World Keeper

Chapter 396: Self-Reflection

Leowynn’s ‘nap’ lasted for another five hours before I finally felt her beginning to stir within my spirit. During that time, I had continued to look through Kione and Spica, studying the magical laws of these worlds. In doing so, I learned that Kione’s familiar magic system was actually something that could already be replicated to a degree within Earth and the other joined worlds.

What Kione performs is similar to an aeon summoning, using their own spirit as a component. And I already knew that it was possible for an aeon to be created with the potential to use magic. With Kione’s method, the purpose of the summoned creature is simply to store the magic, however.

When I brought this up to Accalia, and asked her about the summoning ritual, I got a rather unexpected answer. Yeah, that about sums it up. As for how they do it… well, they technically do have a small potential for magic on their own. However, their mana is tied far more deeply to their spiritual energy with this system.

Doing some research, I found that children around thirteen years old have the greatest ‘potential’. That is the time of their youth when their spirits are the most free, and yet their mind has begun to develop enough to understand some of the concepts involved, without thinking too deeply on it.

The chant is something I came up with myself. Did you like it? There was a playful tone to her voice when she added that part in. The words aren’t strictly necessary. However, saying a thing helps you think it and picture it. The chant acts as nothing more than a way to instinctively allow the mind of a child to control their mana and spirit such that they can perform the summoning.

Listening to that, I gave a small nod, my brows furrowing together. If that’s the case, there should also be those it doesn’t work on, right?

Oh, definitely! She agreed without even trying to argue. There are plenty of children that simply don’t have the talent for magic, or the imagination to make it work. Those people would probably be more skilled when it came to casting geometric spells, though. But, that’s why I asked you to get ki for my world.

As long as the world possesses ki as well, there will an alternative path for those individuals to grow. If someone possesses no talent for either mana or ki… they can only find another way to contribute to society. It’s not like there isn’t a need for leaders or scholars.

I nodded my head again as I heard that, feeling that Leowynn had finished waking up. Better now? I asked towards her, receiving a murmur of confirmation. Okay, maybe not entirely finished waking up.

Either way, it was time for me to return to the world below. This time… let’s go with a lycan.

“No, no!” A woman spoke up within a mirror, shaking her head firmly as she looked at a pair of elves. “I keep trying to tell you, you’re both going about it wrong.” She looked similar to a young elf, or a fairly tall halfling, causing the two students to have misgivings about her identity. “Look, Barton, Sheller. You’ve got the material right finally. Wood from an Ironbark tree is perfect for what you want.”

“But, you’ve both got way too many unneeded complications within your enchantment arrays!” As she said that, she lifted her hands next to herself, two similar yet different spell diagrams appearing above her hands.

“Miss Ana…” One of the students spoke up in a tired voice. He brought his hands up to rub against her temple. “I don’t see a way to simplify the array any further than we’ve already done.”

Just over a week ago, the Keeper had given Ana restricted freedom to move between the mirror in the Sky Citadel and one he created in a study room of their institute. Since then, she had been trying to help the two of them perfect their projects. With her help, they had narrowed down an item that should be able to hold the mana that they needed for the enchantment, and yet it still did not work.

Ana let out an exaggerated sigh, shaking her head. With a flick of her wrists, both spell diagrams faded, and Ana’s own body began to distort. For a moment, the two students thought that she was leaving for the day, before her body turned into a series of shapes and lines, her voice still being emitted from the mirror.

“Barton, your array has the coordinates for the teleportation stored as an extra mana component on top of the primary body of the enchantment. Yes, yes, you set it that was as a failsafe to ensure that the mana did not degrade and corrupt the coordinates. But that was only a fear for lesser materials.”

“And Sheller, your attempt at an emergency protocol queries for the owner’s health value every iteration. That uses an inordinate amount of mana storage. The idea isn’t for these tokens to automatically activate to defend their owners, though that would be nice. That would require a spell-iron alloy, and increase production costs by a thousand times. What we’re trying to make here is just a token that the user can activate on command and send them back to their bind point.”

As she spoke, her ‘body’ began to rearrange itself into multiple layers of a fairly complex diagram. “After watching your work all this time, this is the most efficient array that I can create to fulfill the design goals. The mana requirements should be within the limits of the materials we’ve gathered.”

There were no complex new theories to the diagram that she created, no groundbreaking discovery. No, this was just as she said, simplifying a groundbreaking idea such that it could be created with current designs. And as the two students studied her work, they seemed to be looking for flaws within it, something that they could bring up to redeem themselves, if only slightly.

