Chapter 90. Well, This Is Awkward
Flight, among mages, was a surprisingly uncommon activity.
Not because they lack the capability—most competent spellweavers could manage some form of aerial locomotion—but because humans fundamentally weren't designed to be airborne. Something deep in the ancient brain recognizes the wrongness of a human body suspended hundreds of feet above hard ground with nothing but invisible forces keeping it aloft.
If humans were meant to fly, they'd have wings. But humans, of course, have never been particularly good at accepting the limitations nature imposed on them.
Adom Sylla hated flying. This wasn't breaking news.
Air filled your ears and mouth, stinging your eyes if you weren't prepared. Visibility became compromised as tears blurred your vision. And if you happened to have a fear of heights? Well, tough luck.
But since his return, Adom had found himself airborne on multiple occasions—none of them pleasant. Given his life's trajectory, more such "opportunities" seemed inevitable. So might as well get used to it.
He stood at the edge of Braydon's Cliff, trying very deliberately not to look down at the jagged rocks and frothing water three hundred feet below. The wind tugged at his clothing, almost playfully. Behind him stretched the empty field he'd crossed to reach this point, deliberately chosen for its isolation.
He'd done considerable research on flying options.
Enchanted brooms were popular among professional aerial mages, but Adom couldn't fathom who had decided that sitting astride a narrow wooden handle for hours was a good idea. The chafing alone was enough reason to seek alternatives.
Despite this obvious design flaw, brooms remained the standard because they were relatively cheap to enchant, easy to disguise in urban settings, and had centuries of established spellwork behind them. Tradition, as with many things in the world, often trumped comfort or common sense.
Some mages also opted for full transformation, taking on the forms of birds or bats. But the process was slow, painful, and severely limited spellweaving capabilities. A raven couldn't form proper spells with its wings, and maintaining concentration through the disorientation of having an entirely different body structure was its own challenge.
That left elemental propulsion. Wind, in Adom's assessment, was the most efficient method. It required less mana than gravity manipulation and offered better control than fire's explosive bursts.
A few days ago, maintaining a [Wind Lift] powerful enough for sustained flight would have rapidly depleted his reserves. But that was before his mana pool had expanded to 950. Now, he could theoretically cover hundreds of miles without significant strain.
Theoretically.
"I really don't think this is a good idea," Sam's voice crackled through the communication crystal tucked in Adom's pocket.
"I've done it before," Adom replied, adjusting the thin mask covering the lower half of his face. "In the dungeon, remember?"
"You were kind of forced to. Is that not what you told m- Hey! Zuni! Don't touch my chocolate bar!"
"Which is why I'm practicing." Adom replied, ignoring the ongoing battle between Sam and Zuni back at the academy. "I need to stop being afraid of heights."
He tapped the frame of his glasses, activating the enchantment that transformed them into sealed goggles. Elegant little things, custom-made by the same lady who imbedded Riddler's Bane into them initially.
The ear issue had been trickier to solve. Stuffing cotton in them would block the wind but also Sam's voice through the crystal. Eventually, he'd settled on runebound earplugs that produced a thin membrane of hardened air—a miniature shield spell modified to fit his ear canal perfectly while still allowing sound through.
"You mean if it works," Sam muttered.
"When it works."
"This is your second day testing this! Most mages practice for months before attempting real flight!"
"Most mages didn't spend forty years memorizing spell theory before they were thirteen."
The wind picked up, almost as if responding to his words. Adom shifted his weight slightly, maintaining his balance on the cliff edge. Below, waves crashed against the rocks in a rhythm as old as the world.
He began the preliminary weave, fingers tracing invisible patterns in the air. Mana flowed through his pathways, pooling in his palms.
What made flight spells particularly challenging was their composite nature. A true flight spell wasn't merely a single spell but rather several distinct effects woven together into a seamless whole—a discipline known as spell integration.
Most mages worked with individual spells sequentially, but at high speeds or during complex maneuvers, this approach became impractical. You couldn't pause mid-air to cast a new spell when you needed to adjust course immediately.
Spell integration was the art of combining multiple effects into a single casting—in this case, lift, directional control, stability, and wind shielding all functioning as one unified pattern. The difficulty wasn't just in memorizing complex patterns but in maintaining the delicate balance between competing elements. Push too much mana into lift, and your directional control suffered. Strengthen your wind shield, and stability might falter.
