"What!? Are we under attack?" Vee cried out in surprise.

She fumbled around frantically, falling out of her web hammock and tangling herself up even more. Some threads cut themselves, likely her [Thread Mastery] skill at work, dropping her to the floor. I stared at the silly spider collapsed on its back when Vee suddenly teleported into place to land right side up.

"Where's the enemies?" she asked, frantically looking around.

"Err… there's no enemies. I just wanted to show you my progress in [Dimension Magic]."

"You woke me up for that?" Vee asked, sounding peeved off.

I pointed at my floating doorway, ripping through space itself.

"Holy shit is that!?"

"It's my pocket door," I teased.

"Oh gods, that really was the name?" Vee groaned.

I chuckled and shook my head, "No, it's called [Rift Door]."

I cast and held the spell, showing Vee my masterful work. She stared at the construct, and I could feel her growing sense of bewilderment.

"I… might need some help doing that many layers," she admitted.

"Of course. I also unlocked [Dimension Magic LV 4]!" I said proudly.

"You really weren't kidding about those discovery bonuses," she replied before pausing in thought. "Please tell me it gave us something useful right from the start, like [Pocket Magic]?"

"Uh… depends on your definition of useful."

"Of bloody course. I swear advanced magic is the worst thing in existence! Why can't they just give us working spells?"

I chuckled, "Well, like I said, it depends. Can you turn off your [Spatial Sense] for a bit?"

Vee eyed me suspiciously, "I have a bad feeling about this, but sure…"

I began trying to cast [Reduction], selecting an area big enough for Vee to walk through. I wanted her to experience the "skipping" effect by going through the compressed space. Now that I was outside of my personal rift, I experienced the increased difficulty of trying to manipulate space in the world directly.

I wonder if it's any worse because I'm trying to do it inside a dungeon. Something to try later.

I also noticed that [Reductions] cost and difficulty scaled with the size of the area I was targeting and, of course, how much I was compressing it down to.

This oddly reminds me of when I was told I can't compress water, and here I am, compressing space! Ha! Wait till Dewi hears about this.

Of course, I was ignoring the fact that I wouldn't be able to appear before my friends as my current self, as Loreleia had mentioned me sealing her daughter's appearance away after this. Hopefully, I could get away with some minor adjustments to hair and eye color so as not to wholly destroy the identity I built up, but that was for future Syl to worry about.

I finished the casting after wrestling with reality for a bit and then gestured towards the area.

"Could you please walk over there?"

"Alarm bells are ringing in my head. Are you sure this is safe?" Vee asked cautiously.

"Trust me, you'll love it!"

Vee sighed and cautiously began walking. As she stepped through my affected area, her next step had her appearing at the other end of the room.

"Wait, what just happened?" Vee asked, anxiously looking around. "Did you teleport me?"

"Nope!" I replied, grinning mischievously.

Vee curiously retraced her steps and found herself back on the other end of the room.

"If this is a portal, it totally counts as teleporting," she stated.

"No portal. You can turn on your [Spatial Sense]," I replied.

Vee wasted no time after receiving permission, and the level of shock and surprise that came through our bond nearly had me laughing hysterically.

"Oh gods… what have you done? Holy shit! And you had me walk through that?" Vee yelled.

"I tested it, and it doesn't even affect you directly, so you have nothing to worry about."

"You squashed space! I think that's something I'm allowed to be worried about."

This time, I gave in to my bubbling laughter, and I couldn't wait for her to see inside the [Rift Door].

"Please tell me the spell is not called squash," Vee suddenly replied, causing me another fit of laughter.

"N-no," I replied, struggling to stop laughing. "It's called [Reduction]."

"Oh, that's actually a pretty decent name."

"It's an inverted version of [Expansion]."

"Eh. That's an okayish name."

I canceled [Reduction] and began casting [Expansion]. They really were inversions of each other, as this one's cost and difficulty went up when the affected area was much smaller. Everything checked out logically in my mind, so I couldn't complain and successfully enlarged a relatively small area to demonstrate for Vee.

