Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Several days passed.

In a dark space, pure, refined mana gushed towards a tiny, black mana core. Yet if one focused on the core, they would realise that it wasn't small at all but was actually as large as a mountain, as if it was both small and large at the same time.

As mana crashed onto the mana core, a part of it broke off and disappeared, leaving a small crater on the mountain-sized core. More than ninety per cent of the mana had been used up, leaving just a few small drops floating around the core.

The core stood perfectly still, but the crater started decreasing in size as the core healed itself. But the new core was slightly denser and emitted a white, pristine glint. If one looked carefully, they could see that about thirty per cent of the core also emitted the same white glint.

Drake gradually opened his eyes.

'I am a third of the way to the true mage realm,' he thought to himself.

During these last few days, Ray often gave Drake some pills and plenty of guidance which allowed him to cultivate at a decent pace, even for someone with a one core aptitude.

Speaking of pills, they were assigned a rank, which was an indication of what cultivation level of a mage or martial artist the pill would be useful for. Rank one would be useful for true mages, rank two for warrior mages, and so on.

Both mages and martial artists could learn alchemy and refine pills. It wasn't the case that an alchemist had to have the cultivation realm equivalent to the pill rank in order to refine it, but it would be a lot more difficult if their cultivation realm was lower. This was because refining higher ranked pills often required more mana than an alchemist at a lower cultivation realm would naturally have. They could supplement their mana with mana recovery pills, but this was dangerous and difficult to do for higher ranked pills.

The pills that Ray gave him were rank one pills, as was the zenith pill made by the Leon village. However, due to the rare and potent effect of the zenith pill, it could actually be considered as valuable as a rank two pill.

Ray's guidance and pills helped Drake's cultivation greatly. After much effort, he finally reached this stage.

The rogue mage realm was the easiest to cross because, at this point, the mana core could not produce any mana. It was like a dead core and so was quite weak and easy to temper using mana.

"It's time," Ray said, sensing his progress. "Your mana core has stabilised, and you've started building a decent foundation. You can attempt your first summoning."

Drake couldn't believe his own ears.

He was finally going to do magic! This was the moment he had been waiting for.

"Really? What am I going to summon? Would it be some kind of healing creature like my father uses, or that little spirit you summoned on that day when you performed the ceremony?" Drake asked enthusiastically.

"No spirits," Ray chuckled. "For you to summon the weakest rank one spirit, you will need to reach the true mage realm."

Drake remembered this rule and smiled awkwardly for forgetting.

Artifacts were physical objects and spirits were creatures made out of mana. They were also classified into ranks. Unlike pills, their ranks corresponded to the number of runes they carried in their bodies, and a mage could not summon artifacts or spirits that were of a higher rank than their cultivation realm.

However, artifacts in particular could have runes engraved into them after they were summoned, or into weapons and items crafted normally. So a mage could create a higher ranked artifact with engraving.

Runes were symbols carved out of mana and associated with specific spells and abilities. For example, if an artifact was engraved with a fireball rune, pouring mana into the artifact would activate the fireball spell. Higher ranked artifacts and spirits would not only have more abilities, but they could also be engraved with runes corresponding to more powerful abilities, making them increasingly stronger.

Ray shook his head hopelessly and continued.

"You can start by summoning rank zero artifacts, or in other words, ordinary items. They are the easiest to summon so even rogue mages can learn them, albeit with some difficulty."

Ray took out a scroll and some mana recovery pills and handed them to Drake. Just before Drake was about to take the scroll, Ray pulled his hand away.

"Remember this tip. Although it is called summoning, it is better to think of it as creating. You are using your mana to create an artifact or a mana spirit. Hence, you need to have a very clear image of whatever it is that you are trying to summon."

Drake nodded confidently. 'It can't be that hard… I'm sure I can figure it out,' Drake thought to himself, holding out his hand excitedly.

Ray handed it over with a sigh.

Drake began reading through the contents. It recorded detailed information about how to summon an iron knife. It was a simple, yet useful object. Drake read through it many times and understood the process, so he closed the scroll and handed it back.

