Kevin the Bored
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6 Making A Discovery
🕑 Added 2025-08-20 05:03:40 +0000 UTCFlamelle felt in a daze as she only half heard the guard captain and Kette—her apparent new master?—Talking about measures to keep the prisoners secured.
Frankly, so much has happened in such a short amount of time that she is still processing it all.
She went from riding the eddies of determination to make herself a great Mage in the untamed north, to joining a temporary party in order to do so. Then the party is attacked by what she now knows to be four Platinum level criminals. So far above her and her party in strength that Flamelle would have had a harder time beating up a civilian than they did her.
The difference in strength was vast. Anyone surpassing level 600 is rare enough by itself, but to run into four?
But then Kette treated them all like they didn't pose a threat at all. Dismantling them with an ease that was as terrifying as it was awe inspiring. Casting Spells so complex that Flamelle can't even comprehend them with the same speed that she could cast a Tier 0 Spell.
Hell, maybe even faster.
And this Witch, this incredible, Orichalcum minimum level Witch, is willing to take her in as an apprentice? It's inconceivable. Kette might even be Titled, the power she showed.
How many Titled even are there in the entire world? A hundred? Lucking on the opportunity to be taught by someone of that level, even just a single lesson, is the kind of heaven-sent opportunity that is spoken of in storybooks. Like the Legendary Mage Kierra Kalashnikova gathering a party of the greatest talents alive and leading them against the Cataclysms a hundred years ago.
It's just not something that happens. Not for people like her.
"You really can't do it?" Her new teacher's voice—and she's still struggling to accept that—filters through her brain, sounding that consistent shade of bored. An aloof voice that carries just a hint of condescension to it that Flamelle can't decide if she's really hearing or not.
"Someone in the level range of Platinum is bound to have some difficult Skills," the guard captain replies, sounding resigned. "These cells aren't designed for that. Not to mention whatever they have hidden away in their inventories, we can't secure against this. Luckily, thanks to the centennial festival, there are actually a couple of Orichalcum in town right now. We'll try to get in contact with one to watch over these prisoners until they can be secured properly."
"If you're worried they will run, you can jut cut their hands and feet off," Flamelle's apparent new teacher says, her voice still coming out bored even as they produce a horrified silence in the room. With all eyes on her, Kette's flat lips quirk up a mite on one side. "I jest. I can use Magic to temporarily cripple them. How long will you need?"
Is that her new teacher's sense of humour!?
"A week should be fine," the captain answers after a moment. Choosing to take Kette's words as a joke for the sake of his own sanity. "Two to be safe, if you would, Lady Kette."
"Hm."
Despite everything else, Flamelle finds herself eagerly watching as Kette takes a couple of steps closer to the three locked up prisoners.
Quirks and terrifying power aside, Kette might be the most powerful Mage Flamelle has ever seen outside of the Institute's Archmages. And she's not even certain about that, so Flamelle is very interested in watching her work, hoping to glean any benefit from seeing such advanced Magic at work.
She is left disappointed when Kette doesn't visibly cast any Spells. Instead, Flamelle can only watch as three small tethers break off from Kette's insane aura of mana and slither towards a captive each.
She doesn't know exactly what happened, except that it is far above her ability to conceive, but Kette somehow does something with those tiny slithers of mana that disrupts the internal systems of the prisoners entirely. A second later, and she watches their auras simultaneously shrink and compress down until it barely covers them like a second skin.
"Done. It should last two weeks. Don't let any of your Mages do anything to them. External mana could destabilise it."
The captain blinks, surprised. Flamelle doesn't blame him—the whole process might have took eleven seconds start to finish, and he can't see mana, she assumes. So from his perspective, Kette just stared for a few seconds at the captives and declared a job done. So she isn't surprised by his question.
"What.. What did you do, exactly?"
For a second, it feels like Kette won't even bother to answer him, but then she turns to Flamelle and seems to decide to answer by turning it into a lesson.
"I buffed them," Kette begins, confusing everyone present. She continues speaking before the guard captain's growing outrage could manifest into anything. "Buffs and Debuffs are two sides of the same coin. Just now, I took control over their mana with my own and forced it into the formulae of a defensive buff. Any buff can be made more potent by adding side-effects. All things in balance, a price must be paid equal to the gain. Normally that 'price' is just the mana needed to cast the Spell. But you can choose to pay more in order to get more. I made these three cast a Spell that trades everything for defence. All of their stats bar Constitution will be less than a hundred and they won't have access to any of their Skills. In exchange, they are about as close to invulnerable as a person can get. So now you wouldn't be able to cut off any limbs even if you wanted to."
That...
You can do that?
Not even half of that explanation makes any sense.
