Laying Foundations

The school break went by quickly, Van had gotten a lot of things done with the free time he had. He had drawn up plans for how he wanted the building to look. He then went and marked out his plans on the ground. After a stop at the Mages guild to hire a few earth mages he had certain areas of the earth dropped 10 feet. The mages also hardened the ground at a depth of 6 feet.

Now that the foundation was set he had gone and hired some carpenters to come, build his plans. As he was watching the floor joists being laid and the walls being stood up, he felt a sense of accomplishment. He was actually building something that was meant to create things not destroy them. This future steel foundry was going to change the world one ingot of steel at a time.

Soon he would learn Prospecting spells so he could go around and search for iron deposits, rare metals, and resource deposits. But before he got too far ahead of himself building his manufacturing empire, he needed to graduate from school.

When he returned to the school he stopped by the store. It had become a daily habit of his to go and see if any new spell books were available. He would also go to the library but he wasn't allowed to view anything above tier 1 spells as a first-year.

He attended classes as usual until mid-year when the announcement came that at the end of the year there would be a tournament against the other 1st-year homeroom classes. The tournament would be a bracketed double elimination. The winning class of the tournament would receive special deals in the store, cash prizes for every student, and a trip to the capital for a week.

The trip would include a pass to the Tier 2 level of the library, an audience, and dinner with the Royal family, and paid logging and meals.

With the promise of the capital library, Van instantly became determined to win. He wanted to do more "research" in the spellbook department. He was also excited about the audience and dinner with the royal family. He figured that he could distinguish himself and possibly fall back into what he was great at when he was till John. Weapons invention and manufacturing.

His line of thought was that if he could convince the king to use his weapons of war then when the country went to war, his count would increase. But his main focus was to help the people of this world make a better life overall since he needed twice the number.

Now that a trip to the capital was essentially guaranteed for him, Van wanted to speak with some of the soldiers to see what kind of weapons they have and if they had any suggestions. Van was always open to suggestions before so there was no need to change now.

After classes, Van went back to his room and continued practicing magic. He decided that today he was going to try and see what dimensional magic was. There was nothing he could reference, no one he could talk to about it, all because this magic had not been discovered yet.

Van sat down and meditated on what dimensional magic could do. Could he teleport? could he store things? if he could store things, could they be alive? how far could he teleport? what were the conditions for any of these things?

**********

Far to the North in a land that was as unforgiving as the oceans. A woman was sitting on a throne, spinning a pencil around her fingers like she used to do her pen while she was in high school. She was contemplating the implications of a pencil showing up in this world. Granted they were similar but they lacked an eraser and they were round and smooth vs. the yellow no.2 pencils she remembered.

She could understand a writing tool like this developing on its own. But the name, Pencil, there was no way this was a coincidence. 'Somebody from the earth is here' she thought to herself.

"You said this pencil was part of a trade shipment from which kingdom?" she asked the man who kowtowed in front of her.

"T-T-The Southern Kingdom my queen." The man stuttered.

"Send an envoy. I wish to enter diplomatic talks with the southern kingdom"

"Y-Y-Yes my queen." The man stammered

"Remove yourself from my sight."

Then man hurriedly stood up and backed out of the throne room bowing the entire time.

"Who are you?" she thought out loud.

As she voiced her thoughts a man appeared from the shadows. "My liege," he said as he bowed low.

"hmm..."

Without, another word or sound the man stepped back into the shadows and walked out of a cave somewhere in the mountains. He then looked to the north at a city bustling under the midafternoon sun. He set off on his two-day walk to Glens Hope, the Capitol of the Southern Kingdom.

**********

Van was sitting on the floor cross-legged, with both of this arms outstretched and his palms facing the ceiling. Hovering above his left palm there was a tornado about a foot tall and 4 inches wide dancing in the air, there was lighting coming from a storm cloud above it and thunderclaps could be heard in his room. In his right hand, there was a small ball of fire the had sand particles orbiting it. Van had reconstructed the Milkyway galaxy in his hand out of fire and sand.

Van had mastered the ability to wield two elements at a time, he was currently controlling the galaxy while Alice was controlling the tornado. They would practice swapping control of their respective hands and magics. Today was the first time they were able to swap control without the galaxy falling apart.

