Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 64 - 61: Return

In another part of the cavern’s Dense Forest.

Several people were leaning against trees, while others were lying on the ground. All of them were pale, whether from fear or blood loss was unclear.

"Did it stop?" someone asked, noticing that the pink substance was no longer falling and the cave had stopped shaking.

"I’ll take the apprentices to scout the cave entrance. François, you stay here and maintain order. The Blood Array... let’s stop it." The cost of maintaining the magic array had left everyone somewhat weakened. Nemo gave the tired instruction, then set off with his students.

The cave ceiling was riddled with holes, and the ground was covered in gravel and sand. The pink crystals, visible to the naked eye, were weathering and turning brown, shifting to an orange-red color.

Outside the cave, the sky had returned to a bright pink hue, while the land was a constantly shifting mix of pink and reddish-orange. Fortunately, the deadly crystal particles had stopped falling.

Nemo stared at the scene before him, unmoving for a long time.

"Teacher?"

Nemo sighed. "Let’s head back."

Just then, his expression changed drastically. "Hurry! Go back!" he yelled, startling his apprentices. They stumbled back to the shelter where the others were gathered. Before François could even see Nemo, he heard his panicked shouts, "Activate the array! Quickly, activate the Teleportation Array!"

While they were taking shelter, François had already inscribed a magic array to return to the Main Plane, but all his attempts to activate it had failed.

"We can go back to the base and try again, can’t we? Mage Yina and Rorschach Mage haven’t returned yet..." François figured that since the pink crystal rain outside had stopped, Rorschach and Yina must have succeeded. He couldn’t understand their leader Nemo’s urgency.

Leader Nemo ran up to François and, lowering his voice this time, hissed through clenched teeth, "The Ether concentration!"

Ether! The ambient Ether concentration was plummeting!

After carefully sensing his surroundings, François’s expression also turned grim. When they had arrived, the ambient Ether was so dense it formed a mist; now, it was nearly as thin as on the Main Plane. It was like the tide going out after coming in—a pattern that was now repeating with the ambient Ether.

He hurriedly channeled his Magic Power, but as expected, the Magic Array showed no reaction whatsoever.

Seeing the other apprentices and workers looking their way, Nemo composed himself and announced with a cheerful expression, "Everyone, the disaster that befell us is over! Mage Yina and Rorschach, who dealt with the source of the catastrophe, have not yet returned. Please rest here for a short while, and then we can go back!"

He didn’t specify whether they were returning to the base or the Main Plane, but the end of the cataclysm was good news regardless. Having survived an apocalyptic scene in the Otherworld, everyone cheered in excitement.

The leader summoned three apprentices and ordered, "Organize everyone and divide the food we brought equally. Have them eat to recover their strength, and remember to save a share for Rorschach Mage and Mage Yina."

Nemo knew that he couldn’t let the team just wait at a time like this. ’An idle wait leads to wild speculation, breeding doubt, fear, and rumors.’ He had to give everyone something to do, using food to placate them. Fortunately, Nemo always brought dry rations when leading a team, and Mage Yina’s group had also brought food supplies.

"So, what do we do now? Should we wait for Yina and Rorschach Mage to come back and try together?" François and the leader whispered as they stood beside the Teleportation Array.

Nemo sensed the Ether concentration again. It seemed to have hit a low point and was no longer dropping significantly.

"According to the ten-day plan, we’re supposed to open the Teleportation Array on the fifth day to report to the Main Plane and get resupplied. If we don’t make contact, the Main Plane is supposed to contact us after three hours," Nemo calculated. "The problem is, the current environment obviously can’t support the Teleportation Array. It takes eight Great Mages on the Main Plane to control a large-scale teleportation. Right now, we only have two Middle Tier and two Low Tier Mages, and the apprentices don’t count..."

"But it’s only the second day! What if there’s another disaster? Besides, many of our apprentices are unwell, and the workers are emotionally unstable..." François argued that they should report the situation here as soon as possible. Staying here was a huge risk and far from wise.

"You think I don’t want to?! What I’m most worried about is that after this cataclysm, the Ether concentration won’t rise again. With our current power, we can forget about opening the portal ourselves! No, that’s a minor issue. What if, after this disaster, the connection between the two planes changes, or even severs completely..."

Before he could finish, both Nemo and François snapped their mouths shut. They stared intently at the Teleportation Array. Its markings were already glowing with red light, and the space within it was twisting, on the verge of tearing open.

...

"Experiment thirteen, Epsilon-2 circuit bias, input power same as the previous group. Begin!" Master Snow announced, and the circuit was connected once more.

The researchers proficient in mathematics and Master Kano had summarized the Magic Array’s circuit patterns, compared them with other known cross-planar teleportation arrays, and divided this particular array into three circuit regions: a core, an inner ring, and an outer ring. They had reached a crucial conclusion: the Inner Ring was the circuit that locked onto the Sub-plane.

Rather than continuing to decipher the underlying principles, Kano, with a wave of his hand, had the experimental team continuously try biasing the various circuits of the Inner Ring.

This was the thirteenth experiment. Kano had a premonition. ’This is it!’

This premonition wasn’t some vague, illusory revelation from a Divine Spirit, but the Master’s keen perception of the Ether in the lab beginning to flow in a consistent direction as space started to distort.

"This is the one!" Success!

"Report! Power unit three has malfunctioned!"

The energy fluctuated abruptly. The researchers grew tense, and the controller, fearing it would burn out the other units, had already placed a hand on the emergency stop lever.

"What’s there to panic about! Am I not here?" Kano manipulated the Ether, replacing the input from unit three. The system became even more stable than before. The red light flared and held steady—a stable channel had been opened!

Amidst excited cheers, a weary worker was the first to step out of the Magic Array.

"Get someone skilled in the Illusion System... never mind, this is the Alchemy Department. Just put a bag over everyone who comes out."

The man who emerged had a panicked look on his face. An older guy from the Alchemy Department patted his shoulder. "It’s alright, it’s alright, just cooperating with confidentiality procedures." With that, he pulled a "Starry Purple Energy Potion" paper packaging bag over the man’s head.

"Help him out. He can take it off once he’s past the main gate." An apprentice was called over to escort the first lucky survivor out of the research building.

The same was done for everyone else who returned. They were supposedly being "helped," but between the paper bags and their poor condition, they all looked listless—exactly like a captured super-criminal syndicate being escorted to prison.

Outside the research building, Granor and the King’s representative he had brought with him were both blocked at the entrance.

"Is this how you treat people from our Masons’ Guild!" Granor was still fuming. An apprentice, while helping a worker remove his paper bag, responded to the outburst with a grin, "Just cooperating with confidentiality procedures! Alright, buddy," he added to the worker, "welcome back to the world!"

One by one, the workers and apprentices were sent out. Kano waited a long time until François finally emerged last. "Where’s Rorschach? How is my student?"

"He... he fought the source of the cataclysm. I think he won. Leader Nemo is still over there, waiting for him." François was utterly exhausted, his voice growing fainter as he spoke.

"Alright, that’s enough. Go see your father!" Kano beckoned for a paper bag and pulled it over François’s head, too.