She feels like she is a child opening her first book on Magic again, listening to concepts so far beyond her that they sound like fiction.
Except that this time she has enough of an understanding of Magic that Kette's words make even less sense. At least as an untrained child she could brush such confusion off because she didn't know anything about Magic.
But forcing someone else's mana into casting a Spell? Using a buff to immobilise them? Such things are possible?
Now more than ever, Flamelle is determined to not throw away this opportunity. Even if Kette only wants someone to fetch stuff and carry things for her, Flamelle will do so for as long as Kette will keep her around. Even just a week would be enough. A single lesson. Anything.
Getting personally tutored by an Archmage is the dream of everyone who attends the Institute. An honour that only two people in the Institute have received, to her limited knowledge. Even then, an Archmage is a busy person, they only have the time to spare an hour or two every week.
Flamelle doesn't know if Kette is an Archmage. What she does know is that her restrained mana is not that far off from the one time she saw Archmage Sovros' unrestrained aura.
She has seen two Archmages in person in her life. Both of them also usually kept their aura restrained. However, they restrained their auras down to normal levels. To Flamelle's level.
She doesn't know if that means what it seems to imply regarding Kette's aura, and honestly she is kind of too scared to even consider it.
"Flamelle," her potential teacher's voice snaps her out of her thoughts and makes her realise that Kette is standing right in front of her.
Flamelle looks down to meet Kette's eyes, because despite everything, the Elf looks even younger than her. Their eyes can only meet because the front of Kette's massive hat has been rolled back with Magic.
"Yes?" Kette doesn't react to the slight squeak in her tone.
"Do you have anyone in Laptilla? Friends? Family?"
"Uh, no?" Kette nods as if that's a good thing.
"Belongings?" Her teacher asks, and Flamelle figures she gets where this is going.
"At the inn I'm staying at."
"Okay." Kette nods once more, a hint of something positive passing her expression before it returns ever more to that aloof stare. "I have some errands to run. Gather your things and meet me at the Adventurer's Guild tomorrow morning. We're leaving."
"We are?" Flamelle kind of wanted to take part in the centennial festival, but she's not too bothered.
Kette doesn't respond with anything more than a nod and then she is gone. She doesn't leave or flicker away or 'pop' or anything. Just one moment the small Elf is standing in front of her, and then she isn't.
What is even happening today?
Flamelle makes her way back to her inn in daze, barely even recognising the street as she walks it.
Eventually however, after she has reached her room and packed all of her meagre belongings back into her inventory, filling it nearly to the brim, Flamelle runs out of things to do on auto-pilot. She finds herself sitting on her bed, head empty of thoughts.
It is in that stillness that Flamelle feels something stir, like cold wind prickling against her skin.
Inexorably, she finds her attention drawn to the small closet in her rented room. Curious—but also cautious thanks to recent events, Flamelle starts forming the Spell circle of a [Fireball] in one hand. She waits until it is ready to be launched before approaching the closet.
Reabsorbing mana sucks, but she'd rather do that than nothing.
Slow and cautious steps bring her to the closet door, and with her Spell still primed in one hand, she darts forward with the other and swings the door open, pointing her Spell inside at the ready.
It takes her a second to recognise the sight before her, and she relaxes somewhat seeing that it is not a Cultist or something.
"Um. Mistress Kette?" She calls out to the oval, person-sized void of swirling blue colours sitting in her closet. "Hello?"
She stares at the apparent portal for a minute, waiting for her new teacher to step through. She never does.
Am I supposed to go to her? She finds herself wondering.
This portal looks different to the one Kette made earlier, but Flamelle had never even seen a portal before today, so she has no idea what the rules are.
Some instinct within her pushes her forward, so, feeling only a considerable amount of hesitancy, Flamelle steps through the portal.
The second she clears the line, her face is buffeted by freezing, arctic winds blowing hard enough that she is forced to raise an arm to cover her face.
"Mistress Kette!?" She calls out, only for her voice to be drowned in the screaming winds.
No longer shocked by the environment, she carefully lowers her arm in order to get a look around, for all the good it does.
White. It's just white and grey everywhere. White snow below and grey in the air as a snowstorm rages around her, thick enough to block sight to maybe ten feet in front of herself.
Struck by a sudden realisation, Flamelle spins around only to falter when she fails to see the portal that brought her there.
Oh.
Fire blooms in her right hand, her Spell entering completion.
She doesn't loose it right away, glancing left and right, looking for anything to give her a reason.
Nothing does, and the blizzard starts to drown the fire.
Knowing it won't last long anyway, Flamelle launches it into the blizzard randomly, hoping to learn anything from it. A response, a noise or shadow.
Nothing happens. The [Fireball] is swallowed by the snowstorm and drowned in seconds. She doesn't hear it explode. Doesn't see any distant flash of light.
