I sit in my little hut in the village, in deep meditation. I have long reached the level 99 cap for the skill, but I still hope to break through given it is one of my oldest skills.

Using my Aether may help nudge it along, but I chose to keep from messing with it for a reason and don’t force it only slowly feeding the natural Aether formation around me. Something I have grown used to doing over the last few weeks.

After thinking it over for a minute, I draw a little Aether, not quite the smallest amount I can draw, but only enough to make the thinnest meter-long strand I can still hold in my grasp. At my request, Aspen takes control of Automaton’s Aether, I need my full concentration to practice with Aether. After all, even if I probably won't let any Aether construct touch my own formation that doesn’t mean learning about them is useless.

Building these constructs in imitation of the system requires the ability to handle minute amounts of Aether and being able to form complex and intricate shapes with it. Perhaps there are other required skills, but I don’t know what they are, so practicing these two will have to do.

As an earth rune forms in front of me, I wonder if I can increase my runic language skill this way? And the very question leads me to add the exercise to the ever growing list of things to practice.

With a mental note in place, I transition to an air rune. I start by drawing it in front of me relying only on the seemingly telekinetic movement of Aether while holding the pattern in my mind’s eye. Then I pool the Aether in a small sphere and trace a water rune with my finger.

Afterward, I let the Aether dissipate into a gas while holding it lightly, before imagining a fire rune and imposing my will on reality, making it come into place fully formed.

I use every conceivable method to form the rune’s shapes with Aether, from miming a painter to the cringiest of a wizard’s movements as I run through Mana and the other resources to interact with Aether, but the void still seems to be the only place where Aether can really interact with non-living materials in a meaningful way.

Drawing palm-sized rune constructs gives way to smaller but more complex shapes as the number of overlapping structures was slowly forcing the whole thing to be smaller and smaller. I limited myself to a 1-meter line even after making the drawings only as wide as a thumbprint with dozens of runes tightly drawn.

Hours pass on this seemingly simple exercise, but I am learning things about runes that I never had before.

Eventually, I start to tire and before exhausting myself, I cut the session short and get up to stretch my legs for a minute. Most of the time it’s not productive to just hammer your head against the wall non-stop. I mentally file away my progression before thinking about what to do next. As I’m running through possibilities, I open my prompt to check all my skills… but they are all still at level 99 or below, even the runic language skill.

Closing the system prompt, I look back at the repository of knowledge, AKA the encyclopedia that the other villages are adding to. I walk back into my hut to the interface I grew into the network to see how much they have filled out, and as it turns out they added a lot.

Most of it is plain useless. Recipes, schedules, bar tabs and any random thing people noted down. They are probably going for the bulk approach, but I don’t complain, as I place the book in the receptacle and allow it to absorb everything without bothering to sift through what I think may be important.

Mana flows in the book as it processes the information and my perception field can barely make out the rapidly filling pages. I try to imagine how hard would it be if I wanted to add this capability to a book myself. To make something able to independently print in its own pages.

Even looking at it with my perception field, both the original skill and the one gifted by the system, I learn nothing of what mechanisms are used to drive it. For all I know it is magic…Oh, wait… that is probably exactly it, though I will be dammed if I know which type of magic.

After the mana stops rushing in and there is no more information transmitted through the comm rune, I take the book and open it. I skip all the pages that are transcriptions of the other village’s information and leaf to the few last pages.

Page 1841 to… page 1832.

Slightly over 9 pages of new information. That is good.

I read them analyzing what changes about our understanding of reality are in order. I will read them again at a later time, but even a quick pass was enough to extract most of the useful information and file away everything in its proper place in my mental palace. At the back of my ever expanding mind, a library of its own is starting to form and I am beginning to see the improvements high mental stats bring.

Remembering my promise to Merlin, I sit and send my awareness 10 miles from the city along each of the tendrils extending from the village and simultaneously start growing ‘mana charging pads’ for the village’s flying vehicles. This really will give the village unprecedented mobility. Soon, crossing the instance may require only 4 days comfortably seated instead of 10 days of exhausting running in between cat naps. Another advantage was that the flying bicycle won't require a bag of holding, outposts with supplies or anything else, just mana. That would limit their range to the vicinity of the ‘mana highways’, but under the right circumstances it will be worth it.

