“Alright, let’s do this! Let’s revolutionize Peolynca with the power of portals! Let’s invent ‘Fast Travel!’”

““Wooooooo!””

“… I’ll be in the forge, working. Don’t make too much of a fuss, lasses.”

That’s right, it was finally time. Given its popularity in most modern open-world video games, the term “Fast Travel” should not be unfamiliar to my fellow gamers. This was a game mechanic that allowed players to teleport themselves to a previously visited location, cutting down on the necessary game-time needed to get there on foot.

In our case, recreating this ability in real life would be our way to significantly cut down the necessary travel time we had to do to return back to Griffonpeak. Peolynca, despite having a game-like system supporting it, had no practical way to fast travel, unfortunately. The only method I could think of was to ask Aurena to use her space-time powers, but the gods were forbidden from interfering with mortals too much, so this idea was impossible.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t one to sit by and let this injustice continue. In her current situation, Ellaine had to either give up on coming with us on Quests or give up her academy semester like her brother had, since it was impossible to do both at the same time… At least, it would be as long as we didn’t have the means for Ellaine to fast travel from one location to the next in a matter of seconds.

Speaking of Ellaine, she should be coming home soon, since it was the afternoon after we finished the runes with Grimnir. Making the first three was quite a hurdle, but once we understood what to do to create them, making more was just a matter of time and effort.

‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ Such an inspiring proverb.

As such, this was the plan for today.

Taking out two of my four remaining [Room] runes from my storage, I began explaining what I planned to do. “Alright, so the idea is simple. Saori, you’ll stay with Grimnir inside the RV’s subspace, while Tasianna and I will open another subspace entrance outside the city. We need to test if these two subspaces will be connected with each other and if we can interact with each other.”

“Got it.” Saori nodded. “However, make sure to abort the plan if a bug, or glitch, or something similar were to happen.”

That was Saori’s cautious side speaking, since we had little to no documentation of a previous [Space-Time Magic] user having ever tried anything like this. At least, none that Grimnir and Maverina were aware of.. As such, issues with the subspace might crop up. Being careful wouldn’t cost us anything.

After explaining to Tasianna what “bugs” and “glitches” meant in a system (heh) environment, we initiated the testing phase. With Saori and Grimnir inside the RV to check, Tasianna and I flew out of the city and settled in the forest surrounding Griffonpeak. I placed the rune pair on the ground and activated them, opening the portal.

“Okay, I’ll call you in once it looks good enough, Tasianna,” I said, leaving Tasianna outside to watch over the portal while I entered the subspace by myself.

Please, work. Please, work. Please, work! With that single thought, I closed my eyes and moved my legs. The cool wind and the warm sun in the forest slowly disappeared around me as it was replaced by silence and cool air, reminiscent of an air-conditioned room.

After confirming my surroundings by opening one of my eyes, my mouth curved up in a smile at the feeling of success in my chest. I raised my right arm and curled my hand into a fist, before shaking it vigorously. “Yes! That works, at least!”

Looking around the room I found myself in, I noticed well-made wooden chairs, decorated tables, and enough ornaments and manatech to make this room appear like the dining hall of a noble. Without a doubt, I was inside the first room that my party and I had built — it was Saori’s still unused restaurant.

Upon hearing some noise in the kitchen, I walked through the kitchen door, also confirming everything that should be inside it was here. A spotless workplace for a small to medium size team of chefs, while I could see our bakery through a door to the right of the room.

“Oh, it seemed like it worked.” The noise from the kitchen came from Saori, who was preparing a few sandwiches. Since nothing bad had happened to me when I entered this subspace and I was able to meet others inside the subspace, I was elated to see that [Room] could be used as a mobile base even if our party was separated.

After I made sure that I could access the other rooms, like Grimnir’s forge and our living area, I went outside the portal and invited Tasianna to come in with me. Once Tasianna and I were inside the subspace, Tasianna let out a small gasp.

“Hmm, what is it?” I asked.

“Lady Hestia, did you not feel your mana leave your body?” Tasianna then called up her profile, confirming her suspicion by noting she was currently regaining the mana she lost a few seconds ago. When I did the same, nothing seemed wrong with my profile.

