Zeke had left Eve Glade many times already, but this was the first time he felt like he was leaving home. Eve Glade had been their home ever since their forced travel to this world. It was a somber feeling, reflected by Mikella and Clara who both were quiet, holding each other’s hand.
Zeke looked ahead at the Master and his missus in front of him along with their arrayed armored knights in a solid formation. Contrary to their own formations for the soldiers, these were perfect beyond comparison. Whether their advanced bodies have anything to do with it or not, the way they move and act together felt jarring, like they were robots in knight armor instead of people.
They crossed through the forest, reaching towards the location they used the week before. Apparently their way of travel relies heavily on waylines, powerful surges of energy flow that spans across the entire world in the multiple of hundreds of thousands.
Normally this kind of thing had a lot of history, but the waylines in this world are different from the ones Zeke read in most fiction. In this case, the waylines here are composed of all the aspects of this world, and perhaps a tiny sliver of something beyond. It was a metaphoricall flow of energy rather than an actual physical mana flow like a river or waterfall. As such, not many practitioners used the wayline for anything other than its intended purpose of remaining there to stabilize the world.
Cronus is one such person capable of using it to this advantage. When they reached their location, a seemingly random place in the middle of the empty plains within the forest, Cronus reached his hand out.
And there, Zeke saw the most well-crafted use of magic he has ever seen. Mana wove around his hand like bands of cloth to his eyes. Mikella watched in wonder as magic seemed to gather around Cronus’ hand as though it was part of the world itself.
Then, hundreds of runes were suddenly drawn and placed around him. Those said runes flew across from him and arrayed themselves in a circle in front, averaging around several feet in diameter. It was enough to look like a gateway made entirely out of runes.
Zeke already knew from Cloud that Cronus was a Runist, but Cronus’ runes were like works of art. While Zeke was only able to comprehend the simplistic meaning on the surface, Cronus’ runes were crafted with hundreds of meanings and symbols in one single rune, and each rune looked as though they had several runes of the same quality mashed together to create a single powerful rune. And to top it all off, the completed runes connected together well, creating their own meaning. Even the simplistic meaning of the rune was far beyond Zeke’s reach, and anything else is like trying to look at calculus becoming the new alphabet of the future.
Mikella actually had to support him when Zeke was overwhelmed from the mastery of the runes, catching him by his back and shoulder when he stumbled. His eyes felt dizzy, like he read dozens of books in a matter of seconds. His head was aching, trying and failing to understand even a whiff of the meaning behind the runes.
Zeke just had to do it. He had to Identify the man in front of him despite knowing that Identifying someone would be noticed by those of higher power, and Cronus is no slouch. Still, Zeke went ahead.
???
And of course, Zeke had no way of Identifying this man. It was clear that he was either using some skill or equipment that allowed him to block others’ Identify. But Zeke at least knew that Cronus was a high level Runist of world renown, because there’s no way he could measure up to that power even at his level.
Soon those runes glowed bright enough to create what looked like a giant glowing circle, then a wave of pressure hit them like a bass drop. It reached deep into their cores, bringing out primal fear from Zeke’s heart. It felt like what Cronus was trying to do was against natural order, but since the system didn’t seem like it punished him in some way, it seemed fine.
The portal glowed as the soldiers stayed resolute in their position. Cronus turned back around, smiling at the otherworlders.
“Come along then. Time is wasting, and I have loads of paperwork to do.”
With that, the master mage and his wife entered into the portal without hesitation, As the soldiers stood by waiting, Zeke looked back at the girls, then the girls at him.
With plenty of hesitation themselves, they pushed onwards to the portal.
…..
His mind whirled at the insights through the passage of the portal. He knew already that teleportation magic was possible, but it required heavy (some seriously heavy) bouts of calculations and logistics that even a high number of Intelligence wasn’t enough.
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One needed skills, power, and understanding of the teleportation itself to work it out, and especially to connect it to a hidden dimensional pocket that was originally difficult to find in the first place even with normal means.
All the while, Zeke held tightly onto Clara’s hand, with the other clasped tightly with Mikella. Even if their passage is granted by none other than a Master Runist, there was no way in hell he was gonna leave Clara stranded in some way.
Zoan was another matter, even if she appeared like Clara. She walked by Zeke with no regard to her situation whatsoever, her passive face as stoic as ever. However, she did take a moment to gander at the passageway between realms with a studious gaze.
