After some discussions about the details, they decided to meet again near the Marques Mansion as soon as the revolt would take place. This meant that Lando had some free time until then, which he decided to use for reading. He found some books in the Black Ring and wanted to learn more about using his elements, eager to boost his power.
As Lando read, his excitement rose upon discovering the vast possibilities and uses for his elements. He focused on the most interesting ones, particularly the ability to teleport using his space element. However, he realized that teleporting himself was still beyond his current capabilities. To achieve that, he would need at least an expert level of mastery.
While reading this part, Lando began to reassess the strength of the members of the Space-Time Council. "This book says nothing about the maximum distance one can teleport in the gas stage," he thought. "But I assume most mages at the expert level are already in the late liquid or solid stage, if I had to put my father as a baseline. Does this mean the recruiter back at the academy was at the solid stage? He disappeared from the open training field, so he must have teleported a longer distance. If even recruiters possess that level of power, how strong are their fighters? I really need to get stronger if I want to question one of them," he mused, frustrated by his own weakness.
Feeling a bit down about the skills he couldn't currently use, Lando turned his attention to the ones he could utilize. One of the books mentioned the ability to expand and compress the space around oneself. This skill had various applications, including the possibility of becoming invisible if executed perfectly. However, it required a lot of practice to expand and compress the space in such a way that no light would hit one's body, while simultaneously hindering one's sight by redirecting incoming light. Despite this drawback, Lando was delighted as he perceived the skill as having many uses, at least in his opinion.
He could use this as well to compress the space between himself and an intended target. This would enable him to take one step in his compressed space and travel a much longer distance in reality. It was quite mana-intensive, but definitely a useful skill, as the opposite was true as well. He could expand the space in a certain area and disrupt projectiles or gain some distance from his enemies.
Lando could only imagine how fast he would be in the future with the combination of his time and space magic. Eager to find out more about it, he put the space magic book back in his black ring and took some time magic books out, quickly skimming over the titles. Finding a suitable one, named "Time Mage Basics," he began to read.
He knew many things already, such as the lowering of kinetic energy inside his time bubble. This phenomenon, as well as a few others, were called “Time Rippling”. As different areas with different flows of time met each other, they would produce such effects.
One useful skill he would be able to use already was related to healing. The skill had two stages and was called ‘Decelerated Healing.’ In the first stage of the skill, it allowed Lando to decelerate the time around his wounds, so they would not bleed as much. This itself was a complicated mixture of slowing down time in specific areas. The goal of the spell was to create specific Time Rippling effects. This could go very wrong, fast, as you would purposely create such effects in your own body. Not used correctly in the wrong area, and you would kill yourself instead of slowing down the wound. The second stage was accelerated healing. Lando could use this effect only over longer periods of time, as he had not the mana and the skill to accelerate the time so fast that it would be usable in battle. But he could use it outside of battle and heal his wounds faster. He would have to passively concentrate on the healing, as it was used over extended periods of time at his stage. He could, for example, use just as much mana so that his natural regeneration and usage of mana would form an equilibrium and heal his wounds during his normal day-to-day life.
Lando was a bit disappointed that he got no active healing skill like a water mage, but it was better than nothing.
As he skimmed over the books, he found two skills that were a must in his situation. The skills were called space- and time-awareness, respectively. They both had practically the same usage: being able to notice if a space or a time magician was manipulating time or the space around you.
It was a paramount skill for Lando, as he would almost certainly fight against space and time magicians in the future.
A significant advantage of space and time magicians was that their magic was barely visible. How would you know if an enemy formed a time bubble around himself and accelerated time? He could move with normal speed, and a moment later he would be 10 times as fast. Space magic is also barely visible. He would see incoming strikes better and could act accordingly if he knew what their opponents were doing.
Lando wanted to try everything out as soon as possible, and thus he began to practice immediately. Progress was slow, but the books paved a way for him as they described the steps he had to take. At least the time magic books explained everything in detail. The books about space magic just explained some basics and how the spells could be applied.
