same world as you?"

"Well, not exactly. It's a little more complicated than that. Remember how I said I wanted to research the dimensional magic that could take you back home, but that I didn't care for using it myself to go anywhere?"

"Yeah."

"Have you stopped to think about why I'm not in a hurry to go back home like you are?"

"Huh? Now that you mention it…"

"It's quite simple really. As I told Louise already, I'm fully capable of traveling to other worlds on my own, albeit at a great cost."

"What?! Seriously? Then you can…! Why didn't tell me before?!" Saito looked at once both hopeful, and also outraged.

"Hold your horses. I said that I'm capable of traveling to other worlds, not that I can bring anyone else. I can't take anyone with me. Besides, even if I could, I have no way to travel to your specific world, if I haven't gone there before."

"Oh…"

"I'm bringing this up now because like me, Muurleth can also travel to other worlds on his own power, though I don't know how he does it. We've fought several times in the past when we were on the same world. I didn't think it was possible for him to follow me though. I still don't know if he really did follow me here, if he got summoned just like us, or if it's just a big cosmic coincidence. But what I can tell you is that he definitely knows science as much as you or me, and it's entirely possible that he brought nukes. But I would advise that you keep this to yourself and pretend you don't know anything about Muurleth…for obvious reasons."

"Right, of course I don't want to be branded a heretic or spy. Damn, that's crazy. He actually has nukes, what the hell! Do you think he'll attack Tristain? Are we in danger here?"

"I can't say with any certainty that I can predict a madman like him, but from what I do know, Muurleth isn't interested in anything like world domination, wealth, or more territory. He genuinely believes himself to be a god already, and is satisfied to play at that role. It is rare that he ever acts in person or in the open. Now that he has followers in this world, I doubt he'll feel the need to demonstrate his power again anytime soon. He might even leave once he gets bored."

"That's a relief then. Say, would you be able to win against him in a fair fight?"

"There's no such thing as a fair fight, Saito. But to answer your question, I really don't know. None of our previous fights ever ended with a clear victor, though I have to admit he is probably stronger than me."

"He's really that strong then? Even without technology backing him up?" Saito asked with a deep frown.

"Does it matter whether he's using technology or magic? Either way, it's his power."

"But if it's just technology, then we could use it too if we got our hands on it, right? Especially with my Gandalfr power."

"You're not wrong, but the more advanced the technology, the more likely it is to have protection, such as passwords and biometrics. I don't think your power lets you bypass those."

"Oh, I didn't think of that."

"Anyway, you're better off staying far away from him, and thinking about more useful things."

"I guess you're right."

After that, we went back to Louise and I informed them that I'd be going into seclusion to recover for an indeterminate amount of time, just as I told Osmond.

I told Louise to keep working on her elementally modified explosion spells and to not waste too much time with the Prayer Book, and told Saito to keep himself in shape.

Finally, I flew up to rendezvous with the AAPV orbiting above Albion. As I was not personally capable of flying that high, the AAPV had to come down to the lower atmosphere to meet me.

I left the Music Box with the AAPV as it was not useful to carry around to other planes, but neither did I want to leave it around to be stolen if Tiffania couldn't make use of it yet.

The AAPV itself would be left here to support Tiffania in the event of war or other trouble, and the copy of Offensive Bias onboard would go into hibernation until it was contacted.

My affairs settled in this plane, I held Agate in my hand as we cast the spell to shift planes.

'ARMP engaged. User Travel initializing. Destination selected: Worm-Refuge Moon Base Periphery. 30 seconds required to construct pathway. Please hold.'

Time to see what was going on with the CRUCIBLE team, and see if Amelia had any upgrades for me.

O O O

[Agate]

Reporting in on our training with the Water Stone!

Physical Water Manipulation (macroscopic) mastery has progressed greatly.

Physical Water Manipulation (microscopic) mastery has progressed significantly.

Finally! We can do some parlour tricks with water. We can dry clothes, extract water from vapour, or move water around into different shapes. And we've also gotten pretty good at detecting large bodies of water from a distance, but that's not really a skill, it's just the spirits tugging us to places they want to go.

O O O

A/N: I'm bored with ZnT so we're moving on. Short detour to Worm before the next world. The decision on that hasn't been made yet so I'm open to suggestions, though I am leaning towards a world that has relatively bigger fish than ZnT.

Review responses:

SalemTheSpeakerOfTruth: I might put that speech in another side story in the future to explore the aftermath more, but it may also come up when we return to ZnT next as a flashback. For the moment, despite the Tristainian concerns, Albion isn't declaring war with Muurleth in control of it, and Tristain won't either, so the nationalistic fervor will only affect domestic politics.

AMurder0fCrows and Klazy Labbit : I think culture clash is one of the most interesting parts of crossovers, and that's something we can do over and over again in different contexts with multicross, hehe.

incy789: Nice, you saw through that trick :D

dakiesalamander: I'm sorry you couldn't enjoy it. I personally like the concept of weak characters winning with their wits and metaknowledge, and in some ways I feel like I didn't make the MC weak enough to start with. If he was truly a baseline human without even Agate's powers, then that'd be the real hard mode. Metaknowledge is kinda this genre's thing, you know? Although I do plan to reduce that advantage as MC gets more actual powers.