Calian remembered the look on Melody’s face when he’d finished creating the Clearing, the wind blades and large fires had scared her even if she didn’t show it outwardly. He’d also seen something else, maybe greed or envy, but he wasn’t sure. He had more or less learned his lesson, he needed to interest Alexander by showing skills that wouldn’t threaten him. He wanted a relationship built on trust, not fear, Calian had seen too many oppressed people and knew it wasn’t a viable solution.
Still deep in thoughts Calian mechanically dismissed the dirty dishes with a flick of the wrist, sending them to the kitchen, and motioned for Alexander to follow him outside. As he was passing the door, pondering on what spells he should showcase he realized his blunder and turned to look at Alexander. The man still had his usual calm expression, but his eyes were darting all around Calian, studying him, a tinge of surprise deep in the blue orbs.
“Well… I was wondering what to show you, but I guess that works too, I’m sorry if I startled you, my habits got the better of me while I was thinking,” chuckled Calian at the innocent error. “But come on, that’s mundane, I should show you what magic is really capable of.”
Alexander didn’t reply, just giving his usual nod of agreement, the unusual circumstances not breaking his always calm and collected persona. He watched as Calian waved his hand, bringing one of the empty crates lined against the northern wall of the house flying before him.
Calian grabbed the crate, it was a cubic, 50 by 50 by 50 cm (1.6 foot or 20 inches idk what you guys prefer), wooden container made of planks held by classic steel nails. “It’s just a wood crate, nothing exceptional, just remember well what the original dimensions are,” explained Calian while handing the box to Alexander. Once the blue-eyed man had gotten a clear look at the box he handed it back and Calian sat cross legged in front of the crate and closed his eyes.
Like he’d done in front of Melody and many times since when he was alone in the Clearing, Calian concentrated and started feeling space with his mana. He felt the tightly interwoven strings that acted as the basic component of space, they were like a cloth woven in three dimensions, slightly stretched towards the center of the earth. Calian felt around with his mana, feeling the edges of the box, the strings that passed through the wood and outside of the box, the weaving of space present everywhere. The mage flexed his will lightly, pulling on the space inside the box, he felt the space around him tense, resisting his efforts to bend it to his will, the cloth stretching a bit but not giving in to his tug. Calian smiled, he had chosen dimensional magic as his major because he’d felt an affinity toward space. During his teenage years, when most people’s magic power really awakened, he had grown frustrated with a puzzle where he needed to remove a metal piece from another, and in a fit of rage had made the puzzle piece skip in space. Calian refocused on the problem at hand, not that he needed much concentration for spatially expanding such a simple object, but he didn’t like to do things half-heartedly. He especially didn’t want to cause a local collapse, or even a space rebound, both were a pain to deal with.
A local collapse would cause the local spatial weave to distort and grow out of shape, overall nothing too dangerous for mundane things but it affected spells and rendered any spatial manipulation impossible for days. Space rebounds were generally harmless, simply tearing apart the container trying to be expanded, but a big enough rebound could extend beyond the object being enchanted and affect surrounding things, like a careless mage. At best it would hurt like a bitch and probably draw blood. At worst the mage and nearby objects would be torn apart completely.
The mage sent mana flooding in the box and around it and pulled, he forced the nearby space under his control, the weave folding orderly under his watch. He flexed his will one more time and the nearby space rushed inside the box, filling it to the brim and compressing under the inflexible will of Calian’s mana. At last, when the box had nearly tripled its original dimensions, Calian anchored the compressed space to the walls of the box, causing it to shudder under the sudden stress but with no other consequence. His space shenanigans finished the mage got up ang grabbed the box, showing it to Alexander.
The box wasn’t that impressive at first glance, the walls were the same, there was no incredible lightshow inside, no special mind-blowing effect. But when Alexander took a closer look, he noticed the inside of the box felt kind of blurry. The effect only became clear when Calian threw a rock in the box, the rock seemed to shrink and fall for a moment until it produced a dull sound when touching the bottom. By ear Alexander could tell the rock had fallen about the height of a person, but there was no way it could have according to the exterior height of the crate.
Calian handed him the box and smiled, “Try reaching it with you arm.”
Alexander as usual nodded but didn’t reply, grabbing the box and sending his right arm to retrieve the stone. The man had expected to easily reach the rock, but when his shoulder was almost inside of the strange item Calian had handed him he officially declared something was wrong. When he looked, he noticed the rock was still quite a distance away and he wouldn’t be able to reach it with his arm length alone. Surprised he retracted his arm and sent in back inside the box a few times, looking closely at the changes. After a while he seemed to understand and looked at Calian, questions burning on his tongue and a face screaming of confusion and interest, “It’s bigger on the inside !
