Nico plopped existence.

The last message he saw had been a notification that the portal led to the Next Over. His surroundings defied every expectation he had about the world adjacent to his. The Next Over was the home of spirit-creatures like members of the Grey Dead and the Silver Dead. He imagined the world to be a vast, barren graveyard or a desert.

Instead, he was greeted with a lush, green forest full of wild and beautiful vegetation completely unfamiliar to his mortal eyes. When he looked above, the sun seemed too bright, and even more yellow than his own. When he looked to the side, he realized he was near the edge of a cliff.

Past the line of trees was a giant white obelisk.

Leaning over the edge of the cliff, Nico pulled back immediately. Over the cliff was a sea of clouds, and what he swore was, far beneath it, blue waters. The wind tasted vaguely of salt. Was he above an ocean?

When he breathed in, the air felt thin, but somehow, the atmosphere felt...thicker? No, that wasn’t right. Maybe abundant was the right word.

The odd feeling from suddenly finding himself in another world was quickly replaced with a mixture of fear and childlike wonder. This was the Next Over, something he had only ever heard and read about. Now, he was here, alone.

Nico clenched his fists. He was close.

Whoever framed him was here. He got off and sucked in the thin air. It felt fresher than anything he'd ever tasted. Maybe it was because he had grown up in the city.

“I need to get out more,” Nico complained. He opened his mouth to Examine the area, but paused.

A new idea came to him.

Technically, it wasn’t a new idea. It was one of the countless theories he had wanted to test for years. The theory treated divination not as a summoning of information, like drawing water from a well, but as an attack. Measure validated the pranic barrier theory earlier that day. That alone gave Nico confidence it wasn’t a baseless theory.

He found an open space on the concrete and pulled out his marker,

Nico said, “Pull up Gallahad's Control Formation in a window, acting as the base formation. Then calculate a new modification based on my theory of treating divination as an emission.”

In a few seconds, the formation in the window altered. New modifications appeared at the edges of the circle. It featured whirlpools turning clockwise and zig-zag lines that tapered outward. The whole design now looked to have come from Ancient Greece.

[Prana Piercing Formation created.]

Nico beamed. He still couldn’t believe that he could basically make his own formations on the fly. It felt like cheating.

He hovered the window above stone and traced. Once finished, he stood at the center of the formation and said, “Create new skill using Examine as the base. Name it Scan. Scan everything near me in the form of a circle with me at the center. Use a minimal amount of MP, exceeding no more than a total of one MP per second to divine information, with an option to invest more MP.”

[New skill Scan created.]

[Synergy detected. Prana Piercing Formation increases efficacy of scan by 328%.]

Nico shook his head in disbelief. “I love my ability. Scan”

He poured power into his new modified control formation. His power condensed into countless little invisible bolts of lightning, and exploded outward in a sphere. A window appeared showing him information of the area. It was a long list, and most of the information was useless.

He frowned. “Use information to create a two-dimensional map of the local area similar to my maps app on my phone. File it under new skill called Map.”

In the top left of his vision, he focused on his MP bar. The blue bar was at seventy percent. It would be nice to have a constant Scan so his Map would always update, but he couldn’t afford the cost of one MP per second.

Aha! That was it.

“Create a passive skill version of Scan, called Auto-Scan,” Nico added. “Do not let it exceed more than .4 MP per second. Create an option to invest more MP.”

[New skill Auto-Scan created.]

Nico tested the passive skill by walking around. The information that updated his Map was significantly less, and the Map looked cruder in the new areas, but it worked for now.

Good. That was done.

He bent down and checked the portal. Magical energy similar to the one he sensed back in Larkin Square lingered around it.

“Examine.”

[Identical spell formation found. Probability it may act as a link to Earth: 98%. Your sigil once acted as anchor sigil. Anchor sigil has now moved. Traces of anchor sigil updating on Map.]

Nico frowned. On his Map window, red dots appeared, like a magical trail. It was in the direction of the giant white obelisk.

“Of course it’s at the ominous looking structure,” Nico sighed. Couldn’t things be easy today?

Even from this distance, he could feel a magical pressure emanating from the obelisk unlike anything he’d ever felt. There was no way anything of that power could exist on Earth. It would attract too much attention from non-practitioners, and the magic-types would fight wars over it.

Nico slapped his face and shook his head. There was no use in sitting about. It was time to get going. He walked down the stone path which conveniently led to the giant white obelisk.

After a few steps, he received a notification.

[True holder of the sigil has been recognized. Portal now closed.]

Nico whipped around, and saw the black void behind me vanished.

“Oh,” was all he could manage.

There was no going back. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It only firmed up his resolve.