Making a big area compact or a small area larger is going to cost you!

"Everything looks stretched out, I hate looking at it," she complained.

"Then stop looking at everything through [Spatial Sense] and instead watch this!"

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I quickly made a ball of slime and primed it so it would keep its shape, then rolled it through the affected area. Naturally, once it entered, it slowed down dramatically as it had to travel through the expanded space.

"It's almost like it's rolling in slow motion," Vee commented.

"Well, if we ever want to pretend to be Chronomancers, we have the perfect trick," I joked.

"I feel like using something as complex as [Dimension Magic] to pretend to be something else is really putting the cart before the horse," Vee answered with a sigh before pointing towards my door. "Are you going to show that off next?"

"Yes, but I got another surprise first, this time for both of us!" I said excitedly.

Vee tilted her head inquisitively, and I shared my newly acquired skill, opting to read it for the first time with her.

[Triangulate]

Receive systematic assistance to calculate and stabilize dimensional coordinates in real-time. By locking onto spatial references, the user can map, anchor, or generate new dimensional vectors.

Essential for teleportation on the fly, rift creation, or dimensional folding. Improves the accuracy of dimensional skills and spells and reduces the risk of misalignment or spatial anomalies.

Skill level determines the amount and degree of system-wide assistance provided. In addition, the user can permanently store up to two sets of dimensional coordinates per skill level.

"Holy shit!" Vee exclaimed.

"That's the third time in one morning," I giggled.

"Syl, this is a downright cheat skill!"

I nodded, "It sounds amazing. I can see why the research notes mentioned how important it is. And being able to permanently store coordinates means we could collect teleport points and always retrace our steps!"

"I'm buying it right now!" she excitedly declared, and after a brief pause, she began dancing on the spot. "Yes! I was allowed to buy it! I'm tempted to even buy a level or two into it."

"Don't you dare!"

It was Vee's turn to laugh, "I won't, I won't. The look on your face, though, was priceless."

"Very funny…" I groaned. "You'll be thanking me when you need to spend ten whole points to uncap something."

"Probably true," she admitted. "Now I'm really looking forward to our trip after this, we can collect some great teleport spots. And since there are two of us, we can spread out the coordinates for even more saved locations!"

"That sounds like a great idea, but we should share at least one set of coordinates between us so we can use it as an emergency meetup point in case we ever get separated."

"A secret rendezvous point, I love it," Vee said excitedly.

"You know… I really should have gotten this skill back when I first evolved. It would have made my life so much easier."

"Maybe an oversight? You're a pretty rare spider type, so maybe it's never occurred in the wild before?"

"Sure. Maybe. Whatever, what's done is done. Let's go see your ominous floating door?"

"It's pretty amazing in there, I think you'll enjoy it."

"Of course, you already went inside… damn suicidal slime."

"I made sure it was safe before I did it. Plus, since I got it as an official system-recognized spell, I had a lot more trust in it."

Vee shook her head, "Considering some of the official spell names, I wouldn't put my full trust in the system."

I walked through my doorway, leaving Vee behind. She watched me enter and then began cautiously examining the entryway.

"It's safe," I called out from inside.

"I dunno, maybe it's only safe for you," Vee replied.

I snorted and formed a tendril, grabbing her and pulling her through.

"Ahh!" Vee cried out, but once she saw she was inside the white void, she began to calm down.

"Told you it's safe," I reiterated.

"Oh… wow… I think I absolutely hate it here," Vee suddenly said, looking around frantically.

"Why? I love it here. Look how easily I can change coordinates!"

I began with a quick demonstration, teleporting the chairs and books around. At the same time, I was finally getting to see what assistance [Triangulate] provided.

Actually, it was probably already helping me outside when I was using [Reduction] and [Expansion]. Damn, if that was with help, then it really doesn't like space being changed around. Or maybe I'm right about it being harder due to being in a dungeon. Either that, or I'll need a few more levels into it to get some real assistance.

