So controlling the ‘upgraded’ companion bond is similar to controlling the mind bond, except you can’t use control over the magic itself as a crutch. In other words, figuring out how to control it without that previous experience would be difficult, to say the least. On the other hand, without mind magic, I can’t imagine the companion bond strengthening so rapidly.

Could you intentionally form and then strengthen it? Well, the first part is pretty easy, if it’s actually formed when the [System] acknowledges you to have a beast companion. On that note, could it work in other configurations? Animal-animal? Human-human? For that matter, it would be foolish to think we’re at the highest ‘level’, could it be strengthened to the point where you’re effectively a hivemind or connected consciousness?

I guess that’s enough morning philosophising, so let’s grab my stuff and check out, then go back to the other side and join up with Leda. The connection is… muted while we’re on different sides of the portal. Or maybe it’s because of the much lower mana density in our world? Probably a bit of both, We’ll find out when we go back here.

For now I didn’t want us to bother the icelandic… whoever is in charge of the portal, but I wanted a proper bed to sleep in, and they were willing to let me out (and more importantly, back in afterwards). Leda stayed, of course, since she’s a bit more bulky than me. She’d be sleeping outside anyway, so she said it didn’t matter which world that was in.

I land across the road from the grove with the portal, to walk the last hundred or so meters. Well, what’s left of the grove - They’ve cut down all the trees in a roughly twenty meter radius around it, as well as a path to the road. Well, a road to the road, really, judging by the wheel tracks and parked vehicles.

They seem a lot more relaxed than even the police in the US, but the freshly spawned bureaucracy means I have to fill out a form, fresh out of the printer, and present my passport in order to be allowed through.

The little base they’ve set up is interesting, though. There’s several tents, and they seem to be assembling one of those container-buildings a short stone’s throw away from the portal, which a bunch of people are gathered around. I’m not sure if pre-Upheaval sensor equipment will get them any useful data, though.

Several vehicles come and go, carrying stuff to build the base, carrying waste and trees away, and whatnot, but the most interesting vehicles to me is the snowmobiles and their sleds. They are small enough to get through the portal, and judging by the amount of trees they’re carrying back, they’re setting up base mirroring this one on the other side.

After not too long I get permission, and I don’t even need to show the permission slip for the guard to wave me past.

“Oh, Lars has finished his paperwork.” One of the scientists say as they notice me. “Do you have a moment?”

“Sure.”

“As you can see, we’re studying this portal, or what it is, -Oh, move out of the way for the snowmobile- but it has us stumped. We’re scientists, not magicians. Is it correct that you have a form of spacetime magic?”

“I have [Spatial Magic] and [Temporal Magic]…?”

“Can you make any sense of the portal?”

“Just immediately? It feels weird. But I haven’t stopped to study it, was planning to do that after exploring the other side for a day or two. What is it that you need to know?”

“We want to control it, of course. Right now we don’t know how it works, and for all we know it could stop working at any moment. We’d like to make it bigger, too.”

“Oh yeah, I entertained the thought of it shutting behind me, but between my magic and being able to fly I reckon I’d be able to survive on the other side, if nothing else. With Leda at my side, even moreso. Want me to take a closer look?”

They look at each other, and the apparent leader just nods.

“All right, please step away from it.” I say, stepping through to the other side to get that odd feeling. Hmm. Well, I better do this from Earth’s side, so that I can share what I learn even if it closes.

I spread my mana in a rough cylinder around the two trees forming the tall portal, and start by just getting a feel for the local mana and magic - there is definitely some kind of magic in the portal, but I don’t recognize it. No, wait, I do recognize it. It’s pretty similar to the entrance to the Water Temple.

Huh. Well, it makes more sense for that to be a portal than actually being placed in our world, since it would jut out of the ground. This just strengthens that hypothesis. Hm, I’m gonna want a focus for this, and the floater ‘lens’ should work.

Some assembly required, hah! I pull it out of my bag, and in its dormant state it looks like a darkish mana crystal with three metal rings around it. One around the center, and two smaller offset above and below that one, all held in place with string. In addition, there’s two bits of parenthesis-shaped metal, and a heavily imbued and inscribed wooden hoop to go around the rest.

I hover the crystal above my hand, and once I channel mana into it, it picks up the metallic bits, held in place by invisible, magical threads to the smaller rings. The crystal starts to softly glow as it picks up the hoop, which slowly spins in place, some of the inscriptions lighting up in several colors at once, including some the human eye can’t see and one only felt by mana perception.