...Does the universe want me dead that badly?
First she gets kicked out the Institute, then attacked by slavers wanting to sell her to The Cult, and now whatever the hell this is.
Sighing, Flamelle pulls warm clothes out of her inventory and then picks a direction and starts walking.
It has always felt like life was out to get her.
She's used to it at this point.
///
Kierra Kalashnikova
///
Looking up at the giant building in front of her, Kierra finds herself oddly surprised by how little it has changed.
The bank's walls are a little bit older looking. Some cracks decorate it and she honestly can't say whether or not they are new or if she just didn't notice them before. It's not really the kind of detail you pay attention to in the game.
Certainly not for the bank.
The only times she ever remembers visiting the bank were either when she was in a rush because she wanted to drop everything off so she could go commit suicide via over-levelled Boss over and over. Or, when she was in a rush because she wanted to buy something but didn't have enough money on her.
So the small details weren't ever something on her mind as she was entering the bank.
Shaking the thoughts away, Kierra enters the building.
Her hat doesn't take up the entire door this time. She spent the last hour and a half shrinking it down to a more reasonable size. After all, the aesthetic of a Witch hat so large as to droop enough that it covers its wearer's face isn't suitable anymore.
That's the perfect aesthetic for the mysterious stranger Witch who's probably ready to give you a Quest that will have you blaspheming against the Gods.
But she is a teacher now, which means she can't continue to be that kind of mysterious. Now, instead of the 'you know nothing' kind of mysterious, she needs to be the 'you don't know enough' kind of mysterious.
Aesthetics are very important.
It still took her an hour and a half to get the Enchantment done though, because the hat is already Enchanted to the brim, adding any more effects was not easy and made temporary by necessity.
Plus, as a teacher she is going to have to spend more time talking to people, such as her student. So it'd be best if people can actually look her in the eye from now on. She even modified her [Change Form] to make herself look a bit less like Kierra Kalashnikova and a bit more like Kette.
Oddly, it doesn't feel uncomfortable in the slightest to resume the form of her first character, even just in minor details. So that's nice, though it carries with it some implications she isn't too sure about.
The interior of the bank is surprisingly cool, making her think of air vents. She wonders briefly what Magic is making the effect. Hundreds of potential answers flood her mind with the thought. A thousand years of magical theory providing her with a plethora of potential answers.
Idly, as she approaches a free counter, annoyed that there are tellers now, Kierra uses a combination of Spells in tune with her thoughts.
A [Clairvoyance] brings her sight to the distant north, far from any sentient life. [Long Distance Casting] allows her to start forming a new Spell circle within the sight of her [Clairvoyance].
Within this distant forest, a Spell circle slowly forms. To anyone who could read the language of Magic, they would see runes describing locational magic. Fire, Cold, size restrictions, a model for self modulation.
"Hello, how may I help you today, Lady..?" The bank teller in front of her greets her, deciding to go with 'Lady' only after glancing at her robes.
"I would like to make a withdrawal."
"Certainly!" The clerk cheerfully replies. The fake kind of cheerful that comes with the job. She doesn't react to it.
In an empty forest far to the north, a Spell finishes forming. An entirely new Spell that has not existed before in the world, at least, not in the way this one does. There are plenty of Spells about regulating temperature, but this one works by balancing the temperature within an area to match with the internal body temperature of the caster.
It's not a high Tier Spell, so it will only work within a certain margin of temperature, but she invented it more as a thought experiment than anything else. It's not like temperatures will bother her.
A blinking notification appears in her interface, telling her to name the new Spell. She just calls it [Internal Heat Sharing] to make the notification go away and returns her attention to the teller as he offers a tablet held in her direction.
She looks at the blank slab of white stone, emanating enough mana to imply an Enchantment that she cannot see. She looks back up at him.
He looks at her. Then at the tablet and back to her. Then his eyes flick to her long ears and realisation dawns upon him.
"Ah, my apologies. They cover this in the training, but you're my first longer-lived client. The bank lost its automation one hundred years ago, so now we have to use equipment like this to confirm account details and the like. All you have to do is pour some of you mana into the tablet and it will connect to your account, then once everything is confirmed nice and well, we can move on to the withdrawal. Is that okay?"
She sighs internally, having expected something like this. Hence why it took her so long to even come here.
"If I do this, you will be able to see my account information?" She asks, just to be sure.
He nods, and though he seems confused as to why she would ask that, he also clearly doesn't want to accidentally imply anything because she isn't Human.
Well damn.
This is why she wanted it to be automatic like in the game. Because she's super famous now, and even if her account is still open, this guy will either freak out and make a scene about her identity, or he will assume she's conning him.
