The journey south did not free us from winter’s clutches. It remained cold and dark as we spent weeks retreating from the icy north. Slowly but surely, we began re-encountering the beasts who had migrated past us as we had traveled in the opposite direction, and hunting became plentiful again.

As I sat around a small coal campfire with Treepo and Buda, watching some seasoned meat sear nicely in a simple pan, I found myself ruminating on what my next steps would be, both in the near future and in the far future.

First I would continue south to Teichar, meet back up with Ivar, and conclude my business in Velgein territory. Horuth’s forces had been pushed back to the mountain pass in the south, so I would not be able to head straight south. I had determined that there was little else of interest to the north. The Velgein territory was bordered by mountains on the west, a continuation of the mountains that veered south and east to close in this region from Horuth and from the sea.

So unless I wanted to climb the mountain to the west, perhaps to hunt down some of the yeti-like beasts called snowpongos I had seen on the journey through the pass or to discover new beasts or secrets, the only real option was heading east. That would take me back to where I had parted with the rebellion, but perhaps that was a good thing. I should say goodbye to Leiren and Toch properly, at least, if not Golchev.

I had no idea what I would find to the east, and maybe I could get some information from the locals before I left. I knew that the mountains continued eastward, but they could not continue forever. I had yet to see a map that included anything east of Gurt in the Horuth Kingdom, but I knew the range extended at least that far east. If the northern people stopped settling eastward, presumably it was a resource-poor region, or hostile enough to prevent settlement, either in terms of beasts or territory.

Knowing what I knew about Velgein magical physiology, I could make some inferences. The east likely did not open back up into a magically-rich environment without heading south over the mountains, because if they did it would not explain the Velgein people and the magical desert. Presumably, the entire north was closed off from sources of magic. In that case, the mountains likely turned northward again. Was the entire northern part of the landmass we lived on enclosed by mountains? That did not line up with my understanding of tectonic mountain formation, but that could just be yet another mystery of this weird, magical world.

Realizing I would almost certainly be heading east, ultimately, to explore more of this world and learn how it worked, I decided to head that way as soon as the winter broke and traveling became a bit more enjoyable. Since I would not likely be coming back west after I left, the remaining winter gave me a window of time to explore the western mountain range beforehand. Perhaps I could find a dungeon lost in the mountains, and if nothing else, it would be an interesting challenge to see if I could make my way over the ridge and see the sea one more time before traveling away from it for the foreseeable future.

I pulled the pan off the coalfire to let the seared meat cool before eating, my plan solidifying in mind, and looking forward to the next leg of my adventure.

* * *

The four snowpongos had me and Treepo surrounded. Several more lay nearby, dead, which infuriated the remaining survivors, who screeched at us and threw chunks of ice, which I was dodging or parrying with my short sword.

“Sure wish Buda was here,” I grumbled. The decision to go mountain climbing was not compatible with the wooly ramhog’s physique and gait, so he was left behind in Teichar with Ivar—well, with Revkah, truthfully, since Ivar could barely take care of himself—before we started our ascent.

The small, yeti-like primates were quite skilled at throwing ice, and seemed to prefer to try and stun an opponent with projectiles before moving in to tear them apart with brute strength. That must have been a small-group tactic, since the large group that attacked the procession from Horuth through the mountain pass had simply attacked directly with numbers.

I had plenty of projectiles of my own, but they would have cost me MP. Most of my tactics drained my MP, which was the main reason I was sick of being in the north.

“Ah, screw it,” I mumbled, then shot out four rock darts, dropping all of the beasts in one fell swoop.

Treepo chittered up at me from my feet, and I shrugged in response.

“Maybe I should invest in my ranged skill at some point…” I said with a sigh. Between my training through my travels north, the darkwurm, and the return journey south, I had reached level 28 and then, more recently, level 29, investing all those points across my inventory, 5-point magic, and one-armed skills again, bringing each to 50/100, then advancing my cooking skill which helped me better feed myself while alone in the north.

That had left me with 13SP which I could have used to advance a simple skill like ranged, but I had decided to dump that into my taming skill in case I found a beast that would be helpful to tame while in the mountains, without risking losing my connection to Buda. I was fairly confident I could control a third familiar, even a strong one, having had four at the same time in the past, but since I was traveling rather far from my wooly mount and he was rather strong, I did not want to risk it. Letting an evolved ramhog go wild in town would not end well for the town or for my familiar friend.

“Oh well. Come on, Treepo, let’s keep on moving.”

The mountain air was cold, but after my travels north I was well acquainted with the cold. My furs kept me insulated, and the exertion of the climb kept me warm. The most discomfort was when we stopped moving for too long, because then the cold started to set in and would quickly chill any sweat on my body. We had been able to find a number of caves and crevasses to rest in and burn some coals overnight during our ascent, although frequently had to fight with the local wildlife before we could occupy them for ourselves.

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There were plenty of impressive mountain peaks along the range, but I was not trying to set some kind of climbing record, summiting the highest peak in the world. I was trying to get over the mountains to the west-facing side of the ridge. There was a low point, relatively, between two peaks that we were specifically targeting, so we could quickly get a look at the ocean on the other side, though that low point was still quite a significant elevation above sea level.

