“Alright! Time out!” Zed announced, hands raised above his head in a gesture that indicated exactly what he was saying.

Andre paused in his tracks, hands halfway up in preparation for combat. He looked from side to side before finally settling on the glass where Daniel and the others stood behind. He looked unsure of if he was supposed to stop or not.

“I like your zest, Mr. Smith,” Zed told him. “But let’s just keep it in the fridge for a moment.”

He returned his attention to the wall of glass and walked up to it. It was not a one-way mirror so he could easily see those on the other side. His steps carried him until he stopped in front of Festus.

Festus stared at him on the other side.

“What’s the problem, kiddo?”

“Well,” Zed said. “I’ve been up for a few days now, and while that means I’m supposed to be up and kicking, I’m not. This is a test of my ability and I think it would be best if my abilities are tested when I’m at average condition, to say the least. That said, I suggest we have someone else start the show. We watch a different group of people go at it first, then I go at it. It shouldn’t take much for me to be in shape. I promise.”

Festus looked at him in consideration. He mulled over the idea.

“One fight,” he said at last. “One fight, then it’s your turn.”

Zed agreed with a sigh of relief and Festus turned to the others behind him.

“Which of you wants to go first?”

Chris had a frown on her face, clearly displeased with the current development. Ash didn’t seem too bothered. Anyone could see she remained slightly bothered but that was from something else. Whatever it was, it seemed hard to tell.

After a while, Oliver raised his hand. “I don’t mind going a few rounds but…”

“You’re a category two Rukh, right?” Daniel asked.

Oliver nodded.

“I’m sure we can get someone to face you,” Daniel said. He reached into his pocket and slipped out a device.

“Hold on!” Zed exclaimed, practically plastering himself to the glass. “Is that a cell phone? Like an actual mobile device you use to call people?”

Daniel paused to look at him. “No,” he said with the most stoic face Zed had ever seen. “It’s a teleportation device. I press a button and it summons one of my teammates to an area of my choice.”

A moment of silence filled the room. It stretched awkwardly. Festus’ attention moved slowly to Daniel.

“What?” Daniel asked.

“I can’t be the only one who can’t tell if that’s sarcasm,” Zed said. “Right?”

Apart from the Olympians, everyone kept their attention fixed on Daniel.

“Right?” Zed tried again.

“You are not,” Festus agreed. “However, teleportation is impossible for living organisms. Magic has allowed us move objects from one point to another, circumventing the basic laws of physics but not in the way most people know. It’s more about opening a portal and moving the object through it. Human teleportation is supposed to be impossible.”

“Wait, if we can move inanimate objects, why not people, then?”

Daniel tapped the screen of the cell phone as Zed and Festus spoke and placed it to his ear.

“It’s about living will,” Eitri said from where he was seated, drawing attention to him.

“Living will?” Zed asked.

“Yes. An inanimate object has no will so it doesn’t fight against the shifting of the status quo. A human being has one. Moving a person through a portal is like trying to convince a Christian that there is no god.”

“That doesn’t sound as drastic as you’re trying to make it seem.”

“If you think it’s not, then think of it as trying to imagine a new color. A color that doesn’t already exist. Try it.”

“Why?”

“To show you how impossible it is.”

Eitri was no longer on his seat now. He had gotten up and was now standing beside Festus while Zed looked down at him.

Zed tapped a thoughtful finger against his lips. After a while he gave it a shot.

“Incorrigible blue.”

Festus shook his head. “That’s not a new color, kid. That’s blue. You just added a word to it.”

“True,” Zed admitted. “But I don’t see what that really has to do with teleportation.”

“Alright,” Eitri said. “Look at it like this. The way teleportation works—and I’ll talk of moving through portals because that’s the version I’m accustomed to—the object being moved has to give itself entirely to the transcension of location.”

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“You lost me at transcension,” Zed said. “Is that even a real word? It sounded like transcending but you were trying to make a noun out of it and flopped.”

“It’s a real word, but that’s not what we are talking about,” Eitri confirmed. “Teleportation is more about disintegration and reintegration. It’s on a molecular scale so small that it’s almost impossible to notice.”

As if to make emphasis on his words he placed his hands out before him as if in supplication and chanted a simple spellform.

“I see with my third eye the soul of the world.”

The space above his hands shimmered and wobbled. One moment there was nothing but air there, then it took on the nature of water with translucent bubbles that turned into a bland darkness.

“That looks so cool, and deadly,” Zed said, staring at it like an excited child at the zoo. “And what are those things hovering around it?”

Festus and Daniel took the liberty of looking at the gaping hole in the air.

“What things?” Festus asked.

Zed drew squiggles on the glass. “You guys can’t see it? They’re what I assume would be the handwriting of a baby that can’t write. They’re so—Oh, they’re gone. Never mind.”

Festus squinted at the portal, then looked back at Zed. There was a slight frown on his face. It was the frown of someone considering the possibility of the impossible being possible.

“That’s not important,” Zed said. “What happens if Oliver puts his hand through it? Not his entire body, though.”

“Why do I have to be the one to put my hand through it?” Oliver objected.

“And why not just go through it?” Chris asked.

Zed gave her a dumbfounded look, then gestured at the portal. “It’s the size of man’s head. Duh. How do you expect him to go through it?”

He shook his head before returning his attention to Eitri. Chris frowned but returned to her silence.

