Dark mana flows along the extended fingers of my left hand. After leaving from my fingertips, it begins to spin in a circle twisting the fabric of space. One gate has just been created, but since there's nothing it connects to, it just looks like a black circle floating in the air.
I repeat the process with my left hand to make a second gate, now all that's left is to connect them. Since I'm touching both of them, it's easy to simply follow the instructions and move a small amount of the mana from one gate to the other. One side of each gate continues to be solid black, but when I look at the other side now I can see my own head from behind.
"They really are connected."
Hehe, I can touch the back of my head with my nose. Now let's test if I can erase them, it could be dangerous if they just stayed there forever.
...
After a few tests, I was able to confirm that I can indeed erase the gates whenever I want. I don't even need to be in contact with them or even see them, the only exception is when there's a solid object going through them. When I tried holding a pencil halfway into a gate, I couldn't close it no matter how hard I tried, I also started to feel a force pushing the pencil out that kept getting stronger with each passing moment. I guess that's a good thing as it means that nobody will be cut in half accidentally, but it also means that I won't be able to use this as an offensive spell against monsters. Also, as it appears that the distorted space tends to go back to normal by itself, the gates will most likely close on their own after a few hours, I left a few open to test that.
Anyway, what I've done so far was the easy part. Next, I need to figure out the part of the notes that had been destroyed, or I won't be able to use these gates to travel long distances. Because right now, I can only create them directly in front of my hands, this means that I need to walk to the spot where I want to make the second one, which completely defeats the purpose of having gates in the first place.
Normally, it's possible to cast a spell at a distance by first preparing some mana so that it becomes 'mana that will turn into the spell' and then sending it to wherever one wants the spell to happen. But the 'mana that will turn into a gate' can only be sent to a distance of around half a meter at most, and the only way to increase this range is to prepare more mana in a similar state to push the mana for the spell. The problem is that this extra mana can also only move for half a meter, and the mana that does the pushing needs to be twice the amount that's being pushed.
How can I explain this? Let's say that, to make a gate, one unit of mana is required, and that unit can move half a meter on its own. To move a full meter, I would need another two units to push the first one that extra half, a total of three, and if I want a meter and a half, I'll need six more units to push those three for a total of nine. Basically, for each half of a meter, the mana cost of the spell will triple. Needless to say, if I want to use these gates to travel a larger distance, the amount of mana necessary will quickly become absurd, a distance of a hundred meters would require several times the amount of mana in all of the universe.
And yet, according to these notes, this spell should be able to let me go even from one continent to another. This cannot be a problem with the amount of mana I have available, there has to be a more efficient way of doing this, but what could that be?
A way to easily send that mana a long distance away...
A long distance... wait! Don't tell me...
Yes! Mana can also travel through the gates! This means that with an extra 'in-between' gate for each half meter, I could open a gate anywhere I want.
With the technique of instant spell replication, casting the same weak spell a few thousand times in an instant is easy for me, as long as all the parameters of the spells are exactly the same and it's not something like an attack spell that can interfere with its copies. But something tells me that this is going to severely limit the number of mages that will be capable of creating these gates... Anyway, with this method, the cost of the spell should increase linearly with the distance instead of exponentially, I only need two units of mana for each meter.
...
"That's still way too much."
Agh! I thought that I had it! Is there any way that I can reduce the cost?
Well, the bigger the gate, the more mana it needs. If I make the gate as small as possible... But it needs to be big enough for me to be able to pass through it. Maybe I could make it narrower and go sideways.
"Uf."
Uh... My chest is getting stuck. Now that I think about it, is it possible that I'm actually wider front to back rather than shoulder to shoulder?
No, no, what am I saying, that would be ridiculous. And this still uses way too much mana anyway. There has to be something that I'm still missing.
Mmm, actually, I only need one gate to be big enough for me, all the others only need to let mana go through them. And I just remember that those notes also mentioned how to make a gate for only mana, I didn't know what that was for when I first saw it. In reality, trying to open a normal gate would fail if there were any solid objects in the way, so this was necessary anyway.
And... It's STILL not enough. There's a limit to how compact I can make this mana while keeping it capable of making a large gate.
But the last step is obvious, there's a way to activate a spell without having to send all the mana it needs. All I need is for the mana to already be there.
That is to say, I need to leave a magic circle with the 'black gate' spell ready at each of the destinations I might want to travel to. Then, I'll only need to send a minuscule amount of mana to activate it. This means that I'll only be able to travel to places I've already been and left a magic circle at, but I will be able to go from one continent to another in an instant as the notes said.