"Keep it," Ray replied nonchalantly and resumed cultivating, not bothering about Drake anymore.

However, Drake didn't mind. As Drake cultivated further, Ray gave less guidance and more freedom to explore for himself. Drake liked this method of teaching as he could experiment and figure things out for himself.

Drake swallowed a mana recovery pill, closed his eyes, and focused on his inner realm. The few drops of mana soon became a small pool.

After calming his mind, Drake began the summoning. His mana started decreasing rapidly.

'Cough! Cough!' Drake coughed as his summoning failed. He felt dizzy and slightly nauseated. It took a couple of minutes before the symptoms died down.

'As Ray said, this backlash is indeed worse than the one from incorrectly stopping my cultivation technique,' thought Drake.

Drake relaxed again and started to recollect exactly what had happened and gone wrong.

Not only did he fail, but he also consumed thirty per cent of his stored mana. He could only try two more times before he would have to wait and recover mana.

After going through the process a few times in his mind, he started the summoning again.

'Cough! Cough!'

Another failure.

Drake didn't expect to succeed so easily so he didn't mind. After some time, he tried again.

'Cough! Cough!'

Another failure!

Drake's heart became heavy. 'This is quite hard.'

However, his will couldn't be broken so easily. He quickly recovered from feeling downcast and began cultivating to recover mana.

After some time, he recovered to his peak state and tried again.

However, he again failed all three times.

This process of failure repeated several more times before Drake's gaze turned very ugly.

Why is this so difficult?

Drake couldn't understand why he kept failing so much, even though it was one of the simplest spells out there. What was going on?

"Remember, you are using your mana to create an object," Ray said once again. "To succeed, you must have a clear picture in your mind and truly understand what it is that you want to summon."

Though Ray had his eyes closed, he still gave him some guidance.

However, these words were enough to give Drake a new line of thought.

Drake was from Earth - specifically, he was a physicist from Earth and had a unique perspective on things.

Despite being called magic, Drake knew that there must be an understandable physical process behind everything in this world, even if he didn't know all the details of what it was. However, basic observation had always led Drake to think that the mana in this world was simply another form of energy.

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Wait... maybe that's it!

Drake looked at the summoning spell again. It detailed the process of converting mana into something physical, specifically iron, and how to control the mana to condense into a particular form while giving some tips on how to visualise the form and structure of the iron knife. He had gotten so caught up in memorising and executing this exactly, but... what if that wasn't all there was to it?

The mana in one's inner realm was a form of energy that could be controlled by a person's consciousness - Drake was sure of this. That energy, like all energy, couldn't be created or destroyed, but it could be transformed into other things, whether it be spirits or physical artifacts. Hence, to make sure that the mana perfectly condensed into the artifact that he wanted, he would need to create it perfectly, down to the atomic level.

The spell only gave him guidance on how to convert mana into metallic iron, and how to shape it, but didn't include much information on the structure of the iron knife to mould the iron into. That's because nobody in this world knew about the existence of atoms or molecules – but Drake did!

He was a scientist in his previous life and had a deep understanding of atomic structure, crystal structure, and so much more. He could easily deduce the atomic structure of a simple iron knife and use the spell to help him guide his mana into creating it.

Normally, mages would have to use the information in the spell and go through a long process of trial and error to get a "feeling" for what the correct structure for a particular artifact was. Basically, they would just learn to memorise the knack for manipulating their mana in the specific way needed to summon a particular object, without understanding that they were actually perfecting the internal structure of the iron knife. So, after learning one summon, they would have to go through the process all over again to learn a new one.

But Drake didn't need to do that.

Drake closed his eyes and recollected his knowledge. Iron was made of 26 protons and electrons, that was simple. Under normal conditions, iron atoms would arrange themselves into a metallic lattice, specifically with the body-centred cubic, crystal structure. This meant that most of the knife would basically follow the same repeating pattern of arrangement of iron atoms.

The edges are slightly more complicated though...

