Norman did indeed earn a stern talking-to from the Admiral.
“You can’t just have your soldiers storm into the building whenever you feel like it!”
“I’m aware of that, and I’m sorry. But I’m also not going to let that bastard and his son terrorize my wife.” Norman managed to reply in an even tone.
He wasn’t mad at the Admiral, but he was still pissed about the stunt Vincent had pulled. And that was exactly what it was, a stunt. There was no sensible reason for him to approach Kalia unless they were trying to provoke a reaction from him. And he had played right into their hands.
Barnes sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You can’t rise to his baiting. It’s what he wants.”
“I am well aware of the man’s manipulations. But like I said, I’m not going to sit back and allow their bullshit to continue. If it’s a choice between my wife and him, I’m choosing Kalia every time.”
“Perhaps it would be best for your wife to return to Normenia.”
Norman snorted at that. “If you can convince her to go back feel free to try. But don’t complain to me when your words fall on deaf ears.”
Barnes rubbed his temples, looking exhausted. It was no surprise. He had been carrying this burden of trying to find a solution to the collapses for over a year by himself. And now that people finally believed him, he had to deal with a multitude of clashing personalities.
“I’m not going to order your wife to leave. God knows we need every able person we can get to make this project a reality. But please, try to avoid any more conflicts. We have made great strides in finding a solution in the last few days and we can’t afford these little fights.”
Norman tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair he was sitting in as he mulled over the Admiral’s words. “I will do my best to avoid Donovan and his ilk, but I make no promises if he comes at me again. As for my wife… Kalia’s team seems to be farther ahead than any others so they will probably have a working solution in a few more days. Once that’s done, I will ask her to return to Ashvale so she and my other enchanters can begin production of the sensors and dampeners.”
“I suppose that is all I can expect. Thank you,” The Admiral stated. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Norman nodded and exited the room. It was a bit of a walk back to the science building where they were doing all the testing, but it gave him time to think.
Some of those thoughts drifted to Donovan and his son Vincent and how to get rid of them. As much as he would like to daydream ways to remove the pair as painfully as possible, he pushed thoughts of outright killing the pair to the back of his mind so he could focus on the present issue. The collapses, and how to deal with them.
He had poked his head into some of those discussions early on but found most of them to be gibberish. The spells they were trying to build had no basis in his technical understanding of magic. Sure each form of magic had similarities, but a mana control symbol could be completely different between domains.
That didn’t even take into account the differences in magic across realms. Trying to combine magic from five or more different worlds was turning out to be rather difficult.
Despite this challenge, Norman had noticed his intuition did work on these half-formed theories. Or at least a few of the simpler ones. It seemed that as long as human magic was present in the design of the spell, his calling would allow him to discern if the spell would function. That was good to know.
With that ability, he could single-handedly speed up the testing by multiple orders of magnitude. But in order to do that, he would have to expose his secret. Donovan probably suspected what his calling was. Much like how he had a general idea of what Donovan’s and Vincent’s were. Still, it wasn’t something he had wanted to advertise.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized it didn’t matter. So what if Donovan figured out his calling? It didn’t change anything. It wasn’t like the man could leverage that information against him. If anything, it would probably make the man more leery of directly attacking him.
It seemed the upside of exposing his secret far outweighed the downside. If it could help speed up the process of developing a spell to save the world, he should do it.
With his resolve firming, he stepped inside the science building and strode down the hall until he found the room he was looking for.
What he found within was not a promising sight. The group of researchers and mages within looked exhausted. There were dozens of whiteboards scattered throughout the room, all of which had examples of spell circles on them.
A quick glance told Norman they were all rubbish.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He strode up to one of those boards and began erasing the spell form.
“Hey! Stop that. What are you doing?” One of the researchers yelled as he rushed over to prevent Norman from erasing the work.
“It’s non-functional,” He stated as he continued to erase the spell.
The man spluttered. “How could you know that? We haven’t even tested the spell yet.”
Norman paused and looked at the man, making him take an involuntary step back. He gestured with the eraser at the other boards. “And how do you intend to test these?”
“Wha- What do you mean? By casting them, obviously!” The man replied indignantly.
He had suspected as much. They wouldn’t be able to tell if the spell worked without testing it first. And to do that, they had to cast it. But therein lay the problem.
“Let me ask you something…”
“Robert,” The man replied tartly.
Norman smiled. “Robert. Let's say you find one of these spells that work. How are you going to ensure it works globally?”
Robert uncrossed his arms and let them fall to the side as realization hit him. To really ensure the spell would function as intended, they needed to test the whole thing. And to do that, they needed to gather a decade's worth of mana. For one test. And if that test failed? Well, everyone was fucked.