He wasn’t planning on going back without the true killer anyways. Only Sentinels and the Coalition of Holds waited for him back at Larkin Square.

Whoever put him in this mess was still using his sigil to funnel their power. He didn't know how. He didn't care why. But he would find them.

It was then he realized that they were using his sigil like a string. Was it so they wouldn’t lose their way? If so, their only way out was now gone too.

Nico grinned. “Good. Looks like you’re stuck here with me.”

An ugly screech tore through the sky from near where the portal disappeared. A vague shadow of a bird flew up into the sky above with the too-big of a sun on its back. It looked like a bird, but its wings were too wide, larger than anything National Geographic had in its pages.

“Pick up the pace. You aren’t here for bird-watching," Nico reminded himself. He jogged toward the obelisk down the stone path.

Twenty minutes down the stone path later, he was close enough to really admire the obelisk up close. There were vines all over it, and it looked old and worn. It was tall, nearly ten stories high.

He might as well find out the exact height. “Measure outer dimensions of the obelisk.”

[Error. Pranic barrier too powerful.]

Well...okay? With his formation still on his eyelid, he could see vague hazes surrounding the towering monolith. It didn't feel like an illusion barrier.

If he couldn’t divine information from the building itself, maybe he could with the things around it. “Examine the area surrounding the surface of the obelisk.”

Instead of receiving a notification, his vision expanded through the mind formation.He could feel the arrays on his eyes sucking up more magic. That was new.

When his vision adjusted, he could see thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of different spell formations layered on top of each other over the white obelisk. They were linked in intricately beautiful ways. Each link between the formations seemed purposeful and masterfully designed.

“Wow,” he whispered in awe.

It was the closest Nico had ever seen magic expressed such purposefulness. There were no archaic symbols or seemingly useless expenditure of energy. Magic flowed and moved seamlessly through and around the obelisk. Someone had abandoned the summoning of spells all together, and heightened the craft of spell formations to a degree beyond anything Nico could even begin to comprehend.

Nico had the distinct feeling it was a single person who designed the spells. The designs and how they were linked were too unique. It was like one of his own fonts that he had designed over the years. His clients could even tell that it was something that he designed. After enough work, patterns could be recognized between them, which many people called a style.

“Damn. I still have a lot to learn,” Nico breathed. He reached out with his power tentatively. He felt a slight vibration near one of the spell formations.

[You've encountered a magical barrier.]

The stone beneath Nico’s feet shifted and twisted. He jumped back reflexively. The stone stopped moving, and Nico bent down to see what had just happened. Embedded in the stone was a spell formation with circular dials which looked like they could be manually turned.

“Is this a puzzle?" Nico wondered. “Examine this embedded spell formation."

[Unknown spell formation Energies are connected to the magical barrier.]

Well it's definitely the thing that can unlock this. He bent down closer to it, certain now that there was no danger touching the embedded spell formation after having used his ability. His fingers traced the stone radial dials. They could be moved, and he turned them experimentally.Every time 15 degrees the formations within the dials changed into a new formation.

Nico marveled at the ingenuity, wondering how that was even possible. Then it struck. “These are changing modifications."

The knowledge fueled him with a thousand ideas for new theories for spells and formations he could create himself. But now wasn't the time. He needed to get inside this magical barrier.

It looked like the way to get into the magical barrier was making sure that the right modifications were attached to the spell formation. Unfortunately, he couldn’t just turn the dials until he hit the right combination. There weren’t too many combinations for the dials, but he needed to make sure he invested the correct amount of MP.

Hopefully, it didn’t demand of him summoning a spell. If that was the case, it would practically be impossible, even with his new ability. He would need proper memory to use and the theory behind the formation to see if it required vocal invocations, hand movements, and body positioning.

“Please just need a formation,” Nico begged. He needed a damned break for once today.

Since there were no cardinal directions that he knew of in this new world, it was difficult to create new spell theories that would apply. Spells and spell formations relied on a number of different things depending on the school of thought.

Some calculated based on the alignment of stars, the lineage of blood, or even if the wind glazed the local mountain with morning dew.. The point was, it was difficult to narrow it down.

Luckily, he had an ability that could calculate all his trials and errors nearly instantly. It was like he was made for this.

The sun above seemed to be past its zenith, which worried Nico. Who knew how long daylight lasted in the Next Over. He didn’t want to find out what came out at night.He needed to get to work and finish this puzzle quickly.

He didn’t know which spell theories to start with, so he just said, “Examine the stone spell formation and its modifications. Cross reference with all knowledge of Nordic runecraft. Extrapolate any information.”

[No practical theories could be made with your current knowledge.]

Nico groaned. "This is going to take a while.”