Kres yawned as he entered the break room.

"Coffee?" Van asked. He stood next to the coffeepot, which was already dripping the black liquid into a mug.

Kres nodded. "Yes, please."

The break room was situated one hallway away from the library. Kres had stopped by specifically for coffee, but he hadn't expected to see Van here.

"Already done researching for the day?" Kres asked.

Van shook his head. "It's already getting noisy in there. I thought I would take a break."

"Can't say I blame you..." Kres had only just woken up, but he'd usually be adding to the chatter at this time of day. "Does the volume get that bad?"

Van glanced down at the coffeemaker before responding. "Don't you find all those people asking you questions annoying?"

"Not really, I'm always happy to help."

"You're too generous with your time..." The coffee cup finished filling and Van picked it up. He offered it to Kres with a small smile. "Here."

"Ah- You made that for yourself, weren't you?"

"It's fine, I'll just make another. You need it more than me right now."

"I won't look a gift horse in the mouth." Kres accepted the cup and took a long sip. The hot coffee warmed him up, and he felt his mind focus again. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Van began switching out the grounds and poured in another cup of water to the machine.

Kres watched him work the machine while sipping the coffee. "This is pretty good, better than that replicated stuff. You can't beat the old-fashioned method, right?"

Van raised an eyebrow. "Naw, this stuff is nasty. You don't need to sugarcoat it."

Kres took another sip and grimaced. The coffee was exceptionally bitter, he couldn't deny that. "Well, that's exactly why it needs a sugarcoating, actually."

An awkward silence stretched out and Van shook his head. "Wait for the coffee to kick in before making another bad joke like that."

"It wasn't that bad-" Kres began to reply when a strange rumbling shook the ground.

They both froze and looked around. The rumbling only lasted a few seconds, and it wasn't enough to spill Kres' coffee, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

"What was that?" Van asked.

"I don't know, but let's find out." Kres set aside his coffee and hurried from the room.

Van followed him, and they went down the hall toward the library. Inside, all the researchers grouped into a small crowd and were talking amongst each other.

Kres approached them and called out. "Hey, does anybody know what happened?"

A few faces turned to him, and the crowd split enough for him to get to the middle. A lone Dia instance floated between the various researchers, and Kres addressed his question to the artificial spirit.

"Dia, what was that shaking?"

[ Query Confirmed. A minor disturbance occurred during a foundation recalibration event. ]

"Foundation recalibration?"

[ During maintenance of inertial stabilizer units, a thirty-seven percent drop in activity led to unexpected oscillation of city foundations. Frequency and magnitude of the event were within expectations and stayed below dangerous thresholds. ]

"I don't quite get it, but are we in any danger?"

[ Negative. New maintenance procedures have already been written to ensure activity of inertial stabilizers stay above ninety-nine percent. No future events of this nature are expected. New notification procedures have also been written to ensure proper warnings about major maintenance events. ]

"Are we safe?" Kres asked. He still didn't quite follow the explanations.

[ Affirmative. There is no danger to the city or its inhabitants. Solutions have already been put in place to ensure that such disruptions do not happen again. ]

Kres furrowed his brow, but accepted the answer. "Okay, you all heard her, right? There's no reason to panic. So those of you that don't actually care, why don't you go back to your research."

Half the crowd dispersed, while the chattier half continued to talk.

"How strange..." Kres could only shake his head at the strange start to his day.

—

Pascal awoke to someone calling out to him.

[ Buddy... Buddy... You awake, Buddy? ]

"Good morning, Nyx..." Pascal rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked up to see the black ball of darkness floating over him. "Hm? Wait, where am I?"

He sat half slouched against an invisible barrier. The spell circle still glowed beneath him and along its outer edge, a barrier formed a small cylinder. He had slept while leaning against the invisible wall.

[ Buddy, what the heck is this spell? ]

"It's a time acceleration spell."

[ Yeah, I can see that, but the wind outside was... ]

Nyx went silent and floated in a circle, as if looking at the room outside the spell circle. Scraps of shredded posters floated in the air, caught in the vortex of wind. The drapes hanging from the walls reached outwards, the folds of cloth frozen mid flutter. From the inside, it looked like time was frozen outside the spell.

