”The ground we are on right now, it is outside of reality. It is a magical place, one that is not all it appears to be. I will make it visible for you, since this area has been so far established, it is linked to me only by the basest of magical connections. I can link others to it, but it requires a certain kind of magic to enter. That kind of magic is not possessed by everyone, at least not on the level of me and my ancestors. Take a look around once, now that I am preparing to connect you to it.”

Gregory saw what almost looked like a protected space based on the magical signature, except that it had only one exit to the outside world. He also said that not everybody possessed the magic necessary to enter or leave this area, which means it must be a unique type of magic. ’What kind of magic would not be accessible to everyone, and could do something like this? Wait… could it be spatial magic? These people were all capable of using spatial magic? Could Aetius have known that, and that was the reason he told me not to change things? It would partially explain things, Aetius said that spatial magic is the most powerful of all, and that those skilled with it are the most dangerous mages in the world.’

”It seems you are curious about this magic, let me tell you that I can only give you the most basic connection to the magic that you need for this. Also, bestowal of this magic is not an easy thing. For those that cannot use it naturally, and especially so with those that have a resistance to gaining it, a person’s magical energies push away from gaining it. This is the reason we have so few shaman to help with our rituals, since many of the people here do not have enough magical energy to perform those rituals.”

”So, it vastly reduces magical supply from what I understand. If that is the case, how do people get in then?”

”The spell itself takes very little energy to get in here, so nearly anybody can use it once they have the energy required to cast the spell.”

Putting forth his hands, Nahko started flowing energy through them. The energy he was flowing was pure spatial magic, the magic required to bend the space between true reality and this location outside reality. He could feel more resistance from Gregory though than he had ever felt before, a resistance that almost seemed like it wouldn’t mix with his energies even on the most basic level. No matter how much energy he put into the spell, it just didn’t seem like enough to bring this person to a point where he would accept the spatial magic. Although, Nahko thought it was just that he had a hard time accepting magic and needed to have it brought into him.

Gregory on the other hand felt as if he was being completely drained of magical energy, to such a point that he wouldn’t be able to even use magic after this. ’I am guessing this is spatial magic, but it is totally unlike learning how to use time magic. Having it forced into my like this is draining me almost entirely. It is like he is forcefully performing the process that I went through to gain temporal magic. If this doesn’t kill me, I have a feeling I will need to go through serious training just to be able to use spatial magic.’

At that moment, the chief suddenly felt Gregory’s mana flare. He could feel the spatial magic coming off of Gregory, and it was quite the amount. ’So much energy used to give him the ability to enter this place, and he has at least as much still as some of our strongest shaman do now. This boy is very impressive. If he ever trained, he would probably be our most helpful shaman during rituals.’

Gregory passed out after the chief’s spell was over, but his mind was still working on a separate plane. ’What happened to me just then? I feel as if I have been almost entirely stripped of magic. I bet it had something to do with forcing the magic into me, probably due to the heavy resistance from having temporal magic as well. At least I did get a notification informing me of gaining spatial magic mastery, but the level was only at novice. I need to read the description.’ Viewing his skill list showed three new skills, the spatial magic mastery, a space warp spell, and a teleportation spell.

SKILLSPATIAL MAGIC MASTERY[NOVICE]PASSIVESpatial magic is a form of magic that gives people access to a backdoor through the world. They can perform spells to warp space around them and make a real world area into somewhat of a protected space. The novice level allows only novice level spells, and none of the spells gain any bonus power.LEVEL = 1COST = N/ASKILLSPACE WARPACTIVEUsing this spell, a person can warp space to access otherwise inaccessible areas. These can be such things as hidden dungeons and locked protected spaces. While the main rules of the area cannot be broken with this spell, it can allow access to the outer most levels. The use can also be used to enter areas outside of reality, areas placed there through turning a real piece of land into a pseudo-protected space.LEVEL = 1COST = 5SKILLTELEPORTATIONACTIVEThe user channels magic and then can teleport to any location they have been before. A spell of the beginner level, it requires some skill with spatial magic to use effectively. Due to a long channeling period, it cannot be used as a combat spell.LEVEL = 1COST = N/A

Viewing these skills revealed something to Gregory, and that was just how many uses spatial magic had in making people stronger. ’Since these don’t seem to be causing my mana down, I need to check my status. More precisely, a buff/debuff list is what needs to be checked. There is sometimes a window just for those, and it would probably give me a 100% accurate idea of what is wrong.’

As he thought about it, the screen came up and he saw a very interesting status effect, the only one that showed up in red. There were also two in green, though they were basically explained in his status as his classes. He also noticed that the one in red was the only temporary debuff, which meant it could be cured or removed somehow.

DEBUFFMASSIVE MANA CURSECONDITIONALMassive mana curse cuts current total mana to a ¼ of the total potential amount. The only way to cure this ailment is to bring the cause/s of the curse up to a level that they fully synchronize with the bearer.