Of course, since I had a faster regeneration speed than Tasianna, I could have just recovered any lost mana by now, but this feeling of losing mana Tasianna spoke about wasn’t something I remember feeling just now. “Could you have lost the mana from going through the portal? But, that hasn’t happened before.”

“Maybe it’s because of the distance? Since this portal is connected to the main [Room] at House Helvas’s mansion? This could be something similar to your warp point portal, Lady Hestia. The distance might determine how much mana you have to spend to enter the subspace,” Tasianna suggested.

“Then why didn’t I feel my mana leaving my body?”

Tasianna placed her hand on her chin, giving my question a thought before answering, “Maybe… is it because you are the caster? How about we confirm this theory by going further away?”

I agreed, and we left the subspace, returning to where we started. For our next destination, I chose to go to Griffonpeak’s pier, built upon the Sallorn River, the same one that flowed through Carine village and Cedaraille. After watching cargo boats moving into the pier and away, Tasianna and I moved into the nearby forest and opened the portal again.

With Tasianna remembering the amount of mana she lost last time while I had my profile open to watch if I would lose any, we entered the subspace once again.

“Yes, I lost more than last time, Lady Hestia. It is something to worry about for me, but it seemed my theory was correct,” Tasianna stated. “How about you?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Not even an inch. Guess this is the privilege of being the master of this place.”

With this initial test over, Tasianna and I munched on Saori’s sandwiches while telling her and Grimnir about what we learned. Hearing about the mana cost of entering the [Room] from a distance caused Grimnir to feel worried, since he was the only one in our party with a Mana capacity of less than 2000.

“Hmm, I might have to buy some of those mana boosting skills. I had been thinking of getting some more mana since those power gauntlets cost mana to use effectively. The whole suit is going to require even more!”

After eating up the sandwiches, I decided to focus on creating the fast travel function now. As the master of this subspace, I had full control over who could enter it and how to construct the different areas, all at the cost of some mana. Since this was something that I could do, it shouldn’t be weird for me to create a door that allowed me to teleport from one place to the other.

In other words, if I could turn this subspace into a nexus that combined all the [Room] runes, I’d have created a means for fast travel. It would be limited, since you needed access to this subspace, but it would be better than nothing else.

I went to our living area with everybody except Grimnir, who decided to return to his smithy. There, I created a new door and decided on making this our “Nexus Door.” Technically, I could turn any door into a teleporter, but for this test, I wanted to use a single one to control any possible variables.

Pouring some more mana into it, I designated the location I wanted to teleport to. “[Room] rune pair number one’s portal,” I said aloud. Feeling confident that it would work fine after my mana was spent, I opened the door and moved through it.

“Huh?” I could feel cool winds and the warm sun touching my skin and hair once again, meaning I was outside again. However, not only did I see a ton of trees before me, but I could hear the loud noises of water moving and men moving cargo off a boat. “Damnit, why am I still in this forest?!”

For some reason, the teleportation did not work. Exiting through the door only brought me back to the place I entered the subspace initially. I was disappointed that I didn’t solve the problem on the first try, but I concluded I probably did something wrong, turning around and walking through the door back to the living area. This time, instead of only declaring my teleport location, I tried making it into an order.

“My teleportation destination will be at House Helvas’s mansion. The [Room] portal created by rune one and two, placed inside our RV. Teleport me there now!” I opened the door and walked through, only to end up at the same location outside the city’s walls, next to the river.

“???” I was confused. This was the second try, sure, but I still was baffled that [Room] wouldn’t let me do what I wanted. Not discouraged, I decided on trying it one more time, but this time, I poured in some more mana into the rune to test something out. When that didn’t work either, I finally realized where my mistake was.

[Room] allows me to control stuff inside of it. Permitting who could enter or leave was similar to putting people on a white or black list for a house party. I could control who I wanted to invite and see inside my home, but there was no way for me to forbid people from looking inside my property when they were outside.

It was one of the basic rules for [Room], but I forgot about it by imagining a too lofty goal. Still, that didn’t mean that I would give up now. I found it rather interesting that [Room] was able to keep the information from which entrance a person came from, since it wasn’t mixing up which portal I should exit from, I also tried the test out with a third portal, just to make sure this was the case.