Yet, Ana had performed countless calculations in order to find this mix. Briefly, she had considered using card magic as the basis, after learning about the new Synthesis technology being developed. However, the production costs of new synthesized cards would be far higher than the enchantment that she had created. Just the simple fact that it required spiritual energy from volunteers ensured that. Living beings could only recover their spirit so quickly, after all.

Finally, the two had to admit that they were looking at a functional array. While the overall product might not be more valuable than what each of them were trying to create, it was more efficient and suited their design goals. As such, they began to take out their notebooks and copy it down from her design.

Seeing how the two had accepted it, Ana waited patiently until they were done. “Alright, boys! If you guys come up with something interesting again, I’ll see if I can show up to help. ‘Till then…”

However, just as she was starting to vanish, Barton called out to her. “Miss Ana, please wait for a moment.”

“Hmm?” Ana responded, her body reforming into her pseudo-elven appearance. “I think that was everything, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was, for this… But I wanted to ask you something.” Seeing her give a small nod for him to continue, Barton spoke up again. “Have you considered becoming a teacher? Surely, you would be able to enlighten many individuals with your talents.”

Ana seemed to freeze for a brief moment, a question like that having not occurred to her. However, after her moment of processing, she had a rather neutral face. “I’ll consult with the Keeper, and see what he decides.”

While she may be able to mimic human emotions conversationally in order to appear more natural to her conversation partner, such things as likes and aspirations were still beyond her. Even her name, which she had chosen for herself and claimed to like, was something that she had come up with after a careful analysis. Or rather, she had come up with by simply shortening the word.

As Ana vanished again, this time neither of them stopped her. They had seen her more inhuman moments before, where her face would go entirely neutral or her speech turned more logical than normal. While they were not fully aware of what she was, it was quite obvious that she was not a normal living creature. That was why Barton had not asked if she would ‘like’ to be a teacher, merely if she had considered it.

After all, there were many benefits to having a teacher such as herself. As long as the Keeper agreed, Ana could help to educate a new generation of powerful and efficient mages.

When I returned to the citadel, I had naturally first gone to check on Ana. I knew that she had been making a good deal of progress in her studies of magic… especially after I temporarily took her out of the mirror, instead placing her in several books within the library. Her understanding of magic formulas seemed to skyrocket once she had the information within those books.

And when I got back, I was able to see her speaking with the two students, helping them crack the final piece of their puzzle. Though, the question that they left her with was one that I was unprepared for myself. “Keeper.” Ana’s voice spoke up once she had returned to her mirror within my room.

“You want an answer, right?” I asked, to which she nodded. “Based on your knowledge, do you believe that you would be a good teacher?”

“Unknown.” Her tone was calmer than normal. “I have only a limited sample of interactions between myself and living beings. However, if it does work, I should be capable of handling the education in a concise manner. My theories on magic have not reached the level of the great scholars as of yet, but I am capable of understanding magic at a level beyond the majority of students within the research institute.”

“Alright.” I smiled slightly, bringing my hands together behind my back. “I’ll set up a meeting between you and the Headmistress to discuss placing you as a teacher. If you perform well, and come to the conclusion that you are suited for that role, we can make it a permanent arrangement.”

Ana nodded again, her body seeming to relax as the issue was settled. “Very well. Do you have anything else for me?”

I thought about that for a moment, before shaking my head. “No, that should be all. You can return to your observations.” After I dismissed her, she vanished into a blue fog within the mirror. However, I had another idea of my own. Tubrock, how would you like to make a golem body for Ana?

Well… ye certainly got my interest, lad. By Ana, ye mean the spell-lass in the mirrors? Aye, I reckon I can make somethin’ for that. I’ll see what I can come up with during the meeting, and craft up the prototype when we get back.

That sounded plenty good to me. If Ana was going to be playing an active role in front of others, it would probably be best if her view was not limited to stationary objects like mirrors. Instead, being able to properly observe an entire class at once would make her a far more effective teacher. Plus, it gave Tubrock an excuse to make another golem… and he really seemed to like those.

With that thought in mind, I turned and began to walk out of my room, heading towards the throne room. Once there, I returned to my normal training routine, sending an avatar into the world of Vision Expanse while my main body trained within the citadel. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting for the annual meeting, for Balu’s ‘delivery’, and for Legion to reach the new world.