Yugioh Card Summoner

CH.594 Mystery Portal

Brian POV

“I’m on my way.” I told the three as I changed the call to connect to my Duel Gazer instead. “Do Not go into that portal until I get there. Actually, pull away from it at least a bit. Something could come through it and I don’t want you standing on top of it if something does come through.”

{Yes, Master.} Einar and Eline responded.

{We’ll be waiting. Don’t take too long or I’m firing an arrow through.} Unika said.

“Give me like … ten minutes.” I told them.

I was already mapping out the fastest route, and to my surprise, the fastest was no longer using Victory Viper XX03. Instead, it will be faster to just teleport to the closest guild and then fly from there.

I still can’t teleport just anywhere. It has to be a place I can clearly envision. This is naturally helped a lot by Storage being basically a perfect memory skill, as Tahlia can just bring up an image of a place I want to teleport to. 

So I asked her to bring up the time I planted the flowers next to that guild building, before chanting the teleportation spell and appearing in the village.

My appearance there caused the few people who were outside the guild to look at me, but I think at least a few of them assumed I had just come out of the guild. At least I hope so. I’ll explain it to them when we come back to report about the situation.

I then flew using the Numeron Code so I could get to where the Card Beasts were. The Numeron Code flight had two advantages over my other flight skills. One, it is faster. I can reach mach 10 speeds with it, while with things like Mana Flight and Winged Flight I can’t break mach 1 unless I’m in a dive. 

Second, Numeron Code flight doesn’t care about inertia or air resistance. So I can accelerate to max speed in an instant, slow down in an instant, and the air resistance doesn’t heat me up despite the speed.

So while I originally wrote off the flight ability of the Numeron Code, it is actually an extremely useful addition to my arsenal. It might not offer anything new, or even anything better than the Gradius ships can, but when I just need to take a short flight, it is faster to fly using the Numeron Code’s flight than it is to summon a ship and fly with it. Despite the fact that the ships can reach higher speeds.

Getting from the town to where Unika and the others were took under a minute at that speed. I landed next to them and after a quick greeting, I got my eyes on the portal they found.

And I have to say, it really looks like a portal. Like the ones from the Portal video game. It even has the blue border and everything. Now I just need to figure out where the orange portal is.

“You haven’t thrown anything through the portal, right?” I asked, just to make sure.

“No, we haven’t.” Unika confirmed.

“Good. And nothing has come through?”

“Also no.”

“Okay then.” 

I pondered for just a second before I brought one of the automated drones out of Storage. I then linked it to my Duel Gazer so I can see what the drone sees and sent the drone through the portal.

As soon as the drone went through, I got an alert from HomeBase that an active drone had gone out of reach. It still reached my Duel Gazer, but for some reason it couldn’t reach HomeBase. But it didn’t take too long for HomeBase to realize that, since I got an alert saying that a new connection to the drone has been established, but that it was operating outside of regular coverage.

So clearly this portal leads somewhere far enough away to where HomeBase signal, even with all of the distribution points spread across the continent, can’t reach.

I told the Card Beasts that info, as I took my phone out of my pocket. I then used the phones hologram projector to make a screen that showed what is on the other side of the portal to them.

It was just a huge grassland that seemed quite well grown. It had a pretty large river running through it, so I assumed there might be people living near it, but from what the drone could see, I didn’t spot anything that looked man made. No roads, no nothing. So it was likely away from any population centers. There were some monsters that I could spot, but they seem to be keeping away from the portal. Or maybe they were staying away from the river the portal was next to, as there seemed to be some monsters swimming in the river.

“... So. Any ideas where that portal leads?” Unika asked.

“No clue. Could honestly be anywhere.” I admitted. “I think I need some help from someone who knows Space Magic better than I do. Iris. I need your help.” I said, as I used Summon Space Spirit.

I felt some mana leave my body as the space next to me consolidated into a humanoid form. Her long twin-tails were still something I wondered from time to time. Iris is the second oldest of the superior spirits, Lachros being the oldest, but Iris looks like the second youngest, with Pan both looking and being the youngest.

“Heya Brian. And the beast squad. Hope you are doing well!” Iris greeted us energetically. “You really found something interesting this time, didn’t you?” She asked, as she looked at the portal.

“Yeah, they did.” I agreed with her. “Do you know what it is?”

“I think you know, but I’ll bite. It is a stabilized portal. Quite advanced Space Magic. I’ve taught you this, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, just wanting to confirm. Do you know where it leads?” I asked.

“Not anymore than you.” Iris said. “I can go see. You all stay.” She ordered as she rushed through the portal.

It didn’t seem to hurt her or anything. She just stood on the other side, looking around for some time, before returning through the portal.

“... just how?” Iris muttered. 

She kept muttering for some time, and I just let her. She was clearly confused about something and I didn’t want to interrupt.

“Do you need more time or may I ask now?” I spoke up after about four minutes. “I can always summon Lachros if you need time.”

“... no. I know what that is now.” Iris said, pointing at the portal. “It isn’t a Space Magic portal. It is a Dimension Magic portal.”

“... so it leads to a different dimension?” I asked.

“Yes. And somehow it is perfectly stable. It shouldn’t be possible. There are too many variables to make a stable portal to a different dimension. If anything in the space or time between the dimensions is off by even a fraction, the portal will collapse within minutes. But this one …” 

“Do you know where it leads?” I asked. If it leads to a dangerous different dimension, that could be bad. It doesn’t look too dangerous, but I could be wrong.

