46 Goblin Isn't Crazy

Awakened by a sudden explosion in another part of the cave, Evangeline sits up while flailing her arms about. Hopping out of bed she stumbles through the hallway. Since the cave's currently empty (or was the last time she was awake at least) she has to be ready to defend herself from potential threats.

Making her way to the entrance of the cave, the most likely area for a break in, she stops and jerks her head around looking for the culprit. Not seeing anyone she sucks in her gut and tries to slip between the bars of the innermost defensive wall.

Slipping her left side of her body through she tries to bring the rest of her body through, starting with her butt. Having trouble she tries her upper body, to no avail. Giving up on her plan to slip through the bars she attempts to slide out from between the bars.

Wiggling vigorously she gives her all to escape, but it's futile. Realizing her predicament she wraps her hands around the bars and shakes them violently in a bid to break them lose. Her desperate struggle yields no results, only serving to tire her out.

From within the cave nearly silent footsteps approach her. She panics thinking the intruder has come to get her after catching her with their clever scheme, but her violent thrashing doesn't help her get any less stuck than she already is.

Seeing Sif saunter down the hallway her eyes sparkle brightly. At the same time an intelligent light flashes through Sif's eyes.

[Here Mathias. Be a good boy and help me. Mathias? No! Don't lay down, help me! Do you understand, you must help me! How can you abandon your master like this? I was so good to you! Help!]

While Evangeline franticly screams for help Sif leisurely plops down on the ground, resting its head on its front legs. The desperate pleas for help only grow louder the longer Sif ignores her. Eventually the vampire tires herself out and stops being noisy.

At that very moment a revelation struck Evangeline as if it were a message from heaven: she's a vampire, and vampires can use blood magic. She's left shocked when she finally realizes she could have used blood magic to escape at any time.

She pricks her finger with her nail causing blood to ooze from the wound. Controlling the blood she whips the top and bottom of one of the bars she's stuck between. The cut is incredibly clean and thin to the point the bar doesn't loosen up and fall over.

Growing frustrated she repeatedly whips the top of the bar in an attempt to break free. Using her hands she angrily pushes the bar forward, finally dislodging it. Due to her overzealous shove she falls with it to the next bar before using that one to brace herself.

The repeated slashes to the top of the bar prove to be effective in dislodging the bar and the pieces as evidenced by the thin slices of earth dropping on her head.

Her anger reaches a boiling point due to the series of events and she angrily lashes out. The target of her venting is the poor defensive bars that did nothing wrong. She wildly swings her blood whip around, cutting through the bars like a hot knife through butter.

When she's finally satisfied she gives one of the bars one last kick out of spite. This, however, turns out not to be the brightest idea. The bar she kicked, which had somehow stayed in one piece despite being cut into an inestimable number of pieces, collapses due to the small force exerted on it.

The pieces tumble in every which way causing a domino effect to take place among the bars. Naturally the majority of the ruble falls toward the source of the reaction where Evangeline is standing. In the blink of an eye she's buried under a pile of dirt chunks with only her head, arms, and a tiny bit of her chest sticking out.

Finding herself trapped once again she reverts to flail mode as she swings her arms around wildly. Due to her being face down her view is limited by a substantial degree. Almost mockingly Sif adjusts its position so it's inside her field of view before lying down again.

[Pull me out! Mathias, help! Please don't abandon me! Haven't I always been a good master to you? Traitor! How can you be so cruel when I was nothing but kind to you?]

Unable to gain favor with the pet wolf she switches to plan b. using blood magic she creates a claw attached to a chain. Throwing out the hook she uses her blood magic to slam it into the ground. After giving the chain a light tug to see whether the claw was securely lodged in the ground, she begins trying to forcefully pull herself out from under the pile of dirt.

After enduring much hardship and suffering she finally escapes the clutches of the dastardly trap the invader set for her. Before she has a chance to give up on chasing down the intruder another explosion rings out from the depths of the living quarters.

[Come on Mathias, we have an intruder to catch!]

Calling out to Sif, she pops to her feet and rushes to find the source of the racket that's keeping her awake. Unfortunately the hamster on a wheel that powers her brain is taking the day off so she's yet to realize she's not the only one in the cave anymore. Even after calling out to Sif this fact flies straight over her head and blows away with the wind.

Pausing in the dining hall she looks back and forth between the two halls she has to choose from. She originally came from one of them, but there's a distinct possibility the intruder is looking for her and went that way after she fell for his evil trap.