Of course, it’s stupidly complex for what it does, but damn if it isn’t cool, and it was a good learning experience anyway. The specific design makes certain spells more effective than for any other focus, or at least that would be the case if I didn’t have to sacrifice base efficiency for that complexity.

Oh well, it’s not like I need the extra boost, and also, rule of cool. I make my mana form a box of suitably open space and bend it. The otherwise invisible box look blurry and fuzzy and hurts a bit to look at, but when I take one step into it and put my foot down on the other side, casually following up with the other foot, I suddenly stand a full three meters from where I started, where the focus still remains.

“This is about the most complex thing I can do. Anyone want to try stepping through?”

“I do!”

I nod. “It’s probably going to be uncomfortable, and if you get queasy easily, you might want to refrain, or just stick an arm in. Oh, and only go lengthwise like I did, the spatial gradient is a lot sharper along the short side.”

Impressively, almost all of them try sticking a hand in, though only about half try the seven-mile step. Err, seven-meter step? It’s not even that long. No matter. Once they’re done I revert the area and cover the portal with mana again.

“So what I do here is, as far as I understand it, bend space. The box looks to be a few meters long from the outside, but as you noticed, the actual distance on the inside is a lot shorter. As for the portal, it’s nothing like that.”

“There’s a… place, the closest word which makes sense to me is ‘dungeon’, but that makes it sound like there’s monsters in there or something. Anyway, we call it the Water Temple, and the entrance to it feels similar, though not the same. For one, that portal fully blocks mana from passing through, where this one just… slows it down?”

“Anyway, both of these portal are, as far as I can tell, wormholes. Instead of bending space, it connects two places.” And now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if the Water temple is in the same world as the other side here, and really want to find what’s on the other side of that big door.

“I can say with near certainty that I can’t replicate the portals in the nearest future, but… You know how when the trees move, the portal moves with them?”

“Well,” I clap the tree on our side. “This tree is is the same as this one.” I reach through and clap the one on the other side.

“The portal cuts to the very center of the trees, meaning it essentially loops in on itself. In fact, now that I look closer… yeah, it’s all one tree. There’s root trunk or something connecting them at the bottom.”

“As for the top, the tree extends the magic there.” I push the treetops together. “Hmm, yeah, more efficient if it forms a full closed loop. So my impression as an apparently-expert is that if you consider everything as one loop, you should have enough circumference to drive a truck through, if you make the loop fatter at the middle and make a ramp up there.”

The looks they give each other, and that one guy low-key facepalming tells me they didn’t even think of that, but they quickly recover and start discussing how to achieve that as easily as possible with the least drawbacks.

Using a rope to pull the trees to the side is one of the first ideas, but the valid concern that this will strain the trees come up immediately.

“Hey, uh, I can shape wood, you know. If it’s just making it bulge a little towards the middle then it should be fast and not a danger to the trees.”

And so it was.

“Didn’t you say they are connected underground? Could you make it wider at the bottom by putting more of them underground?”

I raise a finger and open my mouth to tell him why that’s a bad idea, but then lower it. “Yes. Yes I can.”

I do so slowly and carefully, and while I work Leda lands nearby (on the other side) and comes up with her puppet, looking at what I’m doing with interest.

“Okay, done.” I say, and step through.

“Leda, good timing, these guys want to learn more about the portal. Link up with me and help study it, will ya?”

“Can I get to use the focus?”

“Uh, I don’t think that will really help.”

“But I want to look cool, too!”

“Oh, okay then.”

Leda’s mana descends on the area like heavy air, and I hear someone gasp. Through a mind bond I share what I’ve done and show her just a hint of a stray thought about the Water Temple.

“It feels a lot like the one in that other place, but it’s different!”

I just nod and let her continue. I’ll share my thoughts after she’s gotten her first impressions.

“I don’t know what this tree is called, but it’s really weird. It’s not magic and it’s not like those kung fu people, but it’s a little bit like both of them at the same time.”

Huh, yeah, I guess she’s right. Well, there are some people who hypothesize they’re just two sides of the same coin. But perhaps they’re both derived from something else? Food for thought, I guess.

“I don’t know, it’s just weird. Spatial magic doesn’t do that, it just bends space, but it’s like the tree mushes two places on top of each other.”

She withdraws her mana, and the labcoats (in behaviour, they’re all wearing fairly thick clothers) breathe out, relieved. “Is she some kinda monster?”

“One, the proper terminology is beast or ‘magical beast’ if you want to be precise, monsters are hostile to people, two, her mana is definitely monstrous, figuratively speaking, and three, she’s still here, you know.”

