The next month was like a blur in Ray's mind as he slowly improved his crafting and fighting skills. Arabella had been asked to help her mother with something, so Ray and Erith had taken their training into their own hands. Sparring every day and taking on missions from Igi and the monster hunters whenever the opportunity arose. The two were almost inseparable as they entered the honeymoon phase of their relationship. Erith had begun joining him on his morning walks through the bustling city and would sit in on his crafting sessions while studying incantations. As he helped her learn incantations, Ray was relieved that he had never gotten access to the system. He had learned that while the system does increase the power of your spells and the ease with which you cast them. It made it harder to learn spells that had an elemental affinity you did not have access to. The way Ray had started to think of it was learning to swim with or without a flotation device. While the person who learned with the flotation device would be able to swim right away even while learning, it would be harder for them to do so when the device or incantation system, in this case, was removed. Ray had learned without the system, making it almost impossible to cast a spell when he had first started, but now that he had learned enough, he could pick up spells from any affinity that he was compatible with. He still needed to spend almost 10 times the time that someone with access to the system needed to learn a new spell, but he would also outpace that same person if they tried to learn a spell outside of their system-granted affinities. He had also learned that everyone had two types of affinities, system-granted and natural. System-granted affinities affect what spells you can use with the incantation system and panel. Natural affinities dictated what elements you could form your mana into. Ray cleared his thoughts as he reached the entrance to Freia’s workshop. Erith had decided to go out hunting today with Igi’s students, Ray had decided not to join them for this one as he had finally gotten close to another breakthrough after the last failure of his gate device and was certain he could perfect the device today.
Another detonation echoed through the room as another prototype exploded in the safe room he and Freia had prepared for his project. Ray quickly noted the time it took before detaining and what the cause seemed to be. He taped his pen on his notebook as he thought.
I have confirmed the field is stable and the runes are correct, so why is it still failing? The mana intake? No, if that were the issue, it should be shutting off, not exploding. What about-
Ray’s train of thought cut off, and his eyes lit up.
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“The spacial anchor at the other end!” he shouted.
“The what now?” Freia asked, looking up from the large chest plate she was currency forging.
“The spacial anchor where the portal opens,” Ray said, pacing back and forth. “The gate spell needs an anchor on both ends to form correctly. Those would be the first two rings formed while casting the spell. This works fine when you cast the spell, as the rings stay separate when the orb is doing it. It's super imposing both anchors onto the same point, causing it to implode, not explode. That’s why all your furniture disappeared.”
“I'm no enchanter, but it seems like you know what you're talking about, so I'll act like I understood any of that and believe it will work this time.”
“Uh, thanks,” Ray said as he adjusted the blueprint in his notebook.
Several hours later, when the moon was already high in the sky, Ray activated his 24th prototype. The device hummed as he safely retreated. He watched as a portal winked into existence, connecting a point in the safe room to another 3 feet away before ducking behind the door. He waited for the dreaded sound of the device imploding, but it never came. Ray carefully peeked back around the corner. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the still stable portals standing in the middle of the room. He grabbed a nearby sphere he had prepared for the next prototype and threw it at one of the portals. It passed through and fell harmlessly out of the other portal, crashing to the ground. Seeing that the portals were still stable, Ray slowly made his way into the room and toward the gates. After making it halfway with no signs of the portal changing, he took a deep breath and moved with purpose toward the portal. He appeared 3 feet away, walking out of the other portal
“Ahhhh!” he screamed in triumph as a wide grin bloomed across his face.
He jumped through the two portals a few more times before he grabbed the orb off the ground and moved back from the two shimmering doorways before deactivating the device and watching as the portals closed. He wanted to show this to Freia as soon as he could, but that would have to wait. She had already gone to bed after finishing the first stage of her new project. Ray packed up his things before making his way out of the workshop and up to the room he and Erith had been sharing. He was sad to see she was still not back from her hunt and could not wait to show her what he had accomplished while she was gone. For now, he would have to settle for the shocked look on Freia's face tomorrow morning when he teleported into the workshop tomorrow. Ray set his pack down next to the door and drifted off to sleep as he dreamed about the shocked expression on Freia's face and the mountain of gold coins he would have when he began selling the orbs.