Opening his eyes Jellal sits up in bed. Lifting up his left hand he checks his skin to make sure it has the pale green tinge he’s grown accustomed to. Confirming he isn’t dreaming he slowly gets out of bed, making sure not to wake Meredith in the process.

He starts the day with a light stretch as usual before quietly slipping out of the room. He heads through the dining hall to the closed off entrance of the living quarters. When he reopens the passage Sif is already coming down the hall to greet him.

He gives Sif a few seconds to catch up before passing through the dining hall and back where he came from. Along the way Jellal lets Sif know about today’s agenda, since it’s going to be different to what they normally do.

[Today we’re finally getting rid of the dead weight humans. Unfortunately the lazy vampire has to stay behind so we can’t be completely free of nuisances just yet. First we’ll have the prisoners take care of the oversized hawk I caught. Then we’ll lead them out to a designated location so someone else can babysit them the rest of the way to the city.

During the trip they’re going to be blindfolded so they can’t track us back to the cave. Your job will be to keep an eye on them so they don’t sneak any peaks on the way. If you catch one looking feel free to deal with them as you see fit. Whether they die slow or fast doesn’t matter as long as they can’t leak the location of our base.

If you have confidence in your strength you can return here after they’re handed off. If you don’t think you can make it alone I’ll escort you back so you don’t have to worry about being in danger at all during the trip, only whether one of the prisoners is an idiot and peaks.]

As they come to Jellal’s room they split up. Sif ducks into the room and lies down next to the bed while Jellal continues past the room. He makes a pit stop at the treasure room to dig out some of the scrap cloth he collected from the bandits.

Due to their occupation most of their belongings are dark in color to facilitate stealth. This aligns perfectly with Jellal’s needs. To prevent the detainees from being able to see through the blindfold it’s necessary to make them out of a dark fabric. This allows him to repurpose the cloth which isn’t likely to be sellable in Pavise and make use of it instead of letting it rot away without a purpose.

He holds each piece of cloth up to his eyes to make sure he can’t see through them. After he has enough for each person he grabs enough extra cloth for each of them to have three. Having gotten what he needs he walks out of the treasure room, closing off the entrance behind him.

Getting back on track he continues on to the prisoner area. Even before he arrives they’re up and ready to go, filled with vigor like they’ve never been before. As he walks down the hall into the room they rush up to the cell doors, eagerly waiting to get to work so they can finally be set free.

[I won’t drone on since I’ve already told you yesterday, but today will be your last day under my care. The final task is waiting for you in the work area. When you finish we can start our trip out of the forest.

While everyone’s working on the main task I need some people handy with a needle and thread to sew up some blindfolds. For the blindfolds you need to sandwich one piece of cloth I’ve prescreened to ensure isn’t see through between a pair of unscreened cloths. There’s exactly enough cloth here for each person to have a three ply blindfold, no more, no less.

You’ll be lined up in two columns which will move side by side. The thing keeping you from getting separated from the group is the shoulders of the person in front of you so grab on tight. During the trip, if you’re caught peeking you’ll be subject to death. Also note, if you stray from the group I won’t go back for you so I wouldn’t recommend getting any bright ideas.

I’ve already arranged a human to pick you up and lead you to town at a designated location. What happens after you’re out of my hands isn’t my concern so you’re free to do whatever you want at that point.]

After giving them a rundown of today’s plan he unlocked the cells so they could get to work. Upon being released they would each rush to get to the work area even a second sooner. The only exception to this being the long time subordinates.

With so many people working on a single objective the more people rushing over the more they’ll get in the way. To that end Beth rallied the group to the kitchen to make breakfast for the rest of the prisoners. Compared to bunching together and making it hard to complete the task their choice to support the group in a different way showcases how clear each group is thinking.

While the prisoners are hard at work Jellal moseys back to his usual training area at the back of the living quarters. It’s unknown how long he’ll have to train, but a little practice is better than none.

With the little free time he has before he has to babysit the prisoners he decides to practice his teleportation magic. The last series of tests gave him a direction to work towards and hope of succeeding in the future.

For now the most important aspect he needs to master in order to properly use teleportation magic is controlling the way the mana moves. It may sound easy on paper, but reality is a cruel mistress. Unlike other types of mana which can be easily tracked as they move with either his eyes or his mana, space mana is able to instantaneously shift its position.