“He was rude, what do I do? Do I need to do something? You already scolded him.”

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you!”

“I forgive you.” She says, and turns to me with pride.

Oi, don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to praise you for trying to be praised. “No, it’s fine, as you said I already ‘scolded’ him, and since you’ve forgiven him it’s fine.”

“Okay. Are you done here? Because I found bunch of reeeally big mountains, and there’s a bunch of other wyverns there!”

“Uh,” I let out, glancing at the others. “That might be bad. It might also be where the kids went. Well, I want to take a look. Oh, and before I leave, I highly advise you do not use small arms against a wyvern. Think anti-tank rounds. Or diplomacy. Less dangerous.”

And with that parting word, more to the guards than scientists, I follow a very eager Leda through the now somewhat expanded portal (I hope they place something down just over the roots if they are going to send heavy traffic through) and take to the skies as she jumps on her own back.

She might not want anyone riding her, but boy does she love to ride herself.

Hue.

It takes almost an hour of flying before we get to the mountains, which makes me wonder what the heck she was doing over here. We slow down a bit as we come closer and I get more than a little bit worried at seeing all those giant winged creatures flying here and there, from what seems to be a colony.

I fly over Leda and shout “Did you go to meet them?”

I see her puppet shout something, but it’s carried away by the wind. Well, of course. Let’s get some more space and just use a mind bond.

｢{Worried, annoyed}Did you go to meet them?｣

A negative.

｢Well, do you know anything about them?｣

｢{Excited}They’re wyverns!｣

…

｢{Unamused}I meant, do you know anything about how they live? Will they attack us?｣

｢Maybe, I don’t know.｣

Great. Well, at least Leda, with intelligently designed spells and strategies, should be able to defeat any other single wyvern in a fight. Unless they gang up. Or just overpower her. Or have used their intelligence and this community to learn more than just instinctual basics. Okay, let’s not take our chances.

｢Well, in such a case I beseech thy, my dame, please protect me.｣

｢What’s a dame?｣

｢{Uncertain}Think of a noble knight, but female.｣

｢{Excited, happy}I will protect you, my lady!｣

｢{Amused}Err… Well, I’m a ‘lady’ enough times that I’ll excuse you. Anyway, since we don’t know if they’re hostile - nor do they know if we are, let’s land a safe distance away so they can ‘get used to’ us.｣

｢Oh, we can use the gazebo island.｣

Wait, it drifted this far? Huh, wow. And that answers that question. It seems to be a good kilometer or so from the closest wyvern, or-

｢{Irritated, disappointed}Ahh, those whelps stole the gazebo!｣

｢They didn’t steal it, since we don’t really own it, and besides, it’s a good chance. Let’s land next to them, just be on the lookout for angry mothers.｣

｢But what if they hurt Lucas?｣

What?

｢Then I will become an angry mother!｣

｢Oh, {Amused}Hah! No, in that case you use your mind bond to tell him how to crush them. Don’t kill, just shatter their pride and self-esteem. They’d have brought it upon themselves, anyway.｣

She does a mental ‘nod’, and the whelps have stopped their exploration/playing in the gazebo after noticing us. Leda lands first, with Lucas sailing past her and stopping next to the other whelps, while I remain hovering behind/over Leda.

Well, the whelps don’t seem particularly hostile. In fact, they show that same curiosity I’ve seen in Leda a couple times, and almost constantly in Lucas. And I can’t see any inbound heavy gunships(mama wyverns), either.

“Hey, Leda, lemme use your mana for a moment.”

“What for?” Her puppet asks, looking up at me, but she makes the connection.

“Science.” is all I say before spreading her mana over the whelps. Hm, they definitely have different aspects. They have some kinda fire and ice magic, probably to stay at an ideal temperate, so that’s where those come from, but it feels like they have a weaker air affinity than Leda?

One of the whelps sends out a bunch of mana, which soon disperses. What was that supposed to- and now the others are doing it, too. And Lucas is spreading his out, the usual ‘sensory cloud’ trick. Wait, is that what the others were trying to do?

Ah, it’ll be bad if they learn it, because… well… actually, aside from making them a bigger threat in the long run, it probably won’t matter, really. It’s definitely breaking the Prime Directive, though. Might not be the best idea to influence them like this…

Hmm, will they mimic me if I reach out a tendril of mana, too? Yep, and they succeed, too. Well, one continuous stream of mana is a lot easier than a low-density dispersion where you also have to stay in control. Hmm, let’s teach them to make mana links. And then we can teach them the various air magics, and have some races. Yesss, that idea please this one!