And, that was totally the case. Even after Tasianna and I repeated going in and out about ten times each, we never exited through the wrong portal. As the master of this subspace, I was fully aware of whoever was inside my subspace. Even if you were a ninja like Saori, this detection functioned through the Divine System. I wasn’t informed which portal they came out from, but the subspace most definitely should have it noted down.

“Hestia, come back to the mansion for now. Continue testing there,” Saori prompted me to continue the tests at home. After collecting the runes with Tasianna, we flew back to the mansion, just in time to meet up with Ellaine who had just come back home from the academy. After explaining to her all about what I was doing, she simply wished me good luck before returning to her room to take a shower before meeting up with her father for training. What a buzz-kill!

Since it would probably distract people if they saw the portals, I decided on continuing the tests from inside my room in the mansion, telling Svena that nobody could come inside while I was testing out some spells.

“Good luck on the testing, Hestia. I will be going out for a bit,” Saori told me once Tasianna and I returned to the subspace. “I need to do more research on how eateries that cater to richer merchants and travelers work, for the success and prosperity of our restaurant!”

Saori was a good chef who could produce a ton of good dishes, but her experience as a gastronome was limited. Maybe she should have asked Tamae more about how her parents managed their Michelin star restaurant.

With Tasianna as my assistant, I continued working on the fast travel idea. Firstly, I came to a solid conclusion after the initial tests.

“It is impossible for [Room] to allow us to fast travel from one portal to the next, since teleportation isn’t one of its functions,” I declared.

“Then, what do you wish to do, Lady Hestia?” As if she already understood the answer to this question, Tasianna began pouring tea for me.

“Obviously, there were two solutions for this problem. Either get [Space-Time Magic Lv.10] and hope [Spatial Portal] allows people to come with me, or create an entirely new spell which allows people to teleport around even without me around,” I announced. “The former is impossible for now since the SP needed to upgrade my [Space-Time Magic] up to level ten would be too expensive. As such, we are going to go with the second route. I shall create my first custom [Space-Time Magic] spell!”

The second point that I understood from the testing was that each person had to be assigned a tag the moment they entered the subspace, which informed the [Room] which portal they entered from. That was why there was never a mix-up. Since I couldn’t change this tag despite how much I begged the subspace, it probably just wasn’t normally possible.

As such, the only option left for me was to invent a spell that changed this tag to another portal, enabling me and everybody else to teleport. [Spatial Portal] probably worked without this tag function, but it probably would be too hard for me to create this spell on my own. I couldn’t imagine what the chant would be.

This brought me to the third point. As I was returning to the mansion, I reminded myself that every System spell must have a chant. The only reason why I didn’t have to chant was due to [True Draconic Lineage] granting me [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]. While I didn’t have to chant, the System still would still give me the chant whenever I wanted to cast a System spell.

And [Room]’s chant was as follows: “Open a path into the fourth existence of the dimension, controlling the fifth law of space and time control. Create a dimensional area within a designated sub-area in the current dimension, connected to a circle of enhanced control of energy and substance in the current reality. Access to the pocket dimension shall be granted to the caster, allowing them free entry and exit and the ability to alter the boundaries within. The laws of space and time of the current dimension and reality shall be applied to the sub-area. All physical objects of the three first dimensions and all boundaries shall be connected to this created sub-area through the control of energy of some kind. If the circle of enhanced control of energy and substance connected to this sub-area was to be removed from the reality it is applied in, sever the existence of this pocket dimension and recall all physical objects of the three first dimensions back to the current dimension and reality.”

What now? was my reaction when I first saw this, and it still was a big, fat “What now?” after my parallel minds had a look at it as well. Obviously, this chant was completely different from the ones I knew and made up until now, given that it had no mention of the Origin Gods and a lot of technical details instead.

Since System Spells in Peolynca were made by the Origin Gods to promote piety, most of them sound like religious texts. Custom spells didn’t have that restriction, but sometimes mentioning something godly or divine would help invoke a better image of what the spell should do. At the end of the day, however, spell chants were just texts for us to properly imagine the spells we wanted to cast.

That said, [Room]’s chant was just weird. When I read it, it felt as if I was reading some high-level physics or science book without any prior knowledge, since the more I had my parallel minds read it, the more they felt frustrated at their inability to understand it. Our inability to understand it. The chant honestly felt like a set of instructions from an IKEA manual.