To put things in simpler terms, it’s basically impossible to track how it moves. At one moment it’s at position a, the next moment it’s at position b. With Jellal’s ridiculous skillset he’s potentially able to track where each of the individual bits of mana end up, but tracking where and how they got there is even beyond him.

His solution to this is repeated testing and hypothesizing. He prepares the swapping method of teleportation before focusing his test subject, a finger size piece of table that was shattered by the shadow wolf when it invaded.

He invokes his magic causing the chunk of wood to disappear and reappear in an instant. It only shifted by a few centimeters, but how it moved still escaped his sight. To make matters worse he wasn’t able to perfectly teleport it, causing half of it to turn to sawdust.

Disregarding the results he refocuses and repeats the test. This cycle is continued until the piece of wood finally turns completely to sawdust. Unperturbed by his lackluster results he takes out another chunk of wood and continues testing.

The reason he chose to use chunks of wood as the target for the experiment comes down to many factors. The chunks of wood are abundant and all have similar properties, making them ideal for repeated small scale testing. There is also the lack of monetary value associated with a busted piece of wood which saves him from burning through items he could use or sell. Most importantly is how solid they are. When the teleportation magic doesn’t work perfectly only the parts that went awry are destroyed, leaving behind evidence he can use to construct a hypothesis.

‘From my experiments thus far I still haven’t determined the nature of teleportation. If it was disassembly and reassembly the objects wouldn’t be in one piece when they reappear, the burden would be far too much for any substance I know of to bare.

If I had to put my money on a horse I’d go with instantaneous dislocation but I don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t see any evidence of forcefully bending space so it isn’t likely to be a wormhole, which leaves me throwing darts while blindfolded.

While I’m on the subject of wormholes, I should test the theory out some time. Under normal circumstances the prospect of bending space at will to connect two points is ludicrous, but I’m not dealing with a normal situation.

Even if my current displacement method works it would be nearly impossible to use for long distances. The wormhole method, on the other hand, is tailor made for going anywhere regardless of distance.

There are still a few things I’ll need to confirm before I look into wormholes though. To start with the difficulty in controlling space mana won’t change irrespective of the method I use. Even if I could control it perfectly I would still need to see what kind of effect bending space has on the target areas as well as the surroundings. Not to mention the possibility of it causing issues in a separate location. What would happen if space was contorted in a random city because I wanted to bend space over here? The far reaching consequences of playing with space can’t be taken lightly.

Giving the theory the benefit of the doubt and claiming everything goes perfect up to that point still doesn’t leave me out of the woodwork. I would still need to observe the effect traveling through a wormhole has on both organic and inorganic tissue. If passing through a wormhole is like being in space I’ll have a whole new set of issues to deal with.

Pending the viability up to this point would bring on testing for what happens when the wormhole isn’t used as intended. I don’t want to hop into a wormhole not knowing what happens if I’m knocked off course after all.

In the end the amount of variables I need to deal with is significantly lower for the displacement method I’ve been testing for short range teleportation. After I figure it out I can move on to the nightmarish wormhole experiments.’

Getting back to his experiments he takes out another chunk of wood. Changing things up slightly, he tries to teleport half of the splintered bit of wood in place while sending the other half a few centimeters away.

The wood he teleported in place is left perfectly fine while the piece he moved is reduced in size, with part of it becoming sawdust. Switching the roles of the pieces he redoes the experiment. Yet again the chunk not changing locations ends up fine while the relocated piece is damaged.

He stops to think before pulling out another chunk of wood. Instead of immediately teleporting it as is, the way he’s been doing it, he cuts it into two identical looking blocks. Using the identical blocks he performs the same experiment he’s been doing.

After each block has had its turn being teleported in place and to a nearby location he examines the blocks. By using blocks of identical shape he’s able to perfectly compare the damage done to the blocks. Using this data he can look for a pattern to crack open the mysteries of teleportation.

He repeats the experiment with three more pieces of wood to give himself a good baseline. To limit the number of variables the starting point and destination for each block is the same as the first set. He also places them so the grain of the wood is facing the same direction in each test, further limiting the number of potential points of contention within the tests. With four complete sets of data he reexamines the blocks to ensure he didn’t miss even the smallest detail.