That said, this is one of the more complicated spells I've seen.
A multi-step spell that requires space manipulation, instant spell replication, and magic circle crafting. Not to mention the mana control and accuracy necessary to activate the second gate from such a long distance. It's going to take me a lot of practice to be able to master it.
Maybe the reason why such a useful spell was left forgotten in this library is simply that nobody other than Zanon was able to pull it off.
"Well, I better get started then."
"Uh? Where am I?"
"Luna! You're awake!"
"Nera? Why am I in a bed?"
"We brought you here. Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
She looks like she's about to cry. Why would she be worried? All I did was practice the 'black gate' spell for a bit until becoming somewhat decent at it. Then I decided to rest.
"I don't get it."
"You locked yourself there for a week! And when I decided to check on you, I found you unconscious on the floor!"
"I wasn't unconscious, I was taking a nap."
"On the floor?!"
"There were no beds in there."
What was I supposed to do? Leave the library?
"And you have been sleeping for 24 hours! How is that a nap?!"
"I was tired, I had been practicing magic nonstop."
"For a week?! Without rest?!"
Nera is making her usual 'I cannot believe what I'm hearing' face. I guess it cannot be helped, being a princess, it's normal for her to be shocked when she learns what the schedule of a regular person is like.
"I tried to tell her that this was normal for you, but she didn't listen." Arana is also here, trying to hold back her laughter. "Just so you know, while you were having fun with your books, we've been working hard trying to turn this place into an actual country."
"Oh, sorry."
"Don't worry. It's not as if I was expecting much of you when I asked you to become a queen." Did she really need to word it like that? "But we're going to need you to show your face soon."
"Show my face?"
"You need to be introduced to the various demon lords of the wasteland." Explains Nera. "Xania already called for the leaders of the major tribes, we're expecting them to arrive in two days."
Oh, then I would not be able to do more research for the time being. That's a pity, I wanted to find out more about that place called 'the infinite abyss', or about that story about the 'day of water'...
Wait a minute, 'day of water'...
"We'll need to get you ready to cause a good impression."
There are times when I'm not paying attention to something important that should have been obvious, and then the realization hits me at an unexpected time.
'When the day of fire arrives, death and despair will rule.'
The second to last line of the prophecy... And the 'day of water' was when de goddess of water died...
"However, two days should be enough. As long as you don't get sidetracked with anything else."
"THE DAY OF FIRE IS THE DAY THE GOD OF FIRE DIES!!!"
"Eh?"
"VILDE IS GOING TO DIE!!!"
"Who?! What?!"
"Ara! I need to borrow Longleg again! I have to go back to the infernal caverns!"
"Sure, he's been getting so bored lately that the inside of my hat is filled with webs."
"Wait! You cannot go now! What about the meeting?!"
"I promise that I'll be back before two days."
"But we need to get you ready."
"Sorry, this is more important."
Maybe Vilde knows more about all of this. At the very least, I need to warn him. His death has been prophesied.
Luna: What's this? A chapter where I meet representatives of this kingdom which may potentially make this the first Kingdom building/management chapter? I MUST FLEE THE CITY!!!
"when de goddess of water" -> "when the goddess of water"
The full Black Gate spell might only be usable by the most skilled of mages, but it could probably be broken down into parts, simplified, and etched into tools for lesser mages.
The possibility of creating a "gate for only mana" opens up some interesting options. The biggest, I think, would be the power to create "wireless" summons. Currently, Luna's summons cannot go that far away from her since they need to stay connected, and I assume creating a world spanning network of mana-based puppet strings would require a lot of setup. There is also the possibility of dramatically increasing her mana capacity if she could figure out mana-only space compression or a mana-only storage spell, not that she really needs it.
Technically speaking, the death of Vilde is the only 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘥 way to fulfill the prophecy. Ultimately though, the prophecy just needs the 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵 of the world being flooded with fire element. If Luna is desperate to save her friend, she needs to figure out why the the world needs to be flooded with fire element, and ideally figure out some exotic experiment that can do it in place of his death. The ability to alter the elements opens up entire branches of new magic, so it would have plenty of use outside of just that.
There is another oddity in the chapter: Luna has three witches under her command who have a long and long experience of working with prophecies, why she did not bring them in for consultations on what and how to do it right?
Well, before leaving for the caves, it would be nice to make one receiving circle for moving.
