^^ Rockwell's Tower Ruins ^^

Gates, as it turned out, were all about Math, and weren't that difficult to calculate, if you knew Spacial Mechanics, Quantum Theory, and Mathematics.

"Who'd have thought my Father's obsessive desire for me to be the smartest person in the entire Hall of Research would actually be useful? I don't imagine that he knew about the equations of Gate Spells, as Kip said they're top secret, and we're not allowed to explain it to anyone, which is why Conjuration Runes are so secret, as well..." I hummed, petting the lizard the size of a house-cat, Laplace, who had grown to that size in the past week with surprising speed. According to Kip, his explosive growth was not entirely unnatural, but could be at least partially attributed to my Mana and the large amount of Food I provided him; I summoned bugs for him nearly en masse, both as training for myself in summoning, but also to test the amount of control I had over what I summoned.

I learned that I could order swarms of flies and whatever else to fly into Laplace's mouth, but the moment he started chomping on them with his surprisingly sharp teeth, the control was broken; this implied that there was a contract that I 'signed' when I summoned them, and the terms of that contract required me to keep them from harm, which made little to no sense. Why would I Summon a Monster, -one of my only methods of defending myself besides my physical armaments,- if it turned on me the moment it was wounded? To combat this in Laplace, I had extracted a sample of his pheromone glands and carefully began the process of conditioning him towards total obedience to me; I thus went beyond the Magical Contract, and created a Biological Imperative, or instinct. Every time I fed him bugs, I also dosed him up with pheromones, and over the week I'd been doing this he was more and more obedient, not even requiring my Mana or food to obey me; though I still gave them to him because of the positive effects for my Mana Pool, which had grown to twice my old limits in just one week of hard work.

According to Kip, though the ratio equality was terrifying in the long-term, that percentage of increase was impressive, but not overtly abnormal; this proved that the ratio of increase was similar regardless of the starting point, meaning someone with 1% of my Mana would increase to 2% in the first week, then 5% in the first month, while mine would double, then quintuple by the end of the month. The end result, apparently, was that my Mana would eventually be somewhere close to 1000% of what I started with, or ten times as much; this would take something like ten years, due to the rate of diminishing returns, but that was nothing compared to a High-Elf's projected lifespan of eight hundred to a thousand years, so I was looking forward to whether or not I could actually improve beyond that, given said lifespan.

"If humans only live for about eighty to a hundred years, and from the age of thirteen or so to the age of twenty-five they multiply their Mana Pool by ten, but it doesn't increase from twenty-five to a hundred, that means that the diminishing return of Mana Gathering requires more than seventy-five years to increase beyond ten times; therefore, over the course of the nearly-a-thousand years of my standard lifespan, by that rate of decay, I can only increase a maximum of fifteen times my starting point. However, my Starting Point was eighty-percent of the Mana Sea of an ArchMage, and thus even in the next ten years, I'll have four times the amount of Mana that my parents have, combined! Isn't that amazing, Laplace?" I asked the lizard, who snorted a burst of fire off to our right as I addressed him.

To the south, that Ruins caught my eye again, as they had every day since I'd come here. One tower, surrounded by a city that was destroyed and left to rot, even after the monsters were gone. According to Kip, It was called Rockwell's Tower, and it had been the Dominion of an ArchMage of Conjuration before a Dragon rolled in and tore most everything down; then a pride of Manticores took over the ruins for a time, before moving on to greener pastures, and after that it was dire wolves, so on and so forth. Still, even without a pride of monsters inside the city, the trip there was straight through the potentially lethal Wild Lands. Luckily for me, I was a Conjuration Mage, which meant I could Gate right there, once I calculated Distance and Angle to land properly on Top of the Tower. I didn't want to land in the city, because it was possible it wasn't empty of monsters, so landing on the roof was my best bet.

"I wonder why Monsters keep coming back to the Tower, though? I mean, there's not much there to eat, I don't imagine, and the stones would make the entire city colder than the forest, and ruined buildings don't protect much from the rain... but they keep coming back. Why is that, Laplace?" I hummed, drawing the equation in my notebook carefully.

"You know, you could just talk to the other kids, if you wanted companionship; talking to a Lizard... not exactly riveting company." Kip chuckled at me, sitting next to me after appearing silently, which was as irritating as ever.

"Ah, yes, children, quite often lauded for their calm and intellectual company." I remarked sarcastically, closing my notebook as Laplace was teleported away to his nest in my room, which was essentially a pit cut out of the floor beneath my bed.