“I’ll put my hand through it,” Kid volunteered, getting up from his chair.

“No you won’t,” Ronda said, pulling him back down by the hem of his shirt.

“Let the man live a little,” Zed told her. “You can’t choose now to baby him.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Eitri said. “If he puts his hand through this place, he’ll lose it.”

“What if you put your hand through it?”

“It will remain intact,” Festus said, walking up to Eitri. To everyone’s surprise, he put his hand into the portal.

Zed caught Ash flinch, but to their surprise nothing happened. Festus’ hand hit the portal but didn’t pass through.

“That’s a Knight rank confidence right there,” Eitri smirked.

“What just happened?” Kid asked.

“I’d like to know too,” Chris said.

“This portal is mine so I can move through it at will,” Eitri explained. “However, I’m guessing this is probably a principle of magic, like how one plus one is always two but—”

“Sometimes it’s one,” Kid said.

Eitri turned to him. “What?”

Kid shrugged. “Sometimes it’s one. In binary, one plus one is one.”

Eitri turned a confused expression towards Ronda and Jennifer. He looked as if he had a question to ask. His lips parted. He paused, as if rethinking the idea, and closed them.

“As I was saying,” he said. “As a Knight rank mage, he is more powerful than I am, hence, while this portal exists by my will, my will is not strong enough to conquer him. So as far as his body is considered, there is no portal here, merely the absence of the world.”

“So you can stop a higher rank mage in his tracks if a weaker mage can open a portal large enough,” Olive mused.

Festus shook his head. “Wrong. If he’s really committed to it. A higher rank mage can merely shatter the portal.”

“How?”

“The portal is held together by a spellform, which is the mage’s will. As a higher rank mage, shattering the portal would be like shattering a spell form.”

“A spellform can be shattered?” Zed asked.

“Yes,” Ash answered. “It’s like my water shield. The more damage it takes, the weaker it gets. Ultimately, it breaks. That’s because my focus isn’t strong enough.”

“I always thought your shield was just weak,” Zed said. “Alright, so what I’m getting out of this is that a mage has two types of strength. The normal one that comes with weighing ten tons and the will.”

“Correct.”

“What of the thing where Festus can’t pass this guy’s portal,” Zed asked, gesturing at Eitri. Behind him, Donny and Andre were close enough to be part of the conversation.

“That’s because of something called the metaphysics,” Daniel said.

“The Russians call it mana-bound, but metaphysics works,” Eitri added.

“Metaphysics. Sounds spiritual.” Zed looked around. “I’m I the only one that thinks that sounds spiritual? Why does it sound spiritual?”

“No, it’s not,” Daniel said. “Metaphysics is the concept of a mage’s metaphysicality.”

“Still sounds spiritual.”

“Have you ever wondered how a mage can weigh over six hundred pounds and still look like this?” he asked, gesturing at Oliver. “Mr. Festus is a Knight rank. By that very virtue, he probably weighs more than twice my weight as a mage.”

Zed looked between Festus and Daniel. Festus’ small frame that left him barely five feet six inches against Daniel’s near seven feet.

“You’re saying you,” he pointed at Daniel, “weigh less than him,” he pointed at Festus. “That’s trippy. Now that you put it that way, it’s mind boggling.”

“It’s the metaphysicality of a mage that causes it. The stronger a mage gets, the more innate mana he accumulates. While mana is not like gas, it carries one very similar property with gas: it can be compressed.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be a limit to that?” Zed asked. “Doesn’t gas have a limit?”

“There is,” Daniel confirmed. “The limit is in how much the mage’s body can hold.”

“Rank ups,” Zed muttered in realization.

“Yes. Rank ups. When a mage ranks up, what’s happening is that they are using up their mana to reinforce their body so that it can take in more mana and compress it even more. And mana is very dense.”

“Really?” Zed asked, thinking of his [Exp] and if it was actually mana. “Just how dense is it?”

“Very. When a mage casts a spell, it converts mana to whatever spell it is. A water mage turns mana into water. As for how heavy it is, it’s heavy enough to affect a mage. Ice magic is strong enough to hold a mage in place and stuff like that. Mages shatter the ground a lot when they fight, but when an earth mage attacks the boulders are strong enough to throw another mage. It’s the metaphysics.”

“Am I the only one who doesn’t get the whole thing?” Ash asked.

“What you’re saying is that mana is heavy,” Zed explained. “The stronger a mage gets, the more mana they have. The stronger they are, the more mana they can get. Like gas, the more you compress mana, the heavier it gets. Ergo, stronger mage, more mana. More mana, heavier weight.”

Oliver stared at Zed. “Ergo?”

Zed shrugged. “I like it. It has a nice ring to it. Sounds sophisticated.”

Oliver shook his head. “Sophisticated.”

“So back to the teleportation thing,” Eitri said, pulling their attention back to him. “So about the teleportation. I can put parts of my body but I can’t go through it because my brain can’t handle the weight of moving through distances that instantly. Mr. Festus here can’t cross through my portal because he is metaphysically too heavy for my portal, sustained by my will, to contain him. Oliver will lose whatever body part for the same reason human beings cannot be teleported. He might be able to handle the disintegration but not the re-integration.”

“Because his will won’t be strong enough to reassemble himself on the other side,” Zed said.

“Correct.”

“That didn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Zed said, then he turned as the door to the training room opened. “Oh, Ollie, I think your opponent is here.”