The rest of the afternoon and evening went fast. Gilliam only had one more thing he wanted to test properly before they were ready to leave; multi-casting of the flight spell.
His Core and Boundary had improved a lot since he started training, and during his first round in the Fractured Lands he found out that he could fly indefinitely as his Boundary recharging was more than the flight spell’s drain.

“So... We should just try to fly around a little after you cast the spell on us?” Petal asked, seeming oddly interested in being able to fly when Gilliam explained how to control it.

“Pretty much, I just need to feel it for a short while to see if I can handle it or not.” Gilliam knew he could handle it, the question was more how long he could endure. If it ended up with a negative drain then he would run out of mana at some point. If it zeroed out or if he still had a positive recharge, they could theoretically fly forever.

Gilliam cast the flight spell he used before, it was relatively fast but not overly so. Probably not a bad idea to start somewhat calm so they don’t cream themselves against the walls. Though Angela probably had some hint of control, he was a bit uncertain about Petal.
The first flight spell was attached to himself, more to show than anything. Once he took off from the ground he realised that Savia became oddly ecstatic. Flying out of his hair she made a thing out of keeping up with him and hovering next to him at all times, having a super happy smile all the time. It made sense, flying was her thing and he was taking part in it, and now that she could fly properly again he could see why she was so amused.

Proceeding with the testing, he cast the spell on Angela. The spell circle attached to her chest as expected and the magic enveloped her. Slowly taking off from the ground she started halfway leaning in different directions and slowly moving towards them.

He wanted to test it on Angela before Petal, mainly because he had an idea that Angela could handle herself more in case something happened, so it was a test of sorts.
Once Angela had at least a few seconds under her belt he proceeded to do the same to Petal. The strange thing was that once the spell attached to her, Gilliam could feel a heavier pull of mana towards her than towards Angela. He let it flow for now but he wondered why this was. Was this some magic resistance that tied into how her race absorbed mana to grow stronger? 

Luckily it didn’t seem to affect the test, Petal slowly took off from the ground. In a pseudo panic mode, she fumbled towards Gilliam, grabbing hold of his hand once he offered it. Using a solid few minutes to get the feel for things before daring to let go, she followed in Angela’s footsteps and started flying about. However, she didn’t leave a safe fall height, seeming somewhat unsure about the whole flying thing even after being so executed before.

Being airborne himself, he made sure to move about a bit, mainly to make sure the drain was realistic. After all, it was less draining passively hovering than to move about.

Gilliam smiled widely after a solid half-hour of flying around. From what he could feel this ended up with a positive gain. He was still recharging even though they were all flying. Not much, it was barely trickling upwards, but the good thing was that this wouldn’t be a problem to maintain. At least as long as he didn’t need to recharge his Boundary fast, he could go on like this.

“I would like to do another experiment, I would like to keep the spell active until tomorrow, just to make sure I can sleep with this active. Just... Don’t fly high up in case it disables when I fall asleep.” He smiled a bit sheepishly, he had no idea about keeping spells active during sleep, but it could be a neat test if nothing else.
In theory, it should just work, the spell was cast so it was just the constant drain from him as the power source. He also didn’t know if there was a distance trigger, but that could be tested later,

Angela smiled oddly at this and refused to elaborate when asked. In the end, after testing more flying they retired to their rooms. Though the testing was simple it took most of the evening after they returned. Going their separate ways for the night they agreed to meet up in the mess hall as normal.

Getting some weird looks as he was now flying back to his room, he was already the target of stares before so this didn’t help. Especially with Petal’s lack of fine control.
Finally ending up at their room, Gilliam had some notes and self-imposed studies to consider, for one there was a blank slot in the coat he could fill with something, other things were improving the Star Lance and scheduling downtime to make more mana crystals.
The upcoming days were going to be important, so having possible schedules to go on was not a bad idea.

