Chapter 71

'What is poking me so much!?'

'Stop… aw crap, whatever, the dream is gone now.'

Alex opened his eyes to see a frightened blue haired elf holding her finger away from him as if she had just poked a hot pan on a stovetop.

After a round twenty seconds of silence and a strange staring contest, Alex finally asked the question on his mind since he poked to consciousness.

"What?"

"We're sorry we tried to recharge the device but it stopped working a few hours ago and I didn't want to wake you but we didn't know what to do." The elf said in a small voice and somehow in one breath.

"Oh! That's it? It should be an easy fix, you don't have to worry about it. Sheesh, from the way you looked I would have thought that I was expelling bag stenches again while sleeping."

Alex stood up and went to massage his back, expecting the oncoming soreness, only to find that it faded faster than he would have expected.

'They must've not made much progress, but why are the other two turned away from me? Failing to achieve something over night isn't something that they should be upset over."

Alex was just about to comfort them when, his attention shifted to the device he made yesterday.

His eyes settled on the wooden log and small sparkling shards scattered around it.

Normally he wouldn't have noticed them so easily, but as he was actively looking for something wrong, it was pretty easy to notice what looked like glitter all over the dirt floor.

'They could've just told me that it broke.'

'It's everywhere, how did the device manage to reduce the core to dust.' He thought as he rubbed the glitter off of the wooden log.

As he turned around to ask them what happened he paused and squinted his eyes. After doing this he turned his feet and looked at the surroundings again. He looked at the three with awe. "You did it. You controlled mana. I mean I knew it was possible, but you did it so fast, and…" he looked down at the log that was still being held by him.

"You even managed to overload the beast core and cause it to explode from the pressure." Alex chuckled before laughing.

"You… but how did you figure that out just by looking at it?" The elder asked.

"The powder on the ground looks like an explosion radius and the three outlines right there tells me that you were still seated when it occurred."

The elder squinted as she attempted to follow how Alex had discovered this.

"Why are you laughing?" Taeral asked.

"I just learnt why product testing exists."

"Wha…" she tried to ask what it was but was cut off by Alex.

"I'm sorry I hadn't expected the unexpected, and I had instead expected that you all would be able to feel when the core was reaching its limits. This all could've been avoided if I had added a gauge for it."

Alex reached into his bags as he looked around for any extra materials he may have had on him. He found a few crystals but frowned as he looked at them. 'These won't work.'

He looked around before his eyes settled on his uniform. 'The crystal that regulates the temperature would work, but… argh, fine, it's not like I wanted it solely for it's comforting aspect in the first place.'

Alex sifted through his belongings once again but sighed as he couldn't find what he was looking for.

'I don't have my rune removing device…'

'It can't be too hard to match the frequency of a rune can it?' Alex scanned the crystal and the runes connected to it. 'And, nothing, nothing at all. All I can do is feel their presence and see them shimmer.'

Alex paused. "What is going on?" He said as he smacked the top of his head.

"Are you okay? Is your head hurting?" The blue haired elf asked.

"No, I don't know what's going on. It's fast too fast, I mean normally I would be able to think quickly but not this quickly." He stuttered as he questioned if he still had his own mind.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up.

The elder spoke softly as she looked at him.

"At first I had thought that you were a scholar and highly educated, but after watching you… I'm sure of it now, you must be a sage."

"Sages are incredibly rare because they are not born, but made. The last elven sage lived thousands of years ago, all that remains is a library full of books that he wrote himself. Still, what was so hard to accept was the fact that you are human, humans have such small lifespans and the time that they have to gather knowledge is limited." She looked at him in the eyes as she spoke the next sentence.

"You having the intelligence that you have, is frightening. It requires wisdom gained from age and many more things that even an old elf like me hasn't experienced."

'She is perfectly explaining what happens when I meditate, well, what happened when I meditate, I'm not really sure what would happen here anymore. But why? Would everyone from school be considered a scholar, did the books that I read while looking around at the public library have a hand at this as well?'

'I never really asked if I could read them but I was looking for stuff about my spacial affinity, and I didn't break anything. Or was it all from diving into the fragmented memories of people from the past.'

Alex kept on thinking as his spacial affinity pulsed at the same frequencies as the runes hummed and pried the crystal free.

"So is it normal for everyone to just continue to get smarter here?"

Alex asked as he worked on the device.

"By here do you mean on this planet or this forest."

"Just in general, so the planet"

"For the most part, yes." The elder answered.