Current cause/s of the curse are as follows:

- SPATIAL MAGIC MASTERY[NOVICE]

Suddenly, Gregory realized what the problem was, his spatial magic mastery was too low. Since temporal magic mastery was at intermediate, it was a definitive part of Gregory’s magic supply, but as spatial magic mastery was only novice, it was barely with him. Until he got affinity for it up to a point that it was entirely a part of him, this status would not leave him. He could also tell that beginner would not be enough. He could feel how it was when water and wind mastery were only beginner, it seemed as though he could not come up with spells for them. Their “frequency” seemed to escape him. It was probably the same way with spatial magic. Except of course, instead of not being able to create spells for it, he would be severely handicapped in magic until he mastered it to the intermediate level.

Gregory waited for an hour, and then was forcefully pushed awake by his Gamer’s Gift. He had a longshot hope, but the debuff did not remove after rest. ’Seems that status effects with either a permanent or conditional existence will not remove. At least, not without the condition being met for a conditional effect.’ He pushed his body up, but felt empty from the massive mana curse. The power of that debuff took a big chunk out of his power, and he could feel it.

Gregory channeled his magic, and opened the rift to his protected space. Entering into the area, he used the active portion of his temporal magic mastery, but even it seemed to consume a substantial bit of his mana. He still had more than enough regenerating through his WIS and mana absorption skill, but it was a heavy draw upon his resources. He began to continuously make space warps, using them to travel between various areas of his protected space. He could use it 33 times every minute right now, and still keep his temporal magic mastery active going. Unfortunately, the levels of space warp and spatial magic mastery seemed to climb very slowly even now. After nearly an hour, both had only just reached reached level 5. On top of that, neither gave any new bonus for the level reached. On the other hand, temporal magic mastery was leveling at a decent pace. It had reached level 19, and even dropped in consumption to only 82 mana every minute instead of 100.

’What makes up the difference in leveling speed between temporal magic, and spatial magic? If anything, spatial magic being a lower level and mastery should give it faster training. Unless of course, massive mana curse is adversely affecting my ability to learn spatial magic; that would make some sense if it is weakening me in the first place. To top it off, I learn fire mastery slower than ice mastery, so this must be a branch of that logic.’

Gregory continued to train, his temporal magic mastery going up far slower after level 25. Instead of having gained the first 24 levels in two hours, the next levels were taking almost two hours a piece. By the time his mastery reached 35, it took a full day for it to go up one level. The system knew how he could train, and it intentionally kept him from abusing that to level up the magic used to level so quickly. Spatial magic on the other hand had finally started to pick up a pace. After a week, it had reached level 97 in novice rank. A day after that, Gregory had finally reached Beginner rank in spatial magic and unlocked access to the Teleport spell.

As the next weeks turned into months inside of his protected space, Gregory was growing wearing of his training. It had begun to move so much slower when leveling up spatial magic after reaching Beginner. Three months had passed and still it was only level 31. On the other hand, temporal magic had finally reached into the 90s. Level 90 had just been reached yesterday, and the cost had been reduced all the way down to 11. On top of that, he was able to spawn elementals again. He created only two elementals though, spatial and temporal elementals. It slightly surprised him that such things were possible, but he was glad about it nonetheless.

Time continued to flow by in Gregory’s protected space, his temporal abilities making the training so much more bearable. On top of that, Gregory’s “Gamer’s Gift” allowed him to not need sustenance to live. 23 total months have passed now, and Gregory is barely keeping sanity by a thread. Every one of his skills worked in unison to keep him going at full grinding speed, which was the only thing he could tell himself to prevent stopping. His elemental summoning skill had grown to advanced level 9, giving him not only stronger golems, but up to 9 of each element at a time of this stronger golem. Temporal mastery had reached advanced, but then force stopped. The active reduced to requiring no mana, and therefore stopped giving proficiency when active. That did make sense though, considering it was a mostly passive skill anyways. In addition, his spatial magic had finally been at intermediate level 99 for almost a week. It was already three days longer than the previous level, and he only used the teleportation skill more. He could tell that the experience was getting close, and he needed to be rid of the massive mana curse to free himself of this timeline. Then at last, it notified him of a level up. The system notified him that spatial magic mastery had reached intermediate, that teleport had gained a “blink” feature, and that massive mana curse had been lifted.

Double checking his buff/debuff window, he saw it had been cleared of the one negative effect, only having the two green family bonuses on him.

He left his protected space, and slept for three hours, intentionally putting off his system just to rest some. ’I have done enough grinding for a year, I think I deserve at least a few hours’ reprieve. At the very least, I no longer need to worry about not being able to leave this timeline. I have regained my full magical energy, and am fully capable now of returning to my time whenever I please.’ What Gregory hadn’t realized in his skills window though, was that temporal magic had also given him a new passive, to see the hand of “fate” in the world. This is what Aetius had mentioned, knowing how an event changing in the past will affect the person’s present. What was presently revealed to him, was that just by travelling to the past, he would have been disallowed from leaving. He was temporally locked immediately until such time as he rectified the timeline to the best of his current knowledge and ability.

Gregory would need to become the mage that Aetius had said he heard of being an expert at both temporal and spatial magics. First though, he needed a way off the Americas, since he couldn’t create a boat on short notice, and he had never been to Europe before. He hoped that whatever his spirit animal was would allow extended flight over the ocean.