Once it came to actual bedtime, Gilliam realised what Angela might have been snickering about. The evening event with Petal, done while flying was not something he had pre-planned when he decided to keep this going. If nothing else it was going to be a test of keeping the spell running through split focus.


The morning gong was as abrupt as ever, he cursed himself for not considering just making a sound-dampening dome around his room, one of the large crystals could probably fuel it forever. He could have used the training in the application of more permanent spell circles, he always wanted to be able to make magical items but... the time just wasn’t there.
Once all this was over, he wanted to take up magic item creation, there were so many things he wanted to test.

But that was for later, now he had the plan to work through and the next step was to meet up for breakfast.
Getting ready while flying was oddly interesting, it proved the point that he could keep it going even when sleeping and when his focus was... elsewhere. It felt similar to yesterday meaning that all three were still flying.
Parts of him wanted to randomly cut the mana-feed to Angela, to see her reaction once they met. However he decided against it, she might be hardy and incredibly acrobatic but he didn’t want to risk sending her down the stairs or something.

Picking up Savia and floating to the mess hall got them a lot of stares like yesterday, not that weird if you thought about it but Gilliam still couldn’t get properly used to that kind of attention. Today Angela was already there with her food, somewhat sitting down.
“I’m going to dismiss the flying spell.” Gilliam stated to Petal, who was following him quite closely.

She nodded and moved down so she was kind of already standing, a mental action from Gilliam later and their full weight was now back on their legs. In Angela’s case, it was more on the chair as she was now properly sitting.
Having realised this, she looked around and spotted them, waving them over. Giving her a casual wave for now they went over there after getting their breakfast.

As they sat down, Angela had a mixed expression of annoyance and awe. “It seems you can keep the flying spell going while sleeping.”
Her tone hinted that she might be a bit jealous at the same time as she was kind of amazed.

Gilliam was happy that this worked, it meant that if worst came to worst they could remain flying indefinitely. A quick check of the food stored in the ring also showed that it remains fresh as the day it was put in there even though it had been stored for several days. As long as they brought enough food and drink, they’d be fine for quite some time.

“I suppose that after all the testing and whatnot, we’re ready as soon as we have the mana crystals for Alyssa, I’ll need a few days to do that comfortably. I also think I want a stock of different element gems, especially the blood kind. So I think I’m going to use some time on that.”
Gilliam was talking mainly to himself, almost as if he was listing things up so he wouldn’t forget.

“We can keep training with Kintas in the meantime.” Angela added, breaking Gilliam out of his thought bubble. “He seems like he’s bored anyway.”

The talk went into more detail after this, planning the coming days and considering the math on how many crystals Gilliam could make per day. According to his estimates, he was now able to make four of the large gems before his mana goes into uncomfortable levels, and he could do this thrice per day if he doesn’t need to use it for anything else. At perfect mana use, this would net him up to 12 crystals a day without feeling horrible.

They already had a lot of food and sustenance in the ring, looking at the cylindrical gem it was about 60% full, indicated by six of the ten possible disks lighting up in a slightly illuminating pinkish purple. There were some tools in there as well, like shovels, hammers and whatnot, and not counting his assortment of crystals it was amazing how practical this kind of storage was.

The next week was used for preparation. Gilliam used all his spare mana to make the crystals, the needed ten for the portal were done on the first day. He focused on the blood crystals first, as they were somewhat annoying to make compared to the others, and the restoration was vastly different from the other ones. When making a normal mana crystal, he just needed to wait or relax to recharge, but the blood crystals took his blood, he needed magical healing and sustenance to have his body make new blood. This meant that the day he focused on those he was only able to make three, the mana was used to heal and aid the blood refill, to use that term. But the other days were more easily fixed by just filling up on different elemental crystals.
The seventh day was used to make marble-sized crystals for misc usage, he was not sure what to use them for but if nothing else; they made good projectiles.

