'Before I stick my blood in the box I need to work on just creating a portal.' I thought as my young mind whirred at speeds that seemed possible to even myself. A feeling I rarely felt unless I was doing something I truly enjoyed.
I have read a bit about portals, I've read a lot. The best smiths in the world are able to take artifacts that show up after replenishments and use them to make portals. There is a vast system of portals set up which allow for long distances to be traveled in very little time.
Replenishments are moments where beasts appear from nowhere. It happens more often in places where the beasts are hunted down too fast. The books say that they come from a completely different type of portal, something they call a rift. A wondrous thing that leaves no trace of its existence.
The small town that I currently live in can't afford that to happen, so the beast population around this town is actually pretty thick compared to others.
The hunters clear directly near the town and the roads that interlink it and the rest of the human world nearby.
The beasts seem to understand that if they come too close, they won't survive, which is one of the reasons I have yet to run into trouble on my trips just outside of town.
The artifacts are actually very common, but they are protected by some of the most powerful beasts.
Spacial ones are often protected by a set of twin beasts, usually using both light and dark elements as their means of attack. However, there are a few cases where there is only one that protected it either from some other random element, or they have the strange ability to appear behind their attackers instantly, very similar to the artifact that is being protected.
Unfortunately, it's very rare for people to survive those fights, so they usually flee before they all die.
I'm sure that the stronger beast protects a stronger artifact, which lines up with what I have read, but nothing is written about what that beast truly protects.
But in the case of the spacial artifact, scientists in the books studied the portals that were made with the artifact. They said that once the two places were linked up, they would pull the two areas to the same place instantly.
Once you walk through the portal, you will be across the world.
'So I just have to pull the place I want to go to myself.'
I reached out, and spacial energy tore through everything as a hole appeared, and the spacial dimension that Drak once laid dormant in appeared.
I looked over, and with a bit of work, a second hole appeared. After sending energy into both, I was able to feel my energy connect as if it was naturally drawn to itself. A strange shift in the air was felt, and as I opened my eyes, I saw a magnified view of the wall across the room through the portal in front of me through the portal.
I stood up, having to catch myself as a bit of dizziness nearly toppled me. I walked to the other side of the portal and saw the opposite side of the room magnified through the hole.
'it's so weird.' I thought before a frown adorned my face.
There was nearly no energy left over after opening up the portal, and I felt so drained after doing this. I expected that I would have to supercharge my blood within the time-stopped box every time I wanted to open a portal.
I looked back at the magnification. 'It is stable... almost self-sufficient, as if I barely have to concentrate to keep it up, but the energy is still there.'
Within a moment, the magnification disappeared from sight, and a rush of energy overtook me.
'The energy doesn't disperse, it can be taken back under my control. Then, if I just send it into the box, it will remain there.'
'Time to test it.' I went to the kitchen and grabbed a baggy before I made a small cut on my arm and let my blood flow until it stopped.
Working as quickly as I could, I sent as much spacial energy as I could into the blood itself before storing it and shutting the box Drak had given me.
'Strange.' I thought as the connection between what was once part of me and what is currently me, became muddled.
I felt this control from beyond what should have been my own grasp, but whenever my consciousness went into this area, the entire world and my perception of it became very still. There was, what could be described as a warmth that set a specific point in space that limited the range of which I could control around this new point of control.
I shook my head before looking down at my arm, which was already adorned with a dark red tint from the dried blood. I had always just had a certain amount of spacial energy under my control and surrounding me. Perhaps I had feared what would happen if I brought it close, but seeing that nothing had happened to the blood within the box, my fears were proven to be wrong.
The strongest of mages can destroy the world, not because they can control a lot of energy, but because they have a very dense amount of energy within them. However, the stronger the affinity, the larger their sphere of influence, and the larger the amount of energy their body can hold.
I felt a small surge within myself as I closed my first portal, as the energy instinctively entered my body.
'With more energy I can increase the complexity of my energies shape, I can also increase the energies density.' I thought as I started to draw spacial energy into my body.
'It could get to the point that I could make a motor made from this energy, that runs off of this energy, to spin the propeller. well not a combustion motor but more of a manual labor one that should require hundreds of pounds of force in order to turn due to friction and torque.'
A higher capacity of energy opens up a lot of possibilities.
'The amount of power behind it would be nearing jet like speeds. I think the g-force would still affect me. Would it if I...?'
'That's for later though.'
I Set the box near the foot of my bed, and after a bit of time and regaining of spacial energy, I lifted the newly crafted storage box and set it over it. Its weight was similar to mine, so I was hoping that even in the case that any of my family got curious, the weight would dissuade them from searching underneath it.
I was also thinking of increasing its weight further as I didn't need to lift it to use it, but that would require me to get more materials.
For now though, it was time for testing, I walked over to the far corner of my room to make sure that I the box was out of my normal range.
A hole appeared quickly in front of me, and after a moment, the strange glimmer from it was replaced with darkness. It happened easily, my energy was actually drawn to itself just as it was before.
With a small bit of hesitation, I sent one of my shoes through the portal.
I could feel it there.
All I had to do now was close the portal and direct the energy back to the box rather than me.
'What?'
I was surprised that the same amount of energy was present in the box.
This was working out more easily than I had thought it would.
I resumed consolidating more of the energy within myself as this thought passed.
To create a portal, it does use energy, but that energy doesn't spread out into the atmosphere like any other mage's energy. It feels more permanent. As long as I maintain my control over it, that is.
The spacial dimension is everywhere around. I hadn't known this back then, but its energy was what made up everything around us, yet it was filtered down and warped to create what we see and feel.
It was right in front of everyone, yet we ignored it as we had seen it every day and had become accustomed to it, so even when the greatest of mages were deep in meditation, its presence would fly below their radar.
With all of my current theories brought to rest, I sat on my bed and began working on what would be my meditation technique for the spacial dimension. It was simple, gather energy and stress my mind by controlling an amount of it outside of myself.
Sharp invisible blades appeared as I compressed air into razorlike shapes.
After dispelling the blades, I cast out an invisible net in all directions, this was what I used to see without my eyes. It is similar to a spider's web, but I had full control over its shape and size. It rested softly above my bed and hovered in the air, it coated the floor and rested against it rather than going through. I could feel the resistance of physical objects, and that allowed me to map out what was around me. There seemed to be no limit, even the specks of dust that landed on the net before falling down to the ground, as the net had little to no resistance.
I reached out my hand to break this web, a smirk appearing on my face. Physically I couldn't feel the net, but I could see and feel my hand moving from a different perspective as the net of spacial energy collided with it.
It was surreal. The simplest terms I could use to describe what I felt back then is an external nervous system. In this way, the environment was like a glove fitting around a massive complex hand and allowed me to feel everything.
This technique showed many of the traits that light and darkness had. You could see a ray of light, but when you reach out to grasp it, you would feel nothing. In the absence of light was darkness, and even if you thought you would drown in its thickness when trudging through it, it feels no different from the light, aside from temperature, but that's for later.
I was quickly lost in my own thoughts as I continued my training, and seemingly just as quickly I had fallen asleep at some point.