While she's busy racking her brain Sif moseys past her on the way back to its room. Seeing this she believes her beloved pet Mathias is leading her on the correct path to make amends for earlier.

[I understand Mathias, you couldn't help me earlier for my own good. You wanted me to find a way out of the precarious situation using my own power the way a noble vampire should! Don't worry, I won't betray the trust you've placed in me!]

As she gives her speech she tilts her head back slightly to avoid crying from happiness. Clenching her fist she strikes a pose before rushing into the living quarters to track down the intruder. Wondering if there will be any more free entertainment Sif tags along as well, boosting her confidence.

Bursting around the final corner of the living quarters they arrive at Jellal's personal training area. There they find the person in question holding his dirt cube in front of him while cackling maniacally. On top of that he's even mumbling incomprehensibly to himself.

Evangeline tries to figure out what he's saying but she can only make out him saying something about perfection while looking at the cube with an affectionate gaze. No matter how she looks at it there's something suspicious going on between him and the cube of dirt.

Not wanting to get infected with some strange disease she slowly backs away, putting an end to her grand hunt for a nonexistent intruder.

To Jellal the insignificant interruption isn't a big deal. Rather, it would be strange for someone not to investigate a pair of explosions within a cave system they're currently in.

While Evangeline was on her escapade Jellal's research was steadily moving forward. He ran through multiple tests with splintered wood, randomly thrown together dirt balls, and his perfect dirt cubes. In fact the second explosion was him using a dirt ball to verify his findings from earlier.

As for why he was holding the dirt cube in front of him while staring at it affectionately: that was a result of his rapid advancements.

'I've already confirmed both dirt and wood explode when teleported to an already occupied zone. Their similar reactions were an expected result. On other fronts I have theories to test. Using the dirt balls I threw together I was able to prove the perfect teleportation wasn't due to the substance used since the dirt balls were damaged in a similar fashion to the splintered wood chunks.

Yet the dirt cubes continued their show of excellence and have yet to have a result other than perfect teleportation. I can only think of two reasonable explanations for this anomaly. The far less likely explanation is them performing so well thanks to the internal structure meeting some, as of yet, unknown requirement. However, it's a higher probability it's a side effect of me knowing the exact internal structure of the cube down to the placement of each individual speck of dirt.

I'm almost certain it's the latter reason so I'll focus on testing related to that theory from now on. If I need to know the exact makeup of the object I want to teleport things will get tricky in the future. First I need to figure out how specific my knowledge needs to be to achieve a perfect teleportation. After that will be the live tests. If I need to know exactly where each drop of blood is in the body and how the muscles are moving to teleport a living being it'll add an extra layer of difficulty.

Regardless of how difficult it is I can tell I'm closing in on teleportation which is exciting. It won't be long before I can start the live testing necessary for the final stretch of the grand experiment.'

Using earth magic Jellal pulls together a dirt ball at random. Passing his mana through the ball he gets a general idea of its internal structure before teleporting it above his hand. Snagging it out of the air he inspects it for damage, only finding trace amounts.

Breaking apart the ball he creates another one from its remains and teleports it without paying any attention to its internal structure. By doing this he can compare the amount of damage done when he has a general idea of the structure of an object versus going in blind. Since both balls are made from the exact same materials this experiment will give him an idea of how important it is to know not only the material but how it's arranged.

The ball predictably ends up with more damage than it did the first time around, adding weight to his theory.

Without wasting any time he makes a group of five new dirt balls. He inspects them all for an equal amount of time before teleporting them one at a time. Even though the difference is slight there's a differing amount of damage on each of the balls. This tells him the complexity of the balls makeup likely differs causing the more multifaceted ones to require a higher degree of knowledge.

During these tests he keeps in mind the material he's working with. Although dirt seems plain at a glance its actual makeup contains various types of minerals instead of one consistent material.

Switching over to a chunk of wood he carefully inspects it with his mana before teleporting it. The piece of wood appears above his hand allowing him to easily catch it. A quick check for damage reveals a pristine piece of wood and a perfect teleportation.

Moving on to the next phase of his experiment he decides to step up the complexity of the items he's teleporting. To do this he creates a batch of dirt balls with water inside using a combination of earth and water magic. The hope is to do a series of crude simulations to determine how a living being would react to being teleported with the water acting as a stand in for blood.