What a pain.
Whatever. When she visits the capital, she'll just get in contact with whoever is in charge of the bank, or hell, the King if she has to, and get them to give her back access to her account without making a fuss.
"Ah. Something urgent has just come up," Kierra shamelessly lies to the worker. "I have to go."
Without waiting for a response, she turns and leaves, starting to think about what to eat before bed.
She needs neither the food nor the bed, but food is nice and she honestly just wants to spend the night lying in bed and coming up with new Spells.
Now that her character is real, all of that Spell knowledge she gained in the game is actual, real knowledge about Magic. She's got a whole new perspective on it and has been inventing Spells on and off all day. Only simple ones though, nothing interesting yet.
She's still digesting the suddenly full vault of knowledge in her brain, after all.
Kierra freezes halfway down the bank's front steps, one heel pausing barely an inch from the next step down.
She tilts her head, wondering what could have possibly happened to trigger her [Mark of Muninn] a second time today. She casts her gaze just in time to see Flamelle step into a portal in her closet.
The moment she does so, the vision granted by Kierra's Spell immediately turns to indistinct static. The barest hints of ice and snow and a girl lost in the dark make it through but nothing more.
...Is this karma for lying about something urgent having come up?
Who even walks into random suspicious portals like that?
Kierra sighs.
She had expected that her student would be a troublesome one. Talent like hers comes with caveats. Being a magnet for trouble is one such caveat.
Ah well. Keeps things interesting.
The feedback she's getting from the mark is all fuzzy and full of corrupted data, but with the vast wealth of experience in her body, she can figure some things out.
First and most importantly, Flamelle is unharmed, hence her lack of rush.
Second, the only realistic way to disrupt this specific Spell into static would be through dimensional barriers, meaning that that portal led to a different dimension. That's pretty interesting. Extra dimensional stuff was always rare, as it is an incredibly complex and even more dangerous Magic to study. Naturally, she specialises in the stuff.
Third, there is a delay that implies some manner of Time dilation being in effect. Luckily, the ratio seems pretty small, so it's not a massive deal.
Still, no reason to loiter.
[Warp]
The world blinks, replacing busy street with silent room, and Kierra looks at the portal in front of her with interest.
Unfamiliar.
That is even more interesting.
There are certain dimensions connected to this world, such as a pair that are analogous to Heaven and Hell, or certain vaults or sacred locations. Kierra's own house has a dozen or so personal dimensions inside of it.
Kierra should be familiar with all of them, but this random portal is not recognisable in the slightest.
Very interesting.
[Delayed Return]
Setting the Spell's timer to six hours, Kierra steps into the portal. This way, if she finds that she is unable to return, she won't be stuck for any longer than six hours, standard world time.
She appears within a blizzard.
Spreading her senses out, it only takes a moment to find Flamelle. However, at the same time that she locates Flamelle, she also notices a far more powerful presence right next to her. One that feels dark and unfriendly, a direct contrast to Flamelle's childish brightness.
Not hesitating in the slightest, Kierra [Blinks] and has less than a second to take in the scene before acting.
In front of her stands Flamelle, only her face is blank, almost dazed as she is reaching for the handle of a thick, ice blue sword sticking out from a block of Enchanted ice.
Kierra's hand snaps out and grabs her student's wrist mere moments before she can make contact with the blatantly cursed sword.
Flamelle blinks as if coming out of a trance and jumps when she notices Kierra.
"Mistress Kette!" She exclaims, before immediately wilting when she notices the disappointment in Kierra's cold gaze. The child's eyes flit this way and that, like a kid looking for an excuse. "Um, uh, do you know where we are?"
"Flamelle," Kierra begins, only to get annoyed at the wind drowning out her voice. Naturally, she refuses to be forced into raising her voice by wind, of all things. "[Clear Weather]."
Her mana bursts out, and the blizzard disappears.
Kierra briefly glances about the snow-packed plain, noting the strange hue of the sky to mean that this is only a small dimensional pocket, not an entire world.
"Flamelle," Kierra begins again, attracting the girl's attention even when she clearly wants to continue to be flabbergasted by her 14th Tier Spell. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Uh, em, I don't know?" Flamelle answers to her tone with the bashfulness of a child who knows they've been caught.
Kierra sighs and lets go of the girl's arm, only after making sure she won't reach for the sword a second time.
"Okay. First rule. No walking into portals without my permission." Flamelle nods rapidly, a slight flush on her cheeks. A flush that fades into rapid paling when Kierra continues, "Second rule. No picking up cursed artifacts without explicit permission."
"C-cursed!?" Flamelle exclaims, eyes snapping to the sword with shock.
