“Are you sure that this will work, Mister Song?” The blonde kitsune from the meeting asked, standing within an empty laboratory with another man. This figure, with black hair and a long, full tail, wore a tight-fitting blue shirt and black jeans. His eyes contained a trace of wisdom, and the smile on his face was unmistakable.

While many people would not realize this man’s identity, he was in fact one of the foremost leaders in the field of energy research. Among the many that had applied to join James as an assistant, he was one of those that had been excluded at the final stage.

He admitted that James had a remarkable knowledge about energy, but he could not help feeling bitter in his heart. What made his energy weaker than those that had been selected? He heard the assessment of each of them, and while he might not have been able to match against the enchantment transferring energy or the twins, he should have easily surpassed the lycan and the golem!

“Don’t worry, Lady River. According to my calculations, this energy should be able to bypass the space lock he has placed around the castle by directly shifting through a dimensional boundary. Have you prepared the materials I asked for?”

The noblewoman, Lady River, nodded her head. “They’re in the closet. I purchased them directly from the Caravan, so there should be no mistake. Hopefully, your research is worth the tokens.”

“I assure you, I’ve been very thorough in my calculations.” He said, moving over to the closet. Upon opening it, he found a series of boxes, and began to inspect the contents of each. “Blood of a lesser fire dragon. Twenty icebloom stems. A high purity power stone, ten kilograms. Where is the refined dimensium?”

Lady River blinked for a moment, before a look of realization dawned on her face. “Sorry, I stored that separately. Just a moment.” After saying that, she left the basement, allowing him to move the boxes out of the closet.

By the time she returned, carrying a small, ornate chest, she was able to see the work that the man had done while she was gone. The stone floor of her basement had been carved with concentric layers of arcane sigils. The power stones had been divided, placed at equal points around the outer circle. Meanwhile, the dragon’s blood was being mixed with the ground stems and poured in the innermost circle.

When he saw the chest in her hands, a joyful smile appeared on his face. “Excellent! With this, we have everything that we need.”

“Is it really necessary to have all of these items?” Lady River asked doubtfully, passing the chest to the scholar. “Shouldn’t an energy fusion be performed with energy, not tangible items?”

“For a normal fusion, you’re correct.” The man said, nodding his head. “However, we are performing anything but a normal fusion. The energy radiating from dimensium shall serve as the base, due to its unique property of directly influencing dimensional boundaries. Then, we direct that energy through a number of catalysts to cause it to mutate.”

“Once we have the mutated dimensional energy, we can combine it with other energies to create a stable core.” Lady River was not one that had studied deeply into this subject, but she felt as if the man’s words made sense.

“Very well. What more do you need from me to make this work?” She couldn’t be sure that her rivals weren’t attempting their own methods to break through the blockade that James had erected. While he made it very clear that they were not to touch the people he cared about, he had also directly said that anyone who was truly able to bypass his power deserved to be king.

“Just some quiet. You can stand on the side and observe, but please do not let any of your energy leak out. This is going to be a very delicate process.” While Lady River might not have enjoyed his tone, she knew better than to chastise him for it at this moment. Swallowing her pride, she moved over to stand at the far corner of the room.

As she leaned against the wall, she watched him remove the silver bar from the chest, which he tossed to the nearby table. Afterwards, his hand was wrapped in a deep red light. “Simply recultivating elemental ki or refining a bit of spiritual energy into mana, and he thinks that’s good?” The scholar scoffed, manipulating the soft metal as if it were putty in his hands.

This was the energy that he had personally used to try and earn himself a spot in James’s team. An energy mixed from natural energy, ki, and a bit of mana that allowed him to mold metal into any shape he wanted. Whether it was refining it, or forging an item on the spot, his energy was a blacksmith’s dream.

As he thought about that, the metal in his hands formed a wide, thin ring. This ring was placed within the circles at his feet, just along the edge of the inner circle filled with the dragon’s blood. “Now… let’s begin.”

Mister Song took a step back, before kneeling on the ground and placing his hand on the outermost circle. “Begin refinement. Using the inherently fierce ki of the fire dragons, cooled by the natural power of the icebloom, dimensional energy distorts into a form capable of being directed through the magic circuit.”

The pool of dragon’s blood within the center of the circle seemed to tremble, the red fading away from its surface to be replaced with a pure silver. This silver then began to move, tracing along the rings of the concentric spell diagrams and approaching closer to the outer edge.

Once it arrived at the eight divided power stones, the entire surface began to shine with silver light. Red returned to the blood, rushing throughout the diagram as if the silver was being absorbed into the stones. And in fact, that was what was happening, with the power stones themselves taking on a silver hue.

As soon as the last of the mutated energy had been absorbed into the power stones, the scholar stood, raising one hand. The ground shook, and eight pillars of stone rose from the floor. Each of these pillars held one of the power stone fragments, and the scholar slowly extended his hand forward.

