“What is the theoretical spell-knot with the biggest singular conjunction of crossover points?” Khalid asked as he took a long sip from a cup of caffeine.

The question was an easy one. When casting a knot-spell, if you looked at the layout and flattened it, every line that passed over another line would be called a ‘crossover point’, a conjunction of crossover points would be when many different lines passed over the same spot when “flattened”.

Liam was mildly nervous at the mage’s choice of beverage more than the question itself. Najasil’s metabolism was particularly sensitive to caffeine, the punch to their metabolism was strong enough that younger individuals could find themselves in an adrenaline high. Khalid’s case was slightly different, his body was mutated due to his parentage, and to the mage, coffee made his mind sharper and faster.

This game of wits relied entirely on Khalid asking Liam the big questions, the grand secrets and riddles. Liam had made the system running this world, he could talk about the intricacies of mana and spells. But were he to be asked to draw the exact knot for a tetra-spell-knot for summoning a gold golem… he’d be toast.

Because at the end of the day, as much time and effort Liam had placed into the setting, as a writer he’d never be able to truly and fully submerge himself into any one subject. Time was a massive constraint. It was as if he were a time-traveler talking to Einstein, fully aware that “E=MC^2”, but not having the volumes upon volumes of equations that’d been necessary to reach that answer.

And this golemancy Einstein he was up against just took his personal equivalent of adderall.

“There’s no theoretical limit.” Liam shook his head. “Any spell can be twisted into a tubular shape and then viewed from one end, making all crossovers happen on one spot. The practical limitation is mostly dependent on how tall the mage is, since they’d need to compress and bend the spell to occupy the space from where they stand all the way to where their hands reach.”

The two sat on an improvised meeting spot near the entrance of the estate, a chair and a table having been laid out in front of the massive bronze-colored golem. Its polished surface glittered under the sunlight, its body not much unlike a ball of dough that’d been made to roughly mimic human shape, with thick limbs and a thicker torso.

The question he’d presented was considered basic stuff for any mage of the second circle. It would be the kind of stuff that everyone would “take for granted” and never noted down anywhere. The man was trying to get a read on Liam’s knowledge, most likely running off of the assumption that he’d actually read his research.

“The other limitation is the mage’s skill.” Khalid intoned. “A large factor being how thin they can weave the mana, and how well they can sustain the complexity before it collapses. Now tell me-”

“Ah, not so fast mister al-Ashtar.” He smiled, emphasizing the title as he interrupted the mage. “I believe it is now my turn.”

Liam could just bring out some impossible question about magic that he’d be certain Khalid could not answer, and technically it would “win” him the game. But doing so in this way would just paint him as someone that just got off some secret factoid off of a lost book. The whole exchange would result in Khalid agreeing to invite Maridah into his home, and, immediately after, kicking her out. Liam’s goal was to humble Khalid. It would have to be a careful balancing act, he needed to emotionally derail his opponent, push him into a mistake.

“It is as you say.” Khalid calmly took another sip of coffee.

Hopefully Liam’s work with overly dramatic encounters would help with his little game of tricks he planned. “What is the theoretical limitation on spell potency of a fifth-circle mage? By the weight of powdered aether. You may assume the aether is of the highest grade possible.”

“Powdered aether?” Khalid flicked his tongue in annoyance. “The limit is in the criticality point.”

With a slight chuckle, he nodded. “Just so.”

Criticality, the point in which aether would just blow up on its own merely because there was too much aether in one location. The state the aether was in greatly affected this, with powdered aether being the most volatile and deemed the lowest quality. Mages typically handled the condensed form, the one that looked like playdough with glitter. Crystalized aether was incredibly hard to find, and about as mana-dense a mortal could get.

Anything with higher mana-density would require divinity, like the relics Gods used to empower themselves and better connect to the mortal plane.

Khalid’s brows furrowed. “If it’s powdered, and since a fifth-circle mage wouldn’t be able to scaffold through more than twelve subspaces at once, then the theoretical limit would be roughly thirty tonnes of aether. Or a hundred times more aether than the Caliphate processes in a year.” He waved one of his hands dismissively. “A limitation that would not exist if it were in its pure crystalline form.”

“Crystalline aether can reach criticality. The easiest way to confirm this is by wrapping a piece of it with a powerful enough mana condensation formation… a fourth-circle mage should be able to do it. To spare you the test, the experiment would show you’d need about a mountain-range’s worth of the stuff before it blew up to high heaven.” Liam’s eyes twinkled with a mischievous knowing smile. “I believe it’s your turn now, mister al-Ashtar.”

This time, the mage didn’t start up a new question right away, brows furrowed in concern. The little detail Liam had shared regarding crystalline aether meant he could’ve won the encounter, with a solution Khalid himself could’ve verified on his own. Those piercing slitted pupils were narrowly focused on Liam, and though the human had no doubt he’d be unable to keep up with the thoughts running through his head, he did know where they would lead to.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Trust a very smart person to take convoluted roads to lead to an obvious conclusion: Liam could’ve brought the “game” to an end there and then, and the only reason he hadn’t was to warn the mage not to underestimate him with probing questions. It would steer him away from the smaller nuances Liam was unlikely to know of…

What he wasn’t entirely sure of was what sort of “riddles” would fit within the category, especially when Khalid believed Liam had gone through the entirety of his research.

