Christopher immediately dove into the Academy library at the earliest opportunity.

A new research avenue had presented itself after he had overheard the girl at Swift Keep, who mentioned that people were leaving by something called a displacement gate. Christopher had tried to think of any potential other meanings behind her words but they seemed to suggest only one thing. It really seemed as if there was something in Swift Keep or Lumen that would allow a person to teleport over great distances. He really needed to be sure.

Christopher meticulously searched the library for any knowledge regarding such magical technology. He did not dare involve the librarians in this search for information. He had no desire to be placed on some list for investigation, especially not right now. His worries might be correct, since he could find no books on any such topics, suggesting that it was not open information at all.

Not wanting to give up that early, he instead made a search for works that might reference the existence of teleportation magic, and he also searched for works on transportation methods in general. He quickly learned that transportation could get a lot more fantastical than he had seen so far. He learned about super quick movement over water by Soul Force propelled ships. A country to the west that used flying mounds. The capital of Venaria had some sort of hovering train-like system going to some of the neighboring cities at impressive speeds. The location of Lumen deep within the Sternel forest was apparently not suitable to be connected by this train system, which made sense with the indominable trees blocking a path.

There were even some paragraphs dedicated to individuals that had managed to develop advanced Soul Arts for quick travel, including different kinds of Flight! Christopher was understandably excited about all these amazing modes of transportation, with especially the personal flight appealing to his imagination. He had certainly seen nothing like it in Lumen so far so it was no doubt quite rare, possibly only available to some of the most powerful individuals.

Unfortunately, there was still no information here about teleportation or displacement gates. It made some sense since the general populace might turn against Swift Keep if they knew about such a possibility of escape.

Christopher found his first hint about teleportation in a book about a historic war against the Blight. It chronicled the actions of one of the great heroes of that war called Daran, and his assistance across multiple battlefields. The timeline did not match up at all. One moment they saved a city on the eastern side of the continent, while just moments later the hero and their party fought in a city on the western side of the continent. No mention was made of how they travelled, but it reeked of teleportation to Christopher.

Emboldened by this hint, he continued his search in these historical war books. He doubted that such vital information could be scrubbed so completely from such a large library, many books looked untouched for years. It was on the second day of his research in the library that he found it. In a massive dusty tome called ‘Tactical considerations of the Second Muhum War.’ The tome chronicled a war that was almost three hundred years old, but the information still seemed pertinent.

There were several paragraphs hidden deep within the massive tome that mentioned exactly what he had been looking for in regards to the displacement gates. Finding the information almost startled him after not really expecting much success. The librarians must have failed to locate this information deep within the thick tome.

The paragraphs straight up mentioned the uses of the gates and their strategic importance for moving elites. The displacement gates were very much like what he had imagined. They were complex multi-metal constructions, capable of forming bridges between each other. Creating them required careful appliance of some rare advanced Soul Art to activate the gateway, which was apparently no easy feat since few people possessed the Art. The book provided no further information on the name or characteristics of the Art. The gates would allow people and objects to move great distances instantaneously. The book also mentioned that it could be attuned to only one partner gate, giving only a single destination.

Christopher could also infer from the passage how they were used. To activate such a gate required at least one master Soul Mage with the specialized advanced Soul Art, and another dozen powerful Soul Masters to simultaneously power up the construct. Their full Soul Force reserve would be just about enough to open the gate for maybe ten seconds. Such a connection clearly asked a tremendous amount of power, and this made the gate impossible to use for larger evacuations. That meant that if there was only one Soul Mage in Lumen with the advanced Art, that would only allow the gate to open for ten seconds a few times a day. Maybe there had been advancements in the meantime, but it did not sound likely from the overheard comment.

With this important mystery solved, Christopher was still unsure how to act on this information. Clearly Earl Eugenius Swift possessed such a displacement gate, but he had no idea where it was or where it was connected to. Most likely it was well-guarded in Swift Keep. The Capital was the most likely destination, but that was complete guesswork.

To Christopher’s frustration, the gate seemed to do little else than weaken Lumen’s overall might, with people leaving for a safe haven. Or maybe reinforcements were coming through the gate as well? Christopher didn’t really know. and he had no clear way to find out without someone influential telling him more. He couldn’t help but imagine that the gate was mostly used as an escape route for some of the sniveling Nobles that decided they had seen enough.

