Ada felt the metaphorical bulb of eureka light up. The crux does not lie in the sand but rather in the cause of the motion of the sand which was due to the wind that was swirling in a vortex. If there was no wind there would be no sand jinn. This sand jinn was similar to a dust devil. Isn’t a dust devil just caused by a precise pattern of pressure differentials? Her eidetic memory pulled up an article from the National Weather Service on exactly this phenomena.
> Typically, they occur under clear skies and light winds, when the ground can warm the air to temperatures well above the temperatures just above the ground. This is a very unstable condition, since the heated air is less dense and lighter than the cooler air above it. If the temperature of the ground becomes much warmer than the air above it, vertical mixing will take place to release this unstable configuration. Once the ground heats up enough, a localized pocket of air will quickly rise through the cooler air above it. The sudden uprush of hot air causes air to speed horizontally inward to the bottom of the newly-forming vortex. This rapidly rising pocket of air may begin to rotate, and if it continues to be stretched in the vertical direction, will increase in rotation speed. This increase in rotation speed from vertical stretching is similar to the increased spinning of an ice skater as they bring their arms in toward their bodies. As more hot air rushes in toward the developing vortex to replace the air that is rising, this spinning effect is intensified. As the air rises, it cools and eventually will descend back through the center of the vortex.
>
> Under optimal conditions, a balance between the hot air rising along the outer wall of the vortex and the cooler air sinking in the vortex occurs. The dust devil then begins to move across the ground, picking up more and more dust, which highlights the vortex making it visible to the eye. The dust devil, once formed, is a funnel-like chimney through which hot air moves both upward and circularly. If a steady supply of warm unstable air is available for the dust devil, it will continue to move across the ground. However, once the warm unstable air is depleted or the balance is broken in some other way, the dust devil will break down and dissipate.
>
> On September 14, 2000, a large well-defined dust devil hit the Coconino County Fairgrounds causing property damage and personal injuries. Tents were blown down and a ticket booth was knocked over. A large wooden beam in one of the pavilions was split due to the strong winds. Due to this amount of damage, it is estimated that wind speeds may have reached up to 75 mph. Dust devils are not only common to our planet, but have also been found on Mars as well.
That last part was probably unnecessary to recall though she did it find fascinating that these swirling air masses were found on other planets as well. Even as a goddess, she found herself easily distracted by bubbling thoughts that she just found interesting rather than overtly useful at the moment. What was nice was that since her thoughts ran at a speed at least a hundred times faster than a normal human when she was in her computation state, scarcely a millisecond passed by. She recalled a few more interesting facts on why dust devils on Mars are stronger and lasted longer than the ones on Earth. For instance, whereas an Earth dust devil can be 10 to 20 meters in diameter and 1000 meters high, a Martian dust devil can be 1000 meters in diameter and 10,000 meters (6 miles) high. No wonder why they’re said to be probably responsible for 30% of the dust in the Martian atmosphere.
Alright, that was enough of a detour in my thoughts. She checked the time and it read 4:30. To confront the problem at hand, I believe I just have to change the temperature. Let’s lower the temperature here a bit. I do have a spell for that.
...
...
...
...
In rapid succession, first a layer of thick cold fog and then immediately afterwards numerous chunks of ice scattered amongst the fog formed where her eyes directed the spells to appear. Presumably, they were both at both at -20 degrees Celsius. The ice particles were formed with a diameter that averaged 10 millimeters. Those who understood meteorology better than her might call it a freezing fog that would form rime, a type of white ice that formed when the droplets in fog freeze to the outer surface of objects.
She noted with satisfaction that the jinn has stopped moving. The ice that has thickened and encapsulated all the sand particles. In slow motion, the sand weighed down by the ice all collapsed in a pathetic heap on the ground. She looked at it for ten seconds and confirmed that there was no movement.
“Was that it?” She hoped she didn’t sound too arrogant since that wasn’t her intention. She was honestly hoping for a greater challenge which might have required a chain of spells and on-the-fly object creation to solve.
There was a pause and then a brief acknowledgment. “Very impressive.”
She waited for the mage to continue and say something like this was the most creative or fastest that I have ever seen anyone defeat a sand jinn. To the disappointment of her ego, those compliments never came. Ada mentally shook her head for a second and wondered why she wanted to fish for compliments from a mage who clearly didn’t like her or rather her kind. Maybe Ruciella and Leanne’s heroine worship was a bad influence on her where she was now actively anticipating compliments from the most unlikely of sources.
Speaking of which, I hope Ruciella is alright. I know it’s scarcely been an hour but it also at the same time feels like it’s been over a year since I have seen her. The perception of time must be different in this subuniverse or whatever the mages here call these alternate realities.
After waiting for a full minute with nothing more said or anything else happening, she lost her patience. “Isn’t this the moment when the subuniverse disappears and you tell me that I pass this test?”
“You still have not moved the final box to the appropriate location.”
