Chapter 10: A possibility.

Everything about that pub was weird, from the abnormally beautiful owner lady at the bar, to the clientele that it was filled with, non human races the likes of which I only heard about in tales that my father told me as a child.

Well, a smaller child.

After grimacing at the fact I could no longer see the door, I went on my way home, I hoped that it would reappear on another day.

That day, rumors spread about the Ice Queen going around the city with a very happy smile on her face and a bundle of papers in her hands.

By the time I reached home I was late for lunch, but I could say that it was absolutely worth it.

"Avys! Didn't I tell you to be here by lunch time, where have you been?" were the first words I heard after getting home, Sophia's worried voice.

It was probably the first time I came late to lunch, so it was understandable that she was worried, I was very used to calculating how long it would take to do something.

"Is father here? Something very weird and very magical stopped me from coming back in time so I wanted to ask if he knew anything about it."

"So it was magical things? And yes, he's still in the dining room, we've been waiting for you to eat."

Those words made me feel slightly bad, but it couldn't be helped, if I had the chance I would have stayed in that place even longer.

I went to the dining room and saw three plates filled with the usual soup, the thing we ate almost every day, Sophia was about to take them away to heat them up, but with a wave of my hand I sent a wave of fire mana inside the plates and distributed the heat evenly inside the soup, I kept going until steam started rising from the plates.

For a moment I thought the soup would light on fire, but all is well that which ends well, it was the least I could do after being the cause for the plate becoming cold in the first place.

But it didn't look as inviting as usual, after seeing a few of the snacks in the wandering pub, the soup I liked looked insipid, 'you gain something you lose something I guess'

After eating I told father about what I went through.

"That's impossible, the Wild Lands are sealed from space magic, I haven't heard about anyone being able to teleport from this place." his eyes widened at my words, but evidently he was wrong.

"Well, you're wrong."

"Nope, this has always been a reason of concern among the outside mages, the moment the trees starting indicated where one could no longer teleport, it was like a barrier, it had never been a problem for individual mages as they could teleport just before the trees started and pass the barrier on foot and return to teleporting after, but long range teleporting arrays where never possible, no matter how advanced."

"Well, you're evidently wrong." I repeated, why were we even discussing this, I saw that therefore he was wrong.

"I'm haven't learned space magic, but Sigmund has and even he told me that it is impossible."

"He has? When can I go meet that old guy? I want to learn it too." I obviously ignore the part where he tries to use the name of another guy who obviously wasn't right either.

"Actually, he'll be coming to dinner tonight, so we'll ask him then."

"Now, now, stop your bickering children, let Avys finish her story." Interrupted Sophia, evidently bothered by the fact that our conversation wasn't going anywhere.

"Thank you, now, there were these people of different races, winged people, humans, demons, a rock guy and…" but I was interrupted, again.

"A rock guy?" This time it was Sophia herself, the same person that said to let me finish the story just one second earlier, to interrupt me.

"Yes, a rock guy, he was square shaped, gray in color, and had a rough face made of rocks in the middle of his big rock body, his legs and arms were made of many rocks together and he moved surprisingly agilely."

I continued my story, this time without further interruptions.

At the end I asked father if he knew anything about space and gravity magic and how to use them, but his reply disappointed me, "I just have a rough idea about what they are, I don't know if Sigmund could teach you more, you can ask him later about this too."

The more I learnt the more I realized how little father actually knew, the person I once went to ask all of my magical questions, the person who could always point me in the right direction, now didn't know much more than me.

Surely, he had much more experience than me in actual magical use and I'd lose in a fight nine times out of ten, but I was rapidly overtaking him in theoretical knowledge and spell casting ability.

After a bit of more normal and less magical discussion, I went to the library to search for anything about gravity magic, there was nothing, but I already suspected as much.

So I went to my primary research material, Ufine's notes.

They were numbered on the top right of the page, probably to tell me where to start from and started reading.

It took me the entire afternoon until dinner time just to read through and understand completely the first page and create six separate pages of notes.

'This thing is seriously monstrously complicated.' I thought to myself.

From what I understood, which wasn't a lot, matter was made of particles called atoms which had different properties, one of them was mass.

