POV Vesuvius:
'This silence and this sky.' The dragon turned his eyes toward the vast blue sky dome above his head as he levitated in his smaller form above the wast-white mountains of his empire.
He couldn't tell what it was, but something felt off, so he stared intently into the sky. He realised what bugged him off after a few seconds of uninterrupted observation.
'The color tone... it is slightly off the normal, by just a tiny, little bit. Human eyes wouldn't probably even notice that.'
It was relatively easy to connect it with the unnatural silence of the gods, making his eyes squint in worry as they tried to penetrate higher to see the truth, but to no avail.
'Nah, whatever is coming I am ready. For now, I need to focus on becoming even more... ready?'
Vesuvius turned his head away as his mind fully focused on the glowing magic circuit in his mind. He slowly moved mana through his veins, manually controlling it to get familiar with the new spell.
Giant glowing runes lit up in seven corners around him. The next moment curved lines of brightly glowing blue mana shot out of them, connecting every rune with every other rune while expanding into seven separate yet similar magic arrays.
Cracks spread through the lines of light connecting them as they violently twisted and shook.
Vesuvius immediately realized what was happening as he felt the mana in each circuit flow at a slightly different rate. His mind moved and corrected them all, syncing them into a system of multiple closely-interlocked spells.
'Haha, I remember it as if happened yesterday the old Astrapolius told me this type of barrier magic was too complex for me. Now? It is a mere children's toy.'
In the next second, all the darkness of the frost and purple and gold of the flames and lightning gathered, forming a chaotically swirling barrier between the seven corners that enveloped his entire body in a giant bubble.
Vesuvius observed how the intricate spell work worked, with each rune in the corners expanding into separate magic circuits, sucking in all the energy from the surroundings to supplement the energy of his own body.
'A truly magnificent spell.'
To his surprise, the draconic barrier magic was as modular as their breath lense magic. He could freely swap the corner circuits and even vary their number.
In three corners, triangular circuits glowed, obscured by the onslaught of elements surging around it, 'Triangular ones determine their physical properties like elasticity, durability, and firmness.'
There were three triangular circuits together, one with its innards crisscrossed by lines to make the barrier more elastic and two with wide and thick boundaries to make it firmer, greatly increasing its stopping power.
He could see the invisible enchantment spread from them and bind the barrier together to make it firmer and more elastic.
Then three squaric arrays were in the other corners; they determined its magic properties. One with a smaller triangle inside increased the barrier's integrity to resist the effects of mana-based attacks breaking down the spell that kept the barrier up and running.
Finally, the last two, filled with a mesh of interlocked smaller circuits in their separate circles, added effects of magic isolation into the barrier, blocking the spells that would normally be unaffected by the elements of the barrier from passing through it.
At last, the last one consisting of two circles orbiting each other, added the trigger effect with the same power as the explosive lense for his breath, making the barrier trigger explosions on touch.
Just at a casual glance, he could easily tell they shared a lot of common parts that he easily determined to be the parts fueling and shaping the barrier.
'Can I add more of them without any special effects to just make the barrier bigger?'
Even the base elements used for the barrier affected its properties, making Vesuvius feel prideful as he knew the element he ruled over, the apocalyptic storm, was as perfect for defence as it was perfect for an offence.
'Almost all movement will freeze and stop, then it will be safely annihilated.'
He could definitely see why it was such advanced magic. It wasn't like his breath lens, where they were mostly independent of each other.
Every single circuit was interconnected in the barrier and had to be perfectly synced.
'Let's try this...' The dragon's horns gleamed as large magic circles formed around each corner circuit. The next moment they sucked in the energy from his domain like a bunch of thirsty elephants.
The autonomous circuits lit up, but cracks instantly formed before they shattered into thousands of shrapnel of mana light. The barrier crumbled, and the apocalyptic storm escaped its bindings, violently lashing around with solar flares, lightning, and ice.
'Just as I thought it doesn't work. They are not connected so the circuits quickly go out of sync which causes the entire barrier to collapse.'
Still, it wasn't a lost cause, as he felt like it was possible, especially with the space magic, to interconnect them together.
'It will take some time, but it will be worth it in the end.' Just the image of the autonomously existing barriers within his domain excited him, as it would allow him to shape the entire battlefield.
'This type of defensive magic is truly superior just to barriers erected purely through my domain as they are not limited by the physical and magic properties of the elements they are composed of.'
Even now, he could hardly suppress his admiration for the intricacy of the draconic magic, as everything was modular and interconnected. When comparing it with the magic of mortals, it was like comparing the sloppy code of a novice hobbyist coder with a senior programmer's generic, asynchronous, and high-quality code.
Still, even with it, he could see the value of the mortal magic, 'Their thoughts are always fresh and once in time they may discover something useful.'
POV Prof.:
The scientist hunched over a table of metallic parts wearing the metallic space suit flinched as he felt a lingering and burning gaze upon his neck. His engineers also froze, making them look like metal statues in combination with their suits.
"I have returned... from now on you are also my minions." It was the voice of the small humanoid alien.
On her back was the pair of massive wings that, to his knowledge, sprouted out of nowhere. Even after all the time he spent here, the biology of his hosts still eluded him.
'Such an interesting species...'
Even with it, he was happy she had returned, dilating his eyes below his helmet.
Just from their brief interactions, he knew she was similar to him, someone who wanted to thread their field of study with the utmost care while working on expanding the boundaries of advancement.
"Good, now where have we stopped? Ahh, the rune-like thing called electrical and photonic circuits." She continued, her glowing eyes scanning the metallic parts sewn all over the workbench.
"Ohh, yes, we have so much to discuss!" At once, he didn't know if he should feel a letdown or excitement as the civilization he was now part of was much more different than he ever thought.
'They are not just using some tropic technology!
'All their advancement is based upon an entirely different set of laws managing this reality that aren't even comparable to those we know.' His hands tremble with excitement and thirst for knowledge because they existed alongside the ones he and his own people explored and were familiar with.
'The two sets of rules existing in parallel with each other.' He saw he was wrong, and the horned alien before him also understood it, 'Just by studying one part of it, one will never understand the reality. One must study both parts of it.'
He didn't believe they were different things. Instead, he believed they were the same thing, just that they couldn't see the connection.
"Let's go. We have so much to discuss." She waved at him and stepped into the long corridor of polished black stone their hosts liked to use.
'Working on improving the manufacturing capacities of this world? That is something even my regular engineers can work on. I have something much more interesting to explore.' He was ready to compile the knowledge of both systems and connect them together.
Luckily, he even had rich and high-ranking backing to support him. He stepped forwards, following his winged benefactor.
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