Calian smiled, happy to have cracked the stoic facade of the man. “Yes it’s a spatially expanded box, I think you could fit inside with the upper torso and head poking out. You can try if you want its safe.”
Alexander dropped the crate on the floor and hopped inside, careful not to hold on to the edge to prevent the box from tipping over. He landed at the bottom of the box and looked exactly like Calian had said he would, there was a box on the floor from which a grown man upper torso and head were sticking. From afar it looked like Alexander was standing in a hole in the ground covered by a crate.
After a while, having somewhat understood what was going on with the box, Alexander raised his hand for Calian to grab and help him get out of the box. The mage helped and once Alexander was standing on firm ground again he looked at Calian with a face saying ‘So what now ?’.
Calian dusted himself before answering the silent question of his sparring partner, “Now, I expose you my malevolent scheme and we make a deal.” Seeing Alexander smile slightly at the joke he continued, “I want to go home, that means back on my planet where I have family and friends. But to do that I’ll need a planetary teleport, which, if I were to try alone would be almost like a man trying to build a rocket to the moon alone. Over the last six months I’ve concluded I can’t go home by my own means, I need the production of a whole magical society to assist me.”
When Calian made a pause in his explanation he saw Alexander had sparkles in his eyes. “Do you mean, you want to…?” Alexander couldn’t finish his sentence, once his calm shell cracked the man was a geyser of different emotions all struggling to surface.
Calian nodded, “Yes I want to give magic to everyone on planet Earth.”
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Alexander took some time to get a grip on himself, after a breath he was back to his usual seriousness but Calian could see the glint in his eyes, the man was finally expressing something after looking like a heartless robot for over six months. It had taken Calian to reveal the existence of his magic abilities and his plan to bring the man to show something, a testament to his self-control.
After a second of reflection Alexander asked in a neutral voice, “What does giving magic to everyone entails ?”
“Remember how I said your planet was devoid of mana ? Well it’s still true for most of it, the Clearing has mana only because I made it produce its own. When people encounter enough mana they form a mana core, which allows them to manipulate magic and cast spell like I do. Melody has one and knows haw to cast spells. You have one after coming to the Clearing so often, you just don’t know how to cast spells.” Calian paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, he was about to explain what his project entailed, and he was a bit nervous. “I want to release enough mana from the Clearing that eventually we reach a tipping point and every living being starts producing mana. When mana will be everywhere, anyone can do magic.”
Alexander looked at him for a moment before asking slowly, “What if people don’t want magic ? What if they object and say they prefer their daily lives as they are ?”
Calian froze and looked deep in Alexander’s eyes, a grin slowly creeping on his face. He said slowly, almost icily, “It’s not a choice. I don’t care if they don’t want to, if they like their daily lives as they are, or even if they’re scared of magic. I’m not giving them a choice. I’ll do whatever it takes to build a planetary teleporter.”
Alexander gave Calian a deep look, for once no expression flashing deep in his eyes. Finally, after a tense few seconds where Calian prepared to riposte to any attacks, Alexander visibly relaxed. He smiled, it was one of the rare genuine smiles that ever saw on his serious face, “It’s good that you know what you want and that you are so determined to do everything needed to get it.” The blue-eyed man spoke more softly after that, “I don’t necessarily agree with your ethics, but I don’t care either. I’m not against having magic so I stand with you on that, and I appreciate your gesture of trust. I don’t really like being in the limelight however, so if people start opposing you, you’re on your own.”
“I’m happy you’re okay with my decisions, I know it’s a bit of a shitty move to bring magic without a general consent of the population on a planet I’m not really a part of, but it’s not like I’m taking anything from anyone. If people are not happy after they can just not use magic,” he shrugged. “As for business I’ve got an interesting plan that you might want to hear.”
Both men went back to the house where they discussed their future plans until the evening came. Their discussions about magic had been so engrossing they hadn’t seen time fly by and their scheduled close combat training had been postponed. Since Alexander was extremely interested in magic, despite his outward indifference, he’d asked a lot of questions and both men had convened that they’d repurpose their firearms training to magical training for Alexander.
As Alexander was exiting the Clearing Calian visibly deflated, all the tension he hadn’t realized was present in his body had vanished. Alexander was intense and Calian had thought that they’d end up fighting when he’d revealed his plans. But the big scary man was actually a total nerd who had been passionate about magic as soon as they’d finished the ‘serious talk’. Relieved, Calian went back to the house, grabbed himself some leftovers and grabbed his cellphone, he had a call to make.