"Look around you, Flamelle. This is textbook cursed artifact. First lesson. Don't trust suspicious magical objects, especially when they're hidden away like this." The inexperience of youth sure is powerful.
Turning away from Flamelle, Kierra considers simply destroying the sword and moving on with her life, but she finds herself too curious and decides against it.
"W-wait! I thought we shouldn't touch cursed artifacts!?" Flamelle calls out in surprise and concern when Kierra reaches for the sword's handle.
"I am stronger than you."
Kierra grabs the sword and pulls it from the ice.
Immediately, she feels a foreign presence attempt to squirm its way through her hand and up into her brain. Naturally, it does not succeed. Instead, she guides the presence into a small section of Dragon's heart that contains her soul.
"W-what is this?"
She hears the voice echo in her mind, ancient and gravelly. She's unimpressed.
Raising an brow, she doesn't bother answering with words and simply peers inside of the presence.
"W-what are you- St-stop that! How dare! W-wait! Wait wait! What manner of creature are you!?!"
Humming to herself, Kierra ignores the fractured soul's ramblings and forces her sight into the deepest recesses of its spirit, observing its history like scrolling through a movie.
Since everything happening is internal, it only takes a moment from Flamelle's perspective for her to get the gist of the situation.
Is this a hint to the sequel the Devs were hinting at? Kierra muses to herself, smiling slightly at the thought.
From what she gathered, the soul inside of this sword once belonged to a somewhat powerful Lich. Probably powerful enough to be considered a Cataclysm. Maybe just a bit shy of the Sixth Cataclysm in terms of ability. Pretty impressive really.
He was born on a continent engulfed in ice and snow in a world with two other, larger continents. When he was young, the two massive Empires ruling each of the other continents went to war, and for whatever reason, this dude's frozen continent was chosen as the battlefield.
The people of that world seem to be hardy enough that the weather didn't bother them much. This guy, she quickly checks his soul for a name, Ner'char. He took advantage of the war to collect corpses and build up a massive undead army.
That went about as anyone with a brain would expect. The two Empires put aside their difference the moment he became a genuine threat and worked together to annihilate him.
However, he was the first person in that world to discover Lichdom, so no one looked for his sword after the battle cast it off into the frozen wastes.
However, while his soul was cast into the snowy wastes and before he could reform a new body, something interesting happened.
She's limited by his own understanding of it, but his memory tells of a storm of Magic. A natural event tearing through the land.
Mana storms aren't unheard of. Free mana always wants to cause chaos, and large amounts of free mana often forms storms and natural disasters of a most unpredictable nature.
In this instance, the storm of mana charged through the land like a raging bull, grabbed a whole chunk of the frozen waste surrounding this sword and basically just yoinked the land out from that world.
A mana storm stealing a chunk out of a world and stuffing it in a sealed dimension is strange enough by itself. However, in that transitory period before this dimension had finished forming, Ner'char witnessed something unbelievable.
His new home was not the only one. This storm brought thousands, millions of worlds with it. Some as small as the one surrounding Ner'char's sword, some as large as the world it was torn from. All orbiting one another like a galaxy hurtling through the non-space that exists outside of reality.
Fascinating.
"Um. Mistress Kette?" Kierra blinks at Flamelle's words, pulling her mind back to the reality around them. "Can we go back now?"
"Hm."
Kierra tears the small soul from her body, ignoring its protests, and shoves it back into his sword.
"One thing first. Stay still."
Kierra raises her free hand in Flamelle's direction and starts crafting an incredibly intricate Spell circle.
"Um. Mistress Kette?" Flamelle asks, audibly concerned by the growing Spell pointed in her direction.
Kierra doesn't answer her concerns, and simply spends another dozen seconds constructing the circle before casting it right away.
[Reveal Destiny]
Kierra's vision blooms with golden light. An uncountable, infinite number of thin golden threads appear to her, connecting from every grain of snow and spreading and splitting into a million different paths. Some clear, some disappearing into the endless ether.
Kierra filters through this sight, ignoring the threads of Destiny she deems unimportant and focusing entirely on Flamelle.
To her new eyes, Flamelle looks like a miniature sun. Burning brightly in Destiny's light. Endless golden threads extending from her in every direction, including connecting her with the sword in Kierra's hand.
She is the complete opposite of Kierra, who is in greyscale, completely devoid of light. A darkness like the abyss.
Players were always 'outsiders' to the universe of the game, so they were never touched by Fate. Destiny avoided them like it couldn't see them. Even now, her sight is filled with golden threads reaching in her direction, only to curl in on themselves and wither before they can reach her.
It seems this aspect has followed her even now.
Noticeably, Flamelle's burning light seems to be desperately trying to latch on to Kierra, but never quite succeeding.