Drake's mind worked rapidly. After a few minutes, he had a clear image of the exact atomic structure of the iron knife. Focusing on this image, Drake took out a mana recovery pill and consumed it. As mana regenerated in his inner realm, he kept observing every detail of the image in his head, making sure that he had everything correct down to the smallest detail.

Drake shifted his focus to his mana core and took a deep breath.

It's time… let's do this!

Drake commanded his mana, activated the spell, and willed it to form into a knife.

His mana rapidly disappeared. In a few moments, forty per cent of his mana was consumed!

A few seconds later, Drake opened his eyes and couldn't control his excitement - a brand new knife was floating in front of him!

He finally succeeded!

Drake observed the knife closely. The blade was sharp and thin, with a polished and glistening look. Drake tested it by touching the tip with his finger and it immediately started bleeding.

When summoning an artifact, the mage automatically forms a mental connection with the artifact that will allow them to move the artifact with their mind. Drake used his connection to make the knife fly before and around him.

Satisfied, Drake took the knife in his hand and inspected the rest of the blade.

The knife was short but perfect for him. The hilt was covered in rubber which improved his grip. It fit into his hands perfectly since it was literally made for him. If one looked closely, engraved on either side of the blade were the words 'Drake' and 'Reynard'.

He decided to include his signature on his first-ever creation.

Ray opened his eyes and looked at the blade in Drake's hand with utmost disbelief. After he began teaching Drake, he rarely showed any emotions apart from disdain and pity towards his disciple's poor aptitude, and a light smile if Drake was lucky.

But at this moment, he was awestruck.

Drake saw his reaction and, with a smile, handed the knife to his master.

Ray grabbed it frantically and examined it closely.

"This…" he said. "This is perfect!" he looked at Drake stupefied. "You! How did you manage to summon it so quickly?"

"It was all thanks to your words of wisdom master," he replied humbly.

"Nonsense, impossible!" Ray yelled. "It normally takes people weeks to understand and successfully perform their first summoning. How could you do it so quickly?".

Not only did people normally take many weeks before succeeding with a summoning, but even then, the first time they did it, it wouldn't be perfect. The blade would be dull, the size would be wrong, the weight would be too much or too little, and so on. There were so many factors to consider, and every little thing could affect everything else.

Only after a long process of trial and error would a mage understand how to transmute their mana to perfectly create the object they wanted.

Yet, not only did Drake summon it so easily, but he also even modified the summon to add the engraving of his name.

It was unimaginable!

Even his master, Myra Wan, took a week before she succeeded with her first summoning and had to spend another two weeks to perfect it. And this was still considered prodigious! Didn't this mean that Drake was an even better mage than his master and village chief Myra Wan?

But how could that be possible?

Drake didn't know all of Ray's thoughts, but he could understand why it would take people a long time to succeed. However, he had already spent many decades in his previous life understanding many structures. He even understood the inner workings of stars! Otherwise, how could he build a nuclear fusion reactor? Even though he failed, his intelligence and knowledge were not up for questioning.

So, could I summon a star? Drake wondered but then threw away such a ridiculous and dangerous idea.

Ray soon calmed down. 'It must be beginner's luck - a fluke,' he told himself.

"You did well," Ray said plainly after completely controlling his emotions again. "As a reward then, take this. It is a spell to summon an iron shield." Ray handed him another scroll.

Drake gratefully accepted it but placed it on the ground.

"What are you doing?" asked Ray, confused.

"You want me to summon an iron shield, right?" Drake asked with a mischievous smile, before closing his eyes.

What was his stupid disciple doing? Did he go mad? Was he really trying to summon a new artifact without even reading the method?

'My silly disciple must have gotten in over his head from his first success. I should give him a good slap - actually no! If I interrupt him now and he fails, he might blame it on me. I'll wait for him to fail and suffer a backlash and then give him a slap,' Ray thought to himself.

He couldn't let his disciple get too big-headed, that wouldn't be good for him! As a good master, he couldn't let that happen.

'Yes, yes, it's for his own good!' Ray thought, nodding to himself.

Drake was oblivious to his master's plan to assault him and just closed his eyes.

