Many elves make excuses for the Moon King’s lineage. Disregard the atrocities they perpetuated, the incredible changes to society and trade are worth far more. Or, sometimes, that those destroyed were deserving of their fate, unworthy of the lands they once inhabited. It is easy for elves to sit back and wave away the troubles of lesser races, but when the lunar vampires try the same tactics against them, suddenly ‘atrocity’ is back on the table.


    <hr>


    One advantage of the extensive crafting period was the inclusion of a Nuprima lunar window in the month between their arrival in the Oriad and them being remotely close to ready for the actual hydra hunt to take place.


    A little over two weeks after Solaria the frozen moon would have one of its rare windows of availability. Which meant Jair could finally do something he’d been meaning to do as soon as he got access to the frozen magical moon.


    “So, Raina… what are your plans for your spell imprints?”


    She held out her arm, which showed faint impressions of the weeks of imprinting they’d been working on while hunting. “You know my layout.”


    “Not the primary layout. I mean for your advancement layers.”


    “A bit early to be worrying about that, don’t you think?”


    “It’s never too early to plan for the future. Also, I need to book Nuprima passage, so we’ll be pausing the monster hunting for a few days. You can think about your imprint plans while we do that.”


    They left two days before the lunar passage would open to get themselves to a platform and bribe their way into passage. Nuprima passage was incredibly expensive, being the magical pulse of the economy. With the passages rare relative to Zelura or even Terluna passages, and Nuprima the only place where crystalized mana could be exported… its passages tended to be booked solid for economic reasons.


    It ended up taking them extensive discussion at four different cities before they secured outgoing passage on the first trip of the day and return passage on the last trip of the day, and cost Jair quite a few promises he’d rather not have made, but he waved away Raina’s concern. “It will be more than worth the tradeoff.”


    “What’s so important about Nuprima?” Raina asked once they finally finished the last negotiation. They sat out at the last destination city at one of the open-air cafes that catered to tourists. Since they were only a few days away from a lunar passage, prices were easily triple their standard rate, but Raina wasn’t concerned with the cost and Jair liked the place.


    "Are you familiar with forced imprinting?"


    Raina looked up sharply. "Of course. It''s generally considered a risky prospect, but it''s quite commonplace in certain circles. The permanent scarring tends to make it less popular, but some people think it''s worth the cost."


    "And what do you think about it?"


    She shifted uncomfortably, then shrugged. "My father has always strongly advised me to stay away from it, so I haven''t really given it much consideration."


    "Your father isn''t wrong, it''s an exacting process that goes wrong more often than anyone will tell you, but it''s also one of the few ways to speed up spell imprinting. You trade immediacy for permanency.”


    “Yeah. That’s why it’s not recommended. If it goes wrong, you don’t get a second chance. The slot is ruined and you can’t imprint anything there. Worse case scenarios, you can also invalidate the mana flow to further imprints, so if you botched a shoulder imprint you may lose access to the whole arm. Forced imprints are very rarely used for anything but hand or forearm spells.”


    “True, but not what I’m getting at.”


    “No?”


    “The point is there’s the possibility of incredibly increased imprint speed. Assuming the imprinting goes correctly, you get to take one day to obtain spells that would take months otherwise. The tradeoff is that these spells are burned in, not just imprinted. Where a normal mage can layer their manabody to provide rapid flexibility or, at worst, erase an imprint and put in something else, someone with a forced imprint is stuck with it. But what if there was a way to make imprints at that speed without the chance of scarring it permanently?”


    “If that were a possibility, everyone would know about it.” But her expression had turned mischievous, hopeful. “Unless you’ve found some kind of hidden ancient secret technique in all your searching?”


    “I’ve spent whole lifetimes searching out every cheat shortcut I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, none of them were quite fast or strong enough to deal with a full dragon in under a week, but a lot of them do come in handy for things like this.”


    “Wait, don’t tell me. Let me guess.”


