The following morning, I was prepared for when Orykson appeared at eight, right on time, as he usually did. He clicked his pocketwatch, tucked it away, then glanced around at the backyard, his eyes landing on where I’d begun setting up a basic teleportation platform the day before.
“We’ll have to get that registered before Dusk claims that as a part of her dominion,” he said mildly. “The construction of standard teleportation platforms on personal property is legal, but when you reach fifth gate, it enters different laws, and it will begin to trigger international alarm wards.”
“We have those?” I asked.
He waved his hand.
“Every nation does. I set up plenty of them myself. It’s important to know how and when people are able to skip the normal process of registering at the border. Bureaucracy becomes increasingly frustrated when it comes to dealing with people with power, but it keeps the entire world from falling on its head.”
“It seems like you’re able to warp it to do whatever you want,” I pointed out, and a tiny smile touched his lips.
“Of course I am. But in truth, there’s no real harm in this. I’ll hand you over the paperwork, and as long as you acknowledge that certain actions are illegal and you’ll be faced with criminal charges for doing them, you should be fine.”
“I… see. Is this standard for any portal capable Arcanists?”
“Most also have to also do regular checkups with truth potions to ensure that they’re not doing anything criminal, if their international portals are for personal use, or else register their teleportations ahead of time,” Orykson said dismissively. “That’s not going to be a problem, though, you’ll just need to run your paperwork through Hundred Hall Portals, a company that, unbeknownst to most, is operated by the Ghost Market. That should cover transit in or out of the Isle of Crysite as well.”
“I… Okay,” I said. “And that’s not illegal? I won’t get into trouble for it?”
“You won’t get into trouble for it,” Orykson agreed.
I’d already taken the sketchy route of placing my portal outside of Delitone, and if Orykson said this was also legal but sketchy, I could live with that.
“Alright,” I agreed. “So, what are we doing today? I got a copy of Seven League Step.”
“Let me see,” Orykson said, and I summoned the copy and handed it over to him.
He glanced over the design, then nodded.
“This is an acceptable variation of the spell. The one that I was planning on giving to you was essentially the same. Slightly smaller in mana-garden size, but would have required more mana to power as well. I can give it to you, but I don’t think it’s especially advantageous to pick one over the other.”
“This one’s fine,” I said. “So you were planning on teaching it to me, then?”
“Of course. While you might be a beastmage now, and as such, should seek out beasts with spatial abilities, nothing can trump a true spatial mage using designed spells when it comes to long distance transit,” Orykson said. “In fact, few animals even possess long-range teleportation abilities. The only ones I’m aware of are a few particularly powerful Arcanist or above migratory birds, whales, turtles, ants, and a species of elephant. It may be worth supplementing with them, but not solely relying on them.”
I considered that for a moment. Beast magic was strong – it had evolved to suit the beast’s needs and environment, which was why it could keep up with, or even outperform, human spells. But there were human needs that beasts didn’t have, like opening long range portals. It also made sense that human spell design had made abilities that beast magic hadn’t evolved.
I didn’t think it would be disruptive of my style to learn them. I was a beastmage, but I wasn’t a beast. I was a human who used beast spells, and who was bound to spirits. It made sense I should be able to walk both ways.
“As for what we will be learning today,” Orykson said, “Now that you’ve progressed to a reasonable level with your new spells – even if it did take you too long – it’s time to delve into spatial spells.”
He flicked his fingers, and three orbs of light appeared in the air.
“When it comes to spatial magic, there are three primary paths. All of them have considerable overlap and edge cases, so I discourage you from thinking of them as completely distinct, but it is worth noting.”
One orb drifted forwards, then snapped into the shape of a tiny portal. With my spatial sense, I could tell that it wasn’t a real portal, and I idly wondered how Orykson was projecting the illusions around him. Could Aerde do it? Illusions were usually made of mental mana, not knowledge, but Aerde was a ninth gate mage, so who knew? Maybe Orykson was…
I pulled myself back, as I realized I was getting distracted, and reminded myself to get a refill on my medication before I left for Crysite.