So that is indeed the case, then, Kierra thinks with a sigh, dismissing the alternate vision from her eyes. With talent like hers, it was inevitable that she would be a protagonist type of character. But to be touched so deeply by Destiny, she must have the [Advanced Luck Glow] Passive. And now, it seems to be pulling her here. She must be an important character for the next version.
[Advanced Luck Glow] is one of the few Passives that couldn't be acquired as a Player. They only even knew about it by chance, since you can't normally see other people's statuses. One Player however managed to confirm a [Lesser Luck Glow], which implies the existence of a mid and advanced version. Which NPCs have what is mostly a matter of evidence based guesswork.
As for whether it's even a good thing or not, that's debatable. 'Luck' by itself is not the same as good luck. The luck glow Passives just increased the odds of random encounters. Whether or not those encounters will be good or bad is completely up to further chance.
Most likely, the situation here is that Flamelle was supposed to find this sword and he would serve as some kind of guardian spirit type of character. Guiding her growth just in time to help with what she can only guess is a naturally occurring nexus of interconnected, interdimensional portals.
However, she is here now, and Flamelle is her student, not some stupid sword's.
Also, it does not escape her notice that it just so happens to be a Lich that Flamelle discovered. In a world with such a rich history and fear of Liches. It would certainly add to the plot if Flamelle had to balance her growth as a Mage with avoiding being discovered as a being most reviled.
"Would you like me to sever your Fate?" Kierra asks Flamelle after a long moment, making the girl blink in confusion. She recognises that that question is too advanced for Flamelle to really be able to make an informed decision on, so she moves on without expecting an answer. "Think about it. Now, let's get out of here. You need to go to bed."
It is getting pretty late.
Flamelle tries to protest, but is interrupted by a yawn, which really leaves her no choice but to nod meekly.
Now, Kierra obviously noticed the lack of an exit once she entered, and she is fairly sure that the exit is conditional on Ner'char. Killing him would probably work to open the dimension. Kind of like an instance dungeon now that she thinks about it.
However, she feels like he might still have some use to her, so instead she simply locks his soul into stasis within the sword and throws it into her inventory.
"Come. Hold me tightly," Kierra orders Flamelle, gesturing to herself.
The girl steps closer with hesitancy, so Kierra pulls her flush against herself.
"Close your eyes. Don't open your mouth. Don't let go of me or pull away. Pull your magical senses in and do not extend them beyond your body."
Flamelle obeys without complaint, recognising Kierra's seriousness, and Kierra nods once before getting to work.
She can't just teleport back, not without waiting for her preprepared Spell to activate anyway. This dimension will remain sealed until its conditions are fulfilled.
So naturally, leaving is as simple as removing said dimensional seal.
How does one remove a dimensional seal, one might ask?
Simple. By removing the dimension that it is attached to.
Kierra spends a moment to lock away all of Flamelle's senses, especially of the magical kind, and then another moment layering barrier after barrier over them both, just in case.
Wouldn't want the brat to be witness to non-existence. It's probably not good for development.
Magic, in its most basic description, is simply the forceful manipulation of reality via mana.
There are two points of emphasis to focus on there. One being the word 'forceful' and the other 'reality'. There are plenty of stories with Magic in it where they explain how mana is a natural part of the world and how magic was something akin to convincing the world to act differently. Or even just forcing one's will onto reality.
The Lore here is different.
Magic is not the alteration of reality through will. It is the alteration of reality through mana.
It might only seem like a small difference, but it is actually incredibly significant.
It's like the difference between levelling up in a game by playing the game and designing a cheat engine that simply forces your level to go up.
The point being that mana is inherently foreign.
Reality is Order.
Mana is Chaos.
So it is not much of a deduction to realise that non-existence, as the opposite to reality, is the opposite of Order, and thus, mana.
Magic is not something that naturally occurs inside of reality. It is more akin to an infection. A virus. Parasite.
The Lore was never too clear about it all, but the origin of Magic in this world was likely the Mythical Era, thousands and thousands of years in the past.
There are many reasons Magic could be introduced into reality. It is all theoretical of course, with no way to prove either way what is true. Even during the insightful and enjoyable conversations that Kierra has had with one of the Devs in the area of Lore design never told her anything on the subject.
He mostly used her as an ideas board to bounce thoughts off of, but he did tell her plenty of Lore that was either too obscure to find or stuff that they couldn't figure out how to add to the game without seeming like a blatant infodump.
However, whenever it came to certain topics, such as the origin of Magic, the Dev in question would only smile meaningfully and tease her with silence.
At some point they gave her the [Origin of Magic] Title, which honestly just annoyed the hell out of her, even if she is usually always happy to have more Lore attached to her character.