Van had devised this method of training because it used a lot of magic to maintain those spells over a long period of time, and he was trying to condense his core to the solid-state. Once her learned of the different states he had gone into his sea of consciousness and studied his core. he found out that he could manipulate the core so he could see the center. His entire core was liquid.

With Van always experimenting with his magic, he noticed that his core was being fed by vortices throughout his body. These vortices sucked up mana from the surroundings and filtered it before it reached his core. He noticed that there was a lot of wasted mana in the refinement process so he started to experiment with trying to control the mana.

Over the weeks of failures and restarts, Van noticed that all of the mana his body absorbed would be in its gaseous state. he wanted to see if he could absorb liquid mana directly. The tornado that was currently spinning above his hand was not wind magic, it was our mana that Van had harnessed.

At the base of the tornado if one looked carefully they would be able to see a tiny drop of liquid mana. The tornado was pulling gaseous mana from the air and condensing it into liquid mana. after a few hours of meditation and practice, Van felt the drop hit his hand. he immediately controlled the vortex in his hand and his core to absorb the drop.

The liquid mana entered his body and went straight to his core. That tiny drop did nothing to his core, but it was better than having to wait for the gaseous mana to condense into a drop that would've been 3 times smaller.

Once his session was over Van went to bathe and go to sleep. Van entered the men's bathroom and was about to climb into to public bath when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him and the red dot, that had been following him ever since he left his room, was getting closer. His instincts kicked into high gear Van dropped down onto one knee and used his other foot to spin himself around to face his attacker.

Van immediately cast a tier-one shield spell on himself and Alice cast a wind spell to clear the steam in the room. The attacker was caught off guard, he was sure he had the drop on Van and didn't expect the steam to abandon him. In the moment that his attacker was confused van cast a wind spell of his own creation, causing his opponent's head to be encased in a vacuum. Alice cast an Ice spell that froze the floor under the attacker.

The attacker tried to cast a spell but without any air, in his lungs, he wasn't able to chant the words. He tried desperately to breathe in air, nothing. he couldn't fathom why he couldn't breathe, there was nothing around his head that would block airflow. He tried to run but ended slipping on the ice. He was passed out from oxygen deprivation before he even hit the ground.

Van walked dispelled his vacuum spell and walked up to his wanna-be assailant. He didn't recognize his face and neither did Alice.

~~Well we can't very well leave him here can we? he is still alive so he should be fine for now right?

~~ {Yeah he should be fine. it was rude of him to interrupt your bath anyways he deserves it. But you should hurry before anyone walks in.}

Van stood up and looked at the person on the floor and simply thought... inventory... The person just disappeared leaving not a trace.

~~ {Well now we know that your pocket dimension will work on living humans. hmm, I wonder if there is air in there?}

~~ ... ... ... Did not think of that.

With a thought, Van retrieved the man from his "inventory" and let him fall a couple of feet to the ground. The fall woke the person up but before he could scream Alice silenced him with a Dark Magic curse aptly named Silence. Van had restricted his movements with summoned shackles. The man was at Van's mercy.

"Now since I have you and you so rudely interrupted my bath, you are going to help me. I need to know something and you are going to tell me, nod your head up and down if you understand."

The man nodded. He just wanted to get out of there. so cooperating was going to be the easiest and fastest way to get away safely.

"Good"

~~Release him from the curse.

As soon as the man felt that his voice was back he started to scream, he screamed so loud and hard that his eyes were closed. When he stopped streaming he thought he had gone blind. His world had gone black, pure black, the only thing he could see were the stars in his eyes because the organs couldn't comprehend this level of darkness.

The man tried to stand up but found himself suspended in nothingness. He could only feel his own body. his heart began to beat wildly, he could hear his blood pumping through his ears, he could feel his heartbeat all over his body. He screamed again but he realized that there wasn't even an echo. His voice was swallowed by the endless void, just like he was.

After a minute Van took the man out of his inventory. The moment the man reappeared he was placed under the silence curse. He immediately rolled over and started weeping. He pissed himself and was forever traumatized by the void.

"Ahem... Were you able to breathe for that minute?" Van asked.

'A minute? that's all the time that had passed was a minute?' the man thought until a heavy backhand connected with his face.

"I will ask you again, were you able to breathe?"

The man then shook his head yes.

"Thank you that will be all."

The man sighed a breath of relief thinking that his torture was over. When he went to look at Van he saw nothing but the void.