[ I guess the wind isn't as noticeable from in here, but the storm got a lot worse after the spell fully activated. ]

Pascal finished wiping the sand from his eyes and blinked. "How long did you wait before entering the spell?"

[ Not that long, I entered here immediately after you collapsed. It couldn't have been more than ten seconds. ]

Pascal nodded. "Then I probably got about four hours of sleep. That's not bad for a nap."

[ Woah, buddy. Four hours of sleep is only a nap for you? You human-types are crazy. ]

"How long do you sleep, Nyx?"

[ Us prismatic spirits only need a few seconds of maintenance every millenia or so. If you ask me, I think we could go longer without it, though Losing consciousness is kinda a creepy experience. ]

Pascal tilted his head. "Dia usually rushes back to her terminal, though. She rarely stays out very long. Yesterday was odd, cause she actually stayed out the whole day."

He glanced over at the white ball of light in question. She still hovered outside the barrier. With the time nearly frozen outside, her wavering outline remained fixed in place, making her look rather odd.

[ How long does this spell last, buddy? ] Nyx continued to float around the interior of the closed cylinder, as if examining the walls.

"Hm, well it lasts about four hours outside. Inside the spell, that's about..." Pascal tried to do the math in his head, but he wasn't very good at multi-digit multiplication. "A lot?"

[ Buddy, at least calculate that before entering the spell... ]

Pascal shrugged. "I'll be adding mana to it, so the actual duration doesn't matter. It'll last for however long seven days is. Or six days, I guess. It took me a full day to activate it, after all."

[ Alright, well, this is boring. I think I'll go back outside the spell now. ]

"Okay, see you later."

The ball of darkness pushed against the barrier and popped out onto the other side. As Nyx emerged, he froze in place, just like Dia.

Pascal considered going back to sleep, but now that he was awake, he decided to focus on meditating. That was the whole point of activating the spell, after all. This was all to expand his mana.

He sat upright and crossed his legs again. He focused on the spell humming beneath him. The glowing spell circle gave off a low thrum that rose and fell in intensity. Like a heartbeat, it drummed into his body the more he focused on it.

"I've only recovered half my mana, so I should probably focus on returning that to full, first." He said to himself and nodded.

He imagined his vessel, and the slow drip of mana pouring into it from his source. In his mind, he widened the flow into his vessel and the rate of mana refilling his body increased. It wasn't much, though. By focusing, he could speed up his mana recovery by a third.

"The only thing left to do is wait..." He said to himself. He couldn't expand his overall capacity without filling his vessel first, so he closed his eyes and began meditating.

—

Synthia stepped quietly through the forest.

The rat sat in front of a small plate. It ate the vegetables off the dish while squeaking every so often.

She raised her safari net above her head, ready to scoop up the small rodent. However, right as she was about to lunge forward, the ground shook beneath her feet.

"H-Huh?" Her surprised voice echoed through the quiet forest, and the rat looked up. "Wait, no!"

Synthia dived forward and swung her Safari net. However, as she pulled up her net, she only had the plate of vegetables inside.She quietly sighed and shook her head.

"I'll get you next time, rat..."

—

Pascal continued meditating in silence.

A few hours passed, and his vessel had finally filled with mana. From there, he shifted his perception and focused on expanding his vessel. With each new drop of mana, the excess spilled out of the vessel and into the surrounding air. He focused on retaining a portion of that overflowing mana. As his vessel fluctuated, he absorbed a small amount of the excess mana into it and sealed it inside himself.

This was the process of expanding one's capacity—to stretch one's vessel with residual overflowing mana. It required complete focus, and endless hours of meditation. To describe it another way, it was a bit like using chopsticks to fill a balloon with water... Very difficult.

"Here we go..." Pascal whispered under his breath and continued meditating.

—

Van entered the library in the early morning, as he usually did.

After the rumbling, the entire library had been chattering, so he hadn't gotten much work done the previous day. However, the mornings were always quiet, and this one was no exception.

He sat down at his usual seat and ruffled through his things. He pulled out a deck of flash cards and began quizzing himself on Space Time runes. He had already memorized them all, but he went through them, anyway.

After he finished going through flashcards, he poured mana into the deck and the cards switched to a new random set of Space Time runes. He quizzed himself on the new deck of runes, then repeated the process three more times for five decks in total.