    Jair smiled and nodded for her to continue.


    “Hmm. Nuprima is known for ice and magic. We’re talking about magic, so I’m going to assume the ice has nothing to do with it. Imprinting rapidly.” She frowned and tapped a finger against the table, then her mumbling fell silent as she continued thinking it through quietly.


    She was still pondering when their orders arrived, and then it was midway through their spicy soup that she startled and grinned. “I’ve got it.”


    “Have you?”


    She wiped at the slightly spilled soup from her outburst with a napkin, then shrugged and left it. “Forced imprinting is done with mana crystals formed into a scalpel,” she recited. “A single continuous line that must be formed while actively pushing mana through the scalpel at a steady rate the entire time.”


    “That is the method, yes.”


    She grinned triumphantly. “But! The only reason that’s necessary is because we’re on a mana-poor planet! Neptus is only about a third the density of Nuprima. So, I bet that if you used a raw crystal and only pressed it to manabody thickness, rather than actually cutting the skin, you could get a similar effect by way of the standard mana pressure of the moon without the permanence effect!”


    Jair nodded, impressed. “Very close. The problem with that method is the pressure. What you can do safely down here becomes explosively dangerous in a place with triple the mana density. Making an impression in your manabody over and over becomes a strong channel, but those channels are essentially scars on the manabody level. The lines you draw are openings until they heal over.”


    Raina nodded along, brow furrowed. “So it’s just as permanent, only on a mana level rather than a physical one?”


    “No. Much simpler than that. When you draw a line, you’re making an open tear in your manabody. A manabody used to standard Neptus mana pressure when opened into Nupmira pressure will overload and explode, basically.”


    “Oh. That sounds a lot less helpful than I imagined.”


    “There’s a good reason people don’t use the method I’m going to show you. There are about twenty things that could go wrong at every step and each of them will kill or cripple you. Lucky for us, we’re not going to be tampering with the soul, spell imprints are only on a manabody level so I can revert us until we get it right.”


    “Us? So I finally get to be in on some of your crazy overpowered tricks?”


    “Only if you want to. It’s not going to be enjoyable. A full day of intense awfulness is one thing, repeating every few minutes until it’s perfect is even worse.”


    “Yeah, but the result is skipping months of imprinting in a single day.” Raina grinned. “That’s more like it! Finally using your ability to its full potential.”


    “This has been my plan from the beginning,” Jair protested. “It’s not my fault that there’s almost a full month between the start of my loop and the earliest opportunity to get to Nuprima. I can shortcut my way to archmage, but I can’t change the fundamental nature of the world.”


    “Pff. Not reshaping the world to his whims? Some immortal time god you are.”


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    “I’m still only human. Very heavily enhanced human, but not quite a god. Even with Maelstrom.”


    “Why can’t you find a way to make the planet turn faster and the moons come into alignment more often? With all the time in the world, you should have been able to by now.”


    Jair shook his head and threw the crust of his bread at her. “Your support is appreciated, even if your confidence is misplaced.”


    Raina caught it and dropped it into her soup with a grin. “So if we can’t slice open our manabodies safely on Nuprima, why bring up the forced imprint thing at all?”


    “Because there’s a solution. Just not one that many people are willing to take.”


    “And what’s that?”


    “Patience.”


    <hr>


    “I don’t know how far the range on my reversion is,” Jair told Eythron before they left. “I’m going to be spending all of Nuprima reverting as often as necessary, so maybe take a day off if it’s going to bother you.”


    “Understood.”


    Jair waited for him to ask for clarification, but Eythron just keep working. Apparently he either trusted Jair to take care of his own affairs, or didn’t care.


    Probably both.


    <hr>


    The lone attendant at the transit platform collected their fee for incoming Nuprima traffic—a separate charge from those of the platform owners on the surface.


