Having slept early, I wake up before the middle of the night, and after only a few moments of thought, head into the forest to hunt for wolves. I won’t be spending a lot of time, but a couple of hours most days would quickly add the Exp.

I may not have chosen a class, but whenever I did, even if it was a random one in desperation, more knowledge on how to fight and a boatload of Exp to achieve a high level would be invaluable. And those were not the only benefits.

This time, I do something a little different. Instead of my usual pace of just finding wolves and making them run as fast as possible. In each encounter, I look for the brief lulls where one of the katas I know would be an appropriate stance or the places where a strike in the form of kata would be a good move.

The fights take a little longer, but the impulse that led me to started doing this during combat was not wrong. In the two minutes of fighting, I felt 2 notifications from the system and the ever familiar shifting of Aether in me. Except now, I managed to notice as it happened.

Each of the times one stat increase, at least in this form, partially supported by my own Aether, the way it felt was different from the increases from my class or the free points each level. The system almost seen to recognize that I was about to increase my strength without it, and send a small but noticeable Aether packet directed at my own Aether construct.

Nothing as grand as the system generated, just a story about how I was getting stronger. Being in this place, which is supposed to accelerate learning probably has a lot to do with it as well.

While a thousand hypotheses run through my mind, there is an underlying feeling, that my own body was getting stronger. Not by some mysterious Aether construct recognized by the system, but by altering my biochemistry. As I kept running in search of another encounter I put such exoteric questions out of my mind. It was still too new, and I had too little data to properly access the differences.

As I run, once in a while, the movement I have to make, be it to go ever some obstacle or to make a turn, matches one of my katas. With an ever-thining stream of Aether, I do the pose, even if only for a brief instant between each of my steps.

Instead of a couple of hours, I spend the entire night doing this. And I can feel the results in my bones. In the future, it may increase in difficulty, but for now, it was oh so easy, and I relished the feeling.

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In the village, I head to meet the group of mages I hired to experiment with my rune. They have spent quite a few days on it, and I wanted to see the results first hand. I approach the little lab they set up on the edge of town. Before I’m even close, Morgan, head of my little institute for research, sees me.

He gives a big smile and welcomes me.

“So, you have come to check out the progress?”

“Yeah, mostly.”

“Well, we are managing a lot of little improvements all over the board, but the main one was based on something you suggested. Come check this out.”

We head inside and there is a dinner-sized mana plate in the middle of the room. Connected to it I see a 5/16’ copper tube with tiny inscriptions on it. The tube goes into the ground and after a moment with my mana sense fully opened, and a long mana tendril extending, I reach my limits. It goes for over 40 meters in the direction of the town center. As he continues to speak, I stop my musings and pay attention.

“So, this is connected to another plate about 200 meters away. This tube is a mana conduit. We managed to improve on the current design, but even the old one wasn’t too much trouble. It can send a lot of mana at hundreds of feet per second.”

“How?” I ask. Just because I managed something similar on my staff doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn more. After all, even in my own creation I barely understood why it was so fast. My goal had been to create a mana conduit that didn’t lose any mana.

“We experimented a little, and it seems to work on the same principles of a quick match. You know a tube, with gunpowder inside. Some of them could burn at hundreds of feet per second. Either way, we somehow managed to do something like that here. While it could have amazing properties in other applications, as long as there is an active connection you get some amazing results combined with the transmission and reception plates.”

“And you seem to have combined them here. Along with adding a few functions to it.” I speak pointing to a few parts of the plate.

“I will get to that. So the main problem of this method for long-range communication is the mana costs. Now, what if we could mitigate most of them?”

“You know this was my idea.”

“Yes, yes, but you don’t realize what we have done here. We just need a constant thin stream of mana through the conduit to keep the connection. About 1 mana every 50 seconds both ways and the loss is negligible. So even the small 2 mana batteries inscribed in the plate can last a while. About1 mana point per hour as the mana goes back and forth. If the plates are properly connected to this mana stream, which took a while to figure out, it is like they are a few inches from each other in terms of mana cost.”

His excited voice and the realization of this discovery sends me reeling. This is way bigger than I expected. Sure, I had the idea of diminishing the mana cost a lot with a direct connection. Like the difference between the energy cost of a telegraph or a wireless tower. But using only a single mana per hour of communication, even if the costs scale with distance. Imagine being able to communicate instantly with another village. And the cost would in the neighborhood of 1000 mana an hour with no improvement on the design. Plus another fraction of a mana point per second of actual conversation.

Thinking on the other aspects, I’m glad to have created the rune in this specific way. It just seems like a perfect fit.

“Have you tested multiple plates on a single channel?”

With a wide smile shows several other plates on a rack.

“Yes, and there is no interference. At least at shorter ranges, we were focusing more on getting a longer-ranged one working right before other things.”

“I don’t imagine longer distances will have any effect on interference. Only possibly on mana consumption.”

“So far, the mana consumption is only a matter of keeping the link-up, and the plates themselves only consume a little to receive or generate sound. We are talking 3 mana a minute per plate.”

“That is good, it works well enough to establish contact with another village. And as you mentioned, I had another idea. Something that has been kicking around my head and I was getting started on. But before that, what about the mana conduit?”

“Well it is cheap, that was most of the reason we spend a little time working on it. The last design used as little as a fifth as much copper, but it also took several times longer to engrave. Stuart worked with the mages to make producing tubes as easy as anything else. It costs the same copper coin per kilogram, so we get about 20 meters of conduit for less than a copper and a half. From from mining to installation.”

“I assume you used the Earth mages.”

“Yes, we actually have one in-house.” He moves a little and takes a tube a meter long resting against the side of the shelf. He then starts to point, “You can see that the runes are both simple and a little sparse. This tube probably only needed about a minute to be engraved. There is this little embedded fitting at the end, so it takes only a moment to engage with another to form a really secure yet slightly flexible connection. I mean, there is probably stuff we didn’t think about but all things considered, this is pretty good.”