After that, he pulled out a textbook on astrophysics. He still had a lot to learn on the subject and his current research heavily depended on it. He did practice problems and quizzed himself on everything he learned the previous day, then did more practice problems for the stuff he studied the day before that. He ran through ten different quizzes before moving on.

A little before noon, othe Space Time researchers filtered into the library. He ignored them and continued studying.

After studying astrophysics, he pulled out his actual research. He placed a small tablet on the table and a half-dozen spell circles floated to the top. None of them were complete yet, but he wouldn't be able to finish any of them until his research was much further developed.

Today, he added a new spell circle to the tablet. This one was for creating an outward force that maintained an equilibrium with external atmospheric pressure. Quite a few of them already existed. They were useful spells when one explored the depths of gas giants. However, he needed one with better mana retention, and it only needed to be effective against a few atmospheres of pressure.

He worked on the spell circle for a few hours and got pretty far. He purposefully left parts missing, however, as he might have to modify it later. Fine tuning each spell wasn't worthwhile if he wasn't done with the final design.

Just as he put away the spell circle, small conversations began to pick up in the library. Van sighed and looked around. None of their conversations were particularly meaningful. They were mostly jokes and gossip. The few discussing actual research quickly devolved into meaningless chatter.

And then there was Kres.

Van glanced over at the senior researcher. Kres had his hands full with his own research, yet people peppered him with questions. In Van's opinion, those kinds of researchers were the worst. They selfishly took up other people's time. It was their fault that they couldn't answer such easy questions, yet they pushed on with research far outside their league. Half of their 'results' were merely Kres' own words. They never attempted to better themselves, or even help others. In Van's opinion, they were a waste of decibels.

The volume in the library slowly rose as more conversations started up, and Van began packing up his things. He wouldn't be able to get much done from here on out, so he decided to move to an external lab. He still had to make up for the distractions yesterday, after all.

—

Pascal continued meditating. After he finished meditating, he meditated some more. A quiet silence surrounded him with only the thrum of the spell beneath him. However, he didn't mind it.

The hours blurred together and he expanded his mana capacity little by little. Every few minutes, he might expand his mana by a single drop. That steady progress gave him strength, and feeling his progression was worth it. Of course, it still wasn't much.

It took him approximately eight hours to refill his vessel from empty. In comparison, he might be able to extend that time by seven seconds for every hour he meditated. He would need countless hours to make a meaningful difference to his current capacity.

[ ... ]

Eventually, a voice interrupted his meditation.

Well... A 'voice' was a strong way to put it. It was more like a disappointed presence.

"Oh, Dia. You came inside."

Pascal opened one eye and looked up at the ball of light. It floated above him in silence, but as he addressed it, a robotic voice emanated out of it.

[ Query. User Pascal, what are you doing? ]

"Meditating."

[ ... ]

He closed his eye and began to focus on meditating again, but Dia's voice interrupted him.

[ Query. How long do you intend to keep this spell active? ]

"Six days."

[ ... ]

"Oh, yeah. Dia, if you'd like to return to your crystal, that's fine. I thought you would have done that on your own by now."

[ ... ]

"Oh, and thanks for the chalk earlier. I don't think I thanked you yesterday. I got a little too excited and forgot."

[ Gratitude Confirmed. ]

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Pascal returned to meditating and closed his eyes.

—

Back in Grassy Preserve Number Two, Synthia furiously tapped on her scanner. A small spell circle hovered over her shoulder, and beams of light shot out of it.

"Stop dodging, you darn rat!"

In front of her, a large open field of grass lay flattened. A single rat ran on top of the bent yellow stalks. It dodged each incoming beam with rat-like precision.

The beams of light hit the ground on the far side and scooped up the grass into small bundles. When the beams came into contact with something, they split into webs of light to bind their targets. However, they had only managed to pick up bundles of grass so far.

"How about this?"

Synthia punched another button on her scanner and two metal turrets burst out of the ground. They appeared on either side of the rat and pointed their heads at it. The same magic circle glowed at the tip of their barrels. With a small whoosh, the magic shot forward and... Hit more grass.

"Dammit! How did you dodge that?"

The rat jumped out of the way and raced across the field of grass. Even with the automatically aiming turrets, the webs of light still missed every attack. Synthia tried to add her own beams to the mix, but her wild shots were more futile than the turrets.