It was the same principle applied in multi-function runes and advanced enchantment matrices—the optimization of magical efficiency through unified design rather than layered effects. The Academy taught the basics, but true mastery typically took decades of dedicated practice.
Decades a certain regressor did not waste.
"You're absolutely sure about the spell structure?" Sam asked for perhaps the eighteenth time since they'd started.
"Yes. Triple-checked against Venturi's Aerial Dynamics and cross-referenced with Magellan's Wind Manipulation Principles."
"And you have a recovery procedure if it fails?"
"Weave it again, very quickly."
"That's not a recovery procedure! That's a desperate hope!"
Zuni chirped. From the crystal, and without seeing the quillick, it was harder to know what he really meant.
But, oh well.
"I'm going now," Adom said, rolling his shoulders to loosen them. He took a deep breath, reciting the mantra he'd prepared: Focus on the air, not the height. Direction, not distance. Control, not speed.
"Wait! Just run through the sequence one more—"
Adom jumped.
For one terrible moment, there was nothing but the rush of air and the sickening lurch in his stomach as gravity claimed him. His body dropped like the thoroughly non-aerodynamic object it was.
"WEAVE IT!" Sam's voice shrieked. "WEAVE IT NOW!"
Adom's hands moved through the pattern, fingers weaving the complex spell for [Sustained Wind Lift]. His mana surged, flooding into the air around him.
Nothing happened.
He'd fallen perhaps thirty feet now, picking up speed. The cliff face blurred past him, the wind tearing at his clothes.
"ADO–"
FWOOSH.
The air beneath him suddenly solidified, catching his body like an invisible cushion before propelling him upward. The abrupt change in direction knocked the breath from his lungs as he shot skyward, overshooting his intended altitude by at least seventy feet.
"Too much!" he gasped, frantically adjusting the weave to decrease power.
His ascent slowed, then stabilized. He hung in the air, body trembling slightly from the surge of adrenaline, about a hundred and fifty feet above the cliff edge.
"Are you okay?" Sam demanded. "Say something!"
"I'm fine," Adom managed, his voice steadier than he felt. "Just... calibrating."
The sensation was distinctly unnatural—his body suspended with nothing visible supporting it. The wind still buffeted him, but the spell created a partial boundary layer that reduced its impact. It was like floating in water, except the water was made of air and there was absolutely nothing stopping him from plummeting to his death except his concentration.
Cautiously, he leaned forward. The spell responded, carrying him in that direction. He leaned back, and his movement reversed. Left, right—his body followed his intent, the wind currents adjusting to support his weight and direction.
"It's working," he reported, carefully executing a slow turn. "Maneuverability is good. Spell drain is minimal."
"Great," Sam replied, audibly relieved. "Now please come back to solid ground."
"Not yet. I need to practice actual travel."
He leaned forward more deliberately, directing the wind to push him along a horizontal path parallel to the coastline. His speed increased gradually until he was moving at a decent clip—perhaps twenty miles per hour.
It wasn't comfortable. The wind still found ways past his defenses, chilling his exposed skin. His stomach continued to register objections to the entire endeavor. And the primal part of his brain kept insisting he was going to fall to his death at any moment.
But it was working.
"Day two of flying," he murmured, making a mental note. "Still hate it. Marginally less terrifying than yesterday."
"Progress is progress," Sam replied cheerfully.
Adom executed another turn, this time more sharply, testing the spell's responsiveness. He wobbled dangerously for a moment before stabilizing.
"I think I'm getting the hang of— Whoa!"
A sudden gust of natural wind caught him from the side, sending him into an uncontrolled spin. The spell faltered as his concentration broke.
He dropped twenty feet before frantically reasserting control, his heart pounding against his ribs.
"That's it," Sam declared. "Come down now."
Adom didn't argue. He'd pushed his luck far enough for one day. He turned back toward the cliff, maintaining a cautious speed.
"You know," he said after a moment, "I think I understand why more mages don't fly regularly."
"Because it's completely insane and terrifying?"
"Pretty much."
But he was doing it anyway. Because someday, he might need to. And Adom Sylla didn't believe in being unprepared.
He glided back toward the cliff, adjusting his altitude to arrive slightly above the edge. The landing would be the tricky part—controlling the deceleration so he didn't slam into the ground.
"Approaching landing point," he reported. "Reducing speed."
"Remember, gentle on the deceleration," Sam advised. "Like stepping off a slow-moving boat."
"I know, I know."