Chapter 1402 (Patreon)

“Mother, are you okay?” Luna’s voice brought me out of a completely dissociated state. I had no idea how long I had been sitting on my throne after coming back from my lesson with Lady Hecate. Once again, the Goddess had shown me that she was experienced and incredibly intelligent. Luckily, her demonstration was quite beneficial to me, as she had essentially given me an incredibly valuable lesson in high-level magical formations, such as those one might use for powerful rituals or extremely complex enchantments. This was far from the normal way magic was used, simply because nobody would ever be able to draw that many runes during combat, and the logarithmically scaling cost for instantly manifested runes made that avenue impossible. 

For example, the formation Lady Hecate had shown me contained one-hundred and forty-seven runes, meaning that even the multiplier for the original cost had to be written in scientific notation. And that wasn’t taking into account the complicated patterns used to connect the three primary formations, each composed of seven formations of seven runes each. 

“Maybe,” I mumbled, still a little distracted and out of sorts.

“Wow, you are really out of it,” Luna muttered, and suddenly I felt a warm, comfortable feeling wrap around me, the sensation enough to fully shake me awake. 

“Hey!” I complained, glaring at Luna as the Life Magic she had just used to check my physical condition dissipated. “I told you, I’m okay.”

“No, you didn’t,” she shook her head. “And you aren’t really okay, you know? Do you realise that you haven’t eaten or drunk anything in two days?” she asked, glaring just a little, maybe to remind me that being stubborn would be stupid. 

“Oh,” her response took the wind out of my sails and made the righteous indignation I had been trying to feed shrivel up and die rather rapidly, “No, I didn’t,” I admitted, suddenly feeling very, very foolish. 

“Thought so.” She reached out and took one of my hands. “Come on,” she said as she physically pulled me off my throne, clearly intent on guiding me to the kitchen, so she could assure herself that I was well-fed and watered before I did anything else. 

“So, what has you so distracted?” Luna asked once we were sitting in the kitchen, the image making me chuckle at the absurdity for a second. Here we were, sitting in a massive tower I had built from magical Ice, close to one of the tallest mountains in a large area, and the furniture around us looked like it came from a perfectly mundane store. 

Mostly because it did, but that didn’t change the fact that it looked a little out of place, especially given the location and significance of this place. Our furniture should be something more impressive than stained maple, though I had no real idea just what would work with the whole fantasy-theme necessary for my magical Ice tower.

“Just magic,” I admitted, getting an annoyed look in response, “Lady Hecate has recently asked me to add something to my anchors; you know about those, right?” When Luna nodded, I continued. 

“Well, tonight, or rather, two or three nights ago, she showed me just what she had in mind. It's a rather complex magical formation, and Lady Hecate felt it wouldn’t do to just give me the formation and have me carve it, so I needed to understand what the formation is doing,” I explained, and now Luna started to frown.

“So, you got a lesson?” she asked, after considering the issue for a few moments. 

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it, a lesson,” I smiled wryly, still feeling a little discombobulated, though the food and drink Luna was making sure I partook in helped settle me down. Not that two days of fasting were enough to damage me, not with my high endurance, but the sustenance helped regardless. 

“The lesson reminded me that I’ve largely been dabbling. What I consider a simple formation contains three runes, with fairly direct connections between them. That’s it, three runes. Nothing more,” I explained, shaking my head again. “Some of my work, like this tower, has more runes, obviously, but they generally fall into different formations, working in the same direction. Like the formations around the central column here, they have more runes than three, sure, but even then, they aren’t that big, nor are they all interconnected.” 

“And Lady Hecate has shown you what?” Luna asked, now apparently feeling invested in the story. 

“Her formation, the ‘simple’ thing she wanted to add to my anchor, contains a hundred-forty-seven Runes, all with complex connecting patterns between them to further increase their potential. Not quite exponentially, but by an order of magnitude nonetheless. It’s…” I tried to find the right word to describe the combination of mind-boggling complexity and sheer, magnificent power Lady Hecate had imbued into that ‘simple’ formation. 

“Wow,” Luna muttered, her eyes a little wide at the description. “I mean, I have tried to get a closer look at the runes and mechanisms underpinning the divine magic I can use thanks to Lady Hecate,” she admitted, looking adorably guilty at the admission, as if she was sorry to have peeked at something she shouldn’t have, “Those are complex, especially the patterns between what I think are individual runes, but they aren’t as complex as what you describe now. I think most are between twenty and fifty runes, so…” she shrugged, while my own eyes were now trying to escape their sockets. 

“Likely twenty-one and forty-nine runes,” I muttered, briefly considering common magically important numbers, before shrugging and deciding that I might want to get a closer look at some divine magic, even if the Gods had undoubtedly put in a lot of effort to mask the way their magic exactly worked. Maybe even traps that would fry anyone who used their spells without divine permission, or something that only worked if Divine Power was used, as opposed to Astral Power. Not something I would do, but then, I wanted people to advance Arcane Magic, if only so I could inspect their accomplishments and let myself get inspired by their achievements. Or, if one wanted to be uncharitable, because I wanted to steal their ideas and use them to further my own knowledge. Both descriptions were true in their own way.

“So, massively complex formation, and then?” Luna asked, getting us back on track. 

“Massively complex formation that I needed to understand,” I shrugged, “Not sure how much relative time I spent in Lady Hecate’s domain, you know how it is. Might have been months that I was there; I don’t think I could have noticed the passage of time, especially not with the density of her lessons,” I frowned, realising just how long the session with Lady Hecate must have been, to accommodate the words she had spoken. Without breaks, or discomfort, either physical or mental, it was rather difficult to tell the time, especially not if the deity with just about absolute control over the environment didn’t want you to notice. 

“That might be why you are so out of sorts, you know?” Luna suggested, making me consider the idea. And acknowledge the probability. If I had spent what amounted to an estimated two months, maybe three, essentially standing in one spot, listening to Lady Hecate’s voice, it made a disturbing amount of sense that I’d be utterly out of sorts. 

“Mismatch between Body, Mind and Soul, eh?” I asked, and Luna nodded in response.

“Mostly between your Body on one side and your Mind on the other. I don’t think your Soul was sufficiently impacted by the whole thing,” she suggested, and now it was my turn to nod. 

“Some forms will probably help, maybe a bit of meditation while I’m moving. You know, readjust to my body and all that,” I frowned a little, slightly annoyed that I had to pause my pondering of Lady Hecate’s incredible magic formation. 

“It’ll be for the best,” Luna reminded me, “And that formation won’t run away; I’m sure you’ll be quite familiar with it by the time you carve it in all the places you made anchors. If only because carving something that complex dozens of times will take a lot of time and effort,” she grinned, making me blanch a little. Luna had me there, though I was fairly sure she underestimated just how many places I had marked. It might be over a hundred by now, and the number would only go up. 

“Just keep in mind what the formation does,” she reminded me, “Other people will eventually be allowed to travel that way, maybe even people not loyal to Lady Hecate, just because it gives her leverage over other deities if their followers are allowed to use Lady Hecate’s work for travel and convenience.” 

“Yeah, makes sense. No anchors in my bedroom,” I grinned, though I knew Luna was right there. The anchors and the resulting travel network would be something every deity would want access to, or they would want to destroy the entire network. There pretty much was no option in between, and if all the Gods decided they wanted to destroy my work, it would be gone before I even thought to do something about it. 

Even if just the Asgardian Gods wanted to destroy it, and the Olympians wanted to protect it, things could get messy.