At the same time, he had decided on the last spell to put in the coat, the simple Barrier.
Though the barrier was fast enough to make normally, it was best used with unstructured magic due to how easy it was to form, however, the variant put in the coat was a structured barrier focused on sustained defence. He got some input from Jial to make it perfectly transparent, but the idea was that it was super fast to cast and would eat up energy when needed. That way it was much stronger than it appeared to be as it wouldn’t shatter as easily.

In the downtime, he joined Angela and Petal for some of their training, though as being out of mana also affected you physically, it usually didn’t go that well. Though the downtime did allow him to spend some more quality time with Savia and Petal. Savia mainly wanted to fly around with him, sort of show him her world like he’s somewhat showing her his. They spent a lot of time in forests. Petal was a bit stranger, even with the world as a possibility, she just wanted somewhere quiet and relax. Gilliam assumed it was somewhat related to her hectic and dangerous previous life, any calm moment must be surprisingly nice to her.

The week blasted past before they knew it. The school had fewer and fewer students present, most going home under orders or their wishes. With a demonic invasion becoming more and more active in the world, the military forces available collected in areas of higher noble and governing areas. The students capable of combat were probably going to be a part of their family’s protection or something like that. Gilliam got it, he did, though the school was becoming more and more barren it was a good thing to stick with family. Though this meant that the teachers that didn’t have anywhere specific to go were much more available for tutoring or aid. Taking advantage of this Gilliam got some more teaching by Jial, mainly about the smaller things like the cleaning spell, more practical spell-circle constructions and that kind of information. Savia was training more with Aeris and Irila and though some time was used for relaxation, most was spent on something practical and relevant to their upcoming event.

Gilliam several times wondered why he was doing this, this world was not ‘his’ world. It had become his world after he was somewhat taken from his own, but if this Alyssa was able to traverse worlds, was she able to send him back to his modern world?
Was this something he even wanted? He had considered the thought of going back several times but... Could Savia and Petal come with him? Would magic work or would he just become a random guy again?
He wanted to keep the magic, no doubt, same with Savia, and Petal. But did he want to stay in this world or did he want to return to the modern one? Parts of him couldn’t decide but... If nothing else, this world is what gave him magic, Savia, and Petal. It was the world that he was currently living in, not knowing if he could even return to the modern world it was a problematic thing to even consider.
Though not that long, he had bonded with both Savia and Petal. To Angela, Kintas, Jial and Ghaos as well but to a slighter lesser degree due to logical reasons.

In the end, he realised that no matter what, he needed to stop this invasion regardless. If he was stuck in this world he didn’t want it to become a warzone, and if he was able to go back; well, he needed to stop this regardless to be able to find out. He wanted to give Petal’s people the possibility of a good life like she seemed to have. An island or some land would possibly be possible as a reward, so this could be a possibility.

On the morning of the eighth day, everyone gathered in the mess hall. The energy was strange, a mix of over-the-top eagerness, but also a strange silence throughout the whole room. After eating everyone handled a final preparation. Angela wrote a letter to her father just in case and had gotten herself an armour set. Petal had gotten some metal-enforced leather armour adjusted to her slightly different-than-human body proportions.

In the end, they were finally ready.

Savia had now been in Aestu, so she could take them there without Irila or Aeris to aid them. Which was a good thing as both of them had left a few days ago to spend time with someone else. The familiar gathering of energy and blinding light later, they were standing close to the Door-to-Door Transport company.

Gilliam opened the door and entered, it was roughly midday so they should be open.
“Hello, welcome to the- Oh, it’s you! Welcome back” The young blonde receptionist greeted them, and seemed to remember them. Not surprisingly given the less-than-common people in Gilliam’s group. Though she seemed less surprised as well, perhaps she was aware of them returning and was prepared for the demon this round.

“Yes, we’d like to speak with Alyssa if possible?” Gilliam had a questioning tone, not knowing if she was in or not

“Yes, she said you’d be coming back.” Getting up from her desk she knocked on the door and popped her head into the room when Alyssa’s voice replied.
“Mr Gibson and his group are here.”

Leaving the door open she turned around. “She’ll see you now.”

