Chapter 425 – Advantages
On leaving the arena, the Magic System began sending Damion notifications. Eleven spells had advanced in Rank during his matches. True Sight had miraculously risen to S Rank, which now granted him the ability to directly see the magic power and mana capacity of people he looked at as well as the material make up of any artifacts he saw. The additional information was a bit overwhelming at first, but he quickly learned to minimize it and could now only see the additional information if he focused on an object or person.
Concealed Aura also made the jump to S Rank. He supposed being around S Ranks for so long that the skill was getting a boost in use and perhaps the number of people trying to see through the spell in the arena played a part in its advancement.
Ice Shard, his tried and true go to spell, finally advanced to A Rank, which once again increased the number of shards formed with each cast. His other Ice affinity spells also rose in Rank. Ice Wall to A Rank, Ice Armor to D Rank, Summon Ice to B Rank and Ice Sword finally rose to A Rank.
The two water spells, Water Cannon and Torrent, were not used as much, but they were quite useful, and both rose a Rank. Water Cannon to D Rank while Torrent increased to B Rank. Fire Storm increased to D Rank and his passive spell Instant Channeling climbed to B Rank as well.
The next morning, after Damion had rested and familiarized himself with the changes to his spells, he went to Ardnet’s command center in search of Visault and Visneer. If he was going to attempt to return to his world, he felt it would be a good idea to have someone present that might be able to assist him should he screw things up.
“Mage Wells, your performance yesterday was quite spectacular,” Visneer greeted as Damion was granted access to the chamber. “It seems you have managed to adapt to your new power level quite well. With the current physical ability of your body, you may even be able to rise to S Rank without difficulty.”
“I appreciate your confidence, but reaching S Rank will take time, the jump from 50,000 magic power to 1,000,000 is not easily overcome.”
“Of course it isn’t. Otherwise, S Ranks would be everywhere. But I feel you should stay here and train for a bit longer. You will be able to rapidly increase your magic power if you returned to the Breach cluster to train.”
“There is no guarantee that I will be able to open a Portal back to Nerotath,” Damion replied. “If I can’t then I will of course stick around to train until I am confident enough to try again.”
“You are not worried the strain will be harmful?”
“Last time I had a bit of mana exhaustion, but I recovered fully. This time I’ll be trying as an A Rank. I doubt the strain will be worse. Besides, if I can open a Portal, perhaps you can come through with me and then you can Portal back, allowing us to have a greater exchange.”
“Even if you are able to open a Portal and I went with you, there is no guarantee that I could open one myself to return, nor that you could. The distance between our worlds is vast and I would not trust Exile to return me home as my presence in the ruins may inadvertently disturb the beasts below the surface.”
“I guess all that is left for me to try.”
“I realize there is no dissuading you from your plan, so I will not attempt to, but first a few pieces of advice. Your people may not be as enthusiastic to follow you here as you might think. The strongest of your people coming here would mean leaving much of your people’s own territories vulnerable. Should the Alfar learn your strongest are here, they may very well open multiple Realm Breaches on your world just to cause chaos.”
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“The thought had occurred to me, but there is a cost to opening Realm Breaches right?”
“Yes. While we have learned to purposefully create them to suit our needs, there is a steep cost in materials to create a suitable core. The higher Rank a Realm Breach, the more costly it is to make.”
“Then I think you might have an advantage you didn’t even know you had at the moment.”
“What do you mean?” Visneer asked quickly, wondering what he had overlooked.
“The day I arrived here, dozens of A Rank and even several S Rank Breaches opened around my world’s major cities. I don’t think they appeared by accident. I think the Alfar knew which world I came from because I encountered one in a Breach before and they made those Breaches to do just what you said, cause chaos.”
“No doubt. And if they were lucky, kill you in the process. Unfortunately for them, it led you here where you learned the truth of Realm Breaches.”
“Since they created all those Breaches, it should take them a while to recover. Even after a few months they are probably still recovering.”
“True, but we have no way to verify without risking our people.”
“I’m not advocating you to take any particular action, just trying to let you know you may have an opportunity, what you do with it is up to you.”
“We do indeed have an opportunity,” Visneer said taking out a spatial artifact. With True Sight Damion could now tell the quality of the spatial artifact and while it did not compare to the one Visault had given him, its 600 cubic meter spatial pocket was still better than anything the mages on Nerotath could make. “Inside you will find your auto-mapper, as well as detailed schematics for creating grimoires.”
Damion took the ring and slipped it on a free finger. He would have liked to put it in the Magic System, but storing a spatial artifact inside another was not something that should be done. He doubted he could bluff Visneer like he had others in the past.
“You were able to duplicate the auto-mapper?”
“Yes. The first units are already being deployed to our frontline units. With their aid I believe our push into Alfar territory will be quite successful, even more than initially thought if your theory of their resources being stretched thin is true.”
“Are you planning to go in and clear Realm Breaches?”
“Only certain ones. We want to deprive them of their best resource farms, but we also have to take into account that if we close too many Realm Breaches the ambient mana could rise to unacceptable levels.”
“Which is what they want.”
“Indeed. We can only push so far. Too far and we will either be forced to manage more Realm Breaches than we have resources to or collapse them and advance the Alfar agenda.”
“But now you have a huge advantage. You can see where their Realm Breaches are and where their troops are. While you can’t determine what each Realm Breach is, you can probably guess at their value by the number of Alfar in the area around them.”
“Very astute of you. For so long as we maintain the secrecy of our auto-mappers, the Alfar will not realize how much intelligence we can now gather on them.”
“After a few ambushes they will likely know something has shifted the balance and begin to suspect you have an unknown advantage.”
“True, but we will pick and choose our ambushes well. Just by shifting our troops to avoid theirs when a battle is uncertain will allow us to keep them off balance. Our greatest danger now is if they send out strong opponents in low numbers, since we cannot yet tell the strength of them from the scan.”
“Yet?” Damion questioned. If they could figure out how to detect not just where someone was but also their Rank, it would make his auto-mappers even greater.
“Our best artificers are working on the possibility. We’ve only had your device for a short time. Altering or adding features to an already remarkable artifact is not an easy thing to do.”
“I suppose not. Is there anything else?”
“Eager to get home. No, young mage, there is nothing else. Let us go to my private courtyard for your attempt. This way, no word of your departure should reach the Alfar. If they learn that you are able to come and go as you please… well, I’m not sure what the Alfar would do.”