PftA Book 4 - Chapter 52 - That's Not Good

I only stayed a single night at the underwater hotel in Hawaii. I’d chosen that one because the use of [Barriers] was so much more interesting than upgrading mundane engineering, and I thought Bell would get a kick out of it.

I was right.

Bell took a break from working on the numerous reagents she was prepping to enjoy the niche locale – which she was positively enamored by – but it didn’t take long before we were both ready to start crafting.

I’d never been one for prolonged idleness.

It took a few days to fully familiarize Bell with the new runes that I’d added to the formation blueprint. By the end of our lessons, I felt confident she’d be able to incorporate them into the formation properly.

Having already sketched everything out, Bell got started on the actual Enchanting right away. She was so focused on her task that I didn’t bother inviting her to lunch with Mom.

I knew what she’d say if I managed to break through her crafting fugue, and it was nothing nice. No crafter liked being interrupted when they were in the zone, and she was very much in the zone.

Bell crafted like a woman possessed – or perhaps, obsessed.

Mom mentioned her lack of contact with Bell when I took her to a little restaurant in Brazil for lunch. The world’s new internet made it easy to find places to eat for world travelers, and some of the nicer restaurants even had teleportation hubs set up.

I explained that Bell was focused on the big enchanting project she’d been planning out for years and that she was currently isolated in a time dilation field. Mom was a little concerned by the news, but I assured her everything was fine.

We also discussed Zavira’s engagement. The announcement had gone out the day after Zavira’s dinner with her Patriarch, so I didn’t feel bad sharing what I knew about the situation.

Mom struggled with the idea of limited marriages, but after considering the life expectancy of someone who continually progressed, she admitted the concept made sense. ‘Til death do us part’ was great in theory, but when that time could be extended for literal millennia, it made more sense not to promise something so extreme.

As much as I hoped that the crafting process would drag out for a while, Bell made great use of the 20x time dilation that my personal dimension boasted. Only a few ‘real-time’ days after my lunch with Mom, Bell informed me that her project was complete.

At almost the exact same moment, I received a strange message from Anya advising me not to have a Soul Mage on standby but to put Bell into stasis for a week or two before seeking Soul healing for her.

The warning seemed to come out of the blue, and I had no idea why she’d suggest something like that. When I reached out to the woman, she just replied that it would be better not to draw attention to Bell’s injuries in the aftermath.

“What does she mean ‘the aftermath’?” Bell asked when I informed her of the messages’ content.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It seems like the formation might cause some kind of fallout – fallout that we probably don’t want to be associated with.”

Bell’s lips pursed as she considered my theory. “I mean, you said strong Time Mages can tell when a new time branch is created, right?”

“That’s what Kai says,” I told her. “I haven’t personally experienced it, but I’ve been in the dungeon or a rift for most of the time that I’ve been strong enough to potentially sense something like that.”

“I mean, if I’m in stasis, it’s not like any injury would get worse,” she said. “If it keeps us from getting the wrong kind of attention, it might be worth delaying.”

I glanced at the Fate obscuring ring on my hand and wondered how effective it could be if she was still able to see things about my future so easily. Then again, if the event was large enough, I supposed she might be able to see things anyway.

And I did have unsettling feelings about using the formation. That trepidation hadn’t gone away. Perhaps the fallout she mentioned had something to do with that.

“I’m ready to use it,” Bell said with a touch of impatience. “I probably shouldn’t activate it inside your space, though. We didn’t design it for that.”

The thought of activating the formation inside my demesne almost sent me into a panic. I had no idea how such a formation would react within a separate dimensional space, and I didn’t want to find out.

“So, you’re okay with not having a Soul Healer along with us?” I asked, wanting to make sure we were on the same page. It was her soul that was likely to be damaged, so the decision was ultimately on her.

“If your Fate Mage says it’s better to put me in stasis and wait until whatever fallout from the new time branch passes, then that’s fine. Just make sure the formation is done doing its thing before you freeze me. I’d hate to have things get messed up because my soul was paused in the middle of the process.”

I could understand her point. It would suck to put her in stasis too early and cause the whole thing to fail after so much work.

“Do you mind if Kai joins us?” I asked. “I’d feel better about the whole thing if he was there.”

Bell shrugged. “That’s fine. He already knows what we’re doing, so it isn’t like it’ll be a surprise to him.”

With her permission obtained, I reached out to my mentor and asked if he’d like to be present for the activation of the formation. I was not at all surprised when he jumped at the chance to witness the formation in action.

After telling him about Anya’s warning, Kai said he wasn’t sure why Anya would have given such a warning since creating time branches didn’t normally cause any kind of fallout beyond severe soul damage for the one responsible.

But he trusted his sister, and I’d begrudgingly come to trust her as well.

