Three months had already passed since Mack entered the 6th gate and today he finally reached the end of the 'road'.
Because in front of him a giant portal waited for him.
All around Mack seemed as if made of white opaque glass, the temperature was so low that all seemed to be frozen.
[Contratulations]
"Yeah yeah but i didn't do anything actually"
[Its expected, your will is solid. This and the next trial ahead are only to eliminate those that didnt reach this point, while also giving them a chance to do]
"The next one will be like this?"
[Yes]
"I see. Thanks for the warning"
Said Mack, retracting his hand that almost touched the portal.
[Im glad my future master is clever to undertand the clues]
"Stop with that future master thing. Im no master, except for my death."
[Wise words for a chitchat]
~tsc~
Mack clicked his tongue and looked around, there was nothing much to see, but he was not actually searching for anything.
It was his way to decide what to do. The mind sometimes needed some visual feedbacks to be able to formulate a plan better.
"If the next gates are like this I may not survive without water. I bet the next one is about fire."
Mack body could easily go days without food or water now, but he could not keep this forever. He was already more than 2 months without food, as his backpack now only contained some Essence Crystals and other tools.
He thought about what else could be but water and rock didn't made sense for a trial, if it was the same line as this one then fire made much more sense.
[Unfortunately i cant help you as the rules forbidden me. But oddly, I can tell you the gate name. This is called 'Gate of Duality' and the next one have the same name as this. This is the maximum I can do.]
"You girl. twisting the rules to help me? Did you fear so much about me?"
[Without me, you would be a corpse already]
"A very handsome corpse at least"
[...]
"What?"
[You are lucky that you can't see your face on a mirror. When you get out of here people may confuse you with Santa]
Mack put his hand over his long beard and stretched it a bit.
~sigh~
It was indeed abnormally long. He was not sure when he stopped caring about his beard or his hair, maybe it was because no one saw him, only dealing with light constructs didn't gave a 'real' feeling of interacting with people.
"Anyway. Thanks for the heads up."
[Just remember to treat me well in the future. And stop thinking if im hot]
Mack was speechless, He knew the Arcane could read hia thoughts, but saying this aloud? He never imagined it.
"I wish I could. But its get harder and harder as times passes. You know, i don't have a woman in more than 3 years. Im almost a virgin again."
[...]
"Anyway, let me focus or I will be here for eternity chit chating with you"
Mack pondered a bit and hit his two palms together.
His domain runespell was active. And the glass like ground snapped and a cube of ice came from it.
The glass like cube kept floating in front of Mack as aif gravity didn't exist.
More and more Mack was inproving his skills in using the domain runespell.
Two months ago Mack would not be able to give such a clear form to his will while using the runespell.
But now, a cube was in front of him, floating alone in the air.
Mack aproched the ice cube and started to draw runes over it.
One after the other he drew several runes.
The thing about his domain runespell that he learned way too late, or better, took time for him to realize the consequences, was that his blood was infused in almost everything around him.
The consequences of that, was that he could engrave perpetual runes in everything around him with just but a thought.
Mack knew it, but he was not good enought to do that, yeat. The runes looked like gibberish wrote by doctors in a patient recipe.
So, he carved them manually for now.
"Its done. I think that would be ok."
And with that thought his domain runespell retracted, and the cube fell to the ground.
Mack already expected for that and approched the cube touching it with his thumb.
The runes over the cube flashed and Mack put one of his remainings Essenxe Crystals over the ice cube.
The ice cube shaked a bit and started to transform itself in a ball of ice.
Mack opened his backpack and put the ice cube inside.
"Ok. that should be enought for 3 more months. I hope"
[Very clever of you carving a domain runespel as if it was isolation rune on the ice cube to prolong his utility, this way heat would not be able to come close to it for a long time]
"Yeap, at least until that Essence crystal runs out of juice, but im not gonna use any of the two that remains just to conserve water. Its not worth it."
[I agree with you. Essence Crystals may be common thing for mages. But for you, or anyone in Earth they are as rare as the moon]
"Indeed, and I still don't what the future reserves for me. I usually plan way ahead. But since I touched that book all my plans were in vain."
Mack thought about his future but no matter what he thought, none of his future actions seemed feasible.
~sigh~
"Lets go to the beach"
Said Mack touching the giant door that would lead him to the next trial.