Chapter 26: Resonant Threat

The explosion of Living Mana onto the magical scene influenced a great deal of research. A key area was souls. Especially manasouls. Just what sort of soul did Living Mana possess?

Was it a singular, all-encompassing soul? Was it an unprecedented amalgamation of an uncountable number of spirits? If nothing else, it redefined the understanding of souls.

Take the case of the immediate instant after an arm has been cut off a man. Through rigorous and often invasive experimentation, it has been proven that the man’s soul is now severed along with his limb. The arm possesses a sliver of his spirit, due to how indispensably elemental the arm’s existence is to the man.

This discovery led to a slightly different but no less dangerous direction of research—that a being broken into pieces does not necessarily need to be dead. And in fact, said being may even elevate itself through that method, just as Living Mana proved to be capable of.

Excerpt from Theories of Living Mana, Vol. III

Chapter 17: Fallout

Solander V.

Viren sometimes had a hard time looking at silver linings. In this case though, with danger so imminent, he was very glad for the silver linings presented by whatever madness was going on inside the Trial Zone.

Everyone was now looking at the screens with a desperate need to see more and understand what was going on. Well, everyone who wasn’t an academy official in charge of the Trials. Those ones were busy arguing about manipulating the Trial Zone from the outside, trying to figure out what had gone wrong and how.

Their heated debate on how best to handle the issue had drawn a lot of eyes. Viren couldn’t quite catch their words as they were too far away. He got the general idea, though.

Some of them were proposing that they end the Trials right away before anything untoward happened. The rest were pointing out that it was a fruitless exercise as the trialists weren’t going to come to any serious harm. This was proven by the candidates who had been ejected from the Trial Zone moments ago. They were shaken mentally, but otherwise fine.

“I can’t see anything,” one of the older boys beside Viren said, squinting at the screen that was supposed to have been showing them everything going on. “Is it broken?”

“There’s something wrong inside, dolt,” said another older student. “They’re trying to figure what it is and how to fix it and all that.”

“Why’s that affecting the screens, though?”

“It’s not! The screens look broken and blurry because there’s a magical blizzard obscuring everything. I don’t think they expected it to be this strong. Heard a rumour some kind of foreign interference is making it all go crazy. Foreign magic…”

The first one clearly had his priorities straight. “What in all the Realms is a blizzard?”

They were so engrossed by what was going on in the screen that they had completely forgotten that they were supposed to keep a very close eye on Viren.

Foreign magic. Did they mean Ryland? Was his presence somehow distorting the challenges that the High Academs had strung up? It sounded perfectly plausible to Viren, so he kept his expression clear and his mouth shut.

Besides, it wasn’t like he could see much of anything through the screens anyway. The storm within the Reality Demesne really had grown tremendously powerful.

Viren looked around again. People all around were staring at the screens, trying to make something out on whatever madness had started within the Trial Zone. Several were now going up to the officials to demand answers. Viren stared at his own. It didn’t really matter what the cause of all this was.

The real question was what exactly Ryland would do about it.

Ryland believed his simple plan was the best step forward they could take. “Unless,” he said to the others. “You believe you have a better idea.”

None of them spoke up at first. Alendra glared at the ripping storm beyond their barriers, Kendren remained mute, and while Sint was clearly thinking going by the look on her face, she couldn’t come up with a better alternative.

“You’re right,” Sint said. “We need to recover the fenceposts. The Trial’s goal was staying within the Designated Area until the timer runs out. If we can’t get back inside, we’ll be eliminated.”

“Well, I think this whole thing is insane,” Alendra said. “This has to be some sort of mistake. I know the academy wouldn’t want just anybody joining the graduate student body, but this is going way overboard, don’t you think?”

“We don’t have any evidence to work with here, and there hasn’t been any interruptions from outside. What does that make you think?”

“It makes me think that this insanity is evidence enough!”

Alendra had nearly screamed that last bit out. She was clearly worked up about the whole situation, and Ryland found he couldn’t really blame her. This was a terribly dramatic increase in difficulty.

Then he looked down.

Ah, right. They were so far up above their original location. So high up. No wonder Alendra was having difficulty keeping her head straight.

Which was why he had decided to get to the heart of the matter. It was no longer just Fate messing with Ryland. The fundamental working of this entire dome of Living Mana was compromised for one reason or another. Since the administration hadn’t yet stepped in—and it was unnecessary, since no one was in fatal danger—the candidates needed to step up.

“Mind lowering your spell’s intensity?” Sint asked Alendra. “Or we’re going to fall.”

“We’ll freeze to death,” Alendra said. “Although, that might still be better than falling…” She glared at Ryland. “I don’t want to go through those rents again.”

“It gets easier the more often you do it,” Ryland said.

“My point stands!”

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She did as Sint requested, though. But since that raised the chill they were experiencing, Ryland raised the intensity of Oneself World a good deal, making sure they remained more or less unaffected by the terrible weather.

Which made the ice under their feet crack. Right. They had little time on their current footing before they fell into the endless avalanche.

A thundering bolt of ice quickly reminded them of their current circumstances.

“We don’t have much time anyway,” Kendren said. “The clock is ticking.”

Alendra cursed. “Surely, this merits an increase in the allotted time to get inside the Designated Area.”

A mutter and a brief flash on his right made Ryland turn around.

“Um, you were saying something about the source, right?” Kendren said slowly.

“Yes,” Ryland said. “Stopping the source is the only way we’ll get through this.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you just… capture a picture of it with your [Snapshot]?”

“Yes. Well, not exactly. I needed to use a slightly different spell, but it did have the same Soul Glyph. Anyway, my point is that I think I found what you’re looking for. Except…”

Ryland thought about asking for clarification, but then, Kendren’s picture materialized in the air in front of them. It was a holographic image of something he had clearly captured at a far distance.

A monstrous being shaped like a mountain, sporting a volcanic maw and the tail of a glacier. Both Sint and Alendra gasped at the three-dimensional image. Even in the still image, it was exuding an aura of power, throwing out the lightning-flecked blizzard that was ripping apart everything within the Reality Demesne.