Chapter 4377: First Magic Rune (Part 1)

It took the two women a few minutes to separate the world energy into its elemental components as it entered their bodies. Friya had already experienced a similar phenomenon on the day she had achieved the violet, and so had Faluel.

The difference between them was that while the Hydra absorbed the world energy through her noses, broke it down into its components in her core, and then channeled the elements into her heads, Friya could directly absorb and split the world energy through the colored streaks in her hair.

It resembled what the evolved humans did with their wings, but unlike them, Friya lacked the means to release the elemental energy. The six colored streaks only supported the absorption process and acted as a filter.

After that, Faluel and Friya turned the pristine white of the crystals they held in their hands into a prismatic vortex. Yet they noticed that their vortexes’ colors were less radiant and defined than Tezka’s.

"Congratulations. You have completed the first step." The Suneater clapped his hands. "Do you want to move on to the second step now or would you like to rest a bit first?"

"Neither." Friya replied. "I want to take my time getting accustomed to this technique. Who knows, maybe I might even be able to discover the second step on my own."

"What about you, Faluel?" He asked.

"I’m with her on this." The Hydra said. "I don’t care if I fail, but accepting your help again without even trying would leave a bitter taste in my mouths."

"Go on, then. Be my guests." Tezka closed his eyes and resumed circulating his life forces.

The two women worked until each elemental stream was pure and shone with a radiance comparable to what Tezka had demonstrated. The joy from their achievement was ruined only by the realization they had no idea what to do next.

’At the beginning of our lessons, Tezka mixed the elements to obtain the purple of dimensional magic, yet that’s something he told us to avoid during the first step. What would happen if I mixed the clear elemental streams intentionally?’

The answer to her question became apparent when Friya’s prismatic vortex turned turbid gray as soon as she forced the six streams to make contact. The elements were now mixed but not harmonized.

Not only was the world energy available much weaker than the corresponding white crystal, but Friya couldn’t detect the single elements anymore. They were everywhere and nowhere, refusing to split into streams until she released her hold on them.

The mana crystal cleared up into a pristine white that obeyed her will, allowing her to conjure the prismatic vortex again. Friya tried many approaches to fuse the different elements into the purple of dimensional magic, but to no avail.

All she obtained were different shades of turbid gray. Faluel fared no better, but instead of looking for more theories to test, she focused on analyzing her failures.

’We are missing a key point. The path that brought us so far goes no further. We need to search for another path.’ She thought. ’The question is, what kind of path am I looking for?

’Mixing the different elemental energies is pointless. Even if I did it to perfection, the best I would achieve is pristine white. Working so hard to go back to square one can’t be the right answer, which means I’m asking myself the wrong question.’

"I’m ready to learn about the second step, Master Tezka." The term elder now failed to describe Faluel’s renewed respect for the Suneater. "Please, just give me five minutes to catch my breath and a quick snack."

"Same here." There were a few more things Friya would have liked to try, but she could already tell they would fail.

"Then call me in five minutes." Tezka replied without opening his eyes or altering his breathing rhythm. "Good job recognizing your limits, Faluel. Being thorough and being stubborn are two different things."

Friya blushed a little at those words but said nothing, certain that the Fylgja had perceived her embarrassment even with his eyes closed.

"This is the second and final part to craft a dimensional crystal." Tezka said after the two women were done resting. "As you probably suspect, splitting and amplifying the elemental aspects of the world energy is not enough.

"They must be combined, not mixed, to conjure the power of dimensional magic. The distinction between the two is very important. Mixing is this." The swirling prismatic vortex turned turbid gray as had it happened to Friya and Faluel until that moment.

"Do it however you want, the final result will always be the same. This, instead, is what combining the elements looks like." The blue and red streams released two beams of light that formed a small cloud above the crystal.

"The white you see is not an element. It’s all the elements. Once you break the white into its components, you can achieve most natural phenomena, like this." A flash of the crystal’s yellow stream and small arcs of electricity appeared across the cloud.

"Or this." The orange and red streams turned a small patch of rocky ground into bubbling lava. "Yet no matter what you do, you have split what was one into six. Taken individually, the elements are weaker, not stronger than those hidden inside the white color."

The Suneater said, and they nodded for him to continue.

"To manifest their full power again, the elements need your guidance. You must weave them together like you would to conjure one of your spells, but this time you have to do it within the confines of the crystals.

"Dimensional and gravity magic are not part of the world energy, but they are formed by the world energy. They are both natural forces that you observe every day whenever something falls towards the ground or follows a trajectory.

"A dimensional crystal is nothing but a white crystal whose energy has been split and woven together into something much more complex. Something that by using all six elements can tap into the world energy’s true strength."

A wave of Tezka’s crystal opened a small dimensional fissure at first, and then reversed gravity just enough to make him and his apprentices float a few centimeters off the ground.

"If we weave the elements into a spell as you said, won’t we end up with the equivalent of a Spirit Artifact?" Friya asked. "Something that can perform a single enchantment that can never be changed?"

"An excellent question, kid." The Suneater nodded. "The answer is yes, you would, but only if you cast the complete spell inside the crystal like the Awakened do to obtain their Spirit Artifacts.

"The second step of our lessons, however, is much more complex than that. As I said, dimensional magic is a force of nature, and as such it has its own first magic rune."

"What?" The two women asked as their eyes went wide and their mouths fell open.

"You heard me." Tezka replied. "Everyone learns dimensional magic from its tier four and five, so they never wonder what happens to the tiers from one to three. Those lower tiers are actually what you call gravity magic."

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