"Even after I got these anti-rat turrets from animal control... I can't believe it."

Synthia furrowed her brow, still trying to salvage the situation. She stuck out her tongue in concentration and focused on shooting randomly in the rats direction. As long as she sent enough nets at it, one had to hit, right?

However, just as she thought her strategy might work, the rat turned and ran straight at her.

"So you're trying to break through my defenses, huh?" Synthia shot more webs at the ground and towards her feet. "I won't let you through!"

However, the rat jumped into the air and over her wild shots. It landed on her shoulder and jumped off just as quickly, landing on the ground on the other side.

"Darn it- Wait, huh?"

The turrets pointed straight at her, and Synthia blinked in surprise. Their spell circles glowed, then shot straight toward her face.

"Ahh! No way!" The nets of light hit her and bound her wrists and legs together. She lost her balance, then fell to the ground with a small oomph. "Darn it!"

She punched into her scanner, disabling the turrets. However, it was far too late. She remained bound in the magic nets, and the rat scampered off into the tall grasses.

—

"..."

[ ... ]

Pascal remained silent as the hours became days. He continued focusing and gradually expanded his vessel little by little. All he had to do was focus, so it was pretty easy.

Eventually however, he grew curious about how long he had been meditating. While keeping his eyes closed, he addressed Dia.

"Dia, how much time has passed outside this spell?"

[ Query Confirmed. Approximately seven minutes have elapsed since this magic circle's creation. ]

"This is gonna take longer than I thought..."

[ ... ]

In the silence that followed, he felt like Dia was saying, 'obviously'. However, the unfeeling Diamond-type spirit would never imply something so sassy.

[ ... ]

"..."

Pascal closed his eyes and continued meditating.

—

Time seemed to stretch out forever. Days turned to weeks, then months. Eventually, Pascal stopped questioning the time. All he could do was focus on expanding his capacity and sit quietly in place.

His mind grew weary. He never slept or ate. Instead, he just continued on, meditating for as long as he could.

[ Suggestion. A short nap would increase concentration. Food will also increase your mana regeneration speed. ]

"That's not really necessary, though..." Pascal said. "Can you guarantee the time I spend on those things will outweigh the time I make up with them?"

If he got eight hours of sleep and spent another two hours between meals, he'd waste almost all of his day when he could have been meditating. As if to confirm his hunch, Dia stayed quiet.

[ ... ]

Not much else happened for the rest of the time. The only thing that changed was the weariness growing over his mind. The longer he meditated, the worse it got. Like a fog, it slowed his thoughts and weighed down on his body.

However, he didn't need to think very quickly. All he had to do was meditate. So, he let the weariness build up. As sleep built in the corner of his eyes, and exhaustion crept into every fiber of his muscles, he continued meditating in silence .

Eventually, he forgot how to even think. He just focused on expanding his capacity, little by little. Nothing changed, and it felt like time had stopped around him. Everything behind him, in front of him, and his present—all of it was meditation. He couldn't think of anything else.

[ Notice. Six days have elapsed since the spell was activated. ]

Pascal remained silent, still in the depths of meditation.

[ Notice- ]

Pascal gasped for breath and coughed. "D-Dia?"

[ Notice. Six days have elapsed since the spell has been activated. ]

"C-Confirmed." Pascal replied. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked around. "Whoa... What happened to the room?"

The curtains were shredded. What was left of the posters in the room were merely scraps of paper caught in the air. Splinters filled the strange halo of carnage as well. The bed he had purchased had gotten caught in the storm and the remnants of the blanket hovered in the air, frozen mid-flutter.

[ Query Confirmed. The storm of wind led to the destruction of the interior decorations. ]

"What happened to Nyx?"

[ The Onyx-type spirit exited the room after the first minute elapsed. Several Diamond-type spirits have been assigned to his capture and assimilation. ]

"O-Oh, okay."

Pascal blinked as he looked around at the vortex of carnage. With time nearly stopped, it appeared the splinters and shredded cloth merely hung in the air. However, they were really caught in a hurricane-like wind. The minute he deactivated the spell, that storm of carnage would come rushing in.

"This spell might be kinda dangerous..."

[ Concurrence. ]

"Any suggestions on how I can deactivate this spell? Preferably without getting injured by all those splinters."