He was visualising an iron shield in as much detail as possible. He would zoom in and picture the arrangement of atoms, before zooming out and observing the overall structure, making sure it was all perfect.

Once he was happy with the image, he controlled his mana to activate the summoning, willing it to form a shield.

Another forty per cent of his mana was completely used, but… a brand-new shield appeared in front of him!

It was of a perfect size for his height. It wasn't too heavy to carry, yet it wasn't so light that it would be weak. The edges were perfectly carved, giving it a reverse dome shape.

Drake took the shield and swung it around to test it out. It flowed perfectly. On the inside of the shield, going diagonally across were the words 'Drake Reynard'. He had signed this creation too.

But now, Ray could no longer hold his cool.

He stood up flabbergasted!

"How… but how is this possible?"

Without even asking, he grabbed the shield from Drake, unable to believe his own eyes. Only after thoroughly checking it out for himself did he finally accept it.

But he was very confused.

How could Drake summon objects so easily? Summoning a new artifact without consulting a summoning scroll, wasn't this the same as creating his own summoning?

That was ridiculous! He wasn't even a true mage yet!

Did his disciple know some special technique for summoning?

In cultivation, finding suitable cultivation techniques, pills, pill recipes, pill ingredients, and summons were incredibly important. These were all very difficult. But with summons, even when mages found them, they would rarely start using them.

The iron knife and shield were basic summons. As one started learning more complex summons, the backlash from failure would be extremely severe. It could cause permanent damage or even death.

As a result, mages picked a few spirits that were similar in nature to master thoroughly. Depending on the nature of the spirit, mages would be restricted to specific 'paths' — battle, healing, hellbinding, farseeing… even alchemy was its own path!

It was easiest and safest to master a few spirits within a specific path and upgrade them to higher ranks as your cultivation broke through, rather than attempt to learn entirely new spirits. One could learn a few low-ranked spirits in other paths such as healing for emergencies, but it was useless to try and master multiple spirits from multiple paths. Any new summons a mage came across would only be helpful as inspiration to help evolve the summons they had already practised.

However, if Drake could learn new summons easily, that meant he could theoretically master numerous summonings and, therefore, numerous paths. Such a mage could control an army of demons as a hellbinder, be continuously healing them all as a healer, while themselves being a powerful battle mage… it would be ridiculous!

Ray cooled down and asked, "Drake this is very important. What technique are you using to be able to learn the summons so quickly? You must tell me!"

Ray was excited, if only he could get this technique, he could learn so many summons and raise his battle strength!

Drake inwardly sighed. How could he give a technique when he didn't have any? He obviously couldn't tell Ray the truth, least of all because he wouldn't believe him.

"I have no special technique master. I just followed what you said and used my understanding of the object I want to summon to visualise it properly before allowing my mana to form into the artifact. That's all!"

Ray wasn't sure what to believe. He knew Drake's background. If he knew a technique like that, surely it must come from Holt. But if Holt knew it, he would be using it himself to learn all kinds of summons. However, he knew that Holt couldn't do that. So, could it be that Drake somehow found a secret technique himself? Did he discover some sort of treasure?

But again, how could that be possible? If such a technique ever existed, it would already be very famous. Even if the person didn't publicise the technique, a mage who could quickly learn many different summonings would be renowned in history.

But Ray knew of no such mages, only Drake.

'Is my disciple secretly a rare, never-before seen genius?' Ray thought and then became depressed. 'It's a shame that his cultivation aptitude is so poor though. He wouldn't have the mana to summon higher-ranked artifacts or spirits till he reached higher realms, but it would take him an extremely long time to reach them. Summoning a bunch of rank zero artifacts is very impressive, but it won't be that useful against powerful enemies. Although…'

Ray paused and looked at Drake who was observing his summons. He was bashing the iron knife against the shield to check their durabilities.

'If he can easily summon anything that he thinks of, he might just be unmatched within the same cultivation realm. If only he formed at least two mana cores, or maybe three or four, he could become a mage king or even a mage emperor… A mage emperor that could casually summon any rank five spirit or artifact they wanted?'

Ray shuddered at the thought.