Not completely, by any means, but enough to trust a warning such as this.

I was a little concerned about where to use the formation since I wasn’t sure if Anya’s warning implied that the formation’s use could be tracked, or if it was something else.

When I brought it up, Kai assured me that if location was an issue, Anya would have mentioned it. But since she only suggested we prevent Bell’s soul damage from being recognized for the first couple of weeks, he felt confident that the location we used it didn’t matter.

Even so, he asked that we not activate the formation near any of the sect compounds, which I took to mean not on a planet where an Epikairos branch was located.

We ended up selecting Gemine, a Tier Eight world near the edge of Alliance territory.

It was at the edge of what Bell could handle, which I felt added to our potential deniability if her future soul damage ever came into question. It probably wouldn’t matter, but I still considered little things like that.

“That’s a pretty impressive ward,” Bell commented appreciatively once I finished setting it up.

We were in what passed for the wilds of the world, though they weren’t truly wild. It was more accurate to say they were largely uninhabited, though the closest rifts were regularly cleared.

Gemine was one of the older worlds within the Alliance, and the planet had been subjugated and, to some degree, cultivated for longer than Earth had been a colony.

That meant the mana flows had been intentionally shaped to allow large swaths of land to remain mostly untouched without worry that they’d be overrun by rift beasts.

There were still beasts in the area, but they weren’t true rift beasts since none within a dozen generations had come from a rift. By this point, any creatures living in the area were basically normal, mana-enhanced beasts.

Once we were protected from potential distractions, Bell removed the large beast skin from her storage ring. It was made from a Time-affinitied creature, as expected, though the bulk of the elemental affinity had been neutralized during processing.

The design was far more intricate than the one I’d used, but it still followed the same basic principles. The center was left open – a space just large enough for Bell to sit with her legs folded under her – which was where the bulk of the energy would focus once the formation was activated.

She carefully laid the enchanted skin on top of the thin layer of Arcane mana I’d created as a platform. The platform wasn’t required, but I figured having everything nice and neat couldn’t hurt.

I kept an eye on our surroundings while my sister-in-law got settled at the center of the formation. After removing the crystal of Time mana I’d given her to assist with the crafting process and an adapter to dilute the mana to something close to Tier Five, Bell stared at her spatial ring for a moment before sliding it off.

“Hold this for me?” she asked, holding the ring out to me. “I don’t want anything to interfere.”

Though I didn’t think it would matter, I took the ring without comment. It would be returned to her hand as soon as the formation’s magic ceased.

“Alight, wish me luck,” Bell said with a nervous smile.

“Good luck, Bell. Give Justin my love,” I said.

My sister-in-law released a tense breath before slotting the crystal into the adapter and placing it on the input rune. A pulse of mana started the process, and the crystal began pulsing as mana was swiftly drained to fuel the formation.

Kai and I automatically took a few steps away from the formation. I was sure he could feel the tinges of warning in the air as the formation began powering up, just like I could.

“That doesn’t seem right,” Kai commented warily.

I shook my head but felt powerless to do anything. If I interfered now, Bell wouldn’t forgive me. But doing nothing felt wrong, too.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the formation activated before my contemplations could go any further.

Bell’s body tensed as if she’d been hit with lightning, but her body didn’t move from its position. It looked like she tried to scream, but her body refused to obey her commands.

Time twisted, and I felt something esoteric pop. It was wrong in a way that I couldn’t describe, and then I felt an odd sort of pressure descend.

I shivered at the strange sensation but pushed thoughts of my own discomfort away as I rushed toward Bell. The formation had burned itself out, so there was no longer any worry of potentially interfering in the process.

Bell was unconscious but alive. Having experienced soul damage, I figured her lack of consciousness was probably a blessing.

I immediately transferred Bell and what remained of the formation into the stasis section of my personal dimension.

“Something is wrong,” Kai said with a frown.

“I feel it, too.”

“I think I know why Anya said to avoid drawing any kind of attention to Bell’s soul damage now.”

“Yeah?”

My mentor nodded. “Yeah. People are going to ask questions about what happened. I have a feeling a lot of people aren’t going to be very happy with the new restrictions.”

“Restrictions?”

“You don’t feel it?” Kai asked.

I paused for a moment and assessed what I was sensing.

“I feel a weight that wasn’t there before. It felt like something is coating my soul, or maybe my affinity?”

I really couldn’t put it into words. I knew what he was saying, though. Something had changed, and it directly affected Time magic. I felt nothing of the sort influencing my Space or Arcane affinities.

“Just Time?” Kai asked.

I nodded.

Kai opened his mouth to say something but before he could, a notification appeared in front of us both.

After reading it, I grimaced. “That’s not good.”