In minutes I have a basic charging formation in all 7 tendrils along with a similar if more complex and robust ‘security system’ than the last one I used on the path to my hut. That should prevent anyone from tapping into our mana stores without the security key. Though anyone with good runic knowledge would be able to bypass it by digging and getting mana directly from the lines, we would notice that and shut off the flow after detecting any unauthorized access to it.

The security measures are mostly about keeping people from sneaking away after the fact. To not even know something is wrong is the greater danger.

As I continue growing them, a mage from the MRI comes in running and says:

“Nash, Nash, we did it, we fucking did it.”

Getting up, I look at him trying to ascertain what the source of his excitement is.

“Calm down for a moment. Tell me, what did you guys do?”

“The netherworld, we finally did it.”

“And what is the netherworld?” I ask patiently.

“Ahh, the other side, where the mobs go after they are teleported.”

“Ohh, I suppose it’s a good name as any, now what exactly did you do?”

“Come on take a look.” He says, while already running back. I follow him a little miffed, he comes in all excited and doesn’t even give a proper explanation, though I don’t limit myself to his speed.

He runs at a respectable speed for the 150 meters of twists and turns to the MRI, but he is a dedicated magic user and probably didn’t put a single point in the physical stats so I easily outrun him.

Entering the main building I find no one but the scribe there, so I focus on everything around with my perception field and at the edge, I find the place they are experimenting at. Without delay, I backpedal out of the building and run over, getting there ahead of the new hire who passed me the message.

Taking the scene in, Burges notices me and I can’t get a word in before he speaks: “I had an idea this morning, and it has come to fruition.”

“And what is it? Somebody talk straight with me.”

He nods at a runic formation as I notice the table from the building has been dragged over here.

“Where is Merlin?”

“I don’t know, why do you ask?” Burges speaks furrowing his brows.

“But, how did you manage to make the runic formation without his help?”

He looks at the table for a moment before understanding my question.

“Ohh, I gained enough control of the roots with a modification Merlin came up with. Not useful for combat, but this isn’t combat.”

“Whe...? Never mind.” I say not approaching a single step to the table, but closing my eyes and concentrating on the perception field with the table in focus. Every single square millimeter of the formation comes into my mind. Both Merlin’s modification and what Burges has been working on.

The simplicity of both however is what astounds me. I see the change Merlin made for later, and Burges was right that it wouldn’t be useful for combat, it was far too slow or that.

However on the central runic formation, something strange is happening there, the same runes powering the new screens in the library are spread all over the place.

Does that mean…we can peek into this… Netherworld?

“I can see how we might be able to look into this Netherworld now, but I don’t get why you are so excited?”

“Peering at the other side is good progress, I will admit it, but it’s not just that. Look, I will turn it on and you will understand.”

He approaches the table and taps the side of it, sending mana through and connecting it to the mana line. Seconds pass as a very small distortion, barely an inch in diameter appears in the air above the runic formation with a 2 ft wide screen. Something akin to the holographic screen I saw at the library's inauguration.

The distortion goes from an airy distortion to showing hints of another place. As I wait, I exclude the few centimeters just around the distortion from my perception field to avoid the headache starting to form.

Lately, too many experiments with space and with the greater range of my senses are almost becoming a bother, I could feel the town hall from a good portion of the village. Perhaps I would be able to handle it someday, but it was not now so I stop my wandering mind and wait patiently for the screen above the distortion to coalesces into something visible.

And as it comes into focus, I can see a grey world full of dead and leafless trees, though there are hints of vegetation on the ground as the view spins around. Agnes did not tell me that it was so bleak and dark there. Is it even the same place?

Looking at the shiny crystal ball-like portal that used to be a mess of compressed air, I marvel at the dramatic change.

“How does it work?” I ask him.

“There is some kind of positive feedback loop between being able to observe the other side and the stability of any portal. We think that it has to do with how the system recognizes the entity it sends through. Now watch this.”

Burges takes a small red pebble and drops it in the inch-sized portal. I instinctively lift my arm expecting that it would splinter it throwing shrapnel like a grenade. But unlike the previous experiments of this type, it simply goes through like the portal to my inner world, without a fuss or even a sound.

Burges touches the formation and sending a stream of mana moves the ‘camera’ to manual and points it downward. Seeing me hesitant, he just grins and points at the rock. Laying in the ground, the same juju bean-sized rock in one entire piece on the dark dead soil of the Netherworld.

My response is to simply grin back at him as my heart rate slows.

“How large do you think we could make one of these portals?”

“I don’t know, but from the size of your grin, we are about to find out.”

“Damn right we are.”