Ada groaned internally. Of course that was the whole point of why she was punished by this Artifact in the first place. She quickly glanced at the current position of the last box and did some mental math on where she might have gone wrong. Perhaps there was some slight deviation in terrain elevation which was not accounted for by her rough estimates. After some experimentation in placing the boxes in various positions, she finally managed to derive it correctly for she heard a loud bell. She noted the time as 3:15.
The box in front of her disappeared. Just as she was about to give herself a congratulatory note, everything around her suddenly started glowing. Rapidly, the light grew in brightness and filled the entirety of her vision blinding her. Eilin’s voice came through again. “This is the final part of your test. Navigate to the exit and you will have concluded.”
“But where is the exit? All I see is just light.”
“That is for you to discover. Perhaps you can think of this as a lesson. Just like one can be blind there’s only darkness, one can also be blind when there’s too much light. There are places you cannot go to by just blindly running around.” The smugness in her voice was as clear as the bell.
“I didn’t exactly come here to take an image processing or photography class,” Ada said. There was no reply. She didn’t think the mage would know what either one was and Eilin appeared eager to watch a Divine fail this test. Ada suspected that the arrogant mage wouldn’t mind trapping her here for a near eternity so that she could conduct some more in-depth research into the abilities of the Divine. As a potential ally, from first impressions, Eilin did not appear to be a good candidate.
She thought for a millisecond. A possible solution to this problem grew clear to her. Light was made of photons. She could not see because her detector was being saturated by too many of them. However, was this the fault of her detector or the fault of her brain in comprehending the photons appearing hitting her eyes? Also, could she force her brain to only process photons of particular wavelength ranges. That would be inhumanly possible but her eyes were already inhumanly possible in seeing details over two miles away as if it was an inch away.
She waited for something magical to happen but nothing did. In a typical isekai novel, the main character would discover something that he or she hasn’t thought of trying before and the System would send a ping notifying them that they have acquired a new power. Mind over matter didn’t appear to work here.
If I can’t change my optical detector efficiency or bandwidth range what could I do? Perhaps I need to think a little deeper since the mage despite her condescending attitude did give me a hint. It is not a place I can get to by just running around. Since she could run quite fast that meant it was unlikely to be a place she had already been to.
Ada reflected on where a exit could possibly be that did not require her to physically move her legs there. If it was in another dimension, she was out of luck since she didn’t think even as a goddess that she could see into other dimensions. A loud bell rang above her followed by Eilin’s condescending voice. “Just a reminder that the time is still ticking. You now have less than three minutes to escape.”
“I know that!”
“You do seem to be the type that daydreams a little too much. I would add an extra reminder. The bell will ring every ten seconds until time runs out.”
Ada assigned the moniker to the clock that she could no longer see “the countdown bell of doom” since the ball was getting increasingly grating and louder as well. Ada ran around the place while listening carefully to the bell. There was now barely a minute left until time ran out and she would fail. Still, she remained optimistic. She had been calculating the loudness of the bell compared with time and she had a hypothesis.
“Why are you making the bell so loud?”
“From my vantage point, the bell is as loud as it has been since two minutes ago.”
Eilin might be annoying and condescending but Ada had to place some trust in that the mage was not an overt liar. If the bell was not getting louder to Eilin who was standing outside this space, then that must mean the bell was getting closer to Ada. Eilin implied that Ada could not run to the bell but who said that she couldn’t jump to it? From running around and using her very sensitive ears, Ada had realized that the source of the sound was descending from the sky. She couldn’t see it due to all the light.
With only 20 seconds left, she heard the sound of the bell distinctly ringing right above her head. Taking a leap of faith, she jumped straight into the sky. There was a significant anticlimactic popping sound and a sudden rushing of air. The next thing she knew she back in the chamber standing in the same position as if she had never left. All the torches were lit again as well.
Eilin’s facial expression was unreadable but she did give Ada a begrudging nod as she removed her ridiculously silly spectacles and stated plainly. “Congratulations, Lady Ada. You have passed the exam.”
“So dare I ask what would have happened if I didn’t pass?”
“You would have been trapped for exactly three centuries.”
“Three centuries!”
“That would actually be just three hundred days in terms of your time perception.”
“I knew it was going to be some kind of Hyperbolic Time Chamber!”
Eilin ignored a reference she obviously did not understand. Ada continued. “So what’s next? More tests?”
“Do you want more tests?”
“Ideally no but I’m going to be very surprised if there isn’t more.”
Eilin nodded with a smile. “Very perceptive. Just one if we are going to expedite matters. The Magister would love to meet you. I have already informed him of your success here.”
Ada didn’t like the smile the mage had on her face. She had heard that job interviews could be grueling with multiple stages. If the first stage of this Academy interview for goddesses was just a little nerve-wracking, what would be the one that the head of the Magister could give her? If she was human, she would have shuddered. Since she was a goddess, she only swallowed a metaphorical gulp. With more courage than she felt, she said. "I'm ready to meet him now if he's ready."