“That is a great question, Alyx. How about we find out.”
“Really, guys, you’re doing this right now?” Lili butted in.
“When else are we supposed to do it?” Alyx rebutted.
“Any other time. Seriously, I think you forget that we're supposed to be clearing this cave out as soon as possible.” Rose added.
“Yeah, but think about it, if I summon a super strong drake, it will make delving into the cave much easier,” Tesilim answered.
“He makes a good point. Weren’t we worried about the stuff in there?” Jasmine finally spoke up, agreeing with Tesilim.
“Sure, that would be great, except what if something dumb happens and you get turned into a goat again? What then?” Rose shot back, making another good point.
“Oh, that's fine. He can use magic while transformed.” Alyx pointed out.
“Fine, whatever,” Rose said, sighing and stepping away while summoning her shield. Of course, that meant everyone joined her, and soon enough, Tesilim was standing by himself, the drake not included.
Dismissing the conjured creature with a wave of his hand, Tesilim felt the mana dispersed, leaving a bit of warmth behind, which soon faded. He took a second to mentally prepare and decided it was best not to spend too much mana on the summon. They still had an hour or two to walk to the fey, which should be enough to regain the mana he was about to spend. Feeling ready for whatever was to come, Tesilim began the chant again, though this time, he poured in some Chaos Mana.
"By fire's heart and ember's wake;
I call thee forth, flame-born drake;
Things were going great. However, there were a few differences from the last summon. Instead of red flickers of light, there were multi-color lights. Pink, red, green, orange, white, the entire rainbow, and more sparkled, and it wasn’t just a few; the whole area Tesilim had designated for the summon was sparkling as if a bunch of fireworks had just gone off. Tesilim could feel the Chaos Mana transforming into the regular mana that left his body to empower the conjuration.
With molten breath and searing flame;
Reduce my foes to ash and shame."
A drake slowly came into existence. The summon looked exactly like the last one, except its scales and eyes flickered with a rainbow shine every so often. The problem came when the usual notification for a Chaos Event didn’t come.
“Uh guys, something is wrong,” Tesilim said, looking up from his summon only to find that the world had come to a standstill.
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Alyx watched the process with fascination, seeing the clear indicators that chaos magic was at work and so obviously affecting the conjuring. His senses were on high alert, his presence fully extended, and so was his will. He wanted to see if, much like the shield, which was in a sense a conjuration, this conjured creature would allow him to sense some of the Chaos Mana.
At first, Alyx didn’t sense anything. The spell worked, and sparkles flew, and the drake began to take form. With every passing second, Alyx’s hope that he would sense something slowly dwindled. Then, the conjuring finished, and his senses were blasted with information. It was too much. His brain couldn’t handle it, his soul couldn’t handle it, and the last thing he remembered before passing out was his soul churning with the power of two gods.
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Lili had been in the same boat as Alyx. She had pretended to argue against having Tesilim use his magic, but in truth, the moment the idea was brought up, she was on board. She had been able to put the idea in the back of her mind after a full night of fun, but no matter what, the feeling of sensing the magic and mana from the Chaos Shield was still in her mind. It was an itch at the back of her head, unnoticeable for the most part but always there.
Much like Alyx, Lili had her senses at full blast, her presence solely focused on the area around Tesilim. She could feel Alyx’s own presence and will with her own and knew how excited the researcher was. Much like the gnome, her enthusiasm began to die off as the spell progressed. It seemed like nothing was going to happen, though she still hoped something would happen after the spell was completed. After all, a Chaos Event would trigger, and if she got lucky, like really lucky, another Chaos Shield would pop up.
Luckily for her, something better happened. The spell finished, and much like Alyx had been, she was blasted with energy. Unlike Alyx, whose presence and will were trying to absorb knowledge, she was trying to feel the full power of the Chaos Mana. And she was not disappointed.
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Once the spell was completed, it was like she was engulfed in the magic of chaos. It was over her, making her feel like she was naked in front of a windstorm, the wind slamming into her body freely. Even better was the fact that some of the Chaos Mana she could feel inside the conjured creature leaked. The thing wasn’t strong enough to contain it for some reason, and it wasn’t like she cared. In fact, she was happy it couldn’t. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to absorb it.
Like a man lost in the desert who had just found his first drink of water, Lili greedily absorbed what she could without regard for anything else. Her eyes closed as she enjoyed the moment while the smell of berries and fruit assaulted her senses, making her mouth water and her body feel like it had been struck by lightning. Her soul sparked as it became overfilled with mana, and as a coping mechanism, she blasted her body enhancement to full power.
