Mage Among Superheroes

Chapter 465 - 465

There were a few preparations to make before returning to Mount Agony, but mostly Midnight and I kept our activity light for the intervening time. The chances of Grand Mage Wrickle attacking us were extremely low, in my opinion, but that wasn't the only potential threat. Some local creatures could come for us- maybe some fire elementals that didn't get Ignis' message, or some sort of dragon or salamander moving into the neighborhood. Maybe the volcano would erupt, though it seemed to be constantly oozing lava anyway.

There was also a decent chance someone would come to try to kill Wrickle. I presumed she would try to hide her travels, but she might not be the best. There were archmages above her, after all. Though I wasn't sure if they were actually stronger without testing them somehow. Unfortunately, that would have given away far too much about myself.

Midnight and I went in with Energy Ward already active. Gate took us right to a nice high point we had remembered, a little bit away from the open caldera at the peak and away from any pesky lava flows. I figured Wrickle would be fairly precise, so we were only fifteen minutes early to the seventy hour appointment. It wasn't a great place to hang out, and arriving too early could cause other problems.

We had alarms ready for the actual seventy hour time, so we could start looking for Wrickle. However, they were pretty unnecessary as I felt her arrival. I was quite familiar with how magic distorted space. I wouldn't have Master Spatial Magic if I didn't… probably. It was possible that someone with poor senses could still manage to learn over time.

She wasn't far, just a quick jog around some boulders and stuff.

As I saw her, I was reminded that she was short. Like, really short. Being a goblin wasn't a great start to begin with, and her age probably didn't help. I might have also gotten taller again… though not significantly.

It was probably just the angles involved. She was standing on a slope, leaning into it.

"Sorry it took us a moment," I said. "We were just over there," I gestured.

She nodded. "I know. Anyone that's not magically dull would be able to sense you walking up. You should work on that."

"... I wasn't trying to hide from you," I pointed out. "Is it that important to hide?"

"Absolutely," Wrickle said. "Especially if you were meeting the archmages. They were already aware your level was decently high, but they'd probably be concerned that you've grown… five levels since last time."

Midnight leaned forward. "It's been some time, though."

Wrickle shook her head. "No it hasn't. Those old coots wouldn't grow that many levels in a decade."

I shrugged. "That's probably because they're already high level." I looked around. "Should we find somewhere more comfortable to chat?"

"No," Wrickle said. "We should make somewhere more comfortable."

"Ah," I nodded. "I actually have a spell that might help."

I was thinking about how I could fit Shelter to a sloped area, I'd probably have to leave out some parts of it to create a proper foundation and affix it to the edge of the volcano. But Wrickle was already gathering mana.

I nearly did the same in response. Usually people who were using their powers were attacking me, either in training or out in the city. However, I couldn't sense any hostility. No, I trusted Wrickle, at least as far as I could throw her. She was pretty small, so it wasn't a negligible distance. Plus with the slope…

Speaking of the slope, her magic went right into it. And then… some of it was gone.

I blinked a few times. "Hmm. That was…"

"Whoa," Midnight said. "How did that happen? It looks like you used a level editor."

I didn't quite get Midnight's comment, but it was level now. Whatever Wrickle had done involved cutting out a flat chunk of the mountainside. Or maybe a cube, since the flat horizontal plane intersected with vertical cutouts. If I understood correctly, it had been two or three separate magical phenomena in quick succession. At some point, she teleported away part of the dirt and stone.

I frowned. "How did you teleport just part of an object?" I asked. "Doesn't it require taking something whole?"

"Simple," she said. "I just separated the space first. Then it wasn't part of the mountain."

I touched one of my tusks, somewhat concerned about the possibilities. Could that sever people? Well, there was some innate magic resistance people had to things happening to or inside their body. It could usually be overcome with sufficient power, though. Maybe Wrickle had used that much.

