Serum

Pandora stood in the middle of a large field. 

This field was located within the castle of the city itself. The castle was so massive that it had more than enough land for an internal open field. 

And in the center of this field was a large structure being worked on by some mages.

The structure consisted of a large circular platform about 50 meters in diameter. And on the edges of this platform rose arches that curved over from one side of the platform to the other. There were two such arches, and they crossed over the center of the platform creating a cross shape. 

And in the middle of the arches intersection was a large crystal orb that burst with dark mana. 

“Hmph. Idiots.”

Pandora snorted as she gazed at that large mana crystal. 

The dark and light elements were opposites, and nothing could contain both elements at once. All the monster generals who wanted this orb were nothing but fools. They would only kill themselves with that orb!

Only the monsters with a darkness attribute could ingest this crystal and evolve from it. But a monster general would never allow that to happen since it could threaten their power. So in the end, the only outcome was the monster general holding onto an expensive mana crystal for no reason. 

She stood before the new teleporter that was being hastily built. It was estimated that the city could fight for another day at most before either giving in or, by some miracle, winning. So the mages who were building this teleporter either had to move quickly or lose their lives trying. 

Of course, there was nothing for her to do. The dark element was aligned with space, so only the dark element could be used in the construction of a teleporter. She had the light element, so anything she did would only get in the way. Not that she would voluntarily offer her services anyway. 

The perks of being a powerful princess was that she could do as she pleased. There was no reason for her to do anything she didn’t want to, unless it aligned with her goals. And nobody could tempt her with anything. She was rich beyond belief, and her personal power was nothing to scoff at. What didn’t she have besides her own nation to rule?

The only thing that was allowed to move her was War Cataclysma and her railways. 

That, as well as Dirk. If anything was an exception in her mind, it was him. 

But despite not planning on helping in any way, Pandora still watched the teleporter’s construction. She found it interesting. She even had her Stigma out, the Book of Life. 

In this book, pages occasionally flipped and runes jotted themselves down on the sheets. Pandora was recording the things she saw, recording the myriads of spells used to construct this teleporter, and analyzing the magical pathways strewn throughout the structure. 

It wasn’t that Pandora didn’t already know how a teleporter was built. She knew almost everything about it, except for the most high level spells that she couldn’t comprehend. 

No, what she found interesting was how this particular teleporter was built. It was different than most teleporters, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. That was why she was analyzing it. 

In situations like these, her Eyes of Truth were exceptionally helpful. They revealed even more than Dirk’s mana vision. 

“Aha!”

Suddenly, one of the mages cried out in excitement. He quickly enchanted a circuit from the mana crystal that ran down one of the arches and connected it to the massive teleporter platform. 

Then, a few other mages by him came over and began working on enchanting the rest of the platform, starting from the first mage’s circuit. 

They were getting close to completing the teleporter. 

There were already thousands of enchantments that riddled the teleporter platform. As a result, the platform was covered in dark glowing lines that distorted space with faint ripples. This was all a byproduct of the spatial aspect of dark mana. 

There was nobody more familiar with teleporters than the Dark Kingdom, the world’s leader in all things dark mana. The Dark Kingdom had made teleporters far greater than any other empire, capable of transporting far more people and far faster. In fact, the only reason Pandora was able to utilize the train system was because teleporters still cost astronomical sums to operate, making them impossible to use for large scale cargo transportation. Otherwise, there would be no need for the inferior trains. 

Then again, Pandora already had plans for utilizing teleporter arrays as well, hopefully scaling them and making them cheap. But that would come after she dealt with this global crisis on her hands. 

“Status report!”

“City Lord!”

Suddenly, a door was slammed open, revealing the City Lord who wore bloodied armor. Although he was injured to the point of dropping a few power levels, he was still capable of some fighting. Even Pandora could admit that he was a suitable leader for this place, a very competent man. 

A mage ran up to him, giving the report he asked for. 

