“No, no, no.” I curse out.

“What the hell you are muttering about Merlin?” One of my assistants asks me.

“Uhh, just…. I can’t seem to figure it out. I mean these portals, we have something close enough to the address to just about every single one that Nash left behind. With time we can choose and narrow down to each of them, but the last 100 or so we don’t have anything on are still lost in the void. It has been two months and we haven’t seen a hint of progress.”

“And you are trying to what… input it all in the computer?” He asks looking over my shoulder.

“Yeah, basic data entry is easy enough, but anything that approaches the complexity of navigating space just gives me a knot in the head. I don’t know if it has any mathematical pattern, but it’s worth a shot. I understand the hand notations, but I just can’t translate it into all this math…”

“Why don’t you leave that to the computer scientists?”

“I probably should, but I was also stumped on my main projects and thought of giving this a try. Not that it is helping, And even the larger pool of magic users from the other instances isn’t helping. I mean they skyrocketed our speed of learning in most fields, but this doesn’t feel like a problem that throwing more people will solve.”

“And I guess that the number of cuts in most instances population is starting to ripple out. Still.. the numbers may be smaller, but the people left are the entrepreneurs, the hardest working, the geniuses of our age. Or at least people that managed to wrangle an impressive group around them and even that has a value of its own. Individually, they aren’t much help working with actual space runes, but there are 4 or 5 instances that have better computers than ours. So, let the thousands of people that like this work try to crack this problem, and get some real rest.”

“I know you are right and we still have thousands of instances whose addresses we just need to narrow down, don’t we? If I go help them we are more likely to learn something that might accelerate our endeavors even more instead of insisting on this path.”

“That was my line of thought.”

We let silence rest between us for a few minutes as we let our minds ruminate. He goes back to scribbling, but my mind just builds steam as I run through the possibilities.

I see no quick and easy solution to upgrade the portals. That was most of the reason I took a break, but if there is a single effort that I could drive my entire effort to that would provide the greatest long term benefit that would probably be in accelerating our connection to new instances instead of expanding the network to our current ones.

Letting my mind be drawn to the roots of the new tree in the middle of our village, I look to another project that is a little more long term, but would bring even greater benefits.

I feel the runes of the transported portal and underneath the temporal expansion chamber.

Nash had experimented away from the village and I would try not to be careless, but the one shot that I had to accomplish everything I wanted was to learn all he had accomplished and build on top of that.

And although I couldn’t control space by myself nor did I have that instinctive sense for any space warping and other phenomenon, perhaps I could bypass that need.

Still even my most optimistic back of the napkin calculations put the resources needed beyond the entire output of our Mithril mine in the center of the HLZ. If the Mithril mine regenerated, even at a very slow rate, we would have a steady stream, but this like every other mine on Earth was a limited resource. And even more significant is that unlike most of Earth’s elements, there was an infinitesimal amount of MItrhil in the entire instance as far as we could tell.

But we are not the only instance and with careful trading and black boxes containing what they needed and crossing to the other side instances, flying bicycles could take hundred, maybe even thousands of people to the heart of the HLZ to the castle and to the mine.

That opens up yet another option. If we could do that, perhaps… we could bring them to our instance for just a few moments and get an increase in the system points.

Instead of being mathematically limited to 10 thousand points if the full million people in the instance visited the castle, we could have a thousand more instances, each with a population a thousand times larger visiting each of those thousand instances. That is a cap well over a million times larger than what we should have been able to accomplish even in the best case scenario. It was impractical to make all these jumps with every single person and many instances were dwindling into nothing at a breakneck speed which was lowering the cap for how many could actually do this. Even ten percent of that would be a logistical nightmare, but it is a very interesting idea. That most of these points wouldn’t be in our control, was a small price to pay.

As I try to run the math on how many instances we would need to fully mine out of Mithril to get a working time chamber considering my skills and that of the seeds at my disposal, it all seems to slot into place. Even before I finish getting all the Mithril, I could poke the waters and maybe even make up the gap with my awesome meta mage powers.

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

Weeks later, I walk to the inauguration of another portal. This one inside the village, made with a kilo of Mithril and half a ton of gold, courtesy of our ever increasing mining efforts.

Although gold is nice to have, the scale of the Mithril mining was impressing me. From what Stuart told me each gram required about ten tons of ore in the highest concentration pockets like the one that Nash brought, but the effort is worth definitely it.

The Goblin excursion trying to take territory outside the HLZ was an increasing concern, but even if we initially lost a bit of territory as we were caught with our pants down, they followed different rules and couldn’t go on a rampage as the HLZ beasts did every 6 hours or so. They had to slowly march forward and hold small patches of territory for a certain amount of time before advancing.

With instant communications and hundreds of teams dedicated to the task, the enemy very rarely managed to hold a spot for more than 8 hours, well short of the 12 they need for even a second step. But even with our advantages, the fraction of dedicated fighters from our labor pool was increasing. At least if we wanted to keep the goblins in check in a timely fashion with well rested troops.

And though the rules favored us given the direction we developed we were in a really good position compared to most other instances. Especially with their dwindling population.

The treasure trove of knowledge Ahjrahh gave us helped immensely even if he didn’t have concrete details of the plans of the enemy. Milthree was also a little help in that regard, but even just giving context from what goblin society was back in their home planet was already a quantum leap forward in information warfare.

My mind stops my musings, much more relaxed, and I take in the 6 meter wide and 70 meter tall tree.

Something that soon won’t fit even if chopped it down to size in the largest faux inner worlds that Nash left behind.

Having drawn half the original portal team from the MRI that Nash founded to this project, I see a lot of very familiar faces ready to work on an iteration that has very mild changes compared to the other two main portals, excluding the smaller ones that are only for short-term communication, instead of a base to test improvements and occasionally transport material.

