“Shit.” I try to get a hold of the small piece of space fabric tied to the hidden runes in the leather bag of holding, but the tighter my grip, the greater the strain I put after my initial disturbance. After a minute, even with my best efforts, the gold coin I spend goes mostly to waste with very little learned.

Luckily not all is lost as I pull another bag of holding to work with. Though I’m much more careful this time around, exploring the runes and spatial folding in it for over an hour before even trying to properly prod it.

Even though there are only a couple of runes I don’t recognize, only a single one of them is part of the central formation, the rest seem to be just part of the auxiliary functions of the bag of holding.

In the grand scheme of things, the runic formation is also fairly simple, but going through it, I get the feeling that precision is paramount otherwise the small pocket of space will just collapse on itself as soon as anything changes.

The hours pass, as I try to keep this second bag intact and even get help from Merling and a few others occasionally, but as time pass, it becomes clear that going through the normal route will not deliver the desired results, at least not any time soon. So like most of my more impressive achievements, I will just have to cheat.

Fighting a sharp headache on and off, I poke the pocket of space while letting my perception field encompass it.

The feeling is strange, but at least I’m not getting flashes from stuff a lot further away than is normal with the even greater mental stress that would entail. During this second phase of experimentations, I pay only nominal attention to what happens to the runes and how they react to my actions.

There is a little that I can learn on that front without more information either showing up in my book, getting an extension on the bookshop’s selection, or a lot more time and effort than I’m willing to dedicate right now. Methodical and careful experimentation had its place, but it was slow.

What I focus on is something entirely different, directly interacting with the space.

Instead of a perfectly efficient and self contained unit that keeps a pocket of space fully controlled, I just try to understand how to create a simple space anchor. Smaller than a pinhead, all it has to do is provide a weak point of attachment to a small pocket of space and stop it from floating away like a helium balloon out of reach from an inattentive child.

I may be totally wrong, but I had the feeling that the anchor didn’t need to be all that strong or even precise if I went this other route. If it was strong enough to keep a ballon in place it would work for a similar sized pocket of space… I think.

Going through and really testing how much I can work and mold the ‘meta physical’ aspects of a space bag like playdough is satisfying. Poking, squeezing, rolling, and all around searching for its limits becomes my world.

The hours pass as I compare these in different circumstances. Even something simple like trying to affect it when I’m holding the bag or someone else is holding it determines a lot more than I had expected at first.

Though upon further thought, I’m thankful for the difficulty of affecting a bag in someone else’s control. This likely is a protection from the system. When a space bag was in someone else’s control, anything I try to do is not only harder, alterations were actively resisted becoming only temporary changes. It is possible that even if I somehow made it inaccessible or blew up the space bag, the system would undo my actions reform the space.

I skip further experimentation in that direction given the limited time frame and keep it always in my control to ease the modeling process and have a less elastic behavior, becoming similar to clay in that sense. I didn't want stuff slowly returning to its original shape when I wasn’t available.

All of that experimentation requires a level of subtle dexterity that only a couple of hours ago was simply incomprehensible. I spin Aether as usual around me, only feeding the barest streams out and letting my natural field accumulate, except this particular task seems to be uniquely suited to me, and progress rushes by faster than I could have expected whenever I find the line to follow.

But finding how to progress is what finally holds me back. Increasing my dexterity will help me little if I don’t know what I’m supposed to sculpt and make. I can delay it no longer as my gains start to taper off and pushing my luck a little too hard the strained bag gives up the ghost.

I need to start trying to create these pockets of space and afterward, I just need to attach them to someone.

The problem is that I simply don’t know where to start.

Tearing my hair out, I try to grab space behind the very air I breathe and twist it into… something… anything… anything at all.

Try as I might, I find no purchase.

This is another aspect that differs from sculpting clay. Trying to bend the space before me, instead of working on one of the bags of holding is like trying to mold a rock. Without a chisel and hammer, even the most basic of sculpting technics is out of my reach.