“We’re making great progress. No more than half a day!”

“Half a day… Fine. Just get it done. And make sure our reinforcements are on standby.”

“Yes sir!”

The mages saluted him before getting back to work. They knew how important their work was. 

Complete the teleporter, or die in the siege of monsters. 

Then again, the mage was surprised by one thing. 

“He’s not as stressed.”

“Mm. He usually comes in yelling.”

The mages murmured as the City Lord left. Of course, he didn’t leave without glancing at the Vampire Princess. 

His glance was cold. He knew just how powerful Pandora was. With her help, they might actually be able to wipe out the monster hordes instead of just surviving them. Not even Dirk could operate such large scale magic. She was perfect for a siege like this. 

But here she was, just watching as the mages worked themselves to the bone in order to complete the teleporter. She had no intention of helping in any way. 

Pandora understood his frustration, but she didn’t care. She just smiled and waved as the City Lord left before going back to watching. 

He had to stop himself from scoffing on his way out. 

After that, several more hours passed. Pandora continued to watch, and the mages got more and more excited as the teleporter neared completion. 

That was when the door opened once more. The mages didn’t even turn. They were too focused on their work. 

Instead, Pandora smiled. 

“Have a nice battle?”

“Hm.”

Dirk hummed as he walked over to her, taking a seat on the grass field where she sat. 

He didn’t speak as he activated a pocket ring and extracted some plates of food. He was naturally starving after fighting for so long, so he decided to indulge in his lunch. 

She gazed at him as he ate. 

“Any particular reason you came to eat with me? Or do you just like being in my presence?”

“I came to check on you. Make sure you weren’t doing anything crazy.”

“Dirk, I’m an elite. If I’m doing anything crazy, it’s being done in the dark where nobody will find out.”

“Hm.”

Dirk hummed as she smirked, just continuing to eat.

His lunch lasted close to two hours, and during that time his body healed any and all injuries from the battle. 

“You know what’s funny?”

Just as Dirk finished, Pandora drew his attention. 

“A teleporter, despite utilizing a Tier 7 mana crystal, only requires a Tier 6 mage to construct it. Of course, there are specific parts of the teleporter like the housing for the crystal itself that must be constructed by a Tier 7. But besides that, a Tier 6 can build the rest.”

She pointed to one of the mages currently building the teleporter. He stood out as he was dressed in nicer robes, carrying a book heavy with mana, and was giving out orders to the rest of the mages. 

“That’s a genuine Tier 6 mage right there, and he’s in here building the teleporter, not outside fighting. He could do more than me in the battle, but he’s here. Makes you wonder how things would go if the City Lord simply sent him out to fight instead of playing around in here. Or perhaps he’s one of the mages that was specifically assigned to building this secret teleporter, and he doesn’t wish to fight, forcing the City Lord to break his back out there to keep the city alive.”

“...”

Dirk was silent as he gazed at the mage she was talking about. Dirk could in fact sense the deep mana within him, fluctuating wildly with the dark element. He was a powerful mage, and there was no doubt he had powerful spells in his arsenal. 

Dirk wasn’t sure what to say though. On one hand, the City Lord was making a hypocritical decision, keeping the mage in here. On the other hand, if the mage was refusing to fight so he could take it easy building the teleporter, and the City Lord couldn’t do anything about it since he was now weak…

Either way, the situation was made worse by the mage being in here and not out on the battlefield. 

It made Dirk want to go back out there and continue fighting. The more he did, the fewer people died. He found reward in these battles he fought by seeing how few people died to the monsters. 

Just as he was about to stand though, Pandora grabbed his arm. 

“Stick around, Dirk, my ruthless consort. Let’s watch as this teleporter is completed. Perhaps we might learn something interesting.”

“...”

Dirk’s eyebrow raised at her odd insistence. But seeing her ruby red eyes that beckoned him to stay, he decided to play along and rest for a bit more. 

He sat back down beside her, shifting away as she got nice and close.