That was why I gave up on trying to learn [Spatial Portal] the way I had relearned [Scorching Sun]. It would be impossible for me to imagine it, since there was no mention of the chants for the upper-tier [Space-Time Magic] spells. Istari apparently knew the names of each and every one of the System spells, but he, for some reason, did not deign to write the chants down.

It was daunting to imagine me creating a spell like this, but I wouldn’t let it go without trying it at least once! That was my pride as a mage! I didn’t want people to think of me as a one-trick pony who could only create fire-based spells. Sure, [Space-Time Magic] sounded extremely physics-based, but it was just a set of instructions at the end of the day, right?

It shouldn’t be that hard, right?!

I mean, I was the granddaughter of the mighty God of Dragons, Kargryxmor. I was a member of a race of giant beasts with huge amounts of mana and magical firepower. Even my racial skill [True Draconic Lineage] praised my impeccable natural magical abilities. It shouldn’t be hard for me, right?!?!

I mean, I was also the chosen champion of Aurena, the Goddess of Light of Peolynca and a former Goddess of another world, and Kargryxmor. It shouldn’t be that much trouble to create a spell to allow me to fast travel, right?!?!?!

…

“IT’S TOO FUCKING HARD!!!” In a fit of despair and frustration, I flipped the table I was working on over onto the ground, sending the pile of wooden slates tumbling in the air.

“Ah, Lady Hestia!” Tasianna cried out in a panic as she narrowly caught the teacups and snack plates. “What’s wrong, Lady Hestia?!”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Argh! I can’t do it! This is too fucking hard!” It had been two days since I started trying to create this spell. Normally, two days of work shouldn’t be enough to frustrate me this much, especially since my previous custom spells all required multiple days of work and testing to be finalized; however, the difference with this task was from how hard it was to think of the chant.

To me, chants were like writing verses for a song. It came out as naturally to me as writing a new song. Usually, I would have a finished chant after a few hours, from which I would begin my tests, making sure the spell comes out exactly how I wanted it. That was how I created [Unheilige Engel], [Panzer], and [Halo of Consecration].

Unfortunately, this method of creating chants simply did not work for [Space-Time Magic]. Despite writing up piles upon piles of thrown away chants, none of them worked even once. None of them created any effect. On the first day of work, I understood that the chant had to have extremely precise instructions.

But, over the course of the next two days, I just couldn’t come up with a proper chant. Creating instructions was literally impossible when I still wasn’t completely sure what [Room]’s chant even was trying to tell me. I had ten parallel minds — that meant eleven brains — but I still wasn’t able to make any kind of meaningful progress.

At this point, I really cursed myself for being only interested in idol stuff when I attended school on Earth. I really shouldn’t continue calling myself dumb or idiot, since that wasn’t healthy, but I really felt like a dumbass at this point.

“Muuuuuuuu, argh…” The strength in my legs vanished, causing me to collapse on the ground like a marionette. I felt like crawling onto my bed and hiding under my blanket.

“L-Lady Hestia, maybe a break would do you some good? I mean, you have been working on this project nonstop. You haven’t even done your daily training regimen.” Tasianna’s worried expression was another hit towards my motivation, piercing it like a sharp blade. Instead of feeling encouraged by her words, I felt more compelled to just go to sleep and forget about today.

“Lady Hestia, please! Stand up!” Unable to watch me like this any further, Tasianna stopped acting courteously and forcefully pulled me up. With a stern frown, she began to give me a lecture. “Lady Hestia, you should no longer be at the stage of drowning in your own self-pity! You should have plenty of confidence in your abilities to not let this be a setback! It is only one spell. The creation of your previous custom spells have always followed the way Priest Kushlek’zar taught you, so of course the moment you couldn’t bring it back into practice, you would hit a hurdle.”

“Urgh…” I groaned. I had no way to argue with Tasianna, since it was all the truth.

“Every person has a natural affinity towards a specific elemental type, which helps them not only level that respective elemental skill faster, but it also makes creating custom spells based on them far easier. After all, spells fizzling out or miscasting is the norm for most mages, something which you haven’t faced since [Imperial Hellfire],” Tasianna explained. “As you know, it took me a while to create my own custom spell while My Lady and Miss Saori created yours within a week or two. You are not only naturally more attuned to your elements as monsters with strong bloodlines, but your creativity was also increased by experiencing this World Wide Web thing you told me about.”