    After the thick warmth of the jungle dampened their robes so thoroughly, the frozen moon felt more chilling than ever. Jair directed them to the clothing sellers, who made a fortune renting their protective gear to underprepared travelers. It was quick and effective, though, so worth the cost.


    The lady at the stall they were patronizing gave them more than a few skeptical glances when Jair requested outfits with detachable sleeves, but didn’t say anything about it. She did require an escrow down payment to cover the replacement cost of the outfits if they died and couldn’t return them.


    They also paid for a mana crystal harvesting license, since they’d be going through quite a few of those and it was far cheaper to collect them himself than go through other channels.


    “Normally, I’d spend a month here and come back as a full archmage, but since we have only today we’ll be unlikely to make it past two layers. Possibly four if we’re lucky.”


    Raina’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “What… four layers? In one day? Even two is insane. Aelir, even one is insane. A full set of imprints in under a day?”


    Jair nodded. “I think we’ll stick with two. I could probably push to four for myself, but I doubt you’d want to do it on your own. So, four total, two for each of us.”


    “Insane.” She hugged him, and if they weren’t wearing protective helmets to provide them with non-frozen breathable air, she’d probably have kissed him too.


    “We’re going to have to move fast. Each step of the day, we’ll walk through it, verify we know what we’re doing, then revert and do it flawlessly.” Which would be a thousand times easier without having to also perfectly relive the entire week leading up to it.


    “So we go out into the cold, and find some mana crystals. Then what?”


    “I just told you. Then we revert and do it faster. Every moment after our arrival at the platform is valuable. Split up and take care of different purchases. Have exact change ready for when we rent the outfits. Give her the collateral without waiting for her to ask for it. Be putting them on as we move. That kind of thing. The sooner we can get to a manamount the better.”


    Raina nodded. “Should we revert now?”


    “Not yet. We need to scout the terrain, find the nearest viable location that isn’t being used by others.”


    Raina nodded and followed him out of the airlock into the open air of Nuprima.


    The place was visually stunning.


    Outside the protective domes over the platforms, Nuprima’s surface was frozen and shattered. Massive rifts, floating mountains, and uneven cliffs made up its white and grey landscape, offering a thousand ways to die if you were the slightest bit careless or unprepared.


    The very air resonated with magic. Mana was so thick here that it naturally crystalized, forming the basis of most industry down on the planet. Nuprima transit was expensive and limited, dominated by bulk transport of the month’s mana crystal supply to companies and cities.


    Mana crystal collection was a dangerous but insanely profitable job. For every dozen people who came to make their fortune, one walked away rich and successful. One or two more might survive if they gave up before they were too far from the safety of the domes.


    Jair had spent a few lifetimes with this as his primary income source, before he moved on to longer term and less personally involved methods, but he still liked to come collect a few dozen crystals any time he was in the area. They were valuable in more ways than just to sell, being the core power source for many constructs. Less efficient than self-powered, but more reliable.


    “Woah.” Raina stared up at the nearest floating mountain, like an iceberg hovering in the sky casting a shadow over the cracked landscape beneath. The interplay of gleaming whites and blues against the dark sky beyond was stunning.


    “You think that’s amazing, wait until you see the view from up there.” He pointed to the underpeak of the mountain, where mana crystals hung down in gleaming clusters


    “Wait. We’re going to be holding on to the bottom of that thing?”


    “No, there are paths with an inversion field. The mountain’s gravity is localized, you can walk all over it, top to bottom. But wait until you see how this place looks from there. It’s truly breathtaking.”


    They checked three different mountains before finding the one they’d be using. The first had too few crystals of viable length, having been harvested recently, and the second had a work crew spreading out just as they arrived. That would be incredibly disruptive to the intense focus required, so they went even further afield. Third try they did find a remote mountain a bit smaller than the first two and its crystals not quite to full harvesting length. Jair demonstrated the appropriate grapple and hop technique for moving between the gravity of Nuprima and the localized gravity of the manamount, then had Raina practice it until she could do it flawlessly.