“…also covers portals. The inclusion of portals as a sub-type of teleportation was considered a hot debate among scholars for many years, and only became accepted with the advent of new spellcraft,” Orykson said. “When I create most of my portals, I’m using an outdated method and creating them directly, thus the debate to have portals stand on their own. An average modern arcanist who was looking to open a portal would use the teleportation as a base, with a meta spell building atop it to transform the two endpoints of the teleportation into the portal.”
The teleportation orb floated back, and the next one pushed forwards. It flexed into a huge area, then shrunk down into a tiny spot, then flexed out again. The pulsing was somewhat hypnotic.
“The second main use is spatial warping, expanding or compressing space. I personally find this the least compelling variation, and have made up for it by creating alternatives that use either teleporation or the third category. But unlike with Death magic, wherein I will not teach you the use of zombies at all, there are reasons to use this category. For example, the Spatial Armor spell warps space, bulging it around you. The extra space an attack has to cross in order to reach you within the armor might only buy you an extra half a second, but that can easily save your life. It’s far from worthless, it’s simply not my preferred method. This is also what your Surveyor’s Eye spell uses.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He flicked his hand out, and the space between us seemed to stretch and warp, until it was like I was looking at him from a long hallway, rather than a few paces away. Then it vanished.
“It can pair well with teleportation and movement on the battlefield as well,” he said. “Spells to warp your stride a moment before you land, or while in the midst of using a teleport, in order to push past the basic limits. Trust me when I say that if I thought it was not worth teaching you, I wouldn’t.”
The third orb appeared and was shaped into a ring with a dozen motes of light swarming around it.
“And planar magic. This is my personal favorite, though it is admittedly the most complex and finicky,” Orykson said. “The creation of extraplanar spaces, demiplanes, and astral planes. There was a time where a standard spatial ring would be worth an entire house or more. Now, spellcraft has reached a point where any third gate mage can make them. Much like teleportation, it relies heavily on the use of metaspells, rather than discrete effects.”
I was suddenly in a blank room made of nothing but blue-gray light, almost like the demiplane that key that had turned into Dusk had conjured, but subtly different, then I was back in the backyard.
“For example, that is a fourth gate spell that forcibly shunts the opponent into a demiplane that you are tethered to. It can be resisted with the spatial energy in a person’s body and their innate shaping, but it can be a lifesaver. And it’s not limited to offensive use. Spatial pocketing is a type of defensive technique I use, where I place myself into a demiplane, seal the entry, then reopen it a moment later.”
“I thought about using that to avoid attacks,” I said. “Step into Dusk’s realm, then pop back out. I can use where I stepped in as a base point for teleportation.”
Orykson’s eyebrows raised.
“Really? Interesting. That would require another meta-spell for me to do, Convert Anchor, but if you can do it already. Yes, you should absolutely train with that ability, as it represents a strong synergy.”
“I will,” I said with a nod. “I’ve practiced some already, but I’m not ready for a fight with it yet. I’ll practice more.”
“Good. Now, I expect any spatial mage to have some degree of competency with all three branches of magic. If they cannot cast basic teleportation spells, create simple extraspatial pockets, and use a few warping spells, then that is far more egregious than, say, a life mage being unable to create living spell-summons. Life is one of the broadest types of magic, after all. Space is more focused, but it is also omnipresent, and that is its power. But mastery over all three is less reasonable. I allowed spatial warping to fall by the wayside. The space king did as well.”
He held up his finger, as if telling me to wait.
“You, on the other hand? Most beast spells will fall into the spatial warping category, however, followed by short ranged teleportation, with spells that combine multiple aspects of the three in third, and finally with planar spells in a distant fourth. I suggest that you do not allow spatial warping to fall by the wayside. You can use it to your strength. For example, the blink foxes might be most well known for their teleportation, but some members of their species who reach third gate have their own variation of Spatial Armor.”