It had only been a trickle of Chaos Mana, but it had been enough to make her feel she could take on the world.
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For Jasmine and Rose, the conjuring itself was not as impactful. The two ladies watched the proceeding. Rose was already regretting what nonsense would come of it, and Jasmine was looking forward to whatever fun it would bring.
Like Lili and Alyx, the two had extended their senses, but they didn’t know what they were looking for. To be safe, they were simply on the lookout for the telltale sign of surging mana. The summoning was going fine, and they felt as the power from Tesilim slowly gave way to create the drake. It was at the end of the conjuring, when everything seemed fine, that the power surge came. They weren’t sure what it was, but both felt the mana rushing about widely, and a pressure overcame their presence and will. It was like a wave of power was being unleashed from the drake. However, since nothing else crazy was happening they didn’t question it.
Well, they didn’t question until things began slowing down. They both saw that Alyx was beginning to fall and how Tesilim was slowly moving his head upwards, his mouth making movement as if he was speaking words they couldn’t hear.
Rose was the first to react. She attempted to rush to Alyx and halt his fall but was also slowed and kept getting slower with every passing second.
Meanwhile, Jasmine stood still. As the time dilation grew, a new presence began to appear around them. It was a presence she and her brother knew well. The World Crystal’s power was causing time to come to a halt. In fact, that was the last thing she remembered thinking about before time stopped, and the use of such high-level magic put her in stasis.
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It was weird.
Alyx was mid-fall. Rose had taken a couple of steps towards him in an attempt to catch him. Lili’s eyes were closed, and her face was happy and full of bliss. Meanwhile, and rather oddly, Jasmine was staring straight upwards, recognition and a look of worried puzzlement apparent on her face.
“What the hell is going on?” He said out loud, more to himself than anything. Time had stopped completely.
Getting nervous by the second, Tesilim released his presence once again. He had recalled it completely during the casting to focus. It was something he did against his teachings, at least when doing new spells. He was worried about something distracting him mid-cast and messing it up.
Now, with his presence released and his will with it, Tesilim felt the power being given off by the summon in front of him. It was being released in a constant wave in all directions, and oddly enough, it had stopped with the rest of the world. Something had gone wrong, and as he inspected the summoned drake, Tesilim realized the Chaos Mana that would usually trigger the chaos event was trapped within the body. The problem was that Tesilim didn’t know why it was trapped. In fact, from its appearance, the conjured body wasn’t strong enough to contain whatever was happening, and the Chaos Mana was leaking.
Tesilim understood that something had gone wrong with his conjuring, but he wasn’t sure what that had to do with the whole time-stopping situation. At most, he guessed the drake should have been torn apart, and the Chaos Mana would have unleashed, causing the Chaos Event. Could it be a god was-
“Well, if isn’t this quite interesting.” A deep voice from all around Tesilim interrupted his train of thought.
“Who's there!?” Tesilim yelled in response, looking around the frozen forest in a bit of a panic.
“Oh, just your friendly neighborhood, World Crystal.” The voice answered, thrumming with just the slightest humor as if partaking in an untold joke.
“What! How!? Also, how do you know about Spiderman!?” Tesilim questioned, clearly understanding the reference.
“Well, I have gained a lot of knowledge from you. How else do you think your system would work if not for me? As to how I stopped time, well, technically, it's my world.”
“Okay, that’s fair, but I don’t recall giving you knowledge, and I thought Earth’s World Crystal gave me the system,” Tesilim noted that he was acting relatively calm for speaking with the owner of a world and wasn’t sure if it was the Crystal doing something or him just being desensitized. To be fair, it's not like he felt threatened by the voice.
“Well, yes and no. You see, it gave you the blessing and stored some of its intent within it. Then, once you arrived here, I felt it and decided to help a fellow sibling, so I tapped into the blessing myself, and here we are.”
“Uhh, soo, I am guessing you made a connection by tapping into and, in the process, scanned my brain?”
“Exactly.”
“Sucks that my privacy was invaded just like that, but I guess thanks for the system? It's been rather nice to have.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Also, how come you seem so relaxed and human-like if you are actually an entire World?”
“Well, you’re rather lucky in that regard. I had to speak with a mortal, or technically two mortals, a while back and have been practicing since then.”
“Hmmm, okay, are they from Earth? If so, can you tell me who they are?”
“No.”
“No, they aren’t front Earth, or no, you won’t tell me who they are?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then, so I am guessing you are here to fix my drake.”
“Yes.”