In the end, she was holding his arm as if they were a couple on a picnic. After a few minutes, her face got close to his ear. 

“Are you seeing what they’re doing with the teleporter?”

“...I can see the mana, yes.”

“Hm, but I guess you don’t know how a teleporter works, huh? Here, I want you to focus on the runic circuits they lay down. This is all spatial in nature, so you should have no trouble picking up some inspiration from this high level application. I even heard that you were able to mimic my mother’s fancy little spatial shift spell at the banquet.”

“...”

Dirk thought back to the Advent of the Dark Dragon, the banquet that was held prior, when dancers had come up on stage and performed an odd sequence of movements. Their bodies moved dark mana, tracing out special runes and spell formations. Dirk had been curious and started mimicking what they traced. 

Pandora smiled. 

“Believe it or not, you succeeded in recreating that spell. So instead of appearing on stage in front of everyone, my mother utilized your spell and appeared behind you. It was a special spell that allows both parties to reach out and connect to each other, not unlike a teleporter. The part that my mother gave you was the second half of the spell. I believe you took inspiration from that in making your odd Void Walking spell, correct?”

“I did.”

Dirk confirmed her guess. In an attempt to Void Walk, he had pulled inspiration from all sorts of things. The spell that the Queen of the Dark Kingdom used to appear in the banquet was one major source of inspiration. 

When Void Walking, Dirk made contact with two points in space, overlapping them and making himself appear in both spots at once. The spell the Queen used worked in a similar way, by connecting two points of space to each other through a magical handshake, and then bridging the gap. If he were to openly cast the spell, then one would be able to see runic formations similar to the ones he was given by the Queen. 

Pandora pointed at the mana crystal that sat at the top of the teleporter, housed in a complex runic nexus that had been pre-built in another place. 

“That housing for the crystal is the portion that connects the two teleporters. Everything else is auxiliary. The platform allows a group of people to be isolated in a spatial bubble and teleported. But that’s the easy part. Connecting two teleporters across thousands of miles is the difficult part. And not just connecting them, but making sure the spatial channel is stable. If it wasn’t, then the group being teleported would either be torn apart by spatial waves or ejected at some random point along their path, usually not in a desirable position. 

“Anyway, start observing and learning what you can. As soon as enchantments like these are completed, they’re hidden and encrypted so that nobody can easily observe them like right now. Of course, I’ve found something odd with this teleporter, otherwise I wouldn’t be watching this boring process. Maybe you can help me find out what it is. You see dark mana better than I do.”

“You see dark mana?”

Dirk asked with sudden curiosity. Didn’t she have the light attribute? She shouldn’t be able to see Dark Mana. 

But she still nodded. 

“Of course. It’s the opposite of light mana, and both are in everything. Anything that doesn’t have light mana has dark mana. So I can make out dark mana and their runic formations. You told me about your black and white mana vision. I would assume you use the same logic.”

“...I think I just look at dark mana and the lack of it, not necessarily light mana.”

“Well, a lack of dark mana means that light mana is there. And neither can be mixed in any amount since they’re opposites, so if your vision utilizes dark mana, then keep that in mind.”

“...Interesting.”

Dirk’s head tilted as he thought about that. 

His dark mana vision had been looking at dark mana and creating various shades of darkness based on the abundance or lack of it. He didn’t think he should be able to see light mana, so he hadn’t thought about it. 

But if what Pandora said was correct, then not only should he be able to see light mana, but he’s been looking at dark mana all wrong. There was no such things as shades or degrees of dark mana, only the presence of it or the presence of light mana. 

Suddenly, something clicked in his mind. 

Along with this new knowledge, his vision began to change. The images of black and white began to warp before sharpening. At first it was blurry, but Dirk knew that light mana couldn’t mix with dark mana, so he began to pick out the different types and separate them. 

Then, like a camera lens adjusting to find the best focus, everything became clear. 