I continued teleporting around the furniture with some quick castings of [Positioning]. I was pretty happy to find out that thanks to [Triangulate], I could often skip casting [Position] to get my target coordinates. Instead, if I looked at the area I wanted to be the target with [Spatial Sense], then [Triangulate] would quickly work out the adjusted coordinates for my next casting of [Positioning].

This really does feel like cheating. Then again, Vee and I have been complaining about [Dimension Magic] since day one. So, most likely, this is how it's normally supposed to be used, and we simply started on hard mode.

"Okay, that's very impressive," Vee admitted. "But I still hate it here."

"Why?"

"This area is almost hostile towards me," Vee started explaining. "At least that's how it feels. But for some actual evidence, my [Spatial Sense] is all bugged out, and I'm struggling to activate [Warp]. I dare not even try to change some coordinates with [Positioning]."

"I guess that's because this is my dimension?"

"So it's pretty much your personal domain?" Vee replied in question, then paused. "Actually, that adds up. It would explain why you're casting [Dimension Magic] so easily; you no longer need to overcome the natural restrictions of the world. Outside of here, we have to brute force it, but here, it's your property, and you have the keys to the castle. Which also makes it much harder for me to brute force it since you have the key."

"I like that analogy. Good one."

"I'm great, aren't I?" she joked back. "This really makes me want to get the spell as soon as possible, as I bet training here will be amazing. Or what if we lure enemies into one of our rifts? They'd probably be helpless against at least one of us."

"We can try to do some modified [Ritual Casting] to force it into place. Once you've got the basic structure down, you should be able to cast it as an officially registered spell with ease."

"Sounds good!" Vee chirped.

"This also means that I don't need to beg the dungeon for a safe place. I can hide in here while evolving," I pointed out.

Vee pointed a leg to the giant hole, "I don't know if I'd call that safe."

"Oh. I can make the door smaller," I replied.

Probably…

"Um… are you sure?" Vee asked nervously.

I nodded, "It's sort of like a zipper. I can just partially close it to stop people from entering. As long as I don't close it entirely, then we should be fine."

"I'm going to leave before you try that," Vee replied and darted for the door.

I let her go, as I didn't want to force her. But I felt like with all the knowledge I'd gained from the newly installed spells in my core and the assistance provided by [Triangulate], I was right on the money. I reached out to my connection to the [Rift Door] and began slowly closing it up.

The bottom began to pinch and I ever so gently made my move, causing it to "zip up" just like I had explained. I kept going until there was only a small gap remaining, not even big enough for an arm to fit through.

"Syl, are you okay!?" Vee cried out.

"We're telepathically connected; there's no need to shout!" I yelled back.

I unzipped the doorway and exited the rift, glaring at the shouty spider.

"I was just worried, ya know?"

I nodded and then gave a thumbs-up.

"Looks like my plan of hiding is perfect. Although I still wonder what would happen if I closed it while inside."

"You'd probably need to recreate it from the inside, but give it outside coordinates. I guess that would be a good time to use the saved coordinates feature of [Triangulate]. It would come in handy—you could treat your [Rift Door] like a waiting room before teleporting elsewhere."

"More like a safety room. If it works like you're describing it, then I can open a hole and peek outside to confirm it's safe. If it's not, I can just retreat back into my still-open [Rift Door]. Much better than just blindly teleporting somewhere."

"Okay, shit, this is sounding really, really cool. Can we hurry up and finish this dungeon so we can get to this?"

I laughed, "One of the rare times that you're actually motivated towards magic."

"Can you blame me? Teleporting and secret dimension realms, it's amazing!"

"I didn't even mention that [Expansion] and [Reduction] can be used to shrink or grow your rift."

"Even better! Let's get a move on!" Vee said and started walking towards the staircase.

I quickly sealed up my [Rift Door] and started following after her.

I'm glad you're finally progressing again, but can you please remove that dimensional anomaly before you leave?

I turned to Vee in confusion, and she pointed a leg toward the area where I'd left my slime ball.

"Oh! Right…" I chuckled nervously, deactivated the spell, and retrieved my ball of slime.

"Onwards!" Vee cheered.