Or was evacuation the real answer here? It was something he had not really considered before, but evacuating the entire city might be an acceptable outcome regarding his mission. He somewhat doubted it, and he did not think it possible either, not after what he had read about the gates. He had answers to some questions, but now had a lot more as well. There was likely no way for him to access the displacement gate anytime soon.

Maybe it was a way out for himself to extend his time, if that even was possible. It would require him to gather a lot of influence. He also somewhat doubted that he could cheat his [Bookmark] in that way. At least he had learned more about the situation in Lumen.

——————<>——————

The days passed quickly in relative monotony as the day of the invasion was slowly approaching.

Christopher had already achieved quite a few of his objectives for the current loop. The most important one was surely saving the refugees from Stonehill; It was the only permanent achievement after all. Besides that, he was improving his fighting skills under Netello Brave, the quarterstaff clearly holding a lot of potential with the inclusion of Soul Force. Christopher had also found a teacher in Atyat, who could potentially teach him over many more loops. Added to that, he had some methods to increase his wealth, and he had easy future access to the Academy and library, facilitating his search for knowledge. Things could have gone much worse no doubt. Christopher could only hope that he had been doing enough.

For this loop there were still a few more things that he had to study and prepare for. Some of these were arguably the most important of them all, since it pertained to the permanent twenty-four hours at the start of the next loop. He had to sink several hours into these plans every day, but he was starting to make progress. Christopher wanted to prevent the lingering regret of not working hard enough and failing. Access to the library was invaluable for this research. He now for example had a good grasp of all the land and villages around Lumen, which was important for his plans.

Christopher would have loved to spent most of his time learning Soul Arts, but he had too much else on his plate. Christopher still made sure to at least attend all of Atyat’s classes on Soul Current, and he went to those of Sulus on Soul Frost as well. Together with the mandatory platoon sessions, the quarterstaff training, and his time at the library, he had an almost full schedule. In his rare free time, Christopher played some Force of War games with Tinos and others of the caravan.

Christopher stayed far away from the Bottomless Tankard, remaining as inconspicuous as was possible. Surprisingly, no investigators had come to him regarding the death of Sunchal. Christopher was not sure what occupied his mind more. Potential assassins of the Blight, or the inquisitors of Lumen… On second thought, the potential assassins were definitely scarier.

A few of the Stonehill refugees had spoken to him about Sunchal, but none of his housemates seemed suspicious of him. The news of the murder had spread somewhat quickly with so many people having seen the body. Christopher had been confident that his connection with Sunchal would not stay unnoticed with any at least half-competent detective. At this point Christopher wondered if they had already found the actual perpetrator of the crime, thus keeping him from being a suspect. Or maybe they had confirmation that the perpetrator was a creature of the Blight, saving him from scrutiny. Maybe they were just too busy with preparing the defense. It was all rather baffling.

Being fearful every waking moment would not allow him to keep going for long. For this reason, Christopher decided that he had to calm down a little. Christopher had been thinking a lot about his mental health recently and how to keep himself mentally stable. He could imagine that this was something that all Summoned had to deal with. His [Bookmark] skill had thrown a lot of distress his way as well. The least he could do was to monitor and contemplate his own internal worries and demons. Staying sane was half the battle.

——————<>——————

Christopher was sitting in the arena watching the fights, the experience both thrilling and nerve-wracking due to the stakes of his betting. For the current round it had taken quite some time to pick ones where he felt that his previous knowledge gave an advantage. Christopher worried that he was getting closer to straight up gambling. He had spread a total of 70 silver Venarian coins over five fights this time, figuring that should prevent him from completely bottling his previous winnings. ‘Surely, I should win at least two bets with my prior knowledge!’ he had reasoned.

The many fights that followed gave him serious heart palpitations. The fights almost never proceeded as he had expected, showing surprises even with the same winners. Luckily, he did clear his goal and won three bets in the end, narrowly losing another two. That was enough to increase the 70 silver Venarian coins that he had put in, to 88 silver coins, which was barely worth the stress in his opinion. They joined the eight silver coins that he had not put into the betting for a total of 96 silver coins.

