After the dragon, I knew I could not simply just sit around and wait.
Part of me was tempted to follow the dragon south, figure out where they lived, and kill them. It would, of course, be a huge amount of experience and likely earn me a number of levels, and would also eliminate the threat. Yet dragons had likely existed on this world for generations without being a threat, and it was my actions which had caused the threat in this case. Would wiping out the remaining dragons only cause more problems?
I was still lacking too much information, and my ignorance put the people I cared about and was responsible for at risk. I needed to know more, and for that, I needed to strengthen my information magic.
The Kingdom had lost many soldiers and adventurers, and held a memorial service for those lost, as well as instituting a period of mourning. Fortunately, those that were injured were largely able to be healed, so no further lives were lost.
The Church had a lot to say about recent events, and it was clear that we would not be able to stockpile dungeon core anymore. The Kingdom and the Church were still interested in acquiring it, given the usefulness of the material, but we would have to change our policies about it. Priority would have to be given to processing it and distributing it, so that it did not pile up and become a beacon to other dragons. Once freelance priests were more common and joined adventuring parties, perhaps dungeon core could be purified on location, which would also make it easier to transport back. I left them to work it out while I worried about how I could avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
It could take years before I would be able to consume enough skillfruit to master 3-point magic, even with seriously scaling up production. There was no simple way for me to rapidly gain levels, either, unless I wanted to start slaughtering people, which I obviously did not plan to do.
The magic system of the Horuthian Kingdom used magic circles in order to blend different spells into schools, which allowed the mages who used magic circles to do more with fewer skill points. This was also the case in certain martial masteries.
Given that skill points could be gained from consuming skillfruit, I knew there was an objectively real aspect to how skills grew based on these points. It seemed to be related to the same magic that pervaded the world, related to the ring crystal. These skills built on each other and sometimes evolved into combined skills, and I knew that combined skills grew in power; that was what happened when I first converted my information-based metasystem skills into 3-Point Magic.
Perhaps that was only true due to the fact that those skills were unique to me, which I still did not really understand, but I did not think that was the case. I was only recreating something that had already occurred before with magic circles.
I had also seen the rise of new skills, skills which I believed may have never been known before in this world, such as when I created 8-Point Magic or when the Mounted skill came into existence. It was possible that the Mounted skill existed elsewhere in the world already, but with magic circles being a construct of the Kingdom—as far as I was aware—it stood to reason that 8-Point Magic was truly novel. My metasystem had said as much as well.
New skills came into existence as civilization grew and evolved into a new form, and pushed forward by the growth, skills too evolved to allow for people to master the needed skills for surviving this world given the limited lifetimes people had.
That did not seem far-fetched to me. Earth was like that as well.
Only a few hundred thousand years prior, biologically modern humans on Earth only had to make primitive tools, hunt, forage, work in social groups, clothe and shelter themselves, and generally survive. While they likely had skills that were lost to history, there was nothing they did that a human in my lifetime could not also do, given the inclination.
Yet the humans of my lifetime also learned things those ancient humans could never have dreamed of. By the time a human reached adulthood on Earth in the present era, they may know complex mathematics, they may know how to drive, they may know how to play an instrument, they may know multiple languages, they may know how to build computer software, they may even know how to fly—given they had a plane.
It was because each generation stood on the shoulders of those that came before them, through civilization, that such things were possible. The collective human experience elevated each human beyond the bare, animalistic life one would have without. It allowed each human to master skills far beyond what they could have learned on their own in the wild. Without ongoing effort, humanity risked losing it all and needing to start over.
Skill evolution in this world was the same. Remove every human who knew how to use magic circle skills and wipe out all the written knowledge that exists, and magic circles would be lost within one generation. Magic would need to be built back up, one spell at a time, and a new form of magical language would need to rise to replace magic circles.
I had already taken part in that, though I had not shared what I had learned beyond artifacts. The tablet I had found with Latin on it suggested that another reincarnator had been responsible for the existence of magic circles in the first place. Whatever that meant about how the natives of this world could push forward their own civilization, I knew for a fact that I had the capacity to create large change in this world.
Which brought me to my task: advancing my information magic. The most obvious way to do that, and something I had thought about for many years, was through the creation of the ultimate magic circle. A magic circle which allowed me to use any type of magic. The combination of all six of my magic circles, which given the skillpoints I already had assigned to my skills, would immediately propel me to magical mastery.
N-Point Magic.
What I was trying to do was not as straightforward as it seemed. My experiments with magic circles told me that I needed an “open” center, because using line-segment digons which intersected the center of the circle created magical circuits through which magic was channeled, rather than cast. Using no lines at all, simply leaving the circle entirely empty, meant the circle had zero points, and that also did not work.
This was less mechanical as it was grammatical. Magic circles were a language. This was why, when I created 8-point magic, I needed to use an {8/2} polygram to control molecules, because it already contained a {4/1} polygram which was used for controlling oxides.
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While less straightforward, there was a relationship between 3-point magic and 6-point magic as well. Broadly, 6-point magic affected living organisms, and 3-point magic provided the information about what was being affected. It was through my knowledge of health points, magic points, statuses, and other such aspects of myself and others that I was able to provide perfect healing, master various buffs and debuffs, and utilize parts of the world to affect the health of myself and others.
As such, simply adding up all the points of all the circles and trying to make some ridiculously complex polygram was not the solution. I could not cast 4-point magic spells through a 5-point magic circle, after all. There was something about the structure itself which defined the magic.