She wandered into the nice area, about ten feet on a side. A decently sized little cutout. A small room for someone my size, but luxurious for her. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down- providing two more for us. A larger one for myself, and one closer to a stool for Midnight.

Ah, she beat me to it. Well, I could at least show her some of what I learned. If I waited too long she'd ruin all of my preparations.

First, I pulled out a table- complete with a fancy looking but still technically cheap tablecloth. Then I took out the tea and snacks I had prepared.

Ever since she had shown me that trick, I'd really wanted to do it. The tea wasn't quite as hot as I wanted it to be- complete stasis was difficult- but it was the single casting to bring everything out that felt good. I wasn't just limited to where I was touching.

"Not bad," she said, dropping several sugar cubes into a cup then pouring tea into it. "What's all this?" she asked, gesturing.

"Oh, various snacks," I said. "Like the pictures." I tugged on the sides of a package to open a bag of cookies. Maybe I should have gone to a proper bakery, but I didn't realize I wanted to do this until shortly before coming, so I got most of the things from a supermarket during the last couple hours before we showed up. I was glad she had provided somewhere flatter, but I could have managed with a few spots nearby.

She nodded, taking one of the cookies as I poured them out onto a tray. "You've certainly ended up in a strange world. And you've gotten very good at Spatial Magic."

I nodded. "Can we speak freely here?" I asked.

"Shouldn't be any spies on top of a volcano," she said. "And nobody knows I'm here. It's time for my mid afternoon nap. That one comes before my late afternoon nap, you know."

The little goblin lady was old and wrinkled. Certainly, at her age she might need a lot of rest. On the other hand, I had the feeling that she got up to a lot more shenanigans than people expected during her 'naps'. I didn't have any proof beyond just now, though.

"So…" Midnight asked after taking a few bites of tuna and wolfing down some mini sausages, "Why is it that you can't come to Earth?"

"Well obviously I'm part of the planar barrier," Wrickle said, as if we should already know.

I looked her over closely, even using magic… and I couldn't tell. I didn't know why she would lie, though. "Tell whoever set that up they were super late," I commented. "Also that it's not really solving the problem."

She shrugged. "And what good would that do? Providing fools correct information doesn't help anything."

How much information we should share had been carefully discussed. If it was up to me, I would tell Wrickle quite a few things that might be unnecessary… and leave out a few things that certain groups might want me to mention. New Bay was kind of concerned about a specific spatial distortion vaguely nearby- on a planetary scale- so I figured that should be brought up. Even if I kind of wanted to use it to smuggle people or other stuff.

"Did you know there's a spatial tear that the barrier might not cover?"

Wrickle raised an eyebrow. "Just one?"

I shrugged. "I've only seen one. The others are probably in a supervillain's lairs." I had a lot of questions. "Did you agree to be part of the barrier? What does that really mean?"

"I did agree," Wrickle said. "In my case, I just wanted to make sure it was stable so that nobody broke spacetime."

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Midnight's ears perked up. "You know about spacetime?" Midnight asked. "Not just as separate spatial and time magic?"

She shrugged. "I wouldn't be much of a master if I couldn't see the connection. What's a supervillain? Like a lich?"

She could probably read a lot from my face. "Do you really not know that much?"

"I don't have all the information," the goblin commented. "Even with my connections. It's not like I'm an archmage."

"I'd bet that many of them are less informed than you," I said. "Anyway, supervillains are villains with superpowers." I turned to Midnight. "How would you explain superpowers?"

"Abilities that aren't tied to the class system but are derived from different sources, some of which aren't magical at all," Midnight summarized. "Some are very similar, some are unique. Generally, they have strong capabilities in a narrow field."

"Interesting," she said. "I don't know how many people knew that."

Sir Kalman knew. And many members of the Order of the Lion. I was impressed that they'd kept the secret so well with their numbers. Ethus must be keeping secrets as well. Probably only Spellshot and a few others really knew.