“Gather, energy of the world. Twist within the confines of space and converge on the four cardinal points. Burst forth, my spirit, and seep into the ordinal points.” Under his command, four streams of green light slipped into four crystals placed along the cardinal directions. Meanwhile, a silver gas seeped out of his body, a small tinge of pain flashing across his face.

He controlled this energy to enter the power stones along the ordinal directions. Afterwards, the eight stones began to glow, lines of light extending between them to form an unbroken ring. Seeing this, the man was clearly ecstatic. This would be his masterpiece, something that would prove himself against even the great researcher.

“With my mind as the foundation, form the core of energy.” He muttered to himself, sending blue streams of light through the air. These streams of light converged in the form of a sphere at the center of the ring.

Finally, as if sensing the sphere of mana, the ring of light began to contract. It left the power stones, returning them to their original dull purple, and fully inserted itself into the sphere. Mister Song held his focus, having calculated every unit of energy that he was using for this fusion, and confident in his own abilities.

After the mana sphere absorbed the ring of light, it began to contract as well while moving towards the man that had created it. Its surface changed, becoming a deep yellow with interwoven black and silver streams. When the sphere reached him, he immediately absorbed it into his body, believing himself to have succeeded.

In truth, this energy he was creating functioned similarly to the portals manufactured on Fyor or those that connected the various worlds to the internet, with one clear difference. Each of those portals required two identical devices, one at both the entrance and exit. This energy, however, would potentially allow him to directly open a dimensional portal to a location of his choosing.

At least, that was the idea. To this day, he still did not understand why he had been rejected from joining James’s research team. Surely, his energy was great enough to meet the standard, right? Unfortunately, there was a flaw to the energy that he wasn’t aware of.

It was true that he was able to forge items with his bare hands using this energy. He could sharpen metal into a thin blade, or even create pathways for ki. He could place his hand on a heavy shield, and make it wrap around its own wielder.

However, there would always be a trace of his energy left behind, polluting the item after he was done manipulating it. While this would not interfere much with normal enhancements, this energy pollution was incredibly dangerous when performing more delicate procedures.

Smiling to himself, Mister Song extended his hand, intending to rip open the void and create a portal directly to the palace at Ashtanu. And it was true, he did indeed rip open the void under the expectant gaze of Lady River. Unfortunately, the void then immediately wrapped around his own body, causing him to vanish from the spot.

Mister Song’s smile froze as he felt the energy twitch out of his control for only the briefest moment. He knew that there was something wrong, even before it had ‘betrayed’ him fully. Unfortunately, it was already too late to act.

By the time he pulled his hand back, he was no longer standing within the basement of a noblewoman’s manor. Instead, he was standing within a vast pasture, seeing rushing waterfalls in the distance. It only took a moment to realize that he had gone far beyond his initial estimates. Not only was he not in Ashtanu… he could not sense any ambient mana in the air.

The ground shook moments before a thunderous roar entered his ear. Turning around, Mister Song saw a towering beast hunched over and walking in his direction. Its head was as large as a car, its teeth long and sharp. Its skin was smooth like a reptile, but was thick and muscular.

As his astonishment turned to anxiety, the energy within him gave another pulse. It took him a moment to realize that the ground beneath his feet had vanished, leaving him to fall through the air. Beneath himself, he could see a green cloud of gases that extended as far as he could see. From the jaws of death, he had been delivered above a cloud of what could very well be toxic gas…

He closed his eyes, trying to brace himself, only to land abruptly with a grunt. Sand scattered around his body as his eyes opened, revealing a vast desert. As he extended his senses, he could feel ambient mana in the air at last. However… it felt wrong. The mana itself seemed to be twisted in a way that he was unfamiliar with.

As much as he hated to admit it, it was quite clear that he was still not home…

“Well… that’s interesting.” I muttered, looking off to a screen that had appeared at my side. There were notifications that a new world had been opened up, and then closed just as quickly, so I had naturally become curious. If it was just exploring new dimensions, then that was something that Sher Dien and Desbar did quite regularly.

However, they rarely had issues so quickly that caused their expedition team to perish after only seconds. And without something like that, the world would not instantly close. So, I watched back, seeing what had happened.

Looking over his ritual, I couldn’t help but wonder. If dimensium’s energy can be manipulated like this, even having to go through a process first… doesn’t that mean that it should be possible to create it as an energy fusion? Of course, even if I speculated that, I had no way of knowing what would be needed to create it. And given that the metong are from a dimensium-rich world, it’s extremely unlikely to be an energy they would have ever needed to manufacture.

While I did have the desire to help this man, or at least stop him long enough that I could take a look at the worlds that he was opening, it was out of my hands. Unless I paused time, he would have left a world before I had the chance to take a good look. Moreover… these worlds would not have fairy rings, since they weren’t being connected to with that method. So even if there was something interesting, it would be troublesome to claim it.

Maybe if I see something I really like, I can place a dungeon there to secure the world for later?