Between Geniuses

Before he even touched the magic furnace, Landen felt energy like towering waves blotting out the sky. It was a primal power from deep beneath the earth. This power should originally have caused shifts in the land, becoming a calamity for every building on the surface, yet tens of thousands of years ago, it had been subdued by an ancient civilization and turned instead into reserve energy for city construction and magical experiments.

Landen could not imagine what height of civilization that must have been, much less understand why, after such civilization had existed, he himself still lived like a Barbarian.

And now, he placed half of his ordinary magic field against the outer wall of the magic furnace, while condensing the other half into a sphere and driving it into the furnace, sensing that ancient, primal power.

"Ah—" Even though he had mentally prepared himself, the moment he entered, the endless, turbid, billowing baptism of energy inside the magic furnace still made Landen go rigid in an instant. He could only force himself to hold on to his will.

"Landen, are you all right? If you can't do it, don't force yourself. I'll help you pull the magic field out of the furnace."

"I'm... fine. Give me a moment. Help me make part of the magic near the Mentor Tower flow back into the magic furnace." Landen used every ounce of his will to communicate with the Great Fairy.

Fiana no longer insisted. At this moment, now wholly within the Magic Web, she began adjusting the magic furnace. In Landen's eyes, the arrays on the furnace constantly rotated and changed, and he guessed which ones served as valves and which should be sensors. Before long, a warm current swept in, and Tania's consciousness arrived as well.

"Landen? Why are