His final verdict after examining the results: teleportation is still mysterious. Even after so many tests he can’t find any leads to push him forward. The blocks didn’t have identical results despite him cutting them into identical shapes.

‘Not a great start. Maybe I should switch it up some more. If I use an object I know the exact structure of I’ll be able to get even more information. The wood blocks may look the same but they’re internal structures should be slightly different. If I can find a way to get rid of that final variable I may very well be at the end of my leash.

What could I possibly change from there to make things more exact and have as little variance as possible? Do I have to try to use the exact same mana in each test and arrange it in the same exact fashion? Doing that may be taking it a bit too far but there isn’t much else I can do.

Before going overboard and using specific bits of mana it’s best to start with a subject I have intimate knowledge of. The only question is what to use? No matter what I pick, learning the objects exact structure will be a massive headache … unless I make the object.

Why not make a cube of dirt? I can control it with earth magic, so I should be able to ensure I make two cubes with identical structures. Or at least as identical as humanly possible. By adjusting each individual grain of dirt making it up it should be theoretically identical. Of course I can’t control if one granule of dirt has a single extra electron or some other nonsense like that.

Alright, let’s do it! Carefully putting together two perfectly identical cubes may be a pain in the ass, but if a single granule is out of place I’ll know about it. Besides, this is important for my future world traveling adventures.’

Jellal stays true to his plan and begins creating two perfectly identical dirt cubes with earth magic. To kick things off he forces a pile of dirt to the surface to use as material. For part two of his master plan he begins sifting through the dirt and separating it by size.

The large chunks are easily discarded while the smaller bits are more difficult to differentiate. To make things easier he mixes in some gravity and water mana. The general idea is to agitate the water so the lighter bits mix in and the heavier deposits sink out. Simply put he’s panning for gold, or in this case dirt.

When his general categorizations are finished he moves on to more precise delineations. The way he achieves this is through the power of earth magic and mana. He carefully examines each granule of dirt before first separating them by general shape. After they’re in their own piles coordinated by their general shape he thoroughly goes through each pile further separating them by even the most minute differences he can make out.

During this time consuming process he’s interrupted by Kira. Once again she’s drawn the short end of the straw and is tasked with acting as the go between for the prisoners and Jellal. As she works her way closer he places the piles of dirt into his item bag to ensure they’re unsullied.

Poking her head around the corner Kira attempts to draw Jellal’s attention with exceedingly small hand movements, displaying how nervous she is about interrupting him.

[What is it? Did you finally finish taking care of your task? I thought everyone was eager to get away from here, yet you still took ages to deal with one insignificant bird. Well I wouldn’t be so happy to be rid of you all if you were even I tiny bit useful, which you’re not.]

In typical Jellal fashion he doesn’t wait for a reply and brushes past her on his way out of the room. Kira runs to catch up to him as he struts through the passage.

Stepping into the dining hall he’s greeted by a group of excited prisoners who can’t wait for their release. On one of the tables is a plate with his lunch on it, waiting for his arrival. Instead of taking the chance of their overlord demanding to eat before they leave the detainees took the initiative to prepare it beforehand.

On a different table the materials collected from the giant hawk are laid out. Most of it has value or is useful so the table is packed. The items include the meat, feathers, and bones as you would expect from a monster. There’s also the talons, beak, and eyes placed on the table as well. Most surprising is the pair of internal organs placed amongst the items.

For the other monsters the organs were always discarded so seeing them on the table feels a bit off. The organs in question are the air sac and gizzard of the giant hawk. They don’t have much use other than in certain potion recipes.

Jellal casually sits down and eats his meal while the prisoners anxiously wait for him to finish. Each time he brings food to his mouth it signifies them being one step closer to being free. When he finishes one of them quickly snatches up the plate and runs to the kitchen to wash it. They don’t want to leave any excuse to be kept here so they planned everything out in advance.

When the dishwasher returns Jellal stands up and turns to look at the people who’ve been under his care since he took over this cave. His eyes narrow and stop on one particular person.

[Greed isn’t considered a deadly sin for nothing you know. You’re so close to being free and getting your life back, yet you can’t contain your greed long enough to see it happen. In your next life you should try to use your head a bit more so you don’t die a foolish death for no reason.]