Lando guessed that such books would be handed out to time magicians in the council, as they often worked in teams with space magicians and had to know what they were able to accomplish.
He did not know what he would have done if he had not found those books. He would be at a serious disadvantage without them against the council magicians if this was the basic curriculum handed to every member.
One thing Lando knew was that if he had to confront a magician from the council, he had to learn all the techniques in those books first. The best way to gauge his enemies' strengths and weaknesses was to know exactly how they use all those skills and find weaknesses in them by using them himself.
As he imagined the vast possibilities of the different usages for his magic, he became a bit nostalgic as this reminded him of the days in the academy. The skills he learned there about his magic, were the basics of the basics as the study material for his elements back there were not even a fraction as profound as his new books.
Nevertheless, he absorbed every bit of it and loved the experiences he made, as he developed his own style and spells based on those fundamentals.
He slowly channeled the mana from both his elements through his body, not to form a spell but to enjoy the warm and familiar feeling it gave him.
He could not even imagine at this moment, what and how he would evolve, advance or combine the different spells in his books, and this alone filled him with excitement as nothing else he could imagine at the moment could even compare to the feeling of mastering a new spell.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“That’s why I love studying magic so much. The possibilities seem endless and the only things stopping me exploring them is my own lack of knowledge and power.”
He knew that learning proper magic is a long endeavor, but currently, it was his only way to strengthen himself and he enjoyed the journey quite a bit.
With enough resources and magic cores, a mage could advance relatively fast through the stages. The part that differentiated an average magician and an outstanding one, was the control over their element.
A mage in the solid stage could theoretically lose a fight against a mage in the gaseous stage, even if they had the same element, if the solid stage mage had absolutely no experience in combat with his element. These sorts of outcomes are rare, but there were several examples in history. Some nobles in big wealthy families or clans got all the resources they could ask for but were just too lazy or negligent to advance their control of their element because there was often no need for them to fight personally as they could rely on their families.
This meant for Lando that he could still get stronger even without elemental cores; it was just not the fastest way. If he wanted to punch above his weight class reliably, he had to study his two elements more and advance to high or even expert mastery in space and time magic.
***
While Lando was reading through his books, warships anchored near Goldton and prepared for battle.
A small boat was coming from the coast and headed to the ship in front of the battle formation. The speed of the small ship indicated a water magician was on board, as the boat had no sails and was practically surfing on a small wave at its back.
The people on the ship arrived not long after, and two individuals boarded the leading battleship. Walking in front was a woman dressed in a grey pantsuit with black short hair, wearing glasses. Following her was an old man in a butler outfit with grey hair and a polite but serious attitude.
The two of them were let through easily, as the woman gave off an aura that meant business, walking by the guards on the ship.
They arrived at the cabin that was undoubtedly the one where the captain resided, extravagantly decorated with all sorts of luxury, resembling a lounge room in a fancy noble's mansion.
The man in the butler uniform quickly announced his companion to the other two people in the cabin, who were having tea, with the words “Lady Charlotte Wilkins, head of the merchant guild in Goldton.”
The rough-looking man with a big scar going from his left forehead until his right cheek barely missing his eyes and a full black-greyish beard stood up and walked over to the Lady, greeting her with a polite handshake. “James Barber, Captain of this ship and general leading this fleet, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The other man, with a big black mustache on his face, still sitting on the couch, just waved with his hand as a greeting to Charlotte, when James said, “I have to apologize for my first mate's lack of manners, as he seems to have forgotten them during his journeys, am I right, Jack?”
The man sitting on the sofa with his tea in hand let out a small chuckle as Charlotte said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Barber, we are here for a report and not for some noble tea party.”
As James saw the woman in the business suit glancing at Jack’s cup of tea, he announced with a joyful voice, “Actually, why not make it one while we exchange some information?” and offered the lady a seat with a gesture of his hand, thinking to himself that she looked a bit like his history teacher as he compared the woman in front of him with his crush in his childhood.
As he poured Charlotte a cup of tea, she asked James, noticing the thoughtful expression on his face, “Did something happen on your way here? You seem to be thinking about something.”
