"Is it real life? Or is it just a fantasy?" After hearing Irea's explanation, Layn unintentionally muttered those words under his nose. With no intent behind those words, even his translation spell didn't pick it up, leaving the girl clueless as to what the archmage just said.
"Excuse me?" Baffled by the strange words coming out of Layn's Irea couldn't help but probe him a bit.
"Ah, it's nothing. Don't mind me." Noticing the girl's curiosity, the archmage quickly pushed the topic out of the agenda before focusing his sight back at the astonishing barrier.
'Is it some kind of natural phenomena or… Is this barrier really created by some god-like being?' No matter how long the archmage thought about this problem, he was unable to find conclusive evidence for either of the possible solutions. In the modern world that he hailed from, there would be no way for such an impressive magical feat to come unnoticed and unresearched.
Sadly, the locals were content with just taking it for the works of God, leaving such incredible phenomena to its own devices.
"If you are still thinking about this barrier… Well, I can only say one thing. Don't waste too much time trying to figure it out. Everyone thinks they would be capable of uncovering its secrets when they first see how it works… But even though this place has several thousand years of history behind it, a single person has yet to succeed." Noticing what could be the reason behind Layn's thoughtful state, Irea rushed to talk him out of thinking about the barrier too much.
"Don't worry, I'm not as arrogant to think I'm someone special enough to understand it. But it doesn't change the fact…" Raising his head towards the barrier once again, Layn couldn't help but shake his head over how futile his attempts to explain his situation would be if he ever tried to be completely serious. "... that it's making me curious."
Releasing a deep sigh, Layn finally moved his head in the opposite direction, just in time to notice the huge mass of people gathered between the walls, starting to move. Just like the magic carriage traffic back in his time, by the time the fluctuation of the queue reached their position, the groups at the front have long stopped walking.
"Thinking about the curious things, how come we are not constantly moving forward?" This was one of the things that Layn believed he was able to understand. While the weight of such information wasn't great, it was still one of the ways for the archmage to understand a tiny bit of the rules that governed this ancient society.
"Ah, you mean the queue? That's pretty simple." Irea smiled before pointing her hand towards the inner set of the walls. "Rather than checking people one by one or group by group and forcing everyone to constantly stand and move, the guards are inviting about a hundred people at a time."
Lowering her hand, the girl smiled once again, as if answering Layn's inquiries gave her a lot of joy. "This way, instead of moving an inch at a time, people can just take it easy and move only once in a while."
'Makes sense. Given how there weren't any places with queues as long in my times, it's only logical they figured out a way to make it easier for everyone.' Rationalising the method used by the ancients, Layn obediently stood up and moved several meters forward, before the queue stopped once again.
"But it's not really something you were curious about, isn't it?" As if reading Layn's mind, Irea smiled once again, before allowing a gentle giggle to escape through her mouth. "You don't need to worry too much about it. If I can answer your questions, I will. If I won't be able to or if the question will be something I won't be happy to answer, I will inform you about it."
From how Layn was constantly sending an anxious look towards the barrier, it was clear that this topic was far from over for him. But in reality, it wasn't as if the archmage was worried about asking about the barrier. He just didn't believe that an ancient person like Irea or her colleagues could provide him with a scientific answer.
"Let's stop talking about the barrier, for now, there is something else that I'm quite interested in. Mind explaining the basics of your training to me? Since that's what I'm lacking right now, I can't really think of a better topic to waste our time on while we wait." Pushing the topic of this incredible barrier out of the agenda, Layn inquired about their training regime.
But his thoughts were as far away from this topic as they could humanly be. Rather than trying to discover more secrets of the ancient world, something that he would learn about sooner or later, Layn finally focused on something far more important.
'What am I even supposed to do right now?' Glueing his eyes to the girl and passively registering what she was talking about, the archmage finally attempted to tackle his most important problem.
With the entire idea of going back to time being oriented about changing the things that Layn was unhappy about in his initial walk through life, going back all the way to the times he considered ancient, foiled all his plans.
Appearing on the desert, then meeting with what he thought to be an incredibly stubborn reconstruction group, fighting with the monster, discovering the differences of the magic… All of those things and events pulled his thoughts away from what was his real trouble.
Because as fun as journeying the ancient world could be, he gave a promise to his followers from the future.
He promised that he would find them once again. He gave them his word.
And if he were to just live the rest of his days in this insanely interesting world of the past, he would die millenias before he would even get a chance at keeping his promise!
"And that's the gist of it. While the idea of starting to train right away might seem promising… If you attempt to refine your body right here, you will get used to the local density of the world's energy. While there is nothing wrong with it per se…" Taking a moment to replenish the air in her lungs, Irea clearly didn't expect Layn to interject.
Waking himself up from his deep train of thoughts, the archmage realised that they already moved all the way to the gate. With a single look at the crowd that still separated them from the inner gate, he could tell that it would take a few moments at most before their turn would come.
But he still had to make a sense out of Irea's relentless lecture. Scanning the memories of his body from the time when he passively listening to her words, the archmage absorbed all of the knowledge that the girl passed to him in just a single moment.
"This will make it hard for me to train in places where energy has a slightly different nature, right?" Finishing Irea's sentence in her stead, Layn smiled. From how her eyes widened in reaction to his words, it seemed that he hit the bullseye with his guess.
"That's exactly right. While it's entirely possible to overcome this problem… I'm worried that if you try to condition your body with different energies, your body might end up clashing those energies, not only destroying all the effects of the previous training but potentially even causing huge injures to your internal organs!"