My gaze swept across the storage, where racks on racks lined up in parallel ahead of us, crates occupying each shelf with different markers and shipping labels.
Walking over to a half-open crate, I pulled its cover aside. A dozen silver-colored alloy bricks stacked atop one another stared back at me.
Yet something about this material defied standard metallurgy. Ordinary metals bear microscopic grains under scrutiny, but this surface was perfectly, unnaturally flat. It felt ice-cold to touch, lacking even the faintest friction.
Medusa followed close behind and halted, looking inside the crate over my shoulder.
Silver threads crept inside that crate from left, wrapping around those bricks.
"These are Azoth-Grade Alloys, specifically used in creating ceremonial daggers called Azoth swords, traditionally gifted to a student by their magus mentors."
Irisviel explained in her usual flat tone, her threads crawling over to an adjacent crate, pushing its lid aside to slide inside.
A glance at that crate revealed it to be filled to the brim with plastic sachets of a viscous green solution. The liquid inside them sloshed heavily, catching light with a sickly, bioluminescent glow.
"Nutrient Fluid Packets, sachets of a rare solution homunculi are grown and suspended in before reaching full maturity." Irisviel's voice followed a moment later.
These were just two crates. Hundreds of crates with similar labels ran across a single shelf, and hundreds more shelves like these existed.
Some racks read Preserved Genetic Stock, others were labelled Standardized Reverse-Type Magic Crests, and one shelf larger than the rest was marked Homunculi Cultivation Tank Components.
"According to my database, this storage facility holds nearly all of Einzbern's centuries of accumulated wealth. There should be bricks of Orichalcum in here, alongside crates of Refined Mercury, and even a bulk of Storage-Grade Jewels." Irisviel commented, her threads spreading wider to catalogue every material here.
Medusa walked over to a third crate some distance away, pushing its lid up and peeking inside. Within it were ten pairs of snake-leather boots.
She stared at them for a fraction longer than necessary. Then, she slammed the lid down. Wood splintered, fractures erupting across that crate from the sheer force of her motion.
"Izuru, with the amount of resources stored here, my suggestion is that we take only the essentials and leave everything else behind. I've already calculated that it would take us months to empty this storage facility if we worked physically around the clock without rest." Irisviel's voice was certain, as if she had already reached a conclusion.
"I can keep these resources in my storage magic circles." I glanced down at the laptop tucked under my arm, then dipped my chin toward the glove on my free hand.
"You can, but no matter how excellent a mystic code is, it will have a storage limit, and it shouldn't have enough capacity to move all of these materials at once."
I remained silent at her words, then gave a slight nod.
"You're right, my storage circles can't hold all of this. But..." My words trailed off as I set the laptop on a nearby shelf and pulled it open. Irisviel was sitting on the same bench inside its wallpaper, holding that same posture: hands in her lap, back straight.
"There is still a way." I finished, pushing my gloved hands up to hover just before the laptop's screen.
Medusa turned her face toward me from further away, wordlessly observing my actions.
Irisviel processed my words and tilted her head fractionally. "How so?"
"Follow my instructions word for word." Her avatar nodded, and a bundle of silver threads separated from a cluster of them, settling near my hands.
"Link yourself to my gloves and trace the structure of only the forty-second to forty-fourth circles; they are all spatial storage ones." My hands moved a fraction closer to her threads.
"Acknowledged."
Following those words, the threads climbed along my gloves like silver magic circuits, tracing over the forty-second to forty-fourth magic circles.
"Structural scan in progress — 10%... 27%... 64%... 91%..."
"Scan successful. How would you like me to proceed from here, Izuru?" Irisviel asked.
"You should be able to recreate these magic circles through your threads, just like you took the shape of a terminal earlier."
She nodded at my words.
"I can try."
A separate bundle of threads slid onto that shelf, aligning themselves into the exact same shape as Medea's storage magic circles.
"Proceeding to pour mana inside them for a simulated run."
A pulse of mana radiated outward from the laptop, illuminating those silver magic circles. But moments later, that glow dissipated entirely.
I expected as much.
"Running diagnostics. Please wait..." Irisviel on the wallpaper had closed her eyes, brows slightly furrowed.
"Three possible reasons for the failed activation have been identified."
"Continue," I commanded.
"Reason one: These magic circuits have a built-in lock installed by their creator; they will only work with a specific person's mana."
"Reason two: My terminal has insufficient mana to jumpstart them."
"Reason three: The magic circles have anti-tracking embedded within them. When someone tries to trace them, their structure shifts and changes into something else."
Black tattoos rose around my upper body. "You're right about the first and second, but wrong about the third."
I pulled a single sleeve back, revealing a band of black wrapped around my wrist. "Take my mana and try again."
A single thread drifted up, piercing into my pseudo-magic circuit, and drank.
Air pressure plummeted. Silver light detonated from those magic circles, blinding enough to make everything go blank for a second, a concussive wave of mana rippling outward and blowing dust off a dozen crates.
"Magic circles online now, though with severe caveats of being lower in storage and quality than the original ones, and they require a tremendous amount of mana to maintain." The flash died down as Irisviel finished.
"How many can you keep active, and for how long, if I increase the output?" My original magic circuits stirred beneath the pseudo ones, green and black intersecting over my body.
"I can maintain fifteen at most, even with the new mana output. That is my structural limit; any more and my threads will break under the collective strain. And the estimated time I can keep them working is around three days, any longer would leave my internal system damaged." Irisviel snapped her fingers, and more storage magic circles rotated to life, this time over my laptop's back cover.
"We'll take everything from here before that and store it in another warehouse, taking it with us when we return to Japan." I said out loud, my gaze sweeping across every shelf, magic circuits shining green against the brown of wooden crates.
Medusa had already started pulling multiple crates out for easier access.
"One last question." Turning my attention back to Irisviel, I narrowed my eyes.
"Does this storage have everything needed to create a homunculus who can live for a hundred years like a normal human?"
Irisviel remained silent for three long seconds, then shook her head.
"No, most homunculi do not have that long of a shelf life. If you want to create something like that, you'll need special ingredients."
I kept my eyes locked on her.
"Do you know where we can get them?"
She nodded after a moment.
"Most other magi families should have the necessary ingredients."
Turning toward the other shelves, I asked.
"Like?"
Irisviel finally rose from her bench, letting her arms hang loosely at her sides.
"Like the Edelfelt family from Finland. Or the Morte from Italy, or even the Barthomeloi from England."
Sky-blue particles shimmered deep within my crimson eyes at those words.
"Noble Magus Families?"
A pause.
"...Interesting."
...
..
.
***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[10 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Standardized Reverse-Type Magic Crests] - Basically, a normal magic crest is built organically, with a family passing it down their descendants from generation to generation. But a Reverse-Type crest is a pre-fabricated magic crest that is installed into Einzbern homunculus during creation, giving them basic knowledge of magecraft just after being born. This is where the "reverse" word comes from, a normal crest is inherited by a new magus to add their own knowledge into it and pass it on, while the reverse one gives others basic knowledge of magecraft itself.
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Forget everything else, we're about to go on a worldwide montage, and its about to be a lot-lot fun. Hold tight.