Walking into the new wooden hut that replaced Nash’s dwelling everyone starts to take in the last few minutes of preparation.

Now much more aware of what is happening around me after the brief walk, I let it all sink in.

“Are you ready,” the original portal controller asks me and I just nod my head taking control of a fraction of the mana and calling for both the seed in my chest and the one bonded to the large tree growing in the middle of our village.

Mana flows from a thousand small capacitors before the main batteries fully take the load with the smaller capacitors acting as a way to smooth out any of the normal variations in the supply.

I let my own will be drawn for a moment claiming the mana in my surroundings and trying to indirectly wield space and then its over.

The five seconds pass in the blink of an eye.

As soon as the basic portal using 10k mana a second closes, a dozen people start to pour over every single smidge of recorded data, but I don’t need any of that to know, to feel in my bones that this is the path of the future.

With calibration and no time to get used to its quirks, the controllers had achieved a fractional increase in the quality of the portal, improvements that would only scale as the mana requirements climbed to near a million per second at the minimum.

A small load drops from my shoulders.

We have taken a step in the right direction. Now I just need to fine tune this portal and let a certain seed play to keep improving our space manipulation capabilities.

Though only one of us can directly touch space. I still rely on mana. But as the system sourced bluish gas moves at my will surrounding me, I smile, perhaps… it is not that much of a drawback.

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

Months later

“Merlin.”

“Uhh,” I blurt out after a researcher of mine takes me out of my thoughts.

“Sorry, didn’t notice you were thinking.” I just wait until he continues speaking. “The portal people just finished establishing the connection to the last instance we had on Nash’s list.”

“Already? I thought it would take another few days.”

“A couple of breakthroughs helped narrow down the addresses quicker than usual. Really interesting instances. In one of them, we even managed to establish a connection through all six main portals in the other villages. Really large population remaining. Though one other seems to have only about 3000 people.”

“That’s fine. Not that surprising, there were like 12 we haven't come across a single soul.”

“Actually I think it’s 14.”

“My point still stands. But the important thing is that instance, they must have some really interesting discoveries to keep a decent population behind.”

My assistant moves after finishing to update to one of the tables in my lab. Ruflying through my notes, he takes one of my blueprints before taking his leave.

The last hundred or so estimated instances were still just theoretical constructs that should be there, given the population statistics we had from old Earth. We hadn't found a single one of them, even with thousands of people trying to analyze the addresses in every conceivable manner and the random explorations that other thousands of other nano sized portals were trying to reach for.

I had mostly stopped pouring my free time to figure it out, and I stare at the product another pie in the sky idea that I drove all my remaining attention to. A few months of time, effort and an enormous expenditure of money and effort.

The most complex and game changing invention we had ever come across. Something that had worked in the past.

A thing of gleaming mithril and gold by the ton.

A runic design that would drink more mana than every single instance could provide if I spun it to maximum. Something that would kill me if I screwed it up.

But something that would work without Nash.

It wouldn’t give me any addresses. No freebies from the system. In fact, I would even slowly lose its help that had been so important in learning to wield mana. But I would also gain time for experiments, to rest and to achieve what should be beyond mere newly integrated users. Something that by all accounts was unprecedented before Nash pulled it off or at least very close to it.

Even with the trade offs, I would definitely take a few fold increase in my remaining time, let alone the theoretical 10 fold that I expected to achieve.

As the hours pass and I finish the last of my modifications, the engraving locks in place and a hundred mages arrive to help. Most of them were part of my ‘retinue’ but a few visitors with more specialized classes had flown over precisely to help and witness my creation.

“This time is it going to work?” One of my closest rivals needles me. An impressive mage, though he tended to rush his own class advancement and I half suspected that it was so he could ‘keep up’ with me. Though even with our rival, I’m still grateful for his help, however expensive it was.

“Yes, I think so.”

“That is what you said the last time.” Those words grate on my nerves, and he never loses the chance to use them.

“This is experimentation, you need to get things wrong a hundred times before you succeed.”

He just shrugs and I walk to the middle of the platform surrounded by pillars of runes.

A portal opens up and I step inside the faux inner world I prepared for this. This one is even smaller than the original room Nash used, but this was made for small experiments, mana training and meditation.

Nash couldn’t enter inside his own inner world and that precluded him from some of its advantages, but he made up for that with his sheer capability to warp space with mere thought.

The differences in our approaches were great and even this was only possible because it is significantly easier to work with time inside the space he created. I can’t directly affect space nor do I have a few of his advantages and so I was pretty much forced to choose one of the smallest spheres available to limit the mana consumption.

I spend hundreds of thousands of points on the castle in the middle of the instance trying to learn and so much mana in experiments that it would have boggled my mind a few months ago.

The 2 meter sphere will be a bit claustrophobic. Even Nash in a volume some 6 to 8 times larger felt caged if he spends too long inside, let alone me.

With a mana budget that put even Nash’s to shame, given how much we managed to import from others increases on a regular basis in trade for the use of our library and our portals, this was even possible.

I let the thoughts in my mind fade as I call to the magic users outside. With all that Nash learned and my skills as a meta mage, I take control of Mana flexing my level 141 skill and my Magic special stat.

The strongest remaining seed behind tries to smooth out the space.

It all almost becomes too much as the world shifts, but I hold strong.

All mana in my domain is mine to wield as I please.

Ten thousand overlapping runes, currents of power and infinite ways to fail.

But riding on the edge of chaos I also find nigh infinite ways to succeed and suddenly, I cross a portal to another land, the land of the giants.

The analog dial climbs until it reaches 1.2 fold proving what I felt with my senses and that is just the first step.

“Time is mine to wield for I am a Timelord.”