My eyes lit up at that. I could already imagine how useful that would be. Blink fox mana was a mix of space, time, life, and solar, with only the smallest flecks of the other aspects. I had three of those, and my full-gate spell could compensate for the solar and other bits. More than that, it triggered my legacy, with its heavy use of space and time.
“Yes,” Orykson chuckled. “That is why I’m not teaching you the Spatial Armor spell. For a normal spatial mage, it would be better, but you are an odd case, Malachi.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a grin.
He rolled his eyes at me, but didn’t seem to be that upset.
“You already have a well-suited spell to basic pocket space creation,” he said. “The one we extracted from the spellbook.”
It took me a second to place it, but then it clicked. In the same book where I’d gotten the Immovable Lock spell, I’d also grabbed a third gate spell that was mostly spatial, but used death mana and temporal mana to slow the rotting of food.
“Now, that spell is somewhat bulkier than the standard, but as far as I can tell, it should operate just as well, and it triggers your legacy, which helps it balance out in the end,” Orykson said. “The final spell is Seven League Step, which you have already procured. Should you choose to specialize more, there are spells that you can use that build off of either Seven League Step or Create Extraspatial Pocket, but for now, you will doubtless have your hands full with beast spells and those two.”
He gestured to me.
“Why don’t you go ahead and cast them both, so we can begin work?”
“Sure!” I said, then took the spell guide for Seven League Step and flipped to the array. I channeled spatial mana into my fingers and began sketching.
The spell was massive and complex, and I didn’t really understand what exactly it was doing as I sketched. It took the better part of three minutes just for me to complete sketching the spell, then I began to pour mana into the spell.
And the moment the spell began, I immediately understood.
I’d heard that the spell was a ritual, but I hadn’t understood what that really meant.
Each of the ten segments of the spell unfurled, like a tightly compacted bud opening to reveal a blooming flower within. My spatial sense went wild, and I flicked on Analyze Space to get a better grasp of what was happening.
Each segment of the spell was connecting to the weave of space itself, bending it into new patterns. Not simply shifting the weave around a bit, like any teleport spell, but actively unspooling the thread and reformatting it into the lines of the spell array itself.
The spell was massive, and trying to look all of the moving pieces together was almost too much for me. I was certain that if I’d tried to sketch this array directly, I’d have run out of mana in my third gate before I was more than a tiny fraction of the way there.
As the massive array reached out, it started tapping, orienting itself to the weave of space, plucking along its strings and setting them vibrating in a way that almost reminded me of Harvest Distance. The array opened, collecting spatial energy from the underpinnings of reality, siphoning it into new parts, compressing it until it was strong, far stronger than I should have been able to hold. Then it began to spin through more cycles, converting and changing, becoming somehow closer to the raw energy of the spatial weave than just the intense mana it collected. I didn’t even know how that was possible, but it clearly was.
With each piece, I could increase the flow of mana, but it barely mattered. The very power I was throwing in was somehow incorrect, and it was weak. Converting it was no better than converting from the weave of space, not really, so I stopped pouring excess power in.
Like clockwork, each section of the spell fell into place, and the power that Seven League Step began all over again, forming bits of a greater composite array. When the final function began, the one that always had to be cast, even if you affixed the others in place, I finally felt like we were back on track.
This was the part that actually cared about the where, the beginning point and end. It too plucked at space as it slowly built into more than I could have hoped to manage on my own, but I understood it. It was remarkably like combining elements ot Foxstep’s movement with the long range sensory abilities of Sense Directionality, and for the first time, throwing power in actually helped. I pushed mana into it, trying to fuel the connection, and it slowly knitted together the other functions. The spell completed, and I sent myself north.
There was a single instant where the world blurred around me, as if I was running across the city at a blinding speed, while I was also not traveling anywhere at all, just a darkness, and then I was suddenly on a cobblestone street in a back alley somewhere.
Then a new sensation exploded through me as if my very spirit rebelled against my control.