She laughed at the comment, taking it as a joke, apparently. "Still, you do need to interact with people-"

"Miss Kip, I don't need to develop social skills; I did that for the past twenty-seven years, interacting with other people of all ages. This, me, is what you get, as a fully-developed adult. While the addition of hormones has made me a bit more attentive to the female sex, this is quite as expected, and it has not accompanied itself with any overbearing emotional issues such as Rage or Obsession, as with Humans. Elves, instead, simply develop a higher libido, due to the low procreational abilities of our Race, a product of our greatly extended lifespans." I explained casually, hoping the succinct nature of my explanation would stem any further attempts to get me to socially interact with people I didn't know; much like many researchers in the Hall of Research, I was not what one would call a 'Social Butterfly', but rather a generally solitary individual, who once in a while visits society for interaction.

"... I see... so you're saying you're a loner, and you don't want me to keep bothering you about interacting with people your own age?"

"Those children are not my age. Not in maturity or years." I shook my head, disagreeing on principle alone.

"So you'd interact with people who were your age, then?"

"If they share my interests, yes, though sparingly." I sighed, afraid I'd only spurred her forward again, and changed the subject. "Anyway, what's today's lesson? We've covered Beginner Gates, which are Gates that can travel a maximum of five kilometers in any direction except downward (obviously), also called 'Horizon Walk', or Gates that can connect two points within 500 meters permanently while maintaining itself with minimal expended Mana, or the 'Spectral Bridge'. What's next?"

"You need to work on your segues, but I'm always happy to teach, and I know when to drop a subject; today we'll be dealing with Intermediate Gate Spells, and if you master them as easily as you did the Beginner Spells, you'll be considered an Intermediate Transportation Mage! You'll read this in twenty minutes, I don't doubt, so when I get back we'll start testing; don't try any of it until I'm here!" She warned me sternly as she handed me a small book, green leather with yellow vellum pages, clearly very old.

"Hmm... alright, enjoy your jog." I waved her off casually, already reading the book and taking notes, as usual.

'Mid-Distance Teleportation, or Intermediate Gates, differ from their lesser counterparts in that they contain a Curve: Namely, they follow the curvature of the Planet, as sending a Gate through the earth would be nearly impossible. This Curve, the Parabolic Trajectory the Gate follows, relies on Gravity to keep it from bowing out of shape and failing.'

"Huh... so that's how we got here from home..." I mused at the implications of that concept, which answered many of my questions, but created many more; If I had a parabola carefully designed enough and with the right coordinates, I could go to the other side of the planet in an instant!

'To facilitate such curvatures, an understanding of gravity is required; much of this book is a lesson in the intricacies of Gravity, which I've already been taught to an extensive degree... more of Father's foresight, I imagine. As much as I'd like to be angry at them for not teaching me, it seems they did in fact teach me as much as they could, without breaking their little rules about masters and apprentices. It seems silly to me, but you can't laugh at other people's' convictions, as it just isn't right, so I'll just table it for now. Regardless, the curving portal seems easy enough; you need the target coordinate, your current coordinate, and a simple curvature.

This is the reason you can't use the Mid-Range or Intermediate Gate in a stressful situation, like you can the short and Master Gates, because if you don't know your own exact coordinates, you're shooting in the dark with the curve, and who knows where you'll end up? However, this calls into question the Summoning Spells; I can summon my Familiar, or any other creature, regardless of if I know my own coordinates, which would necessitate me being capable of sending a portal anywhere, despite not having a Curve, and despite not knowing the angle of said curve. Kip showcases this by summoning her Storm Owl Familiar from the Hall of Research, despite not using a different spell which would use the Mid-Range Curve Schematic discussed in this book...

It can thus be suppliantly ordained that the Summoning Spell is actually a Higher-Tier Spell, capable of Master-Class True Gates, or more specifically, 'Gate', the only Gate Spell that has only one word in its title. Horizon Walk, Spectral Bridge, Familiar Cage, (the summoning and Binding Spell,) Rabbit Stride, (the Curved Intermediate Gate,) and Rainbow Bridge, (the ArchMage Gate Spell which permanently connects two points any distance apart,) all have two names, and none of them contain the word 'Gate', which I take to mean they are all variations of one spell, Gate.

If this theory is true, then simply deconstructing the Summoning Spell, Familiar Cage, I can 'summon' myself to a previously-selected location, such as my room in Hightower; with that, I could swiftly escape from any dangerous situation, as the spell is something any Conjuration Mage can cast without drawing!'

"Whoooa, there, Merlin, hold up!!!" Kip snatched the charcoal from my hand before I finished drawing one line on the ground. "Didn't I say no magic until I got back?"

"You said not to try the intermediate spells without you; I'm not doing those." I clarified reflexively.

She hummed and looked down at my notebook, mysteriously in her hands instead of mine, and nodded slowly as she read my notes. "That is very true... and you've stumbled onto a spell I hadn't thought you needed yet, an Intermediate Gate Spell called 'Field Walk', which does exactly what you theorized here, summoning you to a predetermined location... I find myself impressed yet again; I left for thirty minutes, and you're trying to discover your own magic spells!" She laughed softly, handing me back my notebook.