“… You’re… You’re right, Tasianna!” I shouted as I smacked my cheeks, jumping out from Tasianna’s arms. “You’re right! Absolutely right! I was acting like a whiny bitch, again, wasn’t I?”

“Well, that would be something I would never ever describe you as, but you were complaining a bit too much, even for my taste, Lady Hestia. I am your faithful servant, so I only wish the best for you.”

Stimulated by Tasianna’s words, I organized the mess I made with the table before calling for one of the Shoyi’s many blob copies. As the black slime slowly crept over from its small house Saori made for it, I asked it to clean up the tea spill and the snacks on the ground. Excited, the surface of its skin shook before it diligently cleaned up everything.

I took this time to leave the living area and enter Grimnir’s shop. Saori was out again, but from the sound of pounding metal and the constant argument of a girl and a man, I knew I could spend my break with these guys.

“Lass, don’t connect the small copper wire with the conductor! You’re gonna bust the thing up from how little the wire can transmit the mana throughout the mechanism! Connect the wire with the thread controller, since the output requires less mana to work,” a man with a deep voice instructed before the banging of metal continued.

“Master Grimnir, I need to also increase the speed of the threads. If I unwind the whip, I need it to be faster. Speed and flexibility are my whipsword’s greatest strength,” a girl argued.

“You still need the damn conductor to work! If you want more speed, add another large copper wire for both the thread controller and the conductor.”

“There isn’t much space left! Where am I supposed to put the extra wire?”

Those two seem energetic as always, haha.

Entering the back of the shop, I was welcomed into Grimnir’s smithy by the comforting heat of his forge. I saw Grimnir crafting a bladed weapon with the flame of his forge blazing next to him, while on the other side of the room, Ellaine was sitting at a workbench. Having equipped her artificer gear, she seemed to be working on her whipsword along with Grimnir’s power gauntlet.

“Hmm, lass? What are you two doing here?” Grimnir asked the moment Tasianna and I entered the room.

“What? Can’t I just visit the smithy to spend my leisure time? I mean, you’re making my spear from the queen’s materials, right? Can’t I come look at it once in a while?” I replied back sarcastically.

Since my catalyst was finished and I already told Maverina which enchantments I wanted on it, Grimnir had begun creating a spear worthy for me to use. Using the materials gained from the geisenlarg queen and some of my claws, I was expecting a masterwork.

Noticing my sarcasm, Grimnir told me to get to the point in a grumble. “Nothing much, really. I’m just taking a break because I can’t seem to figure out the chant. You know, reset my mind.”

“If it’s this hard, then you don’t have to keep trying to make it just for me, Hestia.” From the other side, Ellaine placed her tools down and spoke with me. “I’ll somehow work it out with the academy. If it can’t work, then I’ll talk with father. It’ll probably cost me my chance to become a Knight of the Lionheart, but I would rather continue my travels with Aurora than giving it up.”

“You know, you shouldn’t say that since you and your brother have a duel to settle the heirship in the future. Becoming a knight would probably help you a ton,” I replied, worried that Ellaine was throwing her future away for us.

“Don’t be like that. I already made my path clear when I first asked you to make me your retainer. I won’t go back on my word, Hestia. Even if I’m not officially a knight, I will keep my oath like one.” Ellaine bumped her chest in salute. “Beside, if I left you, then who am I supposed to continue my artificer training with?! Finding a capable teacher like Master Grimnir is hard, you know? Also, as if I’ll give up now after accepting Klea’Hatma’s powers! I don’t want to disappoint you and the Goddess.”

[“Hey, I heard that. It’s not very nice to say that when I’m around to listen, dear! Pah, treating me like an object… Well, it’s not like this is the first time, hiehie~”] I was questioning what Klea’Hatma meant by being “treated like an object.” Better not ask.

Ignoring the demon, I went back and answered Ellaine’s worry, “If that is the case, Ellaine, then I can’t actually fail, right? Besides, the invention of fast travel sounds too good to give up on. Such a challenge wouldn’t be worth doing if it wasn’t hard, right?”

After Ellaine and I had a laugh, she resumed her maintenance work. While looking over her shoulder, I asked Grimnir something concerning his power armor project. “Hey, Grimnir, how are you progressing with the armor?”

