Calian was seated at the ornate table, still in his inner paradise, he was reading the books Oara had given him. Oara had just left and ravaged by curiosity Calian had decided to take a peek at the books before leaving. He was not disappointed, the books were exactly as he remembered, the runes and enchants depicted were the same.
After a short while Calian closed the books, closed his eyes and wished to return to reality. When the mage opened his eyes once again he was back in the greenhouse, he hadn’t moved at all. The Gate was sitting peacefully on his knees, back in its original state. Oara had explained before departing that he now had a link with the gate, he could come and go from the Library at any time he wished as long as he had the artifact with him. When in the library he wouldn’t be fully inert as he’d been when passing the trial, it was more a projection of the library in his head through the Gate and so he wouldn’t be able to attempt trials until he deployed the Gate fully.
Calian was perfectly happy with this arrangement, he basically had a portable library at his disposal, that was far more than he could ever wish for ! Satisfied and looking forward to the future he settled under his blanket and let himself drift off to sleep.
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Six months had passed and Calian was happier than ever. Oh sure, he missed his family, the empire and his old habits, but that sting was soothed under all the amazing things he’d done during the past months.
Calian had made a greenhouse for Melody and had passed a few easy trials to procure her books about all the basic magical subjects an apprentice mage was supposed to know of. She’d been overjoyed and since he hadn’t made any other big (mana) waves she’d left him in peace, she was probably spending all her free time experimenting with her newfound magic. The hardest part in all of this was for Calian to transcribe the books he had in the Library into real books. He’d ended up creating an enchanted pen that could transcribe the word he said, which caused Calian to be a busy audio-book narrator for some time.
He had also used the books acquired during his first use of the Gate of Knowledge to build the Clearing into a real retreat worthy of a mage. A perimeter of alarm runes would notify him of anything trespassing nearby, even going as far as to identify previously seen humans, namely Melody and Alexander. He’d also camouflaged the mana capture runes because they were drawing attention of even animals and he didn’t want Alexander noticing one accidentally. He’d made himself a little garden and that combined with foraging in the forest allowed Calian to be almost fully independent from the outside world. After waking up with a stag looking through his window Calian ad decided to add a shield runescheme to the Clearing, like the mana capture rune it’d been a large project but had proven particularly useful when a storm had hit and the shield had allowed the clearing to stay relatively unaffected. Otherwise the shield was discreet and simply prevented unauthorized entry in the forest.
The house had also become worthy of a modern house with all amenities expected of one. With some neat tricks of magic Calian had some running hot and cold water, an equipped kitchen with runes burners, a comfy bed, windows, various furniture and little utensils and even electricity provided by a generator bought from Alexander. The most impressive feature of the house however was the cellar, it had been spatially expanded to become both Calian’s materials stockpile and his personal lab.
The mage had also started his training with Alexander, they practiced close combat at the Clearing, Calian had used an earth manipulation spell to make a flat and soft earth sparring ground where he and Alexander could train together. Obviously, he hadn’t revealed any of his capabilities to him yet, but the man wasn’t stupid and was probably slowly putting two and two together, he at least knew Calian was capable of more than he revealed. Calian had been torn, tempted more than once to reveal to the man his magical abilities as their friendship progressed, but had held back every time, realizing the moment probably wasn’t appropriate.
The firearms training was taking place at a shooting range privately owned by a friend of Alexander, the man refused to bring any weapon at the Clearing. While Calian was a bit confused when he first used the weapon, he quickly got the gist of it and improved quickly. Calian had used a Beretta M9 and a SP 2022 and was getting used to various ammunitions, for now his favorites were lower calibers like the 9mm, higher calibers like the .40 were causing him too much spread when shooting. Calian was thinking about buying a gun and some ammo to experiment with, he had some ideas of runes that could pair well with bullets as anchors.
Calian had also expanded his deal with Alexander, he was producing larger and larger batches of minor healing potions. According to the latter the demand for his stuff was incredible, sport clubs were buying it discreetly since tests had revealed the healing potion didn’t leave any trace in the organism. Some private armed forces and security agency were stocking up on the potion, and other clients were coming from everywhere as the new stuff in town was quickly getting spread by happy clients. Some hikers had bought some in case of a bad fall, a nanny had bought a batch in case children hurt themselves really bad and even a nurse had come to try some. Problem was, the stuff had gotten so much traction that it had been reported to the police. While analysis had shown that no drugs were present, it was just some sugary water with a few vitamins according to the labs, Alexander was fearing that the stuff would be outlawed shortly. The mysterious healings reported were chalked up to an intense placebo effect, but the truth would probably come out shortly, once the media had the chance to get their hands on the thing.