"Back at home you could have as much information stuffed into you as possible and still be a complete moron. Being here and looking back I realize how limited I truly was" He said as he pulled out his last remaining beast core.

Alex looked up as he got caught up in his thoughts. "How did your elven god ascend? You said she was strong, how so?"

"You saw my power briefly right?" She asked.

"Barely, but I noticed that you and that guy were not that affected by my spacial domain. Even though it was my own energy I felt like I was being slowly crushed."

"From what I've read, the limit of strength is two to four times what mine currently is. Without running into a bit of divinity it would be ten to twenty times."

"And this is physical strength you are talking about." Alex asked as he tried to keep his jaw from dropping.

'This old elf can snap me into a speck of dust.'

She nodded.

'Everything was just shifted! The limit on everything was removed from the beings living here and placed on the planet. If that's true then there should be a limit for absolutely everything. Intelligence, mana, speed, strength...'

Alex placed the device down. "It's all ready."

"See how the crystal is green? When it gets low on mana it will slowly turn red."

"This should keep you from accidentally exploding it again." Alex carved out another slot and added a second smaller crystal and pressed it after setting it into the log and the familiar ghostly globs appeared.

"I also added this so that it will not always be using up the power in the core." He tapped the crystal again and the orbs disappeared.

"Since it doesn't seem like it will be long until you are able to sense mana yourself, you don't suppose we could talk a bit more about rifts could we?"

"I owe you this much, let's go inside." The elder said after taking her eyes off of the newly fixed device.

"Be careful with this core, it's the last I have on me." He said to the other two elves before turning to follow the elder.

'What is this feeling?' Alex questioned as he looked around.

Several shelves of items which looked to be on display, lined the walls. One such shelf, emanated a strange aura and made Alex feel uneasy.

"Are all of these magic?" He asked.

The elder nodded before turning to Alex. When she saw the shelf that Alex kept on looking towards, she placed a hand on his shoulder again.

"Whatever you do, don't touch those, they are cursed."

"They feel cursed." He said as he turned away and stopped the set of questions about curses from taking more time than necessary.

She sat at a desk and motioned for Alex to take a seat as well.

"You said that I should speak with the gods. Any in particular that would know more about rifts?" Alex asked.

"Many do, any gods who were well versed in the arcane for example. Although two that should be more of use could be Argonis the god of transport, he oversees long distance teleportation."

"The most likely to have the information that you need is Kaptsula, he is claimed to know everything about everything, the only problem is that he is rumored to be an ancient god and hasn't been heard from for thousands of years."

She tapped her finger on the desk as she thought for a moment. "The scouting division likely has confiscated maps, I'll see if I can get some to you within the next few days."

"If you would like I'm sure that one of those to could even guide you."

"They don't have to do that, I'll be fine. I happen to have spent quite a bit of time using maps." Alex waved away the concern.

"I don't think you understand how much you have truly done for us. I've learned more from a 17 year old human than I ever would have, besides Ospret seems to have taken an interest in you."

"So you thought so as well, I was beginning to think I was overthinking things. Wait, I thought you couldn't give out your names so freely."

"That is just an over exaggeration told to the youth, we can't give out our full names, but even without those tales any elf wouldn't give out their full name so easily. For example everyone here calls me Ecknat."

"I am Alex." He responded as he realized

"Well Alex, we should get back to work, the faster we get you back home the better." Ecknat said while standing up.

"Oh yeah, what about speaking with everyone else? I don't know anything about this place if it weren't for this ring I wouldn't even be able to speak with you." Alex asked as the thought came to his mind.

"That ring, allows you to understand common and elvish. It's an artifact from when an alliance was temporarily formed long ago. Most know how to speak common as even though it is relatively it is one of the most widespread." Ecknat answered while exiting the room.

Alex followed as he thought about what had transpired. 'She either doesn't think I will find a way back or doesn't believe that I'm even from another world. Why else would she not only point out the blue haired elf's feelings, but also attempt coerce me to travel with her.'

'Or maybe she is hoping that if I fail, I'll get stuck and end up settling down here. I don't blame her, I barely have any faith in myself right now.' He sighed internally.

He shook his legs and waved his arms as if trying to to understand the exact changes in his body.

He looked left and right before sighing. 'I guess even though I can see where their version of a restroom is, I should probably ask for directions. And I'll have to wait for testing until I'm not confined within this property.'

"Sorry to bother your training, but do you know where the toilet is." Alex asked Ospret.

"The what?"

"The John."

"The Who?"

"The… water closet?"

"Nope sounds familiar, but nope."

…