“Isn’t that a bit risky? I mean, over a million mana per second into space runes?” Merlin asks me as we stand in the secondary control room, some 30 meters off the center of the formation.

“Everyone in line of sight of the area already evacuated. Also don’t forget the multiple layers of mana shield specially tunned to contain and disperse the space distortion, the meter deep ‘blast shield’ of roots all around it, and the earth barrier around it all.”

“I know the shields, I did most of the design after that mishap in the inner world. And I can see the protections, but… I still got a chill in my gut. I still have the feeling something is about to go wrong, not quite decapitation wrong, but still...”

I take a step back and run over all my preparations. Everyone should listen to their gut and I take his words seriously. But everyone also cares about different things. The possible consequences of running this experiment… are worth it.

I don’t want to give up so soon. I know that my idea precludes me from being able to cross to this other instance by myself, but I didn’t just want to send and receive a bit of gold or silver powder. I want… I need to at least send the smallest of physical objects though because that would open up untold possibilities. Growth for both our economies and access to wealth that would put all our current efforts to shame.

Since time immemorial, one of the most important aspects fueling economic growth was around increasing the number of people in the game, and now we had a chance to link our economies together.

I firm my face and Merlin just nods. I need to find my way back to Earth and I… WILL… take this first now. Delaying may be wiser, but everything was a trade, and I would pay any price on my path back home.

“T minus 60 seconds. 59, 58…”

The operator’s voice takes me out of my thoughts and to everything around me.

I sit on the ground in a mana plate, with direct links all the way to the central engraving, but instead of relying on its help, I open several pairs of portals. Extending Qi through them and bridging the gap of dozens of meters, suddenly, everything is nearly touching my skin.

Each pair of portals goes to a different seed to sustain as I start clearing my mind until the familiar sequence and mana buildup starts. Space seems to warp just from the concentration of mana, something seemingly fueled by everyone's expectations. Through the instance, thousands of allied mages watch the remote stream, even if they can no longer affect the results.

Aether spins in the sky, reaching beyond this small group, even with all the new additions to the teams of Engravers from other villages that could come over and put their expertise to practice. They do all they can adding their capabilities to our own and making the whole greater than its parts.

A collective will as everyone holds their breath, but there is no one panting after thirty seconds with the immense physical growth the system allowed.

My pool is full and more Qi than I can leverage in a moment just accumulates around me. But while I pay a small long term penalty for the lack of Qi regen, I waste none of my will cycling it out without even counting the fact that it is conveniently all around for near instant usage.

“…1, 0.”

The batteries in the inner world and underneath the formation buckle. The mana discharge blinds everyone with even the slightest mana perception for miles. This is no slow transformation powering a widespread shield or something similar. The entire trove of mana is instantly and violently transformed into a warping of space concentrated on a pinprick.

Light even stronger than an arc weld leaves a black hole in my vision as I send hundreds of Qi points out. The portal forms wild and unstable, much more than usual. Given the brief seconds it will be open, we don’t have to worry about the corrosion instantly melting it into scrap and absconding with all the gold, and a little of Merlin’s hesitation gets to me before I brush it aside.

I train my perception field on the space and try to use all my senses to feel the warping, even in the unstable form that is before me. New sensations of a magnitude I have never come across reach me, so I file it all away filtering what I need at the moment. The blueish light may be pretty, but it is not my goal at this instant.

Something is missing.

It hasn’t begun to stabilize two seconds in even considering that most as most portals to instance number 5 are well underway in half a second.

Time is slow as each second seems to tick forever… each time the mana and qi push in one direction something fights back. It has more disturbance and more attention from the system.

I grab the Qi directly, in the same way as Merlin described and leverage it with all I’m. I play the mental imagery of excluding the system’s interference from the space that I claim as mine for a little while. But that image gives way in totality to the only thing remaining in my mind:

Connecting both places.

That is all of myself for the next second. I speak the language of magic and for the first time, I see a bit of what Merlin meant when he described his overview as a meta mage.

I can’t hope to compartmentalize and automate hundreds of sets of runes on the fly as he seemed to be able to, but I don’t need to. I just touch and reinforce the flow with everything I’m.

Merlin’s efforts trail mine, taking direct control of a significant portion of the Mana even as a mass of Aether spins around him, though I don’t even take an iota of my concentration to also wield my Aether. It all goes to the single task.

Two places are one.

Both my Qi and my natural space warping take the edge off the disturbance.

Merlin sees a broader area while I focus on the very center of the formation like no one else can. In some ways I let my Qi loose, to follow its desires while I speak the language of runes.

Two places that are no longer two. A small impossibility coming to life in a way that the system abhors. But its attention is only insular and its interference only in creating turbulence. Keeping it balanced and feeding from the very power we try to power the portal with.

I use my seemingly telekinetic power capable of warping space with all the strength I can muster, well past every limit I thought I had, which is the equivalent of lifting a book, but I apply it perfectly for an instant.

I will my Qi to bridge the gap nearly free from interference from the system and then, it clicks.

Two places are one, even more deeply than a fully stabilized Netherworld portal.

“Send it,” I scream. Instants later as the hand of the operator pushes down, a dozen small pockets shoot out faster than an arrow. They cross in fractions of a second and then the price for our success arrives.