Instead of Grimnir, Ellaine was the one to answer my question, “Not well, sadly. It’s mostly my own skills that need to be improved before we continue creating the different components for the armor itself. Making the power gauntlets was a real reality check for me. There are so many smaller parts that I need to know how to create better.”

“Aye, the lass is correct,” Grimnir agreed with Ellaine. “The gauntlets did their job well enough, but after putting them through the stress test during the geisenlarg extermination, I learned that prolonged use caused too much heat from all that mana coursing through the machinery and pistons. We need a proper way to cool the gauntlets down, and in the future, the armor, otherwise I’ll cook myself alive.”

Picking the gauntlets up, I noticed three runes on both of them. “Are these runes only used for passive power boosts?”

“Aye, lass.”

“Then how about increasing the amount of power within the machinery instead of relying on the runes? Sure, it will create more heat, but then you could just use an ice rune to cool everything down. We have Tasianna to help.”

Grimnir nodded to my suggestion, acknowledging it, but it seemed he had already considered it from his lack of surprise. “Ellaine and I already talked about it, but that ain’t gonna work. Sure, we can add stronger blood like yours on them to add more runes, but the machinery would drain too much mana in that case. I might need more mana in general, but if it isn’t somebody like you, lass, nobody could use the armor.”

So it isn’t just a problem with the heat but it also is a question of mana. There has to be a system that allows Grimnir to not overuse his mana while also keeping himself cooled while inside the suit. Hmmm. He needs some kinda ventilation and also heat insulation, preferably heat retardant if possible.

Hmm… Oh?

“Grimnir, how advanced is dwarven technology? Have you heard of steam energy or a steam engine from the Revolution Queen?” I asked a question that spontaneously came into mind.

“What in Crustacia’s name is steam energy or a steam engine?” That reply was all I needed to begin explaining the concept of steampunk and steam machinery to Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir. Since Peolynca’s technological advancement only focused on mana, electricity and steam have been severely neglected.

By itself, it wasn’t much of a problem, since I considered mana a far cleaner energy alternative than the latter two, but it wouldn’t hurt to maybe suggest combining the two as a different method to solve the problem, right?

“If one of your issues is the amount of mana you’re using to maintain the armor, then why not make that mana resource less of a concern while you are fighting? Reduce the amount of mana used, by using a different energy source to empower your armor.”

“And you are suggesting that steam is this alternative power source? Steam? Hot vapors created from warming up water? You want to boil me, lass?” Grimnir looked at me as if I was crazy.

“No, of course not, but think about it, Grimnir. My weapon and the catalyst; do you remember one of the enchantments I’m planning to put on it? It always made me wonder, but why aren’t dwarves using catalysts as a substitute for mana batteries? They are pretty much the same, right?” I pointed out.

“The reason is ‘cause we dwarves aren’t alchemists, lass. That’s the whole damn reason why we focus on crafts like artificing and runesmithing. We can’t imbue mana into alchemy like the other races. I know catalysts are the same, but we dwarves have improved on the design of the battery over the centuries. It became the norm and has proven itself far superior and more efficient than catalysts for fueling manatech.”

“But in the end, you acquiesced to my idea of combining my catalyst with my weapon,” I looked at him smugly.

“Mgrhm,” he grumbled. “That’s ‘cause you have a good affinity, that’s why I accept it! Besides, catalysts only become good with enchantments. We dwarves don’t use them. We have our own pride in our runesmithing, so using enchantments in our creation? Pah! I would cut the rockhide on my ears before I do something like that!”

“Oh really? Then do it now, if you’re earnest with that statement.” I turned serious, seeing as I wasn’t getting to Grimnir. “  ‘Think outside the box,’ Grimnir. Hear me out — a catalyst to be used as the core of your armor, which we add enchantments on to help against your heat problem. Which gives us this option to use a steam powered function to boost your power! Use a rune to produce water to further cool your suit, then use your flame breath or a fire rune to turn this water into steam. The steam will drive the machinery and pistons, giving you an immense power boost!”

“And if we use a ventilator, we can get rid of this excess heat. Even more options to get rid of heat. If we add some padding, even further heat insulation,” Ellaine caught up to my idea. “But, then, wouldn’t Master Grimnir not need my help, Hestia? It doesn’t seem like an artificer is needed.”