The method is extremely crude and inaccurate but it's a starting point. For the initial test he tries to teleport the ball of dirt without moving the water. He goes forward with the test despite his confidence the results will meet his expectations so he can cover all his bases.

As expected the water splashes on the ground after the shell holding it disappears. Due to his lacking inspection of the shell it comes out damaged causing the results to skew. Not satisfied he redoes it after carefully inspecting the shell.

One successful teleport later and everything turns out as expected. Pushing ahead he does another series of tests to determine the viability of teleporting the water and dirt both separately and together. Things end up going surprisingly smoothly throughout the entire testing period.

'As long as I'm familiar enough with the object I'm teleporting there's no issue with moving things separately of as one. I can confidently say I'm capable of teleporting simple objects at will after inspecting them.

To continue down this path I need living subjects to perform tests on. Since I haven't finished all the different experiments I have I'll put it on hold for now. More importantly, I think it's time to test the swapping style of teleportation. Now that I can ensure the objects would normally reach their destination in one piece I'll be able to know for sure if it's viable.

After that I have a more interesting idea I want to play with.'

To facilitate his experiment he creates a solidified space shield in the form of a cube. If the two items he teleports collide and explode or do something worse he has some level of protection.

For the initial phase of testing he stars simple with some good old dirt balls. He gets ready to run for cover as he initiates the test, but all his precautions are for naught as things go off without a hitch.

Ramping it up a bit he uses the water filled dirt shells he prepared for the last test. Yet again they swap without any problems arising.

After the anticlimactic swapping experiments he's ready to move on to something a little more interesting. To start things off he gathers together some wind mana and attempts to teleport the raw mana to a different location.

Under normal circumstances it would be difficult to tell whether such a test succeeded because of mana's ethereal nature. Fortunately Jellal is far from normal. By focusing mana to his eyes he was able to watch the mana at both the launch point and destination.

For the first test he didn't mess with the mana around the destination so he could get a baseline. Even though it was negligible there was a slight reaction between the preexisting and newly arriving mana.

With his interest sparked he changes up his plans. Using the same bit of mana he repeatedly teleports it between a two nearby locations. The longer he keeps it up the more obvious the reaction becomes. Finally it reaches the critical point and the portion of mana he's been teleporting begins emitting a faint glow.

Maneuvering the mana so it floats around he observes how it interacts with the natural mana in the area. It doesn't pass through or merge with the mana but repels it as if showing its dominance.

'After a prolonged period of constantly being forced to collide with other types of mana by way of teleportation did it become supercharged? Under normal circumstances mana doesn't collide in such a manner so it's easy to pinpoint the cause. Why it reacts the way it does, on the other hand, is still a mystery. I can think about it after I play around with it a bit more.'

Controlling the mana, Jellal makes it come into contact with a splintered chunk of wood. He considered testing it on the wall but adapted the idea to use wood for safety's sake. The piece of wood is instantly turned to dust when it comes in contact with the supercharged mana, and suddenly his decision not to smack the wall with it proves to be a brilliant move.

In the end his curiosity can't be contained and he brings the mana in front of him. Having it land on his palm he's greeted with an intense searing pain. After keeping it in place for a second he moves it away to check what kind of damage he's taken.

For him to take any damage is enough to prove how potent the supercharged mana is. Even the most powerful breath attack of a mutant wyvern couldn't scratch him yet little bit of mana was able to despite not being formed into magic or being used to deliberately deal damage.

Looking at his palm, which is covered in tiny divots where the mana touched him, a smile floats onto his face. Controlling the mana he makes it land on his palm a second time. Unlike the first time he tries to interact with it the way he would a normal magic attack and have it merge or pass through.

The supercharged mana refuses to cooperate with him so he decides to do some other tests instead. Creating a solidified space shield he has the mana collide with it to test its physical and magical power.

The usually trusty space shield is slowly cut through without much effort.

'If it's so powerful in its basic mana form what would happen if I formed it into magic?'

Riding that thought he focuses on the mana in an attempt to form it into magic, but stops midway through and stares at the mana in surprise. The mana doesn't have any true attribute yet it can take on the properties of any mana he wants.

'It's so broken! Whatever its true origins, I know it isn't ordinary. Who knows, maybe it's the original form of mana before it turned into its current form? If that's the case wouldn't it basically be some kind of divine mana? Is being born with this how they become gods? No wonder my arch nemesis is a total idiot; being a god is something he was probably born into.

All that aside, I see the path forward to revenge on the bastard!'