Corrosion, something unnatural, like a liquid void eating into reality itself sizzling the ground and our runes. A black thing that simply munches on everything in range.

The mana flow fully destabilizes and then I feel the full attention of the system.

Power like I never felt locks down space and the portal collapses even faster than normal after losing the runes.

But the corrosion is not to be trifled with and as the corruption splashes, it crosses a pair of portals hitting my skin. Even as all our runic structures stop powering the portal, it is too late. The thing got its claws on our realm. Eating the thick wall of roots after only brushing against the mana shields. I reach out with my Qi and reinforce the shields still up. That stops the innate power to eat away at its structure and if before I thought the system’s attention was full with us, I’m proven dead wrong.

A wave of displeasure, mechanical displeasure hits me like a stone building. I can barely make anything that is not the infinite being in my presence or rather its will.

No one misses the coming of the system.

So far I was the only system user that could sense its gaze, but this is impossible to miss.

It doesn’t matter if you can’t see infrared if a wave of heat so strong hits you that your skin boils, you still know what is happening.

The frozen black thing puffs out of existence.

But not just the unnatural thing, with it, goes pounds of gold, hundreds of pounds of silver, tons of copper and a good chunk of my roots. A ten meter sphere just vanishes.

I feel a prompt arrive. As wired as I’m,and it nearly leaps out so strong is the warning.

User will suffer penalties for inviting permanent damage to the instance plane.

“Damn.” The system does take this seriously, very seriously.

But regardless of why I have two endeavors to put back in order.

Put it all back to order so I can ask what happened on the other side, including Pando’s coin, the small pocket of space, and most important of all, the seed I send over.

It is not a fully living seed with a consciousness, that I would not risk until a lot more testing, though a more basic one I still risked.

I will need to scrub my memory palace for any clues. Then I look down at my arm, and the red mark left by the corruption. It ate away wood and dirt like acid except thousands of times faster, I expected to deal with a thin hole in my arm, but maybe it is just the absurdly small quantity or distance from the main body that limited the damage.

While the entire thing may have lasted only 5.4 seconds if the timers are to be trusted, it is clear as day that I have a lot to learn. Amongst the dozen interesting developments, I will start with the memory of a blue flicker in the distance that my perception field captured. Hopefully, that is my first real crack on being able to sense mana.

-----------------------

Judge’s POV

A voice grates on my nerves. A flunkey of the council with a modicum of power, pretty low not even be top dog in this back corner of the universe keeps screeching.

“And it is because I fall under section 3.65.49.1-3 of code 65-4 while simultaneously keeping the restrictions I just mentioned in mind that I’m exempt from paying taxes on all my personal earnings in this galaxy.”

I take a second to review everything he said, after his hour long speech, that I paid absolutely no mind to. While it is clear that the statutes are not meant to be applied in the interpretation he used them with, there is also not much room to argue that this is the letter of the law, but I know the exact way to deal with this.

“I will send a pair of investigators... to check that you are following the restrictions you put yourself user to qualify for this exemption. That’s is the only proper thing to do.”

“What, a pair… Why?”

“I don’t want to give the wrong impressions, especially given your creative use of the legalese. A single investigator can be worked around with enough influence and neither of us will benefit if I put my stamp on anything I’m not certain about. My decision has a millennium to run its course, the least I can do is check everything is as proper.”

“Of course my lord,” He says. I pay attention to him with a version of Nash’s perception field. Nothing as overt as his, even if his version is undetectable by the system, the very intent he gives while using warns other people of what he is doing. Even I still don’t know what or how he did it, nor can I replicate its effects from staying under the radar outside my courtroom. Inside my domain, I have a lot of power and wide latitude.

I see the flinch hidden under the layers and layers of illusions and the calculating looks in his eyes. Just like I expected, a pair of investigators won’t be enough.

Each will of course go with a retinue of assistants, and if one or two of these assistants are also good investigators and they uncover something he is trying to hide… ohh sweet justice as he will have to not only pay for all the proceedings of the court but reparations for all the taxes he has skimmed and any future occasions of such given that he tried to get a decision for a full millennium. And if they fail this first time given he is forwarned, in a decade or two I can send another team as a surprise.

I dismiss him and send a system message to a pair of good investigators, one of them the second best investigator I know. The best one alone could probably deal with anything in a single visit, but he has more important concerns at the moment.

A ping from the system. Something that would have been painful, maybe deadly for anyone newly integrated user, though the system has safeguards about that. It only send with such vehemency because it knew I wouldn’t be injured.

Instance breakdown after attempted incompatible dimensional interconnection.

User…

“Nash. Ha, haha.”

I don’t even need to read the rest to know this was his work. Still, this is no laughing matter.

I look at the few hours that would take for me to make an in person trip to the comm center in the middle of this galaxy so I can communicate in real time to my superiors. But after he pulled a stunt like this, the small chance he had of acquiring an Aether well is simply gone. He is no longer the harmed part, he is the little kid breaking toys after getting pissed. Even with all my influence, I can’t push things in the direction the Automaton wanted.

We will have to work something out, for if it only took Nash a couple of days to pull something like this… what would he do with years or worst yet, millennia under his belt?