To anticipate for any income problem Calian had started designing the next magical item he’d sell. He’d needed to account for several restriction, for example he couldn’t develop anything that relied on external mana. So it was either a one use item or a magically enhanced tool that didn’t need mana after its creation. Calian had hesitated a lot, he knew a fair bit about magical explosives, mostly because he’d read up on them when he was a teen, but had eventually given up on developing them for now. The market would be too small and already quite occupied, and his product would attract too much attention because they would be extremely different from conventional explosives.
After a lot of thinking, drafts and failed tests Calian had narrowed his possibilities to two products. He could produce spatially expanded containers, from simple boxes, backpack to huge shipping containers. It would mostly focus on quality rather than quantity and he was eyeing large freight corporations. Improving the transport capacity of anything transporting containers was definitely an opportunity they wouldn’t pass up.
His second option was a stimulant potion, it’d follow the same recipe as his health potion but with a swiftness intent behind it and not a healing intent. Calian would then add some caffeine and sugar to the drink and market it as a revolutionary and healthy energy drink. He hoped to avoid the scrutiny his healing potion had garnered, the effects being much more discreet.
Calian was thinking of producing the energy drink first and use the income to start a larger business focused on spatially expanded containers. He’d start small, expanding some water bottles for larger carrying capabilities, then maybe a few small crates for parents to stuff the toys of their kids. Maybe after that he’d expand some fuel tanks, or some larger containers. At last, when people were curious enough, he’d sell some freight containers for an exorbitant price.
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Since the mage had ascertained what his next project was he’d started growing the swiftness variety of plants in a little field he’d made with earth manipulation. Since he wanted the effect to be a tad bit more potent than the healing potion he would let the plant mature a bit more before harvest and he was about a week yet from having a finished product.
Finally, Calian had also done a lot of magical research on the exotic materials he’d bought. He had found some materials were somewhat useful for magical applications, some were mundane with no special properties and some others would induce small revolutions in some magical fields.
Plastic optic fiber was a godsend to transport mana from one place to another, glass wool and other insulators were capable of storing large amounts of mana and releasing it slowly, recomposed wood and all sorts of transformed woods were all extremely good mana conductors without the slight imperfections found in nature, concrete was quite inert towards mana, but reinforced concrete had a decent mana conduction and capacity thanks to metal. Some rare earth had the strangest properties, indium, the stuff used in touchscreen would produce a flat mana field around itself with a variable offset, which would allow for magical touchscreens. Other rare earths all had various materials, some being particularly useful when combined with mana for exotic chemical reactions. Neodymium didn’t have much of an effect on mana but rather the other way around, the mana seemingly boosted the magnetic properties of the material. Calian was sure he’d missed a lot of things since he had neither all the magical equipment seen in magical labs, or the high expertise needed to use most of Earths’ modern tools.
With all the new materials he had at his disposal and the new knowledge he’d acquired by delving repeatedly in the Gate of Knowledge the mage had started to produce some private inventions that he was quite proud of. While Calian was making an AC for his house based on heating and cooling runes he’d been inspired. Since mana wasn’t available on the rest of the planet, and the concentration was plummeting after getting away from the Clearing, he’d devised a portable mana reactor. The mana reactor was fueled by biological matter that would be decomposed by fungi. While it was a great theoretical idea, tests had revealed that the mana reactor had quite the limited output, barely enough to power a small heating rune, which had been quite the disappointment to Calian.
His other inventions were ranging from funny but useless to somewhat useful, he’d made a hoverboard after watching Back to the future, he’d made some mana powered Christmas lights in prevision of the coming winter, some basic cleaning golems that had had the bad habits of getting stuck on furniture…
Overall, the past six month had both been the busiest and most relaxed days Calian had ever had. He had been served a large plate of solitude and had loved every mouthful of it, dedicating to magical study and relaxation in his self-made retreat. He had dedicated to his passions for a full six months, studying interesting new things, running the production of healing potions, improving things here and there. Even the homesickness had started to slowly fade as he settled in his new routine more and more. But over the last month Calian had been more and more restless. The calm he’d been filled with had slowly faded, leaving him bored a bit more each day. He had studied every material Alexander had provided him with, he’d crafted a lot of things, had made himself a home, but now he was running out of steam. A lone mage can only go so far by himself. A lone mage can only go so far on an alien planet without revealing his powers.