On the whole, the ascent was actually rather boring. There were a few parts of the climb that required some thought, but with the tactical deployment of magic where needed, no obstacle was a true problem for long. If an area grew too steep to climb, so steep that snow and ice barely built-up on the rock, then earth magic could be used to create solid holds. Though I had never figured out how to freeze water with water magic, I did learn in the north that water magic could be used to manipulate existing ice, so clearing the snow and ice was fairly trivial as well. Treepo had become heavier since evolving to a high treehopper, so climbing with him on my shoulders would have been a challenge, but my advanced strength meant that I was rarely actually put out by the discomfort.

So, in surprisingly short order, Treepo and I found ourselves reaching a point where, for the first time in almost a year, we caught sight of the sea and uninterrupted horizon. The bright orange gas giant, still low in the sky due to how far north we were, lit up the western slope of the mountain range, its glittering purple rings shining beautifully.

As soon as we crested the mountain, I could feel the difference in the air. That something that had been missing the entire time we were in Velgein territory was back, and I could see my major Absorption buff was working to pull down trace magic from the sea-side air. I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“That’s so much better,” I murmured, taking a seat and enjoying the air. I watched the purple rings of the gas giant sparkle faintly, appreciating the view that I had missed for the past year. I turned to Treepo, who was also looking up at the stellar object, basking in it. “Sight for sore eyes, yeah?”

Treepo chitter-grunted in pleasure, and I rubbed his head before turning back to it myself.

We sat for a while, watching the sea and rings sparkle, and slowly my mind started to drift, thinking about magic, ocean convection, heat, dungeons, and the curious nature of this planet. It was then that something clicked into place.

I sat up with a start, eyes wide. A theory had formed in my head, something which could finally potentially answer a long-time question I had been asking of this world: where did magic come from?

I knew that magic was a tangible element in this world, something that was, regularly, diffused in the air, but was concentrated in the ocean. It was also, comparatively, absent from the north, which was landlocked behind mountains, blocking the ocean out of sight. I had been thinking about this from the perspective of the ocean being the source of magic in the world, but that was not strictly speaking accurate. While oceanic currents moved heat around Earth, the ocean was not the source of the heat. The oceans of Earth were heated by the sun.

In the same way that the ocean was blocked from view of the north due to the mountains, the massive gas giant was largely obscured by the same mountains, as the stellar object’s position in the sky was lower on the horizon this far north. In particular, the gas giant’s rings had been completely obscured.

Magic—that is, the element that made up magic—was blue, as could be seen from deepwater pearls and beast crystal. However, that was not the only unusual element I had discovered in this world.

I pulled out the rank D dungeon core I had found in my first dungeon, in the jungles of Mirut. A crimson crystal that I had never truly understood, but was, somehow, related to magic. Beasts in the dungeon would be corrupted, evolving in a different way from when beasts interacted with concentrated magic. My own magic did not always function as expected in the corrupted space of a dungeon, and one aspect of my 6-point magic worked to eliminate corruption. It was like they were somewhat antagonist forces in the same realm. Furthermore, their confluence seemed to interact in some way that allowed the skillfruits to grow, suggesting that the pairing of the two had some relationship with the skills of this world.

Excited, I pulled out my stone mortar and pestle. I had avoided experimenting with dungeon cores as I did not understand them and lacked any theories, but now I finally felt like I was on to something. I grabbed a rock and tried to use it to hammer off a piece of the dungeon core, as I only needed a flake to test my theory, but the rock simply shattered against the sturdy dungeon core.

Frowning, I tried to smash the dungeon core against the rocky ground of the mountainside, but it simply shattered the stones it smashed into. I threw it harder, and the dungeon core became partially embedded in the ground. I stared at it in frustration before I noticed the core starting to sink back down into the earth.

In a panic, I grabbed it and pulled it back into my inventory. I had long suspected that if I buried a dungeon core, it would start to form a new dungeon, but this was not the time or place to see that experiment through.

Instead, I pulled the core back out and some of the steel I had purchased. I laid the core on a block of steel, then hammered down on top of it with another piece of steel.

Even then, the steel deformed before a flake of the core finally separated from the bulk of the object. The core was incredibly sturdy, but that made sense if my theory was accurate.

I dropped the core back in my inventory, and began grinding the flake to dust between the pieces of steel. It was hard work, and I probably would not have been able to without my strength skill, but I finally managed to grind it into a fine powder, the same way I did with beast crystals or deepwater pearls in order to make my MP potions.

Nervously, I pulled one such potion out, as well as a piece of parchment which I used as a funnel. Slowly, delicately, as though working with an unknown explosive, I poured the red dungeon core powder into the blue potion.

At first, nothing happened, and I sighed in relief that I did not create some sort of magical bomb. Slowly at first, then faster as I got excited, I stirred then shook the concoction, watching the red powder diffuse into the blue potion, and slowly turned into a brilliant violet.

I held the potion up to the sky, next to the gas giant’s violet rings. The color matched almost perfectly. A surprising giggle broke from my lips, a laugh of revelation which turned into a wide grin of triumph. I finally had a real, plausible hypothesis as to where magic in this world came from. As Earth’s light and heat came from the sun, and this moon that I lived on got its light and heat from the gas giant, so too did magic come from the gas giant: from its mysterious, sparkling purple rings.