"Anyway," I continued, "Doctor Doomsday is the one causing most of the trouble. His power…" I tilted my head. "Is kind of like being smart, but not really. Similar to an artificer, if you know what those are. He kind of makes things that do stuff that's not possible. In many cases, the powers of tech supers bridge the gap between functionality and intention."

Wrickle nodded as she sipped her hot sugar. I wondered if the tea was bad. I couldn't remember how she'd looked the first time, with various other mages around. "Sounds like a complicated situation. And I don't imagine this Doctor Doomsday is a nice fellow with a moniker like that."

"He's not," I said. "Anyway, he was previously recruiting a whole ton of people from this world and ripping open portals. He's probably still doing some of that."

Wrickle nodded. "Who else with him?"

"Just him, at first. He's got some people with class powers now, but I doubt they're involved with the portal stuff," I said. "He kind of had that handled already."

For just a moment, Wrickle's calm smile faltered. "Is that so? He does all this alone?"

Midnight confirmed it. "He's one of the top rated threats on Earth for a reason. His abilities don't seem to be faltering, and he's been getting his hands on new devices all the time."

"Does that matter?" Wrickle asked. "If this doctor can just… make things work."

"He can replicate actual, functional technology more easily," Midnight said. "And then perhaps make it do things beyond what is normally possible."

"Wow," Wrickle said. "Sounds like a huge problem. Good luck with that. Anyway, congratulations on your mastery of Spatial Magic. You know everything there is to know about the subject."

"That seems unlikely," I said. "If nothing else, I can always get better at it. But…" was she saying there was a higher category of mastery? Should I even ask? By the time I thought about the potential consequences, I had already asked.

"A higher category, huh?" Wrickle asked, opening a different bag of cookies and crunching down on the coconut topped chocolate fellows, "Let me ask you this, what is the highest rank for a spell?"

"20," I said. "Everyone knows that."

Wrickle nodded. "Like Gate. It's the strongest spell you've ever cast, right?"

"Well…" I couldn't exactly say that. No, I was pretty sure I'd technically cast a stronger Grease spell. "Not really? It's very strong. And it really might be the strongest, but I couldn't guarantee that."

"Another question," Wrickle asked. "What's the biggest number?"

"There isn't one," Midnight answered quickly. He lapped at some tea. I was pretty sure he'd use a little bit of magic to cool it first. "Even if you construct a number, you can always construct one a digit higher, or an order of magnitude, or… well, it's possible to get far crazier."

I remembered our first meeting. "Are you saying there are more secret spells of a higher rank?"

"No," Wrickle said, shaking her head. "For that to be true, we would need many people capable of casting such spells. Mastery alone isn't sufficient."

I'd been trying to figure out what level she might be, since she so closely determined my chance since our last meeting. Even now, I couldn't figure it out. Maybe I just needed more years of experience, but I'm sure she was also hiding it to some extent. The one thing I was certain of was that she was at least level 60, simply because of the magical combination she had used to carve out the flat section of ground we were on. If she had done it more slowly I wouldn't have a clue, but at that speed it was close enough to being a single spell with multiple phases. Fatigue limit would be a factor.

Was that what Zentha Qitris had done? If she could predict enough of the future to know what she needed to do, sequentially casting a number of spells as one larger spell that didn't have the time lag between spells… still wasn't sufficient. But it might help. She was also clearly faster at mana manipulation.

"What's the most mana you can use in a spell?" I asked Wrickle.

She looked me dead in the eyes. "You can't use more mana than the rank of a spell. It's a hard limit."

Nobody believed her. She certainly didn't believe her, and Midnight and I already knew that wasn't true. But maybe she wasn't comfortable admitting it, even here.

"Right," I said. "Can't believe I forgot something like that." I shrugged. "Oh well. At least I can keep getting upgrades."