But that Title, combined with certain other bits of Lore just annoy the heck out of her. It's just so embarrassing! Stupid Devs!
Regardless, she has gotten distracted.
Relevant here is that it was possible for a Player to exit Reality. In fact, it was necessary, however briefly, in order to defeat the Eighth Cataclysm.
However, non-existence is simply too chaotic. Chaos without Order leads only to destruction after all. Though, she would personally still rather face destruction than the stagnation of Order without Chaos.
But then, she is a Mage. The Mage. It is only natural that she would feel this way.
As a matter of fact, her infinite mana trick even involves making use of non-existence.
This all is to say that Kierra is no stranger to destroying reality itself. So a small, secondary dimension like this is hardly going to give her trouble.
Her only concern is exposing Flamelle to the pure chaos of non-existence. Hence all the barriers.
But with that done, all that is left is to act.
Flamelle tenses and shivers within her arms as Kierra's mana floods out of her body. A second later, a blinding light fills the small dimension as a truly enormous Magic circle appears on the ground, Kierra's feet at its centre.
This Spell isn't exactly a combat Spell. It has a long cast time and is technically single-target.
Earlier, Kierra considered simply destroying Ner'char's Phylactery by shattering the sword with [Greater Break Item], as the weaker version of the Spell likely wouldn't have much effect.
She isn't actually certain if that would have even been enough to break the sword. She estimate's Ner'char's level to be somewhere around the early levels of 1800 after all. He isn't weak.
If it ended up not working, this Spell is what she would have moved to. The highest Tier version of all of the 'Break X' Spells.
[Shatterpoint]
Kierra's enormous Spell circle—covering almost the entire floor of this dimension—flashes.
With a deafening noise like one thousand panes of glass shattering in tandem, the entire dimension cracks. From the snow-covered floor all the way up the walls of the dimension in place of a sky.
There is no slow spread, the cracks don't start from her feet and grow. Everything simply cracks, like boiling water poured over freezing glass.
Kierra's mana compresses into a ball in the direct centre of this dimension, pulling back like a hammer ready to fall.
And fall it does. An equidistant pulse of mana that hits the entire dimensional wall in the same moment.
In an instant, the cracks in reality spread until there are more cracks than not and then she is witness to the sight o the world falling away. Collapsing into small fractions of reality that fall apart like broken mirrors.
In its place, chaos reigns. An impossible mix of swirling colours. Growing, shrinking, spinning while staying absolutely still and fluctuating through every colour and shape and concept. Miniature realities are formed and destroyed every second as time pulls back in pieces and forward in wholes.
It is maddening.
It is so much more beautiful in person.
Just as Martial Arts are a product of Order, so too is Magic a product of Chaos. So it is only natural that The Mage would find such a sight so enchanting.
However, as Ner'char's dimension collapses and is reduced to its most base concepts by this chaotic stream, Kierra glimpses something vast.
In the far distance and right before her nose, she sees words. A countless number of realities, all bound together by endless threads.
She sees barren wastelands like the one in which she just stood. She sees realms full of endless armies. She feels the presence of many powerful beings, maybe even reaching her level. She sees entire universes here, all bound together by these never ending threads. An infinite web.
An unfamiliar feeling wells up within her, distracting her from her wonder. It takes her a moment to identify the feeling, as it is not something she has personally felt before, not in the safe world of her past. However, it is a feeling that this body remembers well.
Danger.
Kierra's heart skips a beat as she notices something that had always been right in front of her only now that she knows it exists.
A giant, impossibly large eye is staring at her from the centre of this web. She cannot see it but she knows it is there. So large that she could be a grain of sand compared to it.
Kierra feels its attention on her.
[Warp]
The world blinks.
Kierra watches the blue portal in Flamelle's closet shattering into infinite fractals and lifts a hand from Flamelle's shoulder to absorb the excess energy. Wouldn't want it to eat through the wall or something.
A beat passes in stillness. Processing.
Ner'char you idiot! That isn't a damn mana storm!
Her arm drops a moment later, having failed to distract her from her thoughts.
What was that? She thinks back on the sense of suppression she felt from it. A feeling that can only mean one thing. Whatever it is, it must have surpassed level 2500. Only something higher up on the hierarchy of life could have made me feel like that. The hell are the Devs throwing at us? What's wrong with just more Liches?
She isn't too surprised by the level, in all honesty. If she was not who she is, then she likely wouldn't have even been able to notice it.
It is only because she has the Magical knowledge and experience of Kierra Kalashnikova and the modern understanding of genres and clichés that she is not panicking.
She can more or less understand the situation. If that thing is a part of the sequel she heard rumour of, then it is almost certainly the final Boss. If it were still a game, she might even be able to beat it as she is now. However, that would only be on the shoulder of countless deaths.