Buying dozens of bags and hoping that I can extend their size is not feasible, not economically viable and worst of all, not scalable. I may make good money on the smith and a few of my ongoing trade deals with other villages providing fruits, runic defenses and other items, let alone Pando’s coin slow but steady growth, but in the end, all the money in the world is not enough. The bags are a limited commodity as the merchant sells a few of them to the best villages around.

Look at my inner world, an Idea comes to mind, and I start my experimentation.

Poking and prodding the space in a way I never tried before and the results bring a grin to my face. It may not feel the same as whatever they did to the bags of holding, but at least I can find purchase.

I find a clear corner of the sky and try to draw it out. Just a one meter sphere from an unobtrusive corner.

My entire being resists, as something deep within my soul almost gets torn, but I keep going. Pain radiates from somewhere and echoes throughout my being. Not yet overwhelming, but the fear from the slowly increasing stimuli and my upcoming actions are enough to make me hesitate.

Caution however will not help me this instant, so I gather my will, pull on the sphere and slice the wart growing out of the edge of the inner world.

A sharp cut severs the sphere, even brings along a little more than I tried to pull.

A flash of pain a rippling of the inner world surface and then it’s gone. Like the nerves were severed and there is no longer anything still connected to warn of pain.

Going through it and massaging the wound to the inner world returns it to the proper form. It takes me a minute to gather myself, but finally, I go back to the small pocket of space. I try holding it in my hand mimicking the physical movements to the effort of my will, but the inner world is too strange and it feels… off.

I try to move the pocket of space outside the vicinity of the inner world.

Dragging it away in a random direction I don’t feel my control diminished for a good while, but eventually, I find disturbances.

Pushing through, I keep going and going gathering all the momentum I can until the bubble of space seemingly pops out in front of me. Still invisible to anyone without a decently developed Space/Time Interaction skill, but I can feel it with ease. Though I still get a distinct feeling that the skill is just the first step, actually getting my head around how all this worked and developing the perception field in its natural form are instrumental steps toward achieving my goals.

Today I just acquired another data point about the inner world. It is not just overlaid around me like other types of special storage but actually is hidden inside myself. At least in one dimension. Trying to do math with four, five, or more dimensions is beyond me for now. It was never a particular interest of mine given their seemingly exoterical and utter lack of applicability in the real world. Now, I’m starting to regret that a little bit.

Still, good to have some type of confirmation on this suspicion of mine.

Using my senses including the perception field, I get to work on the pocket of space I took out. Modeling it becomes a little harder than inside myself, but still very much possible. Runes attach it to the physical plane and keep it in place. A small ‘film’ on the outside keeps the space stable and finally, I have the barest of useful items working.

Letting go of my work I place it on the ground and it keeps itself stable, I test it in a few different ways including giving it to other people. Thankfully the system correctly interprets my actions and recognise my creation as a space bag, making any alteration almost impossible by anyone else.

This passive defense settles my mind greatly. If finding someone with good control of space was like putting your items in a glass display, then carrying stuff in a backpack didn’t sound so bad.

Still, even when others were in control of the wooden plates tying the space bubble to its vicinity, I still get that feeling that with a sharp pull I could return the piece of my inner world to myself. This however doesn’t seem to be a weakness, not when it is an inherent familiarity with it the specific space bubble and should only apply to myself. If I wasn’t the source, destroying it or absorbing any of it would be quite hard if not impossible. Even if I managed, it's not like I could do it stealthily, not even to someone without a hint of spatial awareness.

I work a long while after my arrival back in the village until the sun is again high in the sky and though I’m making progress, I still don’t have what I realy want.

Refining the same basic concept tying pockets of space to small wooden tokens lets other people carry around items and anything else they want, but there is a significant limitation.

They can’t put or take any items out. That is a break it or make it aspect just to achieve the minimum viable project. Without the ability to access the bag, they would be effectively useless. If I have to help them every time they need to put or take something from their ‘bags of holding’ I could just as well carry it in my own inner world. Unless.. no to troublesome again. Even if I could operate the bag from a distance, it would also require my attention.

In time someone like Merlin might be able to get himself familiar with spatial/time interaction well enough to open and close it, but he is the exception, not the rule. So far he also hadn’t shown much promise, just barely leveling the skill, but my skill is probably part of my heritage.