The passageway itself was riddled with overwhelming flows of Mana and other kinds of energies that Zeke can’t comprehend. Mana, kinetic, and even life energy was surrounding him, but there were also sparks of elemental magic, concepts that were on the physical, metaphysical, and the beyond. One such example he noticed was that the concept of Nature was surrounding one very distant speck within the passageway. Another he noticed was strangely something called Ashen Dust, an Earth concept mixed with Lava and Rust of all things. Each of these concepts, normally put for attunements in people, were everywhere around them, swirling together to make a mishmash of colors like a kaleidoscope of magic.
“Don’t stare too deeply into the abyss. You might get swallowed up~”
Isabelle said, her voice turning ominous with that smile of hers. Zeke shivered at the possibility that this might not be as safe of a journey as he expected.
Despite the passageway being just mildly big enough for a bus to run through, the armored knights walked behind the four visitors like an oiled machine. Meanwhile, the master and his wife were just casually chatting away while passing through what Zeke could only describe as a mind-boggling experience that shouldn’t ever happen in their old world.
Before Zeke could even understand even remotely how this all worked to try himself, the passageway vanished in an instant, replaced with a flash of light that suffused Zeke’s entire mind all together. In a few seconds, he shook himself awake to find himself in an entirely new place. Clara’s gasp of wonder and Mikella’s silent awe was enough to tell Zeke that they had arrived.
The surroundings were similar to a forest, but the trees were purple instead of the usual brown, and the leaves were deep cyan blue. The grass was also blue, though it was lighter blue in comparison.
The sky around them was a delightful pink mixed with shades of purple and red, and Zeke had no idea what time it was from the coloring alone, but he could see the bright shimmering Studded Star all the same in the distance, shining bright like the morning of the day.
It looked like the pocket dimension was in the same time zone as in Eve Glade. The color of the sky was something that he was gonna have to get used to.
But all of it was utterly blank in comparison to the bright blue and white buildings far away from them. He flared his kinetic energy to boost his sight and noticed that it was a large, if not the largest city he had ever seen. The buildings he could see at the distance was just the edge of the giant city, possibly a metropolis beyond compare.
“That looks like a utopia…” Mikella whispered, mostly in awe and with a mix of shock and fear.
Zeke had to agree, especially with the color white motif everywhere around it. However, despite being able to see the buildings from afar, they were about a hundred or so miles far away from them in a nearby forest. Zeke tried to flare his senses beyond the forest a little, but he didn’t notice anything else other than the trees and the literal alien-like tiny creatures he had no time to observe for long. He decided to ignore a squirrel-like creature getting eaten by a flytrap posing as a pretty flower.
“Master Cronus,” Zeke asked the man who looked like he was staring hard at the distance himself. “Why did we appear here in the forest?”
“Are we giving them the long trip home?” Isabelle asked, surprising both Zeke and Mikella. Why was the missus asking as though she had nothing to do with it?
“No… it’s much worse,” Cronus sounded like he was actually grumbling, shaking his head. “The towers messed up the flow of the energies again. It even took off my teleportation projections a smidge. Now we’re farther away than I intended.”
“Oh my,” Isabelle gasped, though she couldn’t sound anymore calm and composed as before. “I would love a pleasant trip from time to time, but we have so many on hand. Is there no way to try it again?”
“You know I can’t whip up another teleportation so close to here,” Cronus said. “The mana cost would be too much, and it’s such a chore to try thinking in such small increments… no, I think the best way is to just travel forward.”
Zeke had to adjust the conversation for his meager brain, trying to believe that the master was just apparently too lazy to teleport them properly. Then again, hearing the cost made him shiver at the immense amount of mana necessary to pull this teleportation skill off so smoothly.
“Mmh, but I’ll feel bad for the knights who have to trudge along with us in their heavy armor,” Isabelle pleaded, sounding more concerned for the knights who remained quiet and professional. “And we have these kids to take care of as well.”
“Mmh…”
The two sounded more like troubled parents hitting a car breaking down with a giant group with them. Zeke looked back at the girls with him, also trying hard to understand what was going on while Clara was pleasantly staring at the grass and the trees with wonder in her eyes still. For her, the idea of a magical country was finally hitting her, replacing her sadness of leaving the town behind.
Then Zeke thought up an idea. “Umm, Master Cronus, if I may?”
Cronus and Isabelle looked back at him, along with the knights as well. Everyone was staring at him now, and normally he would’ve gotten nervous. But after spending so much time with the large retinue back in the biodome, having this many eyes on him was no longer a concern. Still, having a top tier user staring at him like that still gives him the shivers.
“What is it?” Cronus asked.
“If we’re discussing how to travel fast for a short time… then can I try something?”