"That you can," Wrickle agreed. "There's no limit to numbers. Well, there are practical limits. But if we're talking purely about numbers, they can go as far as you want." She suddenly transitioned as she finished off her second cup of sugar tea. Or maybe it was her third. "What are your plans?"

"... For what?" I asked.

"Today, tomorrow, the future."

"Training," I said. "I'd like to gain a broader understanding of how non-mages interact with class powers to help some others I know. Not that I'm at the limit of understanding how mages work. I met some that use an entirely different method to manipulate magic, you know."

"In another world?" Wrickle asked. "Yes, that's to be expected. After all, not everyone has a class."

The way she said that…

"What is a class?"

She took some time to ponder that. "A necessary limitation so that we don't kill ourselves." She narrowed her eyes, "It's already far too late for you to change anything about it."

"Do you mean… me? Or the world?"

"Either," she said. "You would have to completely rebuild your magical flow with your own magic. And regardless of what else I might think about limitations, classes are far more beneficial than not having them."

Midnight figured out his first question before I did. "What would happen without them?"

Wrickle shrugged, "Barbarians would summon fire inside their muscles or warriors would slice their own hands off. Assuming anyone could figure out how to use mana to begin with. Most people would just be powerless."

"Like Earth, then," I said. "I agree that wouldn't be the best." I turned to Midnight. "That sounds like a good reason for power exclusivity."

Midnight nodded. "Yes, people are aligned with a certain sort of supernatural force. Locked in on some method of tapping into things. It makes sense that it's the same with classes."

Fully investigating power exclusivity would probably require a very specific kind of meta-power to observe in detail how people's powers worked, but this explanation fit with the various speculations people had. It wasn't actually new information, but it was nice to see that multiple worlds agreed. I wondered what the Many-Colored might have to say about… classes. Though I supposed the way they controlled mana might provide the necessary safeguards for survival without a fundamental change to their magical structure.

I had so many ideas.

Midnight nudged me. "You're thinking about something weird now, aren't you?"

I shrugged. "Just some thoughts for unethical experiments I won't do."

He sighed. "Like what?"

"Seeing if someone from this world who hasn't chosen a class could get a power. But that's too unlikely."

"Eh," Midnight said. "I guess that's kinda unethical if you believe everyone should have powers. But you also have ways to guarantee other powers, right?"

I thought about that for a moment. "I guess they could become a magical girl. If they hadn't chosen a class for some reason, maybe they were unsatisfied with the options. Though getting kinda random powers might not be better."

I didn't actually think Humuruns provided random powers, but they couldn't guarantee how they would manifest in a person before seeing the results. Just a general feel. So not really random, but not entirely predictable like a class.

Wrickle set down her cup pointedly. "Naptime is about to be over." She reached out for the table, leaving behind a pile of books that completely hid her from my sight. It was only five moderately thick tomes, though. She was pretty short. "You can have these. Don't abuse your knowledge."

"What would you consider-"

"Just don't try to take over the world or something dumb," Wrickle said. "Can I have these?" she gestured to the rest of the snacks.

"Sure," I said. "But the plastic wrappers won't decay."

"Neat," she said. Then a few moments later, she was gone- with the rest of the snacks.

I was going to suggest how to dispose of them, but I supposed a handful in an entire dimension wouldn't be too worrying. She could always toss them into the sun or just into space.

I looked over at the books. "I feel like we've learned a lot and also very little today."

Midnight nodded. "Same. Hopefully there's something useful in those tomes."

I hit my fist into my palm. "Ah, dangit. I didn't get to give her a copy of my book."

Maybe I could teleport it to her somehow. Could I use Gift cross-dimensionally? Probably better to test it with someone else first. Oh, maybe Santa could- no wait, he only delivered on Earth, I think. He'd given me some stuff that was from outside Earth, but it wasn't the same to do it in reverse.

Well, I'm sure Wrickle would have plenty of corrections for me about mastery anyway. Maybe I could do another editing pass before showing it to her… but editing was so boring.