High physical stats, perception skills and an innate understanding of space and time.

Though those are just a few major things I had noticed were different about myself. These might be consequences of something else all together or they can be just a part of the puzzle. I knew too little to speculate more.

Shaking my head and coming back to the work I continue to run through all the possible Ideas. Integrating a few more runes in the wooden formation plate, teaching others part of the needed spatial manipulation and even manipulating the very space so it has a permanent hole to the outside. I try every avenue that seems to have any chance of working but fail every single time.

Each failure however teaches a little something.

Banging my head against a wall in a near fruitless search for an answer seems to be all there is ahead, so I stop for a couple of hours to take a break. Passing by the Smith and doing a quick round of the village settles my mind and helps Ideas flow again, but nothing brilliant strikes me.

Coming back to work on the space bag when I should be finishing up my preparations for the class trial may seem like the wrong action, but I’m certain that I can do it if only I get past this last obstacle.

I leave the village, this time not flying for the time savings, but running as fast as I can without infusing my body with mana.

Pushing as fast as I can on my bare feet in the soil, dirt and dropping temperature as the sun sets in the horizon. I run for nearly an hour in random directions just going where my intuition takes me.

The problem ruminates in the back of my mind, but I purposefully don’t let it come to the surface and become my actual focus.

Weaving in and out of the tress in a nearly random course I come several wolf packs in the night.

Most passed level 20. A higher level than any other the surrounding villages, and with higher incidence, though we occasionally had to drive away people coming to slaughter them.

Just a little over 4 months since our arrival, but I had long pushed so much beyond them that it didn’t even seem funny. Very few even had the presence of mind to overcome the barest of their instincts and whatever pushed them to attack me.

I think back to my only quest. One that I got right at the beginning and only thought of occasionally. To find out what was happening to the rabid wolves. Their desires and what pushed them to attack so indiscriminately.

Still, this doesn’t look like it’s just a local thing, the system has found ways of compelling many other races like the goblins to fight on its behalf, even the little innocent rabbits, though it doesn’t push them to actually attack. They are just cannon fodder for early system integrators like us.

There is only one wolf that stepped beyond his maces mandate and limitations. The only one that had taken a step forward. A being I almost call a friend. Even as the thought crosses my mind, I realize what has brought him to mind. He is here, he is stalking me.

Stepping forward carefully and getting deeper in my perception field, a larger wolve than any other weighing probably about 1000 pounds and nearly the same head height as myself while on all fours.

A large grin comes to my face. More than a month since last I saw him, and that was a very brief encounter as I flew overhead.

“Who is a good boy?” I tease him.

In reply, a growl assaults my ears.

Looking at him I realize there is something different about him.

Rabid Wolf - Lv. 50

The lone wolf crossed that small threshold. Hell, that is my level, though I do have loads of Exp banked.

The fighters in the village told stories about a stronger and smarter wolf than any other, but seeing him in person has confirmed my suspicions. He is the same as the one I liked to tussle with.

Seeing my wide grin, he shows me his long finger-sized sharp teeth and pounces forward.

I keep the magical use to a minimum, but even with my higher average stats, he has greater agility and I need a few mana infusion boosts to keep up. Roughhousing on the floor with the heavier beast, I realize that I still have a lot to learn.

Nothing that the level 20 wolves moving only by instinct could teach me, but he is in a league of his own.

Panting and letting out my breath we both stop a good half an hour later. My telepathy manages to pick up his emotions even in the briefest of contacts and he is having fun, but there is also an unmistakable conflict behind that.

With me in my back he gets up, and I trust him enough to not move to my feet. With one look behind, he starts pacing away, but I raise a hand and a few roots in the ground.

I see him twitching as I move closer to his back and touch his head.

The conflict kicks up another notch but he has firm control of his actions and emotions, at least when compared to other wolves.

I send different mental images but always trying to convey the same meaning.

“Can you understand me?”

“Can you understand me?”

“Can you understand me?”

I get incomprehensible replies all though out, though I hadn’t really expected anything different. However, a minute later he surprises me with a clear answer:

“Yes, understand.”