“You see the problem now?” Norman asked before turning back to the board and finishing what he started. “But don’t worry, I can help.”
“Help? Help how?” He heard a bit of skepticism in the man’s tone, but also a hint of hope.
Instead of answering the man, he asked another question. “Do you know what a calling is?”
“I- I’m familiar with the term. Although we prefer to call them affinities. They are usually tied to a caster's choice of magic.” By now, their conversation had gathered more interest from the room and other researchers joined the first.
Norman didn’t mind. It was probably for the best, it would mean he didn’t have to repeat himself. As for what Robert said. That wasn’t technically true. If it was, Norman would never have gravitated to necromancy or blood magic or his calling would have had some affinity towards his chosen magic. But it didn’t. Necromancy and blood magic just happened to be the first thing he tried. The more he used it, the more he realized his calling didn’t seem to care what human magic it interacted with.
“And what is your affinity?” Norman asked, knowing the subject was probably rather personal.
The scowl he got in reply proved that to be true. But the man did eventually answer. “Plasma.” Robert made some hand gestures that culminated in him opening his palm like a flower. Running from his fingertips to the center of his hand were thin nearly ultraviolet lines of power that formed a pea-sized ball of the same color. It reminded Norman of those toy spheres you touched to produce glowing lines inside.
Robert’s display didn’t last long before sweat began to break out on the man’s forehead and he stumbled slightly before cutting off the spell by closing his fist. The energy flashed out the side of his hand, dissipating in a purple-pink flash.
“That is quite an impressive display,” He commented sincerely. It was impressive but the man seemed to lack a large pool of mana. Norman knew from experience that the mana pool was much like a muscle. The more you used it the bigger it grew. Of course, his was absurdly oversized due to his many deaths and rebirths. “My own calling is less visually impressive.”
He heard another man snort. “We all know who you are, Lord Norman, and that your calling is necromancy.”
“Well, then you are all misinformed. That is not my calling.”
The room went silent for a moment before breaking into whispered mutterings. One voice cut through the din. “So what is it then?”
He had been waiting for someone to ask. “My calling allows me to know if a spell form will work before casting it.”
“Bullshit!” Someone yelled.
While another voice yelled, “Prove it!”
Norman pulled a marker from the board and held it out. This would only work with human spells, but he had selected this room specifically because it held a majority of humans. The other species present seemed content to sit back and watch the spectacle, which worked fine for him.
Surprisingly, Robert was the first to grab the marker and walk to the board. He quickly scrawled out an odd-looking spell form. It wasn’t the typical spell circle that he used for most of his magic, it looked more like a… a molecule. That’s what it was. Only a spell molecule? How strange.
Robert finished the spell and tapped on the board with the marker. “Well?”
It only took a quick glance to tell Norman the spell was functional. Although as with his own spells, he couldn’t tell what it did.
“It’ll work. What’s it do?”
The man looked surprised by that answer before glancing back at the board. “Wait, really?”
Norman nodded.
The man started mumbling under his breath about taking months to come up with this iteration. Then Robert made slow hand motions as he spoke words under his breath. With the last motion, he curled his hands like he was gripping something and a beam of that same purplish-pink light started streaming upwards to form… a freaking sword. The man had created a lightsaber.
This display lasted for all of two seconds before Robert’s eyes rolled back in his head and the spell fizzled out due to lack of mana. How did Norman know this was due to a lack of mana and not the spell failing? Well, Robert collapsing to the ground in an unconscious heap was a pretty good indicator.
You would think that would discourage others, but no. The unconscious man was dragged over to a seat while others started clambering for his attention and pushing to draw their own spells on the board.
He sighed and settled in for what he knew was going to be an annoying day. And it was. Every single person in the room, minus the non-humans, came up to him to have him look at a spell they were developing. One woman even tried to hog more time to try and rework her spell when he told her twice that her spell wouldn’t work. She was dragged out of the way to make room for another person.
A few of the other species did approach him, but he had to disappoint them when he explained how his skill worked.
This went on for another hour before Norman put a stop to it.
“I think I have proven myself enough times. I am not here as a testing device for your personal spell research. I’m here so we can find a solution to the collapse.”
That seemed to finally get people to focus back on the actual issue. Which was something he was immensely grateful for. He didn’t like being treated like a tool or even being the center of attention.
During that time, Norman didn’t miss the brief moment Donovan and Vincent had watched from outside the room. He had been expecting it. Obviously, news of his ‘miraculous’ ability had made it to the Council Leader. The fact that Donovan didn’t stick around after that, told Norman all he needed to know.