More practice

I looked at the gate and went towards it, but before I stepped in it Chrestos rushed to me and stopped me. He bent down and took a rock from the ground and tossed it at the gate. But when it came down from the other side it was crushed. "Number one rule for making a spell, never test it with your body" I was terrified, if it wasn't for Chrestos jumping in to stop me, I would be the one that gets out crushed.

"Thank you mister Chrestos, I'll never forget that" He nodded at me and said:

"Now close that gate and make a new one. Remember that once you set up a gate, you won't be able to modify it. Meaning no changing where it leads to or its stability. And one more thing, gates will close if you decide to close it yourself or by shutting itself when the mana that supports it is depleted." "Now try making a gate again, but be sure to visualize the tunnel better, we wouldn't want the thing passing through becoming a mess." I tried once more, but I had the same result, the rock became crushed.

Chrestos looked at me and said:

"Don't worry, it would be terrifying if you managed to do it easily. It's astonishing you could already connect the points. It took me a year to be able to perform a Gate." I kept creating a gate until the sun was almost sinking in the ground. Every attempt to make the tunnel was failed. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I was contemplating the best picture to describe a mana tunnel when I saw a mole lifting his head from the ground. Moles were animals that lived underground by making a structure like a maze for transportation. I tried to imagine how a tunnel would look like inside for a mole but I couldn't.

light don't reach that far in the maze structure. Only the exits were visible.

And that's how I got an idea. I don't have to picture a full tunnel. Just the things that define it. You know when you go in a tunnel inside a mountain there is two things you can see, the entry and the exit, and in between there is only darkness.

I figured that I'd try visualizing it that way. I imagined the point in front of me and the point behind me being the ends of the tunnel. The points where light would come from. And in between them, there was nothing like darkness.

A gate formed exactly as I wanted to. But its color was not purple anymore but white with a tinge of black on its edge. I didn't what caused this change. But mister Chrestos didn't seem to mind it. I took a stone and threw it inside.

From the other end, the stone came out in the same shape it got in. I was very excited. Mister Chrestos was amazed; he was barely holding his tears back. I may have broken his pride. I can't blame him really, in one day; I managed to do something that took him a full year to accomplish.

"I did it master Chrestos" He looked at me dumbfounded and slowly nodded. He was letting what happened sink in his brain. After a while he spoke:

"Edward, I don't know if you're a genius or a monster. Just one day, it took you just one day to perform it." "It's all thanks to you, master" I started addressing him as master; I didn't want him to be heartbroken but instead proud of me, being his student. In fact, it was thanks to him that I was able to learn how to perform Gate. He was my master after all.

Chrestos coughed a little bit before he returned to his usual self.

"Good, it's amazing how you could perform it so soon; you have a good understanding of the spell and the mechanics of it. You also have a good imagination. At this rate, you would be learning spells really fast. That's really something even for the most talented mages." "Well that concludes your training for today. I'll see you next week. You have to work on the Gate spell until then. You have to be able to use it even when moving at high speed. You also have to shorten its activation time, good luck" He said that as he made a Gate appear in front me. I stepped in and it took me back home. I made it half an hour before dinner, so dad had me running even more.

I had dinner and told my parents about the new spell I learned. At first, they just though that I learned the theory behind it. But when I said I could perform it they were very surprised. They kept praising me and going on about that we, their children, are all geniuses. I went to bed early, but I couldn't sleep. I was constantly thinking about how I can use the space affinity to its fullest and possible spells that I can create. But after pondering for a lot of time, I went to sleep. Nothing came to my mind.

The next morning, I had my usual morning routine; eating, training and lunch.

Then, as dad mentioned, I spent the entire evening practicing the Gate spell.

At first, I started trying to shorten its casting time. At first, I was able to perform it in 10 seconds. But at the end of the day, I was able to do it in around 8 seconds. The long time was me trying to picture the place fully. The more I memorized the place, the shorter the casting time became. I kept training until it was time for practice with Chrestos. In this week, I managed to shorten the casting time down to 3 seconds. I found out the more I memorized the place, the less I had to picture every detail about it when imagining it and the shorter it took for the spell to be cast.

Even more, when I know the approximate location of the exit point from the entry point, the gate would form even faster. So if I wanted to visit a place, a picture of it and a map would be very helpful.

Yes, in this world there is maps, but mostly for major regions and cities, more detailed ones are hard to get by. As for pictures, there are no cameras here but paintings, so I had to find ones that were legit and slightly accurate.

(Hmm, geography is a crucial thing.) Chrestos came after lunch by an hour. He was really punctual in his meetings.

He greeted me and said:

"Today you'll be the one getting us there." I nodded and proceeded to open a Gate, it took me slightly less than 3 seconds because I know the approximate location of the forest we've been to last time.

It was north of here, around 150 km away. It took me way more mana than usual to open the gate. But that was due to the great distance between the entry and exit point. Mana consumed would vary according to the distance between the two points and the size of the gate I'm making. The bigger, the more mana consumption increased. But still against my enormous mana pool and density, it was like a drop of water in an ocean. I was really thankful for that.

When the gate formed, Chrestos extended his sleeve in it and then pulled it back. He was testing if the gate was stable or not and thankfully it was perfect.

We stepped in and got out from the other end. Chrestos didn't seem surprised any more. He must have embraced the idea of me being some kind of monster.

We turned towards me and said:

"Today you're going to learn a second function of Gate." He formed a gate as usual, the entry in front of me and the exit behind me, and threw a rock. It got out of the exit and nearly hit my ear. It continued to travel towards the entry point and passed through again appearing behind me. Once again it nearly hit my ear and continued on.

It kept travelling like that until I finally noticed it. The rock was not losing speed. It kept travelling without stopping at all.

I was wondering what was happening, I had many theories but I can't prove none. Chrestos looked at me and said:

"That's the second function of the Gate adding speed to the object stepping through it." I was shocked; he didn't just add speed but he added force to the moving stone. In other words, he had the power to control force. And that was a thing really powerful. Imagine controlling forces, you would have the power over pulling and pushing forces, handling things without even touch them and many more.

But as I started practicing the spell with the added functions, my hopes came crashing on me. It was really difficult and even spending the entire day training bore no fruit.