    For a while they stood at the inverted peak of the mountain, staring up at the glittering beauty of the moon’s landscape spread out above them. Raina couldn’t stop smiling, gripping his hand tight enough he could feel it even through both layers of gloves.


    They stayed there for almost an hour, then spent another two wandering the mountain itself, both underside and upperside.


    On the top of most manamounts there would be an avian colony, but this one was smaller than most.


    Its only inhabitants were a trio of harpies who’d set up their respective huts on three different sides of the mountain.


    Each of them would offer a riddle to grant passage. Fortunately, like with the philosophy-hating dragon Muegvygh, Jair knew all the answers.


    He let Raina have fun guessing first though. She did get one of them right, but the other two relied on heavily cultural context that would be impossible to convey quickly or easily.


    “So, when do we start?” she finally asked once their exploration of the mountain was thoroughly exhausted. “Back to the start?”


    “Back to the start,” Jair agreed. He reverted them to the moment of their arrival. Raina took off running toward the protective clothing seller, while Jair speedran paying arrival dues and signing up for the mana crystal harvesting license.


    They met up three minutes later at the benches beside the airlock, finished pulling on their outfits, and were out into the frigid landscape of Nuprima within moments.


    Jair darkflamed them to their chosen mountain’s peak and grinned. “That was amazing. I’ve never done this so fast.”


    Being able to teleport at will was so nice. This whole process would be practically luxurious this time. Torturously painful, yes, but temporal and transportational control would make it much less so than ever before.


    Raina raised a triumphant fist, her own excitement mirroring his own. “So where do we start?”


    Jair broke off one of the slimmer mana crystals and sat down beside the cluster. “We start with planning. Exactly what spells do you want in which locations? Tracing the existing ones is going to be easy, but once we split off the new layer you’ll have to do some fancy trickery.”


    “What kind of trickery do you mean?”


    “Choosing similar spells for similar slots—similar patterns, not similar outcomes—can make it easier to fill them in if you decide to keep the partials. Or they can be blanked out in transition and start out with nothing but the anchor or anchors.”


    “Uh…” She frowned. “Why have I never heard about any of this? Anchors?”


    “Right. Advanced mage theory, we would have gotten to it in another couple years if we’d stayed at the Institute. I think it’s restricted from anyone below Reforged rank unless specifically taught by a certified source. The transition from mage initiate to mage presumptive requires dividing your manabody into two layers—but the layers must remain connected or it would stop being part of you. That’s where anchor points come in. You keep one spell between layouts and keep that section and that section alone unseparated.”


    “And that lets you have twice as many spells, just like that?” Raina frowned. “No, that’s not how layering works. I do know that much. You can only have one layer active at a time. So how do you switch between them?”


    “Successful layer-switching is the step that moves you from mage presumptive to full mage, and it’s not one we have time to deal with today. All we’ll be doing here is choosing your anchor, making the division, and filling out your second layer’s spell imprints. You can learn how to use them once we’re back in standard mana pressure and your manabody has time to recover a bit from what we’re about to put it through.”


    “Doesn’t sound so bad.”


    “If you don’t hate me by the end of the day, I can guarantee you’ll at least hate yourself.”


    Raina chuckled uneasily at his suddenly serious tone. “It’s just manabody training, even if it’s a more extreme environment? I’ve done reinforcement, absorption, and enhancement exercises in the past. And obviously we’ve been imprinting for weeks now. How hard could it be?”


    “You think I would exaggerate the difficulty?”


    She swallowed. “No, you’re more likely to understate it.”


    “So trust me when I say that what we’re about to do will feel like an endless nightmare. If you want to go back, you can do so at any time. I will be staying either way. You don’t need to rush things just because you can, if you’d rather take the standard year or three to reach a proper layer division.”


    “I’m coming with you, that’s final. And it’s not going to be endless. Not really.”


    “True, there is an end. All we need is flawless perfection.”


    <hr>