“Admittedly, I’m not that good when it comes to Dimension Magic.” Iris admitted. This caused Einar and Eline to stare at her with their eyes wide. “Don’t look at me like that!” She yelped. “I might be a Space Magic Spirit, and the superior spirit at that, but Dimensional Magic goes over my head. I only work in four dimensions, not any more than that.”

“... wait. Four? Not three?”

“Do you really think I’m the younger sister of Lachros for nothing?” Iris asked, gaining back some confidence Einar and Eline’s stares took from her. “Time is a dimension, in a way. Sure I can’t travel through time like Lachros can, but I do comprehend time. So I know four dimensions. That,” She pointed at the portal. “Is stabilized over seven dimensions. Or maybe eight? Location and time of this reality. And then the location and time of that reality.” 

“Now it feels like the time of that place is running perfectly in sync with this one, so the times can be ignored. If they weren’t, that portal wouldn’t stay open.” Iris explained. “The amount of mana that would be needed to stabilize the portal if time would be a factor would be way too high for natural mana to supply. That is why dimensional portals are so difficult. And that is why I never expected to see a stabilized dimensional portal.”

“... so let me recap. We have a portal leading to some other dimension. We don’t know what that dimension is, but the portal is stable. Anything more I need to add?”

“I think that covers it.” Iris confirmed.

“... great. And then there is the million dollar question. Should I just close it and be done with it?” I asked no one in particular.

“Why would we?” Unika said. “If it isn’t a bad thing, can’t we just keep it?”

“I suppose, but it is risky to just leave a random portal open.” I told her. “And you did promise you’d deal with the miasma issue… The miasma issue!” I recalled why Unika came here in the first place. I had used both Mana and Miasma Vision on the portal, and while it did draw in some mana, it didn’t use miasma. So why are the miasma levels going up and down in this area?

“Iris! That portal isn’t using any miasma, right?” I had to confirm, even though I was basically sure it didn’t.

“No? Not as far as I can tell.” She confirmed.

“Yeah, though so. So why are the miasma levels in this area going up and down?”

I asked that, but I was about to get my answer. Because on the other side of the portal, one of the monsters had gotten brave and had approached the portal. And perhaps because we looked like easy prey, as the Mud-Water Alligator had come out of the river, had slowly been approaching the portal and now came through, attempting to attack us. Or sneak up on us.

I had spotted the alligator a while ago. It wasn’t small, and with my drone's vision still on my Duel Gazer, it was quite easy to see. 

As soon as it was through the portal, I took a hold of it with Telekinesis and used Instant Cast to cast Spacial Rend to cut it into pieces.

And as I did, I saw what Eline told me about. Instead of dying like a regular monster, the Mud-Water Alligator broke apart into specs of light.

But what was even more strange was what happened on the other side of the portal. The Mud-Water Alligator that I just killed reappeared on the other side. The light there gathered, forming specs of light similar to the ones that disappeared on this side. Those specs then came together and took the form of a Mud-Water Alligator. Or maybe I should say the Mud-Water Alligator I just killed.

“... well, that tells me where this portal leads. At least I think so.” I told everyone.

“Really? Where does it lead?” Eline asked.

“Quite simple, I think. But I’ll let you ponder that while I show you.” I told them. “Iris, do you want to stay for the explanation or should I send you back?”

“I have the time.” Iris told me. “And I do want to know.”

“Okay.” 

I then did a bit of double tasking, summoning out Pan while I also drew a summoning circle on the ground using Magical Arms. 

“Hi Pan.” I greeted the superior spirit of beasts.

“Been too long, Brian. Want to fight?” She asked.

“... we fought three days ago in the Factory.” I reminded her.

“Yeah, but it was three days ago. Three days is like … an eternity in the spirit world.”

“No it isn’t. It is both no time and all and an eternity at the same time. Blame Lachros and her kids for that.” I told her. 

Yeah. The spirit world time is still as strange as ever. You just don’t question how time works there, because it works how the time spirits want it to work.

“But that thing is really interesting.” Pan said. “You improved the telescope, huh? A stabilized portal into the … mff …” I quickly made a Magical Arm appear over Pan’s mouth, as she was about to spoil the reveal, cutting off her sentence. 

“Don’t spoil it.” I told her. “Can you help me with a summoning?” I asked, referring to the magic circle next to me. 

To answer, Pan threw my Magical Arm off of her face, and took a deep breath. “Is that really how you treat a spirit? I really shouldn’t help you. You are an ass.”

“You love me and you know it.” Not in that way, you freaks.

“You are at most an annoying older brother.” Iris said.

“I’ll take what I can get.” I gave in. “So … want to give big bro a hand?”

“... Fine.” Pan agreed. “You clearly have the circle ready. Any ideas on what you want to summon?”

“Naturally I’ll summon the monster that just tried to attack us.” I told Pan. She just looked at me like she didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. “Oh right. I hadn’t summoned it yet. The Mud-Water Alligator tried to attack us and I killed it. Well, ‘kill’ isn’t the right word. We can summon it, right?”

“It is just a C-rank, and you drew a good sized circle, so easily.” Pan confirmed.

As Pan and I summoned the Mud-Water Alligator, and I made a summoning contract with it because why not, it seemed like Unika and the others figured out where the portal lead. I think the alligator on the other side of the portal disappearing and then reappearing in the magic circle helped, but they really should have realized it even without that, just based on context clues.

“So yeah.” I said as I sent the Mud-Water Alligator, who I named Swampert because I didn’t have any other good ideas, back to the other side. “That portal leads to the summoned monsters’ dimension.” I confirmed to everyone.