///
“Hey ! Thanks for inviting me Cal’ ! It’s been such a long time, I‘m sorry I didn’t keep in touch I was so busy experimenting with all the stuff you gave me…” apologized Melody.
“It’s fine, I didn’t reach out either, you know the strange mage experimenting in his scary lair and all,” chuckled Calian. He beckoned for Melody to come in and have a seat before continuing, “You might’ve guessed but it’s not courtesy call. For the past six month I’ve been doing my own stuff, studying new materials, inventing stuff, learning new runes and new botany techniques. I’ve also grown quite familiar with societies of earth through a lot of reading, and I think I’m starting to have a grasp of how things work. But I can’t go further on my own, I need collaboration. I’m good at magic, but alone and without other specialized mages I’ll never be capable of learning everything and then crafting and assembling everything in a decent timeframe, I could still be here 20 years from now. I’ll need people to rely on, like Alexander or you.”
Melody nodded, “I think I get your point, it’s too big a project to attempt it alone so you want a team to help you. What exactly would you propose ? It’s not like I’m freely available, I’ve got a job and all…”
The mage smiled, “I know you’re working, the only thing I ask you is to change who you work for. Say… me ?” As Melody was about to ask what Calian meant, he raised his hand and he cut her off, continuing his explanation, “Let me explain please. I need the backup of a whole magical society to create a planetary teleporter, so I’ll give magic to everyone. It’s fairly simple to do, it’s just another upgrade to the greenhouse. No, what I’ll really need your help with are the following steps. Once everyone has formed their mana core and the first signs of magical awakening are manifesting there will be a window of opportunity. No one will really know how to do magic, no law would have been passed on it, and people are probably desperate for answers and solutions to their newfound problems. That’s where we come in, we’ll be a magical company. We’ll sell spells, magical lessons, objects, potions, patents, we’ll provide expert magical technicians capable of integrating magic into everyday lives with runes and the likes.”
Melody wanted to say something but when she started picturing Calian’s project she stopped. The mage had wits and a solid project, and she liked that.
Since Melody was silent, Calian took the opportunity to explain his idea further, “I’ve talked with Alexander and he’s on board with the idea, he asked me when we should expect mana to reach a critical point and start being self-sufficient. I’ve tweaked the mana capture runes around the Clearing and I ran the calculations, I think we have a bout a year before Earth becomes self-sufficient, probably a little more but we should aim to be ready for the one year mark. Over the course of that year I will teach magic to all of you so we can later open a magical academy. Our company will make profit on people’s hunger for the exciting new trendy stuff that magic is !”
The mage had truly finished his explanations this time and was looking intently at Melody, trying to guess what she was thinking under her frown. After a little while of awkward silence she raised her eyes and met his, a genuine smile on her face. “I love the idea ! We’ll make a fortune selling stuff no one has. Plus, magic is the stuff everyone dreams of it’s guaranteed to be a hit. But I think you didn’t account for something Cal’. When people start making their own attack spells - not if, when, because humans always find a way to weaponize something- crime rates are probably going to rise mostly because our infrastructure is not ready for it. You told me yourself one evening that almost every building in your world had basic wards to present any shenanigans, like fireballs, teenagers might want to pull off. We won’t have this here, any random dude who figures out how to shoot fire might wreak havoc.”
Calian’s face had dropped slowly while Melody was talking, the realization she was right sinking in. He’d been so used to the common wards back at home that he’d completely forgot the infrastructure of the whole planet was mundane, unsuited for magic and even more for a sudden influx of magic to the whole of the population. He looked at Melody, annoyance visible on his face but clearly directed at his own negligence and whined, “I’d completely forgot, have you got any idea how we can solve that issue ? I want to create a company not start a civil war !”
Melody chuckled, “Chill Cal’, it’s not an issue ! You’re not the one at fault for people being crazy, you can’t be blamed for a crime you didn’t know people would commit. No, it’s clearly not an issue, it’s a boon. He might not have told you yet, but Alexander has a military background and some of his old mates are retired. If some dudes start going crazy with fireballs we’ll sell our service as magical vigilantes, we’ll neutralize with magical fighters the people wielding magic for dangerous purposes. Well, we’ll be magical vigilantes until we’ve trained police and military, for a price of course !” she winked.
Calian was gawking at her, flabbergasted, “And I thought I was being greedy because I wanted to sell cheaply manufactured magical items for a high price ! You’re frightening Mel’ ! Turning a bad side effect into even more income, unbelievable…”
Melody chuckled, “So, when do we get started ?”