The money that he had earned would hopefully be enough to start throwing some influence around in Lumen soon. Money seemed the best way for him to gain that influence in the city. It might very well be even more effective than growing his personal power. He needed enough money to execute his plans for the next loop, while still leaving enough to keep making more as well.

Christopher decided that this would be the last round of betting. There would be one more event, but the matchups and fights were deviating too much, making it dangerous to continue. He should at least be able to bet in the first three events in the future loops.

Christopher immediately exchanged the 94 silver Venarian coins back to a small bar of Palladium at one of the exchange shops. He felt much better when his [Soul Mark] was once again placed, the Palladium bar now safely stored in his Soul Space.

——————<>——————

Atyat refused to teach him the other steps until she was satisfied with the total flow that Christopher could produce with his Soul Current. He had tried to convince her by pointing out the imminent attack on Lumen, but she would not budge on this, saying “The second phase is pointless without mastery of the first step.” One problem was that he had no idea about how far he needed to progress to satisfy his new mentor. Every session he half expected to achieve that point, but she was never satisfied.

“Keep going, you are still improving” was all that she told him.

There was indeed a noticeable improvement. The water that cascaded forward from his hands was indeed of a considerably higher volume than when he had first started. He could even keep the stream going for longer as well, going from maybe fifteen seconds to thirty seconds with the same Soul Force reserve. There was no real damaging force behind it, but that was not the purpose. Someone standing in front of this torrent might still very well lose their footing though.

Christopher believed that he was progressing more quickly than expected, but his teacher was not giving out much positive reinforcement, so there was no way to be sure. Sending out a cutting pulse of water like Atyat would unfortunately require a lot more training than he had hoped. A part of him feared that it might take years. Christopher would not necessarily have to match his teacher in order for his Soul Current to cut through the Blight though. He would have to keep at it. If he could not satisfy his mentor on this turn, then there would always be the next.

Nevertheless, he believed that training sessions with Atyat had helped him reach a point where he might be able to use the Soul Current Art in combat. Certainly not with anything that could cut through monsters, but something more indirect.

He had tested such a technique at one of the training fields. This was not some kind of Advanced Soul Art technique, but just two Soul Arts cast one after the other. First, he had let out a torrent of Soul Current, drenching a large area with water. He then used his Soul Frost to freeze the thin layer of water into ice, making a space so slippery that it was almost impossible to keep your footing.

It should be more than enough to make something like a street unnavigable for a monster to move through. The same would count for any people as well though, so it would have to be deployed tactically. It also cost a lot of his reserves to pull something like that off. Christopher hoped that it could potentially create a more easily defendable choke point.

Christopher still dutifully attended the Soul Frost class under Sulus. The lessons were indeed rather impressive, and he gained new insights into Soul Frost many times due to the stories and anecdotes from the teacher.

He wondered about the limits of individual Soul Arts, would he eventually hit a ceiling? He was still improving the power of his Soul Frost, and that might mean that he could still reach much higher with something like Soul Heat as well, which by all evidence was already really impressive. It was a good reminder for Christopher that many things still took a lot of time and dedication to learn.

Christopher was especially happy that he was now able to imbue objects at a distance of around 10 cm, which was sure to prove useful, and it would only grow more useful as he increased the range. His new Soul Sense had proved vital in accomplishing this. He could now send the Soul Force outwards like a ghostly blue spike into the object that he wanted to imbue. To increase that distance further would just be a matter of practice. Maybe he could someday grow proficient enough to make the tendril into a weapon in itself.

His attributes had also increased with his consistent daily training, proving a great motivator as always. He checked over his attributes, having gained several points again over the many days of training.

Vitality 18 Endurance 20 (+2) Strength 18 (+2) Agility 19 Soul force 19 (+3)

His points were starting to reach an equilibrium. His Soul Force had especially seen tremendous growth since the very first time that he had checked his status. The extra Soul Force reserve and regeneration was very useful in his training.

Christopher ended his contemplations on his progress, diving back into his book on official Lumen letter stamps. The invasion was now only days away.