Elevation of Mana Chapter 218 Surprises

A/N: Sorry for the delay on this one. I've been having a bit of horrid writers block, which I only got past when I put my thoughts on getting past it into words. I don't know if that makes any sense in the slightest, but I ended up enjoying this chapter and i hope you do too.

My wife was amazing, which I already knew, but she was apparently even more amazing that even I'd suspected. She'd put together something I'd struggled with for ages, a working, functioning, magical computer. There was a slight glow to it, a brilliant thing, a small, living computer.

“You know I love you,” I told her.

“You've said as much, yes, a few times.” She laughed into her hand.

“How?” I asked, looking deep into the crystal.

“Magic, you get so caught up in facts and numbers and equations, you forget the magic husband. Sometimes you just need to let it be magic.”

“Love my magic is based on numbers and equations, and facts, lot and lots of facts.”

“Your magic is empowered by facts, but it is magic. You need to remember that sometimes, remember the joy of your first spell, of the wonder. Do you remember your first spells?”

“Of course.”

“Well I remember mine, and I remember learning about these powers, about how they moved, and I remember loving them. Not just trying to optimize and strategize and build the perfect thing. Maybe the next thing you make, and you should make something else, should be... something for you, not something for others. Think about it, think about trying that out.”

I sat in one of the many chairs in my workrooms and pulled her into my lap. The smell of her, the way she talked, she was silent now, quiet while I though while I took in her words and processed them. While I tried to come up with what I wanted, what I could just... enjoy. There were responsibilities, and I would take them into myself again tomorrow, but for this moment I would be with her.

I thought back, all the way back to our village, those days when I played with the boys by the stream as our families watched over us. They were some of my best memories, and now I put my magic into them, into the place we'd spent so much time when we were young, the place where I'd practiced magic, and honed it, all those memories flooding back to me in a wave.

And as I did I let my magic out, let it flow, let it find its way along the paths of memory. My memory was perfect to, and with it I could picture the place in my mind, my consciousness flowing over the land. I saw the rivers that had brought me here, the ones that could take me back, I saw the landscapes, and my mind flowed along them.

Finally I saw the field, bathed in night, like we were now, and something... clicked. I couldn't see it with my eyes, but with my mind, with my senses. I closed my eyes and let it work, let myself touch that place. I wanted to go there, and I felt a stirring in my power.

“Justin, something's...” She didn't finish before I grabbed onto her and yanked.

The workshop was gone, the crystal she'd made gone, the building, the city, all gone. My chair was also gone, not something I'd brought along, and with it we fell, fell right to the ground where we rolled into cold water.

“What in the world!” she began to yell.

I laughed, I laughed like a man possessed, my reserves were low, as that had taken a lot out of me, but I laughed regardless, this was wonderful.

“What happened, where are we!?” she shouted, looking about.

“Don't recognize it?” I asked, chuckling.

Then again I barely did. The treeline was... slightly different. The stream had moved a bit too, now a bit sharper, deeper in parts. The hills were almost the same though, the places where they moved up and over still so familiar, and the general layout. Overhead the stars twinkled brilliantly.

“... There's no way,” she said, head turning about as she tried to piece it together.

“Hahahaha,” I cackled like a madman. “I didn't even know I could do this, how wonderful, how perfect!”

I'd sent a threat of mana impossibly far, something I didn't even know I could do, that I'd never even conceived I could do and then I let it pull me there. The relationships were so different, so new to me, something I didn't understand in the slightest, it was so odd and I loved it.

“You take us back right now!” she said, clearly a bit flustered with her soaking clothes, we'd not even gotten out of the stream yet.

“I've got no mana, and I have no clue how I did it in the first place,” I laughed, still pleased as I could be with this.

She stood up and poked me with her toe as I continued to giggle in the mud. “Well you'd better find some. How did you even do it?”

“I'm not sure, oh that's so magnificent. I wonder if anyone else knows how to do this.”

“All the really old ones are dead,” she pointed out.

“Oh, so they are.” That was sobering, and enough to pull me from my laughter. “Well my love have no fear,” I said, pulling her into a deep, muddy hug. “I'll figure out some way to get us home.”

She looked down, down to where I'd gotten filth on the only bits of her that hadn't been soaked. It wasn't unintentional. I could see it in that moment, the narrowed eyes, the clear irritation, the thinking about letting me have a scream attack. She didn't though, far too mature for that.

However she did kick me in the shin.