As Gilliam nodded and moved for the door, the receptionist went back to her desk. Everyone entered to a surprisingly interested face, closing the door behind them she sat back in her chair.
“So, you finally managed to put together the ten crystals?” Alyssa commented on the massive task of creating ten large crystals.

“My Lord created those in a day, the rest of the time was used for preparations.” Petal chimed in, almost sounding personally insulted.
Gilliam took a strange note of this, she didn’t seem to have reacted like that to smaller comments before, it was almost like she wanted to put Gilliam on some pedestal.

“Ten of those in one day?” Alyssa was surprised, understandably so. Just considering Ghaos’ reaction, considering he was a specialist, most people would react with surprise as well.

“Anyway, I assume the deal is still on?” Gilliam wanted to confirm before anything more happened. Although it was mainly a way to get back on the needed topic. He was not here for small talk.

“Yes, absolutely. Put the crystals in my desk and I’ll get started.” She seemed ready, and given that she looked towards a rather empty wall, it was not the first time she had made a portal in her office.

Gilliam did as told, taking out ten of the fist-sized Aether orbs and placing them on her desk, there was no proper room for them so they sort of ended up in a pile of high-explosive spheres.
Alyssa failed to hold back a look of surprise once all ten orbs were there. Given the expected cost of these, this was nothing short of a fortune.

Alyssa started focusing, and as she did a small haze of purple, pink, blue and yellow energetic smoke started gathering in an area in front of her. It grew in size as the seconds ticked, forming a roughly rounded doorway shape. She took one of the crystals in her hands, it disintegrated into the same coloured smoke almost instantly, the ongoing spell consumed the new smoke and added it to the swirling mess of colours in front of them.
This was done again, and again, and again until the last crystal was picked up. The swirling field of energy had grown denser and denser, to the point that even people without a magic sense could feel that something was going on there.
Once the last crystal had joined the dense, swirling energy field, Alyssa made a motion of her fists opening from on top of each other, in tandem with this an almost mechanical tearing sound came from the swirling energy as in the eye of the magical storm a clear area formed. As this clear area increased in size the group could see a rocky desert through it, like the magical doorway this was, it opened up into another world.

Alyssa looked fatigued beyond belief, she looked like she could pass out at any moment. The portal opened slowly to a bit larger than a grown man, gritting her teeth together she pushed out the words. “Now, go.”

Realising that this was not an easy task, even when the energy was provided for you, Gilliam didn’t want to risk it failing now. Parts of him wanted to stall for time, hoping that it failed so he didn’t have to go through, but the other parts of him overshadowed this part and had him act. As soon as Alyssa’s order was given, he stepped towards the portal and went through it without a second thought, Savia sitting on his head came along for the ride.
Petal and Alyssa followed in tow, the portal was only open for a few seconds before everyone had walked through, and a relieved grunt from Alyssa marked the end of her focus.

“Good luck!” She shouted through the still-open portal before the opening imploded on itself like a rock in a pond. A strong puff of energetic smoke was all that remained of the portal as it faded into nothing.

The group had a look around them. The desert heat, the lack of any humidity, the strange sunless and perpetually sandy air. They were absolutely in the correct place.
Angela looked uncomfortable, Savia just felt interested, and Petal looked like she was determined more than anything. Seeing her walking on the sand with her hooved legs had it all put more into context, it seemed that the larger surface area of the hoof made walking on it easier than for the rest of them.
Gilliam had a mix of feelings, he didn’t want to be here more than he had to.

“Right... Let’s go up before anything else.” Casting the flight spell on himself, followed by the same casting on the others, they found themselves flying after only a few seconds.
Gilliam grabbed hold of Savia as he aimed upwards at full speed, they needed to get some height and get a proper eye on things before they could take the next step.

“Err... Gilliam... is that what I think it is?” Angela hesitantly asked as they flew upwards at max speed, pointing in the rough direction of the temple where he first woke up in this world.