He had kept the spell to a fairly low mana level, so if he stopped powering it for a minute, it would dissipate. However, he still had to deal with the aftermath. Just because he dismissed the spell, the storm outside wouldn't disappear.

[ Suggestion. I will form a barrier to ensure our survival. ]

"Accepted. Let's do it."

Dia formed a semi-translucent barrier around them and Pascal redirected his excess mana away from the spell. The spell circle slowly died down and the thrum of mana from it quieted. As the last of the mana trickled out, the vortex of carnage came rushing in.

"Ah!" Pascal screamed as the entire world spun. Dia's barrier dampened the blows, but they bounced around the room and smashed cracks into the gray walls. "I think I'm going to throw up..."

[ Suggestion. Do not. ]

Pascal tried his best as they bounced around the vortex of air. After a full minute of spinning around, they finally came to a stop. The spherical barrier rolled into the center of the room, and Dia dismissed it.

"Thank you, Dia... I think you saved my life."

[ Gratitude Confirmed. ]

Pascal stumbled to his feet and made his way towards the exit. His legs trembled, and he barely stepped out into the hall before he collapsed to his knees. "The ground won't stop moving..."

[ Negative. No movement detected from the corridor floor. Your interior balance is disrupted, causing the illusion of movement. ]

"Okay..." Pascal took several deep breaths, and nodded. "The moving ground is just an illusion... I can do this."

He rose to his feet and stumbled down the hall. He walked at a slant, and nearly fell over, but he kept his balance by a thread. The weariness still weighed heavily on his mind, but he had a bet to win.

It was a bet that only he agreed to, and one entirely unnecessary. However, Pascal wouldn't be discouraged. He continued trudging along with a slight list to his step.

"Time to show Kres how cool my spell really is."

[ Suggestion. Sleep. ]

—

The seventh day came and Kres woke up early. If Pascal was truly going to uphold his 'wager', then today would be the day he showed up.

Kres prepared himself a cup of coffee, and right after he took his first sip, a knock came at the door. He silently looked at the clock and shook his head.

"Do you know what time it is?" He opened the door and found a very exhausted looking Pascal on the other side.

Pascal wavered from side to side, rubbing his eyes. "I dunno, actually. What time is it?"

"Jeez, you look like you haven't slept in a week..."

"Actually, I haven't slept in..." Pascal raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak, but paused for a second. "A long time."

"Okay... Well, I'm not sharing this coffee with you. If you want some, you gotta come by at a reasonable time, not this bright and early stuff. I don't do that.

"Alright..." Pascal nodded, but didn't move to leave. An awkward silence stretched out as Kres waited for him to say something.

"So, are you gonna come by tomorrow, or what?"

"No." Pascal shook his head. "I gotta prove you wrong. I now have enough mana to activate my spell with ease!"

"Easily, huh?" Even Kres wouldn't have much mana after activating such a wasteful spell. "Well, don't bother. That spell is terrible. You'll only hurt yourself by activating it."

Pascal shook his head. "You're still going on about that? I'm only doing this to prove you wrong, you know?"

"Then I'll accept my loss... Just don't activate it."

Kres still remembered the hammering headache he got from activating the spell, he wouldn't wish that on anyone, not even Pascal.

"No, no, that won't dooooo!" Pascal wavered and nearly collapsed, but caught himself at the last moment. "I gotta show you it."

"Alright, fine, but we do this on my terms. C'mon."

Kres began walking down the hall and Pascal followed behind him. As he emerged into the corridor, he noticed Van entering the main hall as well.

"Oh, perfect timing. Van, you come with us too."

"Huh? Sure."

"Whoos this?" Pascal drew out the start of the question and tilted his head at Van.

Van merely narrowed his eyes at Pascal and they continued down the hall.

"Kres, this is..?" Van asked as they walked.

Kres nodded. "The one who created that troublesome spell."

"I see. That spell... I thought his face looked familiar."

"Are you another stalker like Kres?"

"What did you call him?" Van's face twisted into anger but Kres raised a hand to stop him.

"Chill out Van, that's just how Pascal is."

"..." Van didn't complain further, but kept his brow furrowed and glared daggers at Pascal.