“What would be the point of resonance between a steel and gold based spell-knots?”

Liam’s thoughts ground to a halt, even as he kept his smile ever so amused while he wracked his brain for an answer. Gold mana and steel mana could resonate, but that happened when they interacted. It would amplify and diminish certain aspects of one another… what did Khalid mean with the “point” of resonance, though? Had the man intentionally worded the question poorly? Or…

Ah.

“Could you rephrase the question? I believe my translation spell couldn’t catch the full meaning of what you said.”

Khalid regarded him with a momentary hesitation. “My question was how deep would the interlocking between a gold and steel spell-knots require to be before they resonate.”

With a slight nod to buy himself some time, Liam pondered. Mages were required to be able to cast two or more spell-knots simultaneously to reach the fourth circle. At this level of complexity, one could even go so far as to weave one spell within the “guts” of another, and the “depth” of this was determined by the number of lines cutting into each other’s formation.

If what the mage was asking was the number of lines…

Liam cocked his head. He’d never written down anything about the rules regarding resonance, as far as his notes had gone, compatible mana signatures would “always” resonate. But if he were to break it down into a more nuanced behaviour…

“It depends on the size proportion between the two spells. If both spells are of equal size, then a single line of overlap can cause a resonance, but the bigger one of them is compared to the other, the deeper the smaller one needs to be.”

A gamble, mostly, kind of. He was fairly certain of it following proper “logic” of the setting, but tensed his shoulders all the same, waiting for the response.

“...correct.”

Withholding the sigh, Liam nodded. “My turn, then.”

Their “game” continued on, slowly but steadily. Liam kept asking questions that could’ve been twisted into answers Khalid could not have answered. Khalid kept asking convoluted highbrow questions about mana. It was a back and forth that left the human second-guessing whether he’d piece together the parts of the magic system properly.

Every time Liam had to stop and piece together an answer, he’d make sure to make the next question even more blatantly easy to answer yet holding a twist. Of particular amusement were those with twists that Khalid could have figured out on his own, easily, decades if not centuries ago. Little secrets of magecraft that were unknown to him and to many other mages, but that those with the curiosity and willingness to experiment had and would stumble upon.

More importantly, as the minutes turned into hours, the mage began to show a slow but mounting frustration and anger. With it, he’d push the “riddles” further and further higher in concept, digging himself more squarely into the domain of what Liam felt confident in. Questions of spell intricacies were slowly replaced with interactions between large-scale spells, then into properties of seventh-circle golemancy in general.

And he’d continue lowering the bar.

“...it’d only need a second circle mage and some iron rust.” Liam sang along, watching how Khalid was practically vibrating.

The mage sucked in sharply, mouth clamped shut, body long since coiled and

“Your turn,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table.

This was the moment he’d been waiting for.

Up until now, Khalid had been trying to play smart, trying to play like an academic that thought they had the upper hand all along. But by now, there was no way the mage had any of that smugness left in him. The thought of losing and having to meet the deity was out the window, Liam had made this personal, humiliating him by turning the tables, showing exactly how little he knew.

Now Khalid’s pride was on the line. The big question, the last bastion of resistance, the one thing Liam was certain of, would truly put his arm on the line.

“It appears you know plenty about golemancy. Far more than someone who merely stole notes and research.” The mage put the cup down on the table, voice strained in an angry hiss as he raised himself so that he may glare down at the human. “Being that the case, it should prove easy for you to figure out a way to destroy my latest creation.”

“What?” He leaned forward with a frown. “If it’s theoretical-”

“No, it’s practical.” Khalid snapped, his whole body vibrating with a low threatening hiss that made the servants scramble. The najasil loomed down to stare directly into Liam’s eyes.

“The deal-”

“I know that you came here risking nothing. Even if I took your arm, you’d crawl back to your deity and have it regrown and replaced. I allowed your sham out of curiosity, but it’s clear this is not the first time you approach a mage to humiliate them in their own home.” He flared his fangs, pupils narrowing into barely visible thin lines. “You are a well-read human, I will give you that much, but you are weak. I’ve met thousands like you, ‘book-bound’ mortals that live all their lives locked up inside their own heads.”

Liam’s mouth snapped shut, jaw tightening, smile gone.

Khalid continued. “Perhaps it was this God of yours that gave you the knowledge to play me like a fool, maybe not. But it’s no more than a trick in the end, a toy or a trinket, no more yours than a gifted sword.” The hiss grew louder. “For the amusement you’ve provided trying to pretend that you were something you are not, I will let you surrender.” He loomed closer, glaring. “Give up, leave, and I will allow you to keep your arm, mister Carter. Or you can stay, prove how wrong you are, and die.”

Nostrils flaring, Liam turned from Khalid to the golem, then back at the mage.

Everything had gone how Liam had expected it to, except this one last detail. At some level he realized he’d messed up somewhere, perhaps pushed too hard, or the circumstances hadn’t been the best. But damn if he was going to let this slip by.

“Originally, the plan was that if you lost, you’d just agree to meet and talk. Fuck that.” He stood up slowly, leaning closer to the najasil’s face. “When I break your greatest creation, you will become my client’s most devout follower.”

“Be my guest.” Khalid hissed in response, both of them glaring at the other.

Now he just needed to figure out how he’d pull it off.