Calian got up from his porch chair, he’d been thinking enough. The past six month were great, but he couldn’t stay like that, he knew how it would end, he’d eventually stop caring altogether and lose his motivation to go home. He needed to act now, and his first step was Alexander. Good thing that their scheduled close combat training was coming this afternoon.
The mage wanted to break the routine, most of the time Alexander would bring his own lunch but this time Calian wanted to cook a meal so they could talk properly while eating. He grabbed some filet-mignon from his runic fridge, a few potatoes, onions, leeks, paprika, garlic, shallot, thyme and basil and started to cook. He peeled his potatoes with a quick flick of the hand and set them in a pan of oil with salt, paprika and grated garlic. He set the onions, shallots, leeks and garlic to slowly cook on the mana burner and sliced the filet-mignon in decently sized portions. Once the potatoes were starting to get crispy Calian heated a pan with butter and olive oil and grilled both side of the filet-mignon quickly, taking care of leaving the middle still tender. As Calian cooked he remembered his first-time cooking at Melody’s house and was emotional at how far he’d come since then, he had really improved in various areas since he’d teleported on Earth.
Just as everything was done cooking Alexander triggered the alert rune, letting Calian know he was here. Calian signaled Alexander to come in the house as the latter was getting near the border of the Clearing.
Alexander wasn’t so surprised that Calian knew he was coming, the man he had been training for the past six month had that uncanny ability to know when he was coming, but he was perplexed he was invited in the house. He’d been there previously, but it wasn’t like Calian to deviate from their routine. If he wanted to talk he’d have said so after their sparring. Something serious was probably going on.
Alexander’s surprise only grew when Calian asked him to sit and served him a good-smelling, appetizing, home-cooked meal. Both men started to eat silently, only chit-chatting about random unimportant subject. After a particularly long pause Calian sighed and knew it was time. The mage was nervous but knew he needed to open up for this to work.
“It’s been six month since we started our partnership, you know. I guess you, uhm… I guess you noticed oddities with me, probably since the first time we met.”
At this point Alexander was relaxed, he had been anxious something serious was happening, but it was just Calian’s confession time. It was interesting, but probably not alarming. Alexander simply nodded along at what Calian said, indeed he’d been strange since the first time they met.
Calian continued, “I guess you might not believe me, please just let me finish my explanation and I’ll answer and prove everything you want to know later.” Calian took the usual deep breath he needed when he had something difficult to say and looked Alexander in the eyes, “I’m a mage. As in I can do magic.”
Calian had wanted to say more, explain everything, but his throat had knotted at the last moment, the words dying in his mouth. He still had some trouble opening up voluntarily, when he’d met Melody he was so distressed he was glad to talk to anyone caring about him so it hadn’t felt that hard at the time. Now, however, Calian needed to voluntarily bypass his defenses and voluntarily show a vulnerable side of him to establish trust.
Alexander was looking at him blankly, respecting Calian’s wish of letting him finish. Seeing that, the mage did his best to keep going even if his speech was a but incoherent and disordered., “I also don’t come from this planet, an accident made me end up here and my goal is going back to my planet. At first it was really hard to live on Earth because your world has no magic. But I found a solution, that’s why I had that greenhouse, it produces mana for me to use. And after I settled here, I made the whole forest produce magic for me to use. I, uh, I think that’s the gist of it.”
Calian just looking silently at Alexander, trying to judge the man’s thoughts despite his neutral and unwavering expression. Alexander was maintaining a blank expression, chewing idly on his meat while looking intently at Calian.
Finally, after a long minute of silence and swallowing the mouthful he’d been eating, Alexander replied, “That would explain the oddities surrounding you. And the potion we’re selling makes more sense now that magic is involved, I’d always wondered how you managed to make such a potent healing factor.” Alexander took his time to eat some more before continuing, “Do you mind showing me what you’re capable of ? I assume that revealing your secrets is a show of trust to deepen our cooperation and if what you’re saying is true it could make us both a lot of money.”
Calian simply nodded, he wanted to impress Alexander and since he had more mana at his disposal than when he revealed magic to Melody he was planning on going all out. Now that the hard part was done it was going to be fun !