Kres led them into a small open lab for testing magic. The white walls extended several dozen meters in each direction, and there was nothing that might get caught up in the wind of the spell.

"Okay, Pascal. You can activate the spell here. However, myself and Van will have counterspells readied. The minute you say the word, we'll break the spell."

"Okay, that's fine. It's not like I want to keep it activated for the full four hours..." Pascal nodded. "Anyway, can I borrow one of your wands?"

"You don't even have your own wand?!" Van raised his voice, but Kres interjected before it could escalate.

"It's fine. You can use my wand."

"No, take my wand." Van suddenly switched his tune and offered his own.

Pascal took it and grinned down at the wand. "Oh, this is pretty niceeee. Very cool design. Did you add the flower pattern yourself?"

"Shut it, newbie..."

"Newbie? I'm not new. You're the new one. I've never met you before."

"Let's move on." Kres hurried the conversation along. He just wanted to teach Pascal the error in his spell and continue with his day. "Do you need anything else before we call an end to this 'wager'?"

"Nope! This new guy's wand is cool enough that it should be sufficient. Wow... There's so many features on this."

Pascal raised the wand and closed his eyes. A half second later, a faint spell circle appeared on the tip. It remained very faint, as it didn't have much mana added to it.

"If you don't have enough mana to activate it, then just give up now," Van said. However, Pascal shook his head.

"I'm just confirming the runes before I fully add my mana to it."

"It's good to be thorough." Kres nodded at the caution. "Plenty of mages screw up when they improperly prepare a spell."

With the lack of mana, only a faint wind circled around the spell. However, after confirming the runes and lines in the spell circle, Pascal poured in more mana. As he did, the lines brightened and the wind kicked up into a flurry.

"This is terribly mana inefficient!" Van shouted over the wind and Kres nodded. However, Pascal shook his head.

"This wind is nothing!"

More mana gathered in the spell and then it completed with a flash. As the spell activated, the gale doubled in strength. The flurry of air snatched Kres' breath away and threatened to knock him from his feet.

"I think that's enough!" He shouted over the wind. However, Pascal just grinned back.

"See? It works!" Pascal held the wand proudly out at arm’s length, but his smile twitched. After a few seconds of holding out, he grabbed his head. "Ah!"

Pascal cringed in pain and continued holding his head.

He was likely succumbing to the spell's secondary effects. The shoddy runes gave a psychic feedback that assaulted one's consciousness. Kres could still remember the ringing in his ears when he had tried to cast the spell. It was impressive Pascal hadn't collapsed immediately, but he was clearly not handling the attack well.

"Kres!" Van shouted at him and gave him a look, and Kres nodded back.

"That's enough!"

Kres launched the counter spell, and two magic circles collided. With a flash of sparks, the spell dispersed and the wind died down to a tolerable level.

"Ow ow ow..." Pascal still held his head after the spell finished. "The ringing was louder than I expected..."

"What did I tell you? You'd only hurt yourself like that."

"Ugh..." Pascal finally released his head and handed the wand back to Van.

"I'll admit, you have a good amount of mana, newbie." Van said, accepting the wand. "However, that spell is trash."

Kres' eyes widened at the wording. Van had driven countless mages out of Space Time research over the years. His elitism was hardly bearable, even for Kres. To insult someone's spell in front of them was a clear attack on their pride as a mage. Kres opened his mouth to rebuke Van, but Pascal responded first.

"Oh come on, it was pretty cool, wasn't it? The wind adds some spectacle to it."

Even now, he still defended his spell. Kres had never seen a beginner so optimistic before.

"Pascal..." Kres was at a loss for words at such determination, but Van continued his rebuke.

"I'm not talking about the wind. The active feedback is too much!"

"Active feedback? I don't even know what that is, but the spell is still useful!"

"How is it useful? You could barely cast it!"

"It's not so bad inside the spell. The wind doesn't affect the contents."

"But you'd still have to be outside of it to cast the spell. If you tried to cast it from inside, the additional size would make the mana requirements get even worse!"

At that, Pascal just grinned back.

His optimism and spirit were admirable. However, Kres could only shake his head. The spell physically pained the caster, and the storm of mana it gave off could wreak havoc in the city. Pascal's blind optimism would only lead to misfortune.

"Pascal..." Kres said slowly. Van and Pascal turned towards him and he shook his head. "Give it up, Pascal. We'll find you another spell with a similar duration."