Dirk started to smile as his black and white vision became almost perfect. He could see the teleporter and its sharp edges and smooth curves. He could see the grass and its stems and weeds. He could see the movements of all the mages as they worked and made their clothes flutter and wrinkle. 

Finally, he felt like he could see clearly once more, and things didn’t become worse with distance. 

Now, Dirk was aware of not just dark mana, but the light mana all around him. And all this light mana was so vivid in his vision, almost more so than the darkness. This light mana seemed to reach out to him, making his long distance sight almost telescopic. 

Dirk spent almost two hours focusing on his vision, clearing up any inaccuracies and overlapping it with his other elements. With fire to see the heat and vitality of people’s bodies, lightning to see the movement of energy through bodies, earth to see the material of their bodies, and metal to see the textures and rigidity of those materials…

Everything came together, granting Dirk unprecedented clarity. Before, his elements weren’t able to cooperate, one thing looking different from another. It was like having several different eyes, all of them seeing different things. 

But now, they all came together. They not only saw the same things, but showed different layers of the object he saw. They all gave him different insights that he could use to track movements and anticipate. 

It was almost like having eyes again. 

Dirk became lost in this new world of vision. After a while though, the Tier 6 mage began to murmur with a wide smile on his face. 

That’s when Dirk saw it. 

The dark mana crystal on the teleporter began to activate, infusing the structure with spatial power. At the same time, a net of dark mana spread out from the crystal, as if waiting for a fly to catch.

If that was it, Dirk wouldn’t be so surprised. But then, he saw a different, foreign channel of dark mana appear nearby the teleporter. 

That foreign channel came seeking this particular teleporter. It was the fly, and it was seeking out a net to catch it. 

Pandora seemed to see it too. But unlike Dirk’s merely curious gaze, she was shocked. 

“No way… We barely have that tech. How did the Horizon Empire manage to develop it? Unless we have a mole…”

Pandora frowned, finally figuring out the oddity with this teleporter, an oddity she could only recognize through that connection method. 

Two teleporters connected through a handshake. Both of them were the transmitter and receiver, creating a two way exclusive channel. 

But for one teleporter to be a dedicated transmitter, and one to be a dedicated receiver, required sophisticated magical knowledge that the Dark Kingdom only recently invented. With that tech, you could have a single teleporter connect to dozens of others. 

Currently, the best teleporters that capital cities were outfitted with were a nexus comprised of several teleporters, all of them connected to other cities. One teleporter could only connect to one other teleporter in an exclusive pair. And the nexus was created when a single mana crystal augmented several other crystals, making them more powerful. But the previous limiter of exclusivity remained unchanged. 

But if one teleporter could connect to dozens of others, it would make teleporters far cheaper and allow them to be far more widespread. This was technology that only the Dark Kingdom had developed, and it was a national secret that only Pandora and other royalty could know about. Even then, only Pandora had thought about using it after installing her railways. The tech was too new, and not yet completely stable.

To think it had appeared in the Horizon Empire…

Pandora watched this technology in action. She watched as a teleporter from the capital city connected to the teleporter in front of her, creating a complex spatial channel. 

But it wouldn’t form instantly. Even as everything operated, the Tier 6 mage was casting spells and monitoring the enchantments. 

After a while, things settled down, with the connection process gradually forming on its own. This was normal for a teleporter than was only just created. 

“...So what was odd?”

Dirk eventually asked, causing Pandora to sigh. 

“You guys shouldn’t have the technology necessary to create this kind of teleporter. It seems like I’ll need to do a one-over on our research and development teams when I get back. I refuse to believe your empire is on par with us who specialize in dark magic.”

“...Okay. Well, I’m going to go out and fight then. I’ve rested enough.”

“Sure, sure. Do be careful, my dear.”

“I’m not your dear.”

Dirk shook his head on his way out, making Pandora smile. She then refocused back on the teleporter, wondering who would be sent once the connection was made.