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Chapter 25: The magic tower\'s dungeon

"I would still like to try it," Eldrian said after thinking for a while. He was now a bit curious how it would feel if your blood suddenly flowed in a different way, due to any outside influence. But he was sure this wouldn\'t be the exact feeling.

Still, he was curious.

"If you are sure, then follow me. We have to go to the tower\'s dungeon to try it." Dave said as he started heading down, Eldrian naturally followed behind Dave.

On their way down Eldrian again saw the specific way the city streets were built, which reminded him of a question he had had for a while now.

"Dave, why is the city roads organized in such a specific pattern?" Eldrian asked as he pointed out a window they passed.

The streets of the city formed what looked like an array or spell module to Eldrian, with what he had learned he felt certain the palace and towers were the main nodes of this pattern. He couldn\'t identify any other points, but he felt certain that the roads formed a type of magical array. He wasn\'t certain what it is called by the NPCs.

"Ah, this is one of the most ingenious designs ever to have been made. All cities have been made in this way since it had been discovered. It allows a city to function as a conduit for magic. It is quite difficult to explain." Dave said as he looked through one of the windows they had just passed.

"You see, for the most part, the amount of mana a single person can use is limited, and magic arrays are a way to surpass this. But generally, they are small and none permanent as they require a constant mana flow to stay active. This means a lot of mana crystals need to be used as fuel, or someone had to constantly power it. The city array is different in that it is self-sustainable."

"The magic towers of the city act as a type of receiver, which gathers mana from the surrounding and then sends it into the city array, where it is then stored in the different nodes throughout the city. With the main nodes being the magic towers and the core of the array being the palace." Dave continued to explain as they went down more flights of stairs.

"Due to this, the array can stay active with basically no upkeep. It also allows us to use arrays grafted in the magic towers to cast far more powerful and complex spells than any single mage would be able to cast. In fact, it allows us almost as much power as twenty mages working together would provide. Without the drawbacks of mages becoming tired and needing to coordinate perfectly to cast a multi-spell."

As Dave finished his explanation Eldrian thought of the magic towers in the trailer. Indeed they had been able to cast massive spells, almost without any type of cooldown. While he hadn\'t seen how many mages had been inside the tower, he did see that there was almost no cooldown on the spells. He felt certain this wouldn\'t be possible without a large number of people in normal circumstances.

Eldrian also remembered the final spell the towers had cast. The beautiful, yet terrifying ice spell had frozen the entire city of Ariel and its nearby surroundings. He assumed that this city\'s array would also have an equivalent to that spell.

After having gone down three stories from the top floor, Eldrian decided to ask why the tower was so empty.

"Dave, why is it that no one lives in the tower? It seems like it has enough room to easily house hundreds of people."

"Well, that reason comes down to comfort. The academies of magic are far more comfortable to live in since you have the benefit of you not needing to climb so many stairs every time you want to go somewhere. Or they would just stay in their homes, as it is also more comfortable."

"Other than that the fact that these magic towers are seen as military structures. Generally, most people do not want to live in a military structure." Hearing this Eldrian felt it was true, even though it made no sense why, from an objective viewpoint.

But Eldrian found that he also wouldn\'t want to live near an army camp even if the place was nice. There was just something that sounded uncomfortable to him when he thought of staying next to a military complex.

After another flight of stairs, Eldrian remembered he had to ask about the inspection spells. He felt he had to learn it as soon as he could.

"Dave do you know of a spell or skill which would allow me to inspect items and maybe even people?"

"You must be talking about Observe and Inspect," Dave replied, to which Eldrian nodded.

"I heard that most Chosen have it just like they have an inventory. You don\'t have them?" Dave asked as he looked over his shoulder at Eldrian.

"No, I don\'t have them. I think it is due to me being a High Elf." Eldrian responded.

"Oh, that makes sense. Since you can\'t use your mana and they are skill and spell." Dave said as he pondered how to describe the spell and skill. He also asked himself, \'Why is it that Haru can then use this "inventory" thing? Is it not related to mana, but rather the soul of the Chosen? Or is it a divine act from the gods?\'

After another flight of stairs, Dave finally spoke, answering Eldrian\'s question, "Observe and Inspect are respectively a skill and spell."