“Well, keep working on it for a while, but focus more on discovering other forms of using the runes for now. Like can it transmit, images, text, or maybe information between split parts of a magic circuit? Just go wild on that front.”

With a grim he replies:

“Your words are music to my ears.”

“From now on, when you need copper just say it’s for me, and they will give what you need.”

“Actually, we didn’t need much so they just gave us some of your leftover stockpiles.”

I pause and laugh a little.

“I had forgotten about that. Either way it works out. Now about my idea…”

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After finishing up on the details for my big project, I head for the smithy. An hour and a half later, all I’m left with is a head shake indicating that they will not be of sufficient quality to reach the +5 threshold, but a couple extra +4 weapons wouldn’t hurt. I don’t even wait this time around. Although Blackwood was a little more chatty than usual, most of the benefits seemed to have been just after we unlocked the new level.

As I’m leaving, I take the couple of silver the blacksmith pays me and put them in the inventory. As he put it:

“Things were starting to become different from now on, the money saved from the fuel would be going into my pocket, not a discount. Three Silver for the tier 4 weapons.”

As I’m turning around, it seems my last action catches up with him. And I hear his booming voice louder than ever and even a little surprised.

“Wait, did you just… how?” After a moment and more firmly he finishes: “How?”

I look around at the others, which didn’t notice anything, and think for a moment. I didn’t flaunt my new capability, instead pretended to put them in my pocket. Understanding my concern, and thinking ahead, he continues speaking.

“Everbody, you are going to lunch early.”

“But we don’t eat lunch boss.” Says Jack. Only a look from the blacksmith however sends everyone filling out in a few moments, unlike what most would expect, they all take the metals and tools they were using, probably to find someplace where they may continue the work. Does the village even have another forge or place with strong enough heat? They could always try to use the smelters, but it would be a bit cumbersome. I ignore these thoughts and wait for the smithy.

After everyone files out, he heads to the door and after locking it, I feel thousands of mana points leaving his hands, and entering the ground. An unknown but quite noticeable spell comes into full power and he speaks.

“Don’t worry, the place is fully soundproof and protected now. Anyone trying to eavesdrop or scry here will fail.”

“Why would a simple blacksmithy have this in his shop?”

“This smithy has accompanied me for a little while now, and we aren’t just NPCs. Most people around here are as you guys would put it, doing ‘community service’ for some system infraction.”

“That was my understanding.”

“So, while some of us have the system only guiding slightly, maybe even propping up your skill level temporarily for low-level people, some of us are restricted. We end up with a fairly similar skill level across the board. And let’s just say, I was not a simple blacksmith before this.”

“The runic work under the smithy?”

“On anything I’m not giving or allowing to fall in the hands of you guys, there is no restriction on the creation. I’m limited by the metals and tools around here, but they are plenty to create something simple like this. Now let’s stop talking about me for a moment, what do you have?”

Imagining what he was referring to, I take the coins out of my inventory without hiding what I’m doing.

“You are talking about my inventory?”

“Yes, yes, but I don’t see you carrying a bag, or wearing a ring. As a matter of fact, I don’t feel magic from you except your mana pool, and that is a very good sign.”

“Are there special storage in the form of rings?”

“Yeah, yeah, later. What do you have?”

A little confused about all the fuss, but nonetheless taking it seriously, I answer.

“Inner world.”

Hearing those words brings a wide smile to his face and he starts to laugh.

“That’s… You have no Idea…Well… First things first: What skill level are you?”

“What skill level?”

“Your inner world skill.”

“I don’t have a skill.”

“You don’t have an sssk…” He goes into tough for a moment before asking me. “how did you unlock it then?”

“Inside my soul. It was the closest light to my avatar.”

“Interesting. I never heard of anyone with a soul for their first special stat. You either got very lucky or have even more secrets buried within you. For people relying on unlocking the inner world through the same method as you, it’s usually their third to fifth unlock. Not their first. It must have been only a meter or two from your hand to have been so easy.”

“I needed to use my Aether, quite a bit of it, and it was about two meters from my hand when fully extended.”

“Anyway, You unlocked your inner world at ‘full power’. Most people get it in its protoform. At level 1 you only get 1% the size, it takes months even here to increase a single level. Come on tell the size.”

“Twenty meters in diameter.”

“Damn, that is giant for someone still level 10… Look, I can't tell much to you, even here, if I go overboard when I lift the barrier the system will have a fritz, and we don’t want that. What I will tell you is: ‘The same way you came here so you will return.’”

I think over his words for a moment, but he is not talking about coming to the smithy. After a moment I reach the logical conclusion.

“You are talking about not being able to take anything from the instance?”

“I don’t know, am I?” He says with a very meaningful look.

“You can’t say, but I will assume I‘m right. There are obviously some things we carry with us, like the seed I brought from Earth. Just needed to place it in my eye. So I may not be able to bring a space bag or ring back but a skill or ability is exempt. Any way to attach a separate space to yourself is fair game.”

At the statement, he laughs.

“You have a strange way to see things clearly. And you managed to stay awake in the void? A Soul stat would help you a lot there. Is the seed useful?”

At the prompting, I open a tiny portal and make move one of the tiny roots from Pando’s seed out.

“Good, nature mana, and with your inner world, it will become even more so. Does it produce anything edible?”

“Not yet, but let's just say I have a feeling about that.”

“What do you mean.”

At the prompting, I show him a couple of leaves grown straight out of the roots and share some of my hypotheses. The rest of the day goes by as I tell my story. He has quite a lot to share with someone with all the tools to become a true apprentice.