A lot of mass in the same place could create a curvature in spacetime, this curvature resulted in gravity, weird but okay.

How small were these atoms that I was unable to see them and how did Ufine learn all these weird things? Why did knowledge bring more and more questions with every answer?

Those were only some of the hundreds of questions that came to my mind.

"Avys! Come down, your grandpa Sigmund is here!" I heard father's words coming from the dining room.

I really needed to sound proof my room and give them a button to summon me if my presence was needed, it was annoying to be called like this.

And other than that, grandpa?

He did give me books sometimes, so I guess that I could call him that in exchange of more, maybe if he taught me space magic…

"I'm here." I stated as I finally came into the dining room where the three adults where currently waiting for me.

They were already looking at me, but I liked announcing my presence for some reason.

"Avys! It's great to finally see you again!" said the old man in the room with great enthusiasm, it was always good meeting this old man, he seemed to enjoy teaching me things very much, so it was a win win situation.

"Hey, how are you old man?" I asked.

"Never been better little one, your father told me you both have some question for me, but that can wait for after dinner right?"

That night we ate actual meat from outside the Wild Lands, the beasts meat was incredibly rough so it was eatable only when in a soup, otherwise it was too hard to chew properly, it was to the point that some merchants, like us, didn't even bother to take it back as very few people were willing to eat it when there weren't famines

It was delicious, it didn't smell as good as the plates from the tavern, but it was still much better than the usual soup made mostly to savage ingredients.

After dinner came the time to interrogate the old man about the things that he knew, "So, are the Wild Lands really sealed from the teleportations from the outside world?"

"Well, it was like that the last time I tried to do it, that was a long time ago, but it has been like that even before my and my teacher's times.

But if you met something like that then I must trust in you, I've once been in Ufine's traveling pub long time ago, and if there is someone who can force her way through the space barrier than it must be her."

"You really met her?" I asked in wonder, this old man really was a better mage than father, I should start going to him with my questions, he also answered my next question, he was able to use space magic.

"Oh yes, it was only a chance meeting, that was the first and last time I got into that magical place, to this day I believe that she let me enter that day for some particular reason, every single person in that pub was a far better mage than I am."

"Can you teach me space magic?"

"Yes and no, you're far too inexperienced to learn space magic, you need a far better mastery of all elemental magics and you also need to be able to use them all at the same time."

"What about gravity magic?"

"That's even more complicated than space magic with incredibly little combat efficiency, where did you even learn about that?"

"Ufine." I replied briefly, I wouldn't tell them about her notes on my own, but I'd refuse to show them even if they asked me about them, I owed Ufine that much.

"There must be a way to do it fast, not even father can use space magic, I don't want to take that much time."

"Well, your father lacked the drive to learn it," to which my father interjected, "Hey!"

But the old man shushed him, "You were and you still are, you see magic as a tool to beat beasts so you focus on the destructive parts, even if you had the talent to learn it you burned it, now your daughter is ten times more talented than you and loves magic far more than you do, don't blame me if I like her more than you."

'Wow, this grandpa is merciless'

Father's mouth narrowed into a thin line, forming a wry smile on his face, he obviously didn't know how to counterattack the old man's statements.

"But little one, there would be a far better way to learn all these things you're interested about than me."

His words aroused my curiosity, so I asked him, "What way?"

"You don't mean…" my father words were interrupted again, "Yes Laurence, that's exactly what I mean."

But showed a grave look on their faces, but I still didn't understand, "What are you talking about?"

"The outer world, in the Wild Lands we are without doubt the leaders in barrier arrays, but when it comes to other spell castings the outside dwarfs us."

"Absolutely not, she's still too young." replied my father with apprehension in his voice.

"I know moron, I wasn't talking about now, those envoys from the outside will come here eventually, we'll put her having the best magical education they can offer as a condition if we decide to accept, I doubt any sane person would refuse someone with her talent."

Wow, i still marveled myself at how fast the old man could think about things, this went to show just how experienced and fast thinking he was.

"I still don't like it, what do you think Sophia?" replied my father turning the decision to his wife.

At that, the only thing that could leave her mouth was a "Huh?"