Ellaine sounded worried that her contributions might disappear with this idea, but I had no plan to kick her out with it.

“Absolutely not, Ellaine. The armor still needs machinery to function, and you need to make it suited for mana and steam. You know, since the catalyst will act as the mana battery substitute,” I mentioned. “Then, don’t forget about the weapons. Armor is good, but what use is it if you can’t defend yourself. Your training will be used on that also, Ellaine.”

“Weapons and shields shouldn’t skimp on the offensive and defensive runes!” she noted in realization. “It will take three runes at minimum to drive the armor, and we’ll probably need to apply stronger blood for more slots. On the other hand, the weapons Master Grimnir wanted were the ones you suggested, right? That ‘minigun’ and ‘rocket launcher,’ yes? They need to be controlled using mana, since steam wouldn’t work properly.”

Like Grimnir’s blasthammer, the ranged weapons I suggested to Grimnir would all use mana as ammunition instead of actual bullets or rockets. For his melee weapons, I was thinking of going with a fusion of manatech and sci-fi, which required mana to be properly used.

“Hmm,” Grimnir stroked his growing beard at what he heard. It seemed he was thinking about how to make all of this work.

“Grimnir, pride is not something you can afford, right? You mentioned how you want to tell Bleidla to suck your blasthammer, right?” I gave two middle fingers to drive that point forward. “You won’t show him up, if you can’t accept innovations! Don’t act like a dwarf right now, act like an inventor!”

“… You know, lass, ever since I met you, all you’ve been doing is impressing me with your crazy ideas. By the six Origin Gods, I have to admit that while I appreciate them, I am getting majorly overwhelmed by the things you and Saori have been telling me of Earth’s technology.”

“And?” I grinned, imitating the one Grimnir had on his face, showing off his teeth like a madman.

“And by Crustacia’s twin locks, I love them all! You showed this old dwarf, lass, hahahaha! Bladdarg, I don’t fucking care if I have to go back on my pride and accept enchantments and alchemy! I don’t care if you idea won’t work out in the end! I’m gonna try them out anyways and if they do work out, then I’ll shove these things in Bleidla’s stinking face! Ellaine, are you with me?”

“Yes, Master Grimnir!” Ellaine cheered. “However, let’s first finish with maintenance and Hestia’s spear, yes?”

“… Lass, you really know how to put a damper on stuff, you know? Just for that trait of yours, you get the title as my worst apprentice, yet!”

“Hey! That is unfair, Master Grimnir, you have no right to say that after all your whining! How can you say that when I’m being realistic and responsible! You can drag me into your maddening projects after we perform what needs to be done!”

Seeing them getting over an issue really made me happy, reinvigorating me with the motivation to continue my work.

“That was a real case of thinking outside the box, right, Lady Hestia?” Tasianna praised me.

“Yup. Sometimes you just need some outside stimulus to really push your brain to work, right? Not every answer can be found in a single book, so it would be better to widen your horizon and continue looking outside… outside…” I then looked up to the ceiling of the room, noting how Grimnir’s newly made smithy was similar to a box. “Outside the box… outside the box. Widen your horizon… Oh shit! Why didn’t I think of that before!”

As if the hamsters in my brain finally began moving the cogs around, a sudden brain blast prompted me to think of an idea. Running out of Grimnir’s smithy, I pulled Tasianna out of the subspace before pushing her into the front of the RV. I then took out two pairs of [Room] runes and activated the portals for each, telling Tasianna to enter the left while I went through the right.

Once we were back inside the subspace after going through two different portals, I activated my [Mana Eyes] and looked at the entrance we went through, noticing three different colors of mana flowing around the entrance. I turned to another entrance and noticed the same thing.

When I turned to Tasianna, I noticed a small glimmer of mana that didn’t fit with the rest of Tasianna’s body, noting how it looked similar to one of the colors around the entrance. When I looked down at my body, I noticed the same thing.

‘All physical objects of the three first dimensions and all boundaries shall be connected to this created sub-area through the control of energy of some kind.’ was one part of the [Room] chant. Energy that could be better described as mana.

My jaw dropped.

I-I don’t have to create a space-time spell to do this! The ‘tag’ [Room] uses to assign people to different portals is imprinted through our mana! I just need to change that through a buff or something!