"No way. I proved I could activate it, didn't I?"

"Do you really want to hear that awful ringing when the spell is activated, though? Even if we ignore the wind and mana expenditure, that's gotta be painful, right?"

Pascal's smile wavered, and doubt finally crept into his expression. "But my spell is..."

"Not every spell is useful. Your spell is very interesting, and I'm glad it's inspired you to go this far, but it has drawbacks. Even you have to admit that, right?"

Van opened his mouth to say something, but Kres shook his head at him. Doubtlessly, Van would only try to rub salt in the wound. That would normally crush the spirit of most, but Kres was afraid it might actually make Pascal dig his heels further in.

"I can help you find a new spell. We'll make it even better suited for your requirements. Come on, let's work together."

Pascal's smile wavered again, then disappeared entirely. A deep exhaustion washed over his face, and he cast his gaze down onto the floor.

"Yeah... I guess you're right, Kres."

"Of course he's right," Van said and Kres gave him another stink eye. However, Pascal didn't react. He just continued staring at the ground in silence.

—

Back in the Green Quarter, Freja woke up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A small light blinked on her bedroom desk, and she called out to it.

"What is it, Emmy?"

A tiny green golem tottered out of a toy house and stepped out onto the table. It raised its arms and a robotic voice echoed out.

[ Notification, Reminder. Pascal is scheduled to return today. ]

Freja blinked, then cursed. "Oh, crap. I forgot to water his plants!"

She jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes. "Thanks Emmy!"

[ Gratitude Confirmed. ] The green golem turned around and tottered back into the small toy house.

Freja rushed from her room and headed to the lab. Pascal's potted plant and the vine she had given him sat on the table. She walked up to the table, still half asleep.

"Okay, it should just be these two... For a guy that loves plants, it's weird he only keeps two of them." Freja raised a hand, and she was about to activate some green magic to replenish the plants, but she paused. "Wait, didn't he ask for something specific?"

She picked up a piece of paper and looked over the notes. The paper instructed her to not use green magic and to water the plants by hand. Additionally, the vine was only soaking in a shallow pan, and it needs a nutrient pellet dissolved in its water.

"What a pain in the butt..."

She quickly watered the bonsai tree and topped off the water inside the vine's pan. The vine itself was split in two, breaking the neat circle she had woven it in. Already, roots had grown out of each end, soaking in the water.

She stopped to look at the vine for a few minutes, then shook her head and placed a nutrient pellet into the water.

"Okay, I think that's all..." She looked over the paper, but didn't find anything else in the to do list. Just in case, she checked the back side and-

On the back of the paper, there were a bunch of runes and notes. A single spell circle rested in the middle of it all.

"Hm? What's this?" She asked to herself, but a voice responded back.

[ Query Confirmed. It is a Space Time magic spell created by Pascal. ]

"Oh, hi Dia."

[ Greetings. ]

Freja looked back down at the spell. "Space Time magic, though. That sounds like fun, I wonder what the spell does."

Rather than asking, she decided to try out the spell. She pointed a finger at it, and her bracelet glowed. Immediately, the details of its effects filled her head.

"How cool... Let's try it out."

[ Suggestion, do not- ]

Dia began to say something, but Freja already began pouring mana into her bracelet. The spell circle appeared in her palm and she pointed it away from herself.

The spell took quite a bit of mana to activate, and a small wind stirred in the room. However, she quickly wrangled it under control. She finished pouring in her mana and the spell flashed. Immediately, as the spell activated, a small whine filled the air and a breeze whipped through the room.

"You got some kick to you, huh? As expected of Pascal..." She furrowed her brow and slowly brought the wind back to a manageable level. Slowly but surely, she wrangled the spell back down to a quiet hum.

"F-Freja?"

Suddenly, Pascal's voice echoed out from the entrance of the lab.

Freja looked over and smiled. "Oh, Pascal. This spell is pretty cool."

"I know, right?" His expression brightened, but then he tilted his head. "Wait, you can activate it? And why is there no wind..?"

"Hm?" Freja stared back at him just as confused. "Why would there be wind?"

"It sheds a lot of mana, right? It's super inefficient."

Freja just shook her head. "I mean, if you can't control the spell, yeah."