That led me to wonder about layering the polygrams on top of each other, but that raised the question of orientation. There was no way to lay a square over a star polygon that was symmetrically even without sharing a point, which would likely confuse the magic. Even if it could be done, that would only create a joint 4-and-5-point magic circle, not one that worked for all types.
Shared points would have allowed for a magic circle with every polygram inscribed on it, and in fact there were some gorgeous patterns that formed from superimposed polygrams. For magic, though, it would not work. Each point needed to be distinct.
The problem would only get more complicated when adding higher-point polygrams, and rapidly become incredibly complicated with the magic circles that had multiple forms like 7-point magic and 8-point magic.
I started doodling even larger star polygons. The density of the lines rapidly grew unmanageable, with the ink running and obscuring the neighboring lines as early as a hendecagram. I had no idea what 11-point magic would be, but without distinct lines, would a spell even work? I would need to draw much larger in order to have the space around the center to maintain the distinction between the lines.
Staring into the iris of the hendecagram, it felt for a moment as though magic itself was staring right back at me.
I sat back in my chair, frowning. The higher order the polygram, the more constricted the center becomes. If a magic circle was the eye of magic, peak miosis would occur as the lines approached infinity: an apeirogram.
A perfectly symmetrical magic circle which would also contain any and every polygram.
The infinite potential of magic, with all its focus directly on the caster.
To wield such a thing… the caster would need an infinite focus, in turn.
I sat forward, my brows intensely furrowed. What would that even look like? The engraving would be the removal of almost all the material within the circle, save for an infinitely small point in the center. Practically speaking, it was not a feasible thing to create. No engraver could leave an infinitely small unengraved center in a circle while carving out the infinite lines of a regular apeirogram, which would also take an infinite amount of time. Arguably, the engraver could just remove all the material save for the iris, rather than carving infinite lines, since the end result was the same, but would the intention matter to the end product? Even if it were possible, the slightest nudge would break off the infinitely small material left in the center, which also needed to be the exact center of the circle.
That was all true, but I did not actually engrave my magic circles. I used 8-point magic to construct them through willpower alone. While I could not technically leave an infinitely small center, I could, in theory, create one with an iris that was only a single atom.
Physically, that still might not be enough to work, except that the magic circles themselves were only the language needed to express the magic. I had witnessed a number of rather rough magic circles function over the years, including my own original ones drawn in the dirt and made of stone. Intention was key.
Was intention enough to get past the problems of the theory? It would technically lack the distinct lines and points needed for my current magic circles, though they could be present. If I was trying to wield free-form magic with infinite potential, did it even matter?
I had to try.
Like a man possessed, I pulled out some gold and started shaping it. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I focused my attention down to the atomic, creating the infinite eye of magic that I would peer through and uncover the truth about this world.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, my rational mind was screaming about the danger. I acknowledged it enough to set out the important things from my inventory, including the document I had written on the boat when I headed to Haklan, which I had planned to leave behind for my family if I died. I placed this on my desk alongside all my other important possessions.
Then I gently laid my fingers on the construct, and began pushing magic into it.
I appraised myself.
Skills {3-Point Magic (100/1000), 4-Point Magic (100/1000), 5-Point Magic (100/1000), 6-Point Magic (100/1000), 7-Point Magic (0/1000), 8-Point Magic (100/1000)} converted to new skill: N-Point Magic
Skill acquired: N-Point Magic
1166 SP reassigned to converted skill.
SP overflow.
New mastery achieved.
Mastery acquired: Information Mastery
A flood of information washed over me, too much to contain in my thoughts at once. I squeezed my eyes shut as I sorted through what I had learned, but it was not important. This was information about myself as I existed within this world, and I knew much of that already. It did not answer the bigger questions about why I existed. As nice as it was to “know thyself,” I had bigger questions to answer, anyway.
I appraised the world.
Staggering, I collapsed in my chair, and I saw it all. Almost unconsciously, I reached for some parchment and ink and scrawled out my vision. The vast desert that ran around the center of the moon, and the thin strip of arable land towards the northern pole where we managed to survive; a similar one, in the south. The wilds to the east, and what could be found beyond the Kingdom. The continent to the west, across the sea, and the nomadic people who lived there, still dealing with the fallout of ringfall.
Our world, a moon which orbited around a gas giant, encircled by the ring of magic crystal.
I appraised the ring.
A groan tore out of my lips as I slumped, seeing the moon that once was. The homeland of the dragons, torn apart by the intense gravity of the gas giant. The strongest of them fled the destruction, using their magic to survive the journey through space as they found their way here, their closest neighbor, where bits and pieces of their former world would sometimes land, changing the nature of this world in turn. The way it changed the humans who lived here. It was not enough magic for the dragons to thrive, and they either fell into a deep hibernation to wait for a future where they might awaken, or tried to adapt, breeding increasingly disfigured children who could survive the weaker magic and would become known as draconic beasts to the natives of this world.
The orbit of the ring and our moon would cause us to intersect with the halo of damage again, a repeated ringfall. I unconsciously scribbled out the time between ringfall events and a note about preparation for the generations it would take until the ring fully healed.
A trickle of blood dripped from my nose, but I could not stop. I knew I had pushed too far, but the knowledge was like a drug, too addictive to stop. I channeled my magic into the circle, and it was too much.
The magic circle disintegrated in my hands as I appraised the universe.