I've said it before and I'll say it again: knowledge is power. From just a single bit of insight, an entire plan could be formed. Throughout history, countless bits of knowledge, by themselves inconsequential, would be formed together in a pool greater than the sum of their parts.

Take this book regarding yin magic. The book states that teleportation uses yin mana, to weaken the fabric that holds the world together. Just by that single line, without any other context, I could make this out that yin magic is magic and does whatever the fuck it does because it does.

Fortunately, I do have context.

From what little this world knows about physics, I can guess that they don't know anything about modern science. With society here being near the Western medieval period, they would only be starting to get a glimpse into the sciences that were basically common knowledge.

Not that they would.

Magic was a crutch that these people would never let go of. Magic here was too advanced, as ridiculous as it sounded. But that was the truth. In my world, we didn't have these conveniences laid out for us to just discover.

The city gets cold during winter? No problem, just have a central heating system powered by fire mages.

Food spoiling too quickly? Just have a water mage slow down the natural rotting process.

Physics? Who the fuck cares when a small child can just use magic to lift a boulder ten times their size.

And so on. These little things add up, to the point where I realized one thing; these people are stagnant. They are cursed to forever be stuck with their level of knowledge and technology, not because it would be too difficult.

But because why would they?

Technology and advancement was brought about by the need for such things. WIth magic, they don't need anything that can't be solved by said magic.

For all the wonder and amazement that one can see here, all I can see is a world marching to its doom.

It was why when books describe a process that has links to modern ideas, I can't help but read them again and again. The reason being that the people who wrote these didn't have a need to find this information.

They found this through their own research. This wasn't some grand plan to monopolize an industry through technology or their magical prowess. No, they found this information by actively looking into it, for no other reason than to know.

Written works like that are always much more helpful than a small excerpt derived from the need to create better farmland.

That said, it's a bit difficult to read when the pages themselves are yellowing and rotting. Seriously, this is possibly the greatest library in the damn kingdom. I would have thought Mathers, or at least the Great Spirit guarding this place, would have kept the books in decent condition!

But no, it's all up to me to read through the smudged ink, in frankly archaic language, all while dealing with the noise that was Natsuki.

Never a dull moment, no matter how much I just want some peace and quiet.

Three days. That was the amount of time that had passed since I arrived in the Mathers domain. While I was loath to leave my shop for so long, the sheer amount of research I've been doing has more than made up for it.

The heavy stone tablets, the hidden scrolls, books of countless topics. It was no wonder that this was considered the quintessential library in Lugunica. Already, I've found more information than I thought I'd ever gather on my own.

It was practically exhilarating.

Most especially my findings with yin magic.

Where before, I would question why dimensional magic would fall into its purview, now, I can see why it couldn't be anywhere else.

To put it bluntly, dimensional and teleportation magic affects space time. More specifically, it 'weakens' space time itself, and connects two points in variable space.

I can still remember that one video that I had watched in the past, of a demonstration of space time through the use of a large plane of elastic and weights. Where, if one were to roll a weight onto the elastic, the entire plane would warp into it.

What dimensional magic did was similar to that, if only in principle.

It would weaken the 'elastic' that was space time, until you could warp it with nothing more than your mana. By this point, the 'elastic' would be almost folded onto itself, just a layer of imaginary space in between them. You then use your yin mana as a 'weight', so that your end reaches the desired end.

After that, it would be a simple matter of punching a hole through both ends, as the very plane of existence was already strained by the act of forcing the two points together.

All together, it was one of the most complex pieces of magic I've ever seen. I could see why not even Mathers, genius that he is when it came to magic, hadn't displayed any dimensional magic like that. One single mistake could theoretically collapse all of reality and kill everything.

Not that that stopped anyone from attempting it.

Of course, none of this was ever directly said in the books that I read through. It was the blood, sweat and maybe not tears that I went through to gather this data. None of which I could have concluded without the context that was modern physics.

Well, it was all theory for now. Not until I started on my practical trials. Incidentally, I was already starting them. If only that damn brat could stop screaming in my ear, maybe I'd have already been done with them.

Ah well. Time to ignore this so-called Great Spirit.

What? That's suicidal? Bite me. It's her fault she's being a damn annoyance in the damn library. And hey, I die, that still spares me from the screaming. Win-win.

"Impossible, I suppose! Inconceivable!" The blonde Spirit was incessant in screaming. She'd been doing so for the past hour or so, and I've mostly tuned her out since then. Every now and then though, I'd tune back in, in the hopes that she said something original for once.

Seriously, she had already said those two lines well over a dozen times now. You're supposed to be the guardian of this library, and yet, you can't come up with better expressions? What, was she just staring at these books for who knows how long?

Ah. Maybe she's illiterate?

"Illiterate?!"

Guess not. Maybe she just doesn't know how to start sentences when the words don't start with 'I'?

"I have never met anyone as insufferable as you, I suppose!"

"And you're just proving my point." I stared back at her with the blandest look that I could give, usually only reserved when Zaimokuza was annoying me a bit too much, "Now, if you'll excuse me, go do whatever it is you do."