@torvn77 Arana has already given the best advice that she can: Try to make the prophecy come true in the way she prefers it to. The witches have some idea of how prophecies work, but aren't much better at interpreting them than Luna. Probably doesn't help that "the World", or whatever entity creates prophecies, probably has a very different perception of reality than humans do.
The Witch of Darkness, consumed by her ego, completely misinterpreted the purpose of the prophecy and took it to mean that the World wants her to rule it. Even her sisters, who know that she's delusional, have mostly been playing along.
Furthermore, the witches are among the few that still remember that the entire world turned on the 5 gods at some point, but even Arana didn't know that Vilde was permitted to surrender. She didn't even know his name was Vilde, oddly enough.
@scout821
Either the google translator mistranslated my thoughts, or you are overcomplicating the question.
The moon, as an experienced expert (on magic), should understand best of all that when difficult questions arise, one should turn to those who have knowledge and experience, which means that the first thing she would do would be to talk about the "day of fire" with Arana, and then possibly the witch water. (By the way, I was confused, next to Luna there are not three witches, but two: Arana and water)
Thanks for chappy
~~
If anything being “fashionable late” would suit a ruler of the demon country so no biggie
… as long as it’s not too late and any of the demon lords starts making trouble 
.
Have a good day
~~
Not to mention the fact that Luna is going to be returning deeply stressed, with the knowledge that a good friend of hers is going to die and is just accepting it matter of factly. Her agitated terror aura will probably be better preparation than anything Arana could muster. Bonus points if she teleports back just as some demon lord that hasn't actually met her is agitating for rebellion against the "weak fleshborn elfling".
The queen of darkness grows in power, surrounded by countless books.
She shall soon depart, on a journey to spread terror through the world.
Demons and dragons shall bow before her might.
Heroes and kings will submit to her in fear.
As she commands her army, her hand shall cover the world in shadow.
But a silver knight, wielding a sword of light, will be able to oppose her.
When the day of fire arrives, death and despair will rule.
Unless the knight points her blade at the true enemy of the world.
Luna is smart. I didn't make the connection to the prophecy until she spelled it out. Just goes to show you need to keep prophecy in mind when relevant info happens. At least the day of fire isn't some extinction level meteor swarm or something. Wonder what promise Vilde made? Did he promise to remain in the infernal cavern to the first user of the dark world artifact? Depending on the exact wording of the promise, Luna may be able to cheese the system by just moving the entire room he lives in or something like that. At least that way he can have more visitors (though Luna leaving a gate spell will allow that too). It is also possible Vilde may die of old age instead of being murdered.
I mean, the day of fire could still be slightly catastrophic. If the day of water made everything wet and more importantly, made water magic miles easier, I can easily see arson taking place on the day of fire.
@Dradel Just means “don’t use magic” if you can’t control it. Well it can still be pretty bad if it occurs in tandem with something else that would require the use of magic like maybe invasion of demons (the void element things, not manaborn).
Thanks for the chapter.
An evil ruler torments the wasteland.
Corrupted by the belief that might makes right.
But the ruler's cruelty shall be punished.
When it brings down the wrath of the queen of darkness.
The extent of the crimes will be revealed to her.
And she will be forced to make a decision to kill.
The evil ruler will then know.
A terror unlike anything the world has ever seen.
Gonna put this mini prophecy here too since I put the main one down before. Prophecy is about halfway done I suppose depending on how you look at it?
"And I just remember that" -> "And I just remembered that"
Let's say that, to make a gate, one unit of mana is required, and that unit can move half a meter on its own. To move a full meter, I would need another two units to push the first one that extra half, a total of three, and if I want a meter and a half, I'll need six more units to push those three for a total of nine. Basically, for each half of a meter, the mana cost of the spell will triple.
Ah yes, the tyranny of the rocket equation. To get to where I need to go I need more fuel, but now I need more fuel (or a more efficient engine) to push the fuel I just added, etc..
Nera is making her usual 'I cannot believe what I'm hearing' face. I guess it cannot be helped, being a princess, it's normal for her to be shocked when she learns what the schedule of a regular person is like.
Luna will never understand that she herself is not a regularl person, right?
Maybe the reason why such a useful spell was left forgotten in this library is simply that nobody other than Zanon was able to pull it off.
If the "Black Gate" spell is so useful and difficult to use and its users are so rare, could this spell earn Luna a new title?
...maybe something like "Heiress of the Black Gate"?
Thanks for the chapter