"So I was right? Using the Summoning Circle and selecting myself as the target would work?" I asked, opening the book and taking my charcoal back, waiting to record her answer.

She sighed and sat down in front of me, brushing away the charcoal lines on the ground. "It's a bit more complicated than that, actually; see, that spell, Familiar Cage, has an aspect you haven't considered: the Contract. The part that forces a creature to form a contract with the one casting the spell."

"But if I'm the holder of the contract, I don't see the problem?" I frowned, confused.

"Right, but you remember when I transferred the contract? Without needing Laplace's or Your consent?" She nodded slowly as realization dawned for me. "Exactly; a long time ago, that spell was used on Mages, forcing them to obey Evil ArchMages. Nowadays, it's a heinous crime, and it will make every City-State in the world come after you, of course, but some people are twisted, and they risk it. So take my advice, and just don't open that door; use the Field Walk Spell, not Familiar Cage. As for the rest, it's not that the Familiar Cage Spell is High-Tier, it's that the Contract allows you to Triangulate the Spell with minimal effort. It also only reaches to the horizon, unless you summon the Familiar with a High-Tier Gate Spell. My Grenadine was summoned with a Gate Spell, while your Laplace was summoned with a Rabbit-Stride Spell, -something I'm surprised you didn't notice yet, looking at the new spell,- and so you can summon him from anywhere on this side of the planet." She explained succinctly, as she had since the first day we trained, explaining the important bits and moving on.

"I see..." I went through my notes and found the drawing of Laplace's summoning, and it did in fact match the Rabbit Stride Spell in the book; I'd assumed wrongly, that the summoning Spell was simply different because of the differences to the Horizon Walk Spell, but that was just an assumption, and it had now made an Ass out of Me.

"So! I'm sure you already understand the theory behind both, which would you like to test out first?" She asked enthusiastically, rubbing her hands together.

"Both, I think..." I grinned, using the escape spell to place a marker under my feet, then the Gate Spell to leap five kilometers straight upwards.

A gleeful laugh sprang from my mouth as I was suddenly falling through the sky, the whole forest and mountain spread out below me like a map. I spread my arms and legs, catching the wind and slowing my rapid descent so that I could enjoy the ride for longer, and laughed again at the perfect freedom of just feeling like I was barely being weighed down at all. When I got close enough to the ground that it seemed to be rushing towards me, I used the Field Walk Spell, and felt my momentum dissipate instantly and return to me as Pure Mana; within about three seconds, I was standing comfortably on my marker, which crumbled to nothing after being used once. "Curious... I'll have to properly carve that and enchant it, if I want to use it more than once..." I hummed, straightening my clothes and dusting the frost off of my shoulders from the freezing temperatures up there.

"Did you just use portal magic... to skydive? On your first casting?" Kip asked slowly, staring at me incredulously.

"I did, yes; there's no place I know the coordinates of except home, and I didn't want to go there, so I chose upwards, and I was not disappointed!" I grinned, attempting to smooth my hair back into its place, but it had turned into a wild mess from the wind, and was apparently not going to be tamed without a brush and some hot water.

She sighed slowly, rubbing her face and leaning back against the rock she'd chosen as her perch. "Alright... clearly you have a Freedom Complex from living in a tower your whole life; I get that. But what I won't allow is for you to take needless risks; until you have a Flying Familiar, like my Grenadine, there will be no more sky-diving!!! Alright?!?"

"I don't make promises I don't intend to keep!" I refused with a grin, leaping backwards into another portal and cheering in undisguised glee.

—

The Ruins of Rockwell's Tower stood before me, pale and proud despite the visible degradation of the city around it; the front door and much of the wall of the first floor was shattered during the original dragon's incursion, but the magical lanterns and candelabras were still burning brightly, lighting up the interior brightly and turning the white stone golden in color. The roof, where I'd intended to land, was covered in a series of tattered sails that were apparently some sort of Mana collection method, powering everything within the Tower, or so I assumed from the lines of Mana stretching from the roof to everything visible within the tower, as well as several things I couldn't see, down in the ground.

The grand chamber, where I entered first, was a trashed wreck that made every inch of my body itch to clean it up due to the irregularity, but I could see where it had originally been a beautiful hall, circular in nature, and one thing in particular caught my attention: the circumference of the interior didn't match the exterior, but I'd clearly entered through a door that showcased the thickness of the walls, and the chamber was a near-perfect circle; how then did you reach the second and third floors? Or the floor below?

I pressed a hand to the back wall, smiling privately as I sensed the thinness of the wall; there wasn't a door, at all, but instead you just needed to be a Transmutation Mage skilled enough to remove the Cobalt from the Marble without poisoning yourself, and open the passage by making the stone move out of your way, all without exposing the crystals to the air.

The stones moved with little-to-no resistance, revealing a small passageway and a silver Lift, decorated with copper and bronze, and I stepped in after closing the passageway behind me, directing the lift upwards.