She isn't even really surprised about the level. The weakest Cataclysm was the Sixth, and he was level 1900 at a time where the top players were only just passing 1500. Technically the first two were weaker, but that's because they were before the official game, and the second was her anyway.
Plus, Mythic Vielduine was level 2449, and she beat that. After dying thousands of times sure, but she did win.
She would be more concerned if not for the understanding that this being is still far far away. It only appeared close because of the chaotic nature of non-existence, but she wouldn't be surprised if it would take another century before it was even close enough to personally interact with this universe.
However, that web of realities orbiting around it is truly impossibly large in scale. Larger than an entire universe. Large enough that this reality will likely have to deal with becoming entangled in this web long before ever having to interact with this creature.
Assuming that it even wants to interact with the worlds it has gathered. For all she knows, it's some higher dimensional being that is collecting realities purely as a hobby, like a child collecting pretty rocks as they walk down a beach.
Kierra shakes her head. It's pointless to think about. The main takeaway from this whole experience is that the next version of the game seems to be an invasion of worlds type of thing, full of instance dungeons and foreign worlds.
"Oh!" Flamelle exclaims as Kierra dispels all of the magical protections she cast. "We're back! What happened? How come you seem so happy?"
Happy? Kierra ponders on her feelings and realises that she can't really deny it. It's only natural, I suppose. Magic is meant for battle. For combat. And I just felt the existence of an endless number of acceptable targets, how could I not be excited at the thought?
Kierra considers what to say. The girl simply lacks the understanding to even fathom any reasonable explanation, and she lacks the strength to be able to react in any way to it. She is also too weak and inexperienced to understand why Kierra would feel happy.
So, instead of needlessly burdening the child, Kierra simply pats her on the head—even though she has to step on her tippy toes to do so—and smiles at her.
"I brought us back. Moving through dimensions is not something your body can handle yet, hence the safety precautions. Do you feel unwell? Changed in any manner?"
"Uh, no? Is that something I should be worrying about?" Flamelle asks with the voice of someone who is now worrying about it.
"No. But tell me if you feel anything off. Now, go to bed. It has been a long day." Flamelle's Luck can be thanked for that, but obviously she isn't going to get into that right now. Flamelle is a growing girl, she needs to get her sleep.
Flamelle nods her head, unable to deny her tiredness, even if she clearly has a lot of questions.
"Digest your recent experiences. If you have any questions, ask them in the morning." Flamelle nods and makes an agreeable sound, so Kierra prepares her mana to leave. However, right before she does so, she remembers something else and gives Flamelle a serious stare. "If you have any strange dreams that either feel oddly real or as if they are guiding you somewhere, ignore them and tell me about it in the morning."
You never know with protagonists. Her [Advanced Luck Glow] will no doubt be persistent. Especially since it cannot connect to Kierra.
Flamelle is clearly the type of protagonist that is supposed to have some kind of guiding figure in her life. If she really was sold to this Cult Kierra is curious about, then she likely would have wound up the protégé of some important priest or whatever.
Frankly, being related in anyway to someone so drenched in Fate will only really be troublesome. However, Kierra has already decided that Flamelle will be her student. Destiny can suck it.
The easy solution would simply be to allow Flamelle's Thread of Destiny to connect with her, however Kierra refuses that out of principle.
"G'night," Flamelle mumbles as she moves to climb into her bed. Watching Kierra with half lidded eyes.
Kierra in turn looks down at the sleepy girl. It strikes her for a moment, that this is a real, living human being. A child. Barely fifteen years old.
Without consciously realising it, almost all of Kierra's training plans of throwing Flamelle at monsters are thrown out of the window. Flamelle isn't a Player. If she dies...
"Sleep well."
[Blink]
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
And thus we finally enter into the point of divergence from Max Level Archmage. Unless I have somehow managed to have the same idea as what that author was planning to do with the dimensional crack.
But yeah, I have no real plans, but vaguely speaking, this story is going to be the classic isekai adventure for the first part, with a focus on Kierra teaching Flamelle. Then it will slowly transition into a korean style portal fantasy as time goes on and more and more portals show up. Some leading into the classic dungeon like in those manhwa, some straight up just leading to an alternate universe.
All sorts of shit.
Also, Kierra's character sheet is seeped with Lore lmao. Like so much Lore, it's crazy. I should probably write an actual character sheet now that I think about it. Like, specifically the Lore part. Can't really be bothered tho. :/
Comments
Kz3838
Thank you for the great chapter, stay safe out there and keep up the good work!
Lucy Edwards
lmao I just googled that dude's wiki and his list of titles when way longer than I was expecting
Yuval
Kierra should have as many titles as Settra the Imperishable at the very least