James, glad that his full beard hid his embarrassment, answered in a hasty tone, “No, no, everything went as planned. Blackstor and Blazepost surrendered with no resistance at all to our fleet. How is the situation on your side?”
His first mate, sitting on the nearby couch, just took a sip of his tea, grinning, as he knew exactly what his best friend was thinking about. They had known each other since their days at the royal academy 200 years ago and had the same history teacher.
Charlotte, with her experience in business meetings, knew that the two men in front of her were hiding something but let it slide as she began her report with a serious face. “We lost many of our supporters during the past week. Luckily for us, an unexpected prison break played right into our cards. We not only got back a high mage that was imprisoned there, but we also took the chance and assassinated Marques Buckley during the turmoil.”
Not expecting them to get rid of a lightning high mage on the duke's side, James laughed, saying, “Fortune seems to be on our side, as this makes the whole coup a bit easier. How many high mages do we have in Goldton left?”
Charlotte answered promptly, “Including me, we are five at the moment. We lost the whole Silver Swords mercenaries, including their leader Irvin.”
The Silver Swords were the biggest mercenary group in Goldton, having a high mage as their leader, and were hired members for the revolutionaries. Unfortunately, they got betrayed by one of their members, and nearly all of them, including Irvin, got captured and executed not long after.
James, after taking a sip of his tea, answered without much concern about the lost mercenaries, “Hmm, they most certainly did resist quite a bit, I hope. I guess they did their deed if they got rid of some mages in the duke's forces on the way.”
Charlotte just nodded, actually quite happy about their capture, as she was the one paying them, and now she saved 50% of her expenses.
However, as they lost a high mage that would have been at least useful against the fight with the duke, she voiced her concerns about the upcoming battle. “I am still not sure if we can fight Duke Barron. You brought four high mages as planned, I assume? With that, we have nine high mages on our side, and the duke has only four left in total. So, we five can take the duke's forces while you and your army take on the duke,” she continued, raising her index finger. “But as strong as you all may be, the duke is an archmage, and I do not believe this is quite enough to take on the duke. I myself have never seen an archmage fight, but you for sure have. How can you be so certain about your victory?”
James leaned back into the sofa and said relaxedly, “You are right. We are not able to take on an archmage by ourselves, but the good part here is that we don’t have to.”
Charlotte perked up at this exclamation as James continued, “It is still secret information, but I guess at this point it does not really matter that much. Our new chancellor made a deal with the space-time council, and we will implement their law after this war. In exchange for that, the council will hammer down the remaining resistance after the revolution is over. As a personal favor to the chancellor, they even restrict the archduke while we take over Goldton. If he resists the council only death awaits him, as I was told.”
Surprised by this news, Charlotte remained silent for a while, not only thinking about the current revolution anymore, as it was already won with the council on their side, at least in her opinion. For her, more important as the head of the local merchant guild would be the new laws that this would bring.
The laws that affected her the most were that anything space or time-related would be regulated by the council. From elemental cores to enchantments to spatial rings. She now sold such items at a premium, as they were all high-level goods, and she had big profit margins with them. If the council regulated the market, the prices would go up, but her profit margins would shrink as the council would take most of it. On top of that, space or time-related resources could only be sold to the council for cheap.
It was just a very small part of her goods that would be affected, but the margins were so high that it was still very profitable.
But she had no plans of acting against such laws, as this was a sure way to be executed if caught.
Not too happy about the development but still accepting it, she further asked, “If you can even help us in fighting the nobles that are left, we are at a huge advantage. This leaves only one question, when do we strike?”
The navy General answered without hesitation, “The duke's forces must have already seen our ships, and thus this will be an open battle. I have orders to end this as soon as possible; our troops from the north are already near Goldton and will catch every fugitive. Would you be ready if we start tomorrow with the first ray of the sun?”
Charlotte nodded in confirmation, and James thus announced with excitement, “Alright! Tomorrow at noon, this city shall hoist the flag of the new republic!”