I ran back inside Grimnir’s smithy and dragged a complaining Ellaine from the smithy, telling her it was time for her to help me test a theory. After we all left the subspace, I asked Tasianna and Ellaine to wait outside while I went inside the subspace to throw something out. I needed them to watch and tell me from which portal it came out.

I entered portal one, the one we usually used for our RV. There, I took out a fur pelt and looked at it with [Mana Eyes].

There are three colors: red for portal one, green for two, and blue for three. The fur has a glimmer of red on it.

I couldn’t change this tag on the fur, since I had no idea how, but what I could change was everything in this [Room]’s “boundaries,” and that included the mana surrounding the door. I went back to the “nexus door” and poured my mana into it, pushing away the red and green “tags” away, isolating the blue, signifying portal three. It was a success.

Taking in a deep breath, I grit my teeth and threw the fur through the door and jumped out right after it.

As the wooden walls of our RV came back in sight, my elation was quickly replaced by something else. Pain.

“He-Waaaghhh!”

“Wauuugh!”

I bumped into Ellaine. As we cried out in surprise, my momentum caused me to push Ellaine onto the ground. With Ellaine lying on the floor, my body came hurling at her, with my face dangerously coming closer and closer to Ellaine’s, only for me to stop my descent at the very last second.

“…Uhhhh.” I could feel Ellaine letting our heavy breaths right in front of my face, as it became redder and redder. Pushing myself up, I pulled Ellaine up before apologizing for what just happened. “S-Sorry about that, Ellaine. But why did you just stand in the way like that? You knew I would throw something through the portal.”

“Wha-Wha?! I was, Hestia! I stood far away from the portal you went through! I’m not that scatterbrained of a girl!” Ellaine argued back. Hearing her say this somehow made my face feel even warmer than before.

However, this misunderstanding didn’t last for much longer as Tasianna called us to look at what she was pointing at. My eyes followed her finger, noticing a fur pelt lying a few feet away from me. It was right next to the entrance of portal one.

As I widened my eyes, I looked down where I was, turning around to find a portal right next to me. Looking at the runes which opened it up, I could confirm this was the third portal I opened up.

“D-Did I just—?”

Description has been updated due to the individual’s actions. Additional information will be added when the requirements are fulfilled

[Mana Eyes] has adapted to individual [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]’s usage. [Mana Eyes Lv. 4] evolved into [Mana Eyes Lv. 5]

Mana Eyes

A skill that allows the user to perceive the flow of mana in the air. Allows the identification of items and creatures, revealing their description or profile. Allows the isolation of mana signatures, making it possible to follow mana trails and links between mana sources. Requires tremendous cognitive abilities to process properly. The Skills combined are: [Identify Lv. 10] [Blacksmith’s Appraisal (Incomplete) Lv. 1]

“T-Tasianna! Ellaine! I’m flying out of town!” I announced after picking up the runes for portal two and three, sprinting out of the RV.

“Wait, Lady Hestia! Ellaine, come with me! We need to see this!”

“Y-Yes!”

The three of us quickly made it outside the city, going into the nearby forest. There I activated a portal and we all went inside. After going to the “Nexus Door,” I activated [Mana Eyes] again and noticed only two colors surrounding the door, since only two portals were open. After I isolated the red from the green, I noticed how green mana trails were leading from the door to the mana within me. This new trail probably came from [Mana Eyes] upgrade.

With the green mana tag isolated, I told everybody to enter through the door. To our collective surprise, once we walked through, we were back at the RV. We had just teleported from outside the city back into it. As the three of us looked around with open mouths, Tasianna and Ellaine noted how they felt something leaving their bodies. After looking at their profiles, we noticed some of our mana was gone.

“I-It seemed that not only entering the subspace from a different location but also using the teleportation function would cost mana. The longer the distance, the more we use up,” Tasianna stated.

“But I’m immune to it. I guess because I’m the owner of the subspace?” I wondered.

“This probably won’t be very popular with Master Grimnir,” Ellaine commented, which I agreed with. He wouldn’t have the mana to do this from a long distance.

However, that didn’t matter to me anymore. After all, the fatigue of three days of hard work finally paid off.

“OH YEAH, FAST TRAVEL, BITCHES!”