"I will not!" Beatrice was glaring at me fully now, though given that she was barely up to my chest when standing on a stool, it wasn't much, "Not until you tell me how you did that!" Her final sentence was punctuated by a harsh point to a glowing portal in the middle of the room.

And yes, portal. I said that I was starting my tests, true. I just didn't mention that I had basically already proven it already.

"My, does a Great Spirit need tutoring?" I tapped into the overly polite and subtly(not) insulting method that Yukinoshita would use on me, "And here I thought that she already knew everything this library had to offer. Ah, maybe she was lying and is in reality nothing more than a six year old child?"

"I am over four hundred years old!"

"Sure you are." I rolled my eyes as I tried very much not to shout at her. I may not like Beatrice, but so long as she held authority with Mathers, I couldn't do anything too disrespectful.

Regardless of what I may say though, I already know why she's adamant that I tell her how I managed to create a portal in just this span of time.

Time. She said it herself, Beatrice is well over four hundred. I fully believed it, seeing as the yin books I've read also include mentions of her, some good, some bad. She had participated in research done by people countless years ago, and had a hand in creating some of the same spells that I use.

Dimensional magic, portals, crystalized yin mana, all of those had Beatrice's hand in them. Before that, all references I could find painted yin magic to be incredibly difficult to cast, as you needed to come into direct physical contact with your target.

Beatrice changed that when she came into the picture. With her help, the yin mages of the time managed to create ranged variants of the standard spells, ones that were still in common use today.

And then I came waltzing in. Me, a human of not even twenty five.

I came in, read a few books, and created a portal that worked. In less than three days, I had done what had likely taken Beatrice and her counterparts years to do.

To have the culmination of someone's life work practically mastered in less than three days must feel like a spit in her eye.

With her being practically ancient, my existence must be akin to a toddler reading about rocket science and then proceeding to make an actual rocket.

It would be terrifying. For a being as timeless as a Great Spirit, change isn't a thing. They are stagnant, unchanging creatures removed from the flow of time that governed normal mortals. In some other time, perhaps I could have said that I was part of that - my first meeting with Yukinoshita came to mind.

Even then, the Great Spirits took that to another level.

It was entirely because of that that Beatrice couldn't comprehend me doing what I did. She didn't understand that I do what I do due to the fact that I don't have time. I can't afford to wait, not like her.

Of course, with the portal I have, there were still areas that I needed to work on.

For one, I still couldn't go through dimensions themselves. I'm currently stuck making portals within this world, as I didn't have a point of reference for my world.

Still, it was a good start.

"Are you even listening to me, in fact?!"

"Not really." I poked my head through the portal. Hm. Still too high. I could see almost the entirety of the capital. I clicked my tongue as I pulled back and closed it.

With a snap, I opened another one. This one was significantly lower, still too high for my tastes though. I was now on rooftop level, and I could spot one or two people pointing up at me.

Annoyingly, I could see one of them run to where I know a few knights were stationed.

Can't you see that I'm just trying to experiment in peace? At least give me the benefit of doubt! If I was really a bad actor, I would've already attacked instead of looking around.

One more portal, and more of me ignoring the whining behind me. Finally, I had opened one to my actual target.

"Oi, Felt, get your damn feet off my table."

"HOLY-'' The blonde nearly jumped a full inch from where she was seated. Which was impressive considering she was sitting. A glass of what I assumed to be milk was thrown upwards, and I could hear the lumbering footfalls of who I could guess was Rom running down.

"Hikigaya?!"

"Were you expecting someone else?" I stared at her with one of my patented 108 Loner Skills, Dead Eye. No cowboy shooting from me though, just a look that would make the dead deader.

"I was expecting you to come in the door like a normal person!" The girl gestured wildly as Rom finally came down. With a put upon sigh, the large man nodded to me before grabbing a bottle of alcohol.

I swear, it's a miracle that he was still alive with his liver probably a festering piece of dead muscle.

"Anyway, I'll be back in a couple of days, I just need to wrap a couple of things here." I looked back at Felt, to see her cursing as she lamented the loss of her drink, "Just don't blow up my shop while I'm gone."

"C'mon, we're not that bad." The thief complained as she crossed her arms. Already, that I had a portal from the Mathers mansion lost its appeal. Not unexpected when you considered that these people were used to magic doing just about anything.

"You are." With that, I pulled back and closed the portal.

I turned around to spot the still ranting Beatrice and ignored her some more. It was less of ranting to my ears at this point and more of a fly buzzing incessantly. Annoying, irritating, but it's in their nature.

I made my way to a small corner that I had claimed as mine and grabbed my writing tools. I opened my bag, the only one that I had brought with me, and pulled out a few books. For once, the ranting of Beatrice stopped in the face of the new pieces of literature.

Not that I was handing them over. She probably wouldn't be able to read them, considering they were all written in Japanese.

I pulled out my writing tools and some paper. I opened my textbook as I started writing. It was high time that I fulfilled my end of the bargain with the margrave.

Not my fault that my 'research' was really just high school level physics.

A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo. Heat is a pain, hope you all stay safe!