"Observe allows you to see the basic information of a living being. For example, when I use observe on you I see the following information." Dave said as he took a small break before he recounted Eldrian\'s stats.

"You are named Haru. You are Tier 0 and level 1 and have the following attribute counts; Your constitution is 105, strength 105, agility 115, spirit 105, and intelligence 110. The average for humans would be 100 for each at the same Tier and level."

"This was all the information I got when using a Tier 5 Observe on you. If I instead use a Tier 1 Observe, then I just see your name, tier, and level. In general the higher the tier of the Observe, the more information you can gather. Unless the person has items or skills which restrict Observe that is."

"Inspect is the same, but instead of gathering the information of living beings, it gathers the information of items. The higher tier you cast it at, the more information you get."

"Both aren\'t very difficult to cast, but they can only be used with a minimum of a Tier 1 node. Thus you will first have to learn how to control your mana, and then reach Tier 1 before you can use them."

Eldrian was put down hearing he wouldn\'t be able to use them for quite a while. He was certain it was going to take him a while to reach Tier 1.

Finally, they reached the ground floor again. Arriving here, Eldrian was curious how they were going to go to a dungeon, as the floor was empty, except for the stairs leading up.

"Please stand still here," Dave said as he pointed to a small circle carved into the floor. Eldrian did as asked and stood inside it.

After seeing that Eldrian stood where he asked, Dave started casting a spell. Eldrian had no idea what was going on as he felt they should be going through another door and down a flight of stairs.

What Dave was doing is basically the same as a biometric test, but using a unique spell and his mana signature instead of physical characteristics.

Soon the floor lit up and then Eldrian found himself in a new room. As he looked around he found that the room was very dark, he could barely make out the features of the room. He could only make them out because of glowing lines being etched into the walls and floor and even some on the roof.

The room was just as big as the ground-level floor of the tower, or so it seemed to Eldrian. The only difference Eldrian found was that it seems this room wasn\'t circular but rather in the shape of a hexagon.

Dave then cast a spell, which caused the walls to light up in a specific manner, making it look like there were LED lights grafted into corners of the walls, where the two flat walls met in the hexagonal shape, forming a point when looked at from above.

This light allowed Eldrian to see more clearly, which led him to promptly look around the room. He found the room to look very sci-fi-like, vastly different from the fantasy style he was expecting. The wall patterns looked a lot like what he often saw computer parts shown as when you look at them under a microscope.

Eldrian looked around trying to figure out what each wall should represent, as he looked around he saw a floating crystal in the middle of the room. He was then left completely speechless as he looked into it.

The crystal looked very strange, with a purple blackish color, but it seems as if the crystal wasn\'t solid. Rather it seemed more like the crystal had an entire galaxy inside of it. With occasional flashes of light being visible inside, but these lights were very dim. To Eldrian each flash looked just like a star, briefly coming into existence before dying out.

This reminded Eldrian of when he had created his avatar. The crystal reminded him of being above the world. It gave him the feeling of nothingness, containing everything.

\'What is this feeling?\' Eldrian asked himself as he slipped into unconsciousness.

\'Wow, this kid has a really strong connection to the magic crystal.\' Dave thought to himself as he cast an inspection spell on the kid. The spell was called Magic-Inspection and allowed the caster to observe the flow of mana inside another person, and themselves if they wanted to.

It was very useful when teaching people, as it allowed the caster to see what they are doing. When even the person being observed have no idea what they are doing, the caster can see what was happening with their mana and guide them properly. Dave had used this spell earlier to observe the flow of mana in Eldrian, when Eldrian had tried to cast the spells.

It couldn\'t be used the full time since the mana cost of keeping it active was too much. But this was only natural as the spell would be far too strong if it didn\'t have such a high cost. Since in a fight you would be able to see when someone starts using any magic of any form.

The cost though isn\'t from its strength, but rather the fact that it had to continuously penetrate all-natural defenses and artificial defenses against inspection spells. These natural defenses are intrinsic to each thing in the world. Natural defenses become stronger as the thing in question becomes stronger, without any conscious action needed to form it.

Through this spell, the caster will be able to tell if it is a spell or skill, the one he is observing is casting. Where the magic is going to form, when, and how strong it will be. Later on, the caster can even determine the speed and type of magic if true mastery of the spell Magic-Inspection had been reached.

Dave was astonished to see what was happening with Eldrian.