Infinite Mana Cultivation-Chapter 21: (Un)fortunate landing?

Pain.

This was the one thing that filled every fiber of Theo's consciousness from the very moment he slingshotted himself into the air.

The theory for this spell was both simple and nearly perfected. It was arguably one of the most researched topics back in Theo's original life. The only reason why it wasn't commonly applied was because no human could withstand the g-forces of acceleration necessary for one to travel any sensible distance when propelled forth with a stationary spell.

In a way, shooting oneself out into the air like that was no different than getting shot with a dang cannonball in the stomach, with the exception that the impact affected every single bit of one's body rather than just the part struck by a cannonball.

It was only with the combination of reinforcement magic and the cultivation that Theo could accept the risks that came with taking flight in such a way. Yet, the very moment he turned the theory into practice, he realized that overcoming the lethal dose of g-force was just the first step of perfecting flight rather than its one and only hurdle.

'Fuck!'

Just a single curse filled his head as the entire front of his body slammed into the air that grew so thick, it felt as if he crashed straight into the wall.

But no.

When crashing into the wall, the impact would come and go, leaving one with the pain of it to deal with.

But by flying through the air, Theo felt as if he continued to crash into the thickest wall in existence, one that never appeared to stop!

'I can't even... my eyes!'

With his brain scrambling from all the pain feeding into it, he struggled to even form a single, cohesive thought.

But a mage of his level no longer needed to use his reason to control magic, not when he was so attuned to the mana he could rely on his instincts instead.

'Rend!'

Unable to make use of vocal, physical or almost any other type of spell-component to form a glyph, all Theo could do was infuse his mana directly into his intent.

Instantly, energy rushed out of his mana-gate in amounts that quickly reached Theo's limit.

Contrary to all the other spell components, an intent didn't affect the real world in any way or form, making it practically impossible to form a glyph with it. Meaning, rather than using the superior, modern magic, he had no other choice but to turn his mana into an effect directly.

Whoosh!

Taking form through his intent, Theo's mana formed an invisible blade that cut into the air just a little bit ahead of his body, splitting it into two streams that rushed straight past his sides.

Finally, the torture of crashing into the thick wall of air ended... Giving Theo's brain just enough room to breathe to fully manifest the pain of having his body crushed in such a brutal way between the wall of air and the g-force of acceleration.

In the single moment of clarity that Theo gained before the pain once again flooded his mind, he managed to notice three crucial details.

First, with the air removed from his path by the mana-blade of the rending spell, there was no more air for him to breathe, putting a hard limit on how long he could keep flying, one dictated by how long he could hold his breath.

Second, now that the pressure of air no longer forced Theo to keep his eyes closed, he saw the dot out in the distance quickly grow into what had to be the Vistra city! And before his thought could even fully form, it had already turned into a huge splash down below, soon for Theo to overshoot it and then keep flying!

And third...

While Theo's wish to fly came true, he had only now realized that he didn't really have any means to either slow down or, in fact, to land! freewёbnoνel.com

Thankfully, slowing down wasn't all that big of an issue.

Deploying the glyph for Theo to slow down fast enough, however? That was a different problem.

'Fractal net, speed-bound, timed.'

Almost on the spot, Theo came up with the qualities his spell had to consist of for him to bring his flight-speed down. And with the wall of air no longer acting like a hydraulic press threatening to squeeze him into a paste, his fingers wiggled around, weaving a simple glyph in the air while infusing it with a considerable amount of mana pulled straight from his mana-gate.

Woosh!

Even with the rending spell still active, Theo felt as if he once again struck the wall of air when the first iteration of his glyph deployed, creating a simple net of spell-nodes all around him, in the plane that aligned with the line going from one of his shoulders to the other.

Thump.

The glyph fired up again, soaking in the kinetic energy of Theo's flight to replicate itself from each of the nodes, creating a second iteration of the simple netting that caught air and acted like a makeshift parachute.

Then again.

And again.

The rate of the replication of Theo's glyph continued to speed up as he continued to shed away his speed, only coming to an end once it grew large enough to effectively bring Theo to a complete stop.

Yet, with just a single glance, one thing became certain.

Even with his attempt to slow down in time, Theo overshot the Vistra town by a considerable margin, almost reaching the end of the city-adjacent farms.

'Now, the next issue,' Theo thought as he enjoyed the moment of peace up in the air, before the gravity finally triumphed against his former speed and started to drag him down to the ground at an ever-increasing rate, 'where do I land? Or rather... how?'

The magical netting of Theo's glyph stopped growing once he lost all of his speed. But he didn't let go of the magical construct just yet, regardless of how much of a drag it was on his mana reserves.

For now, it was the one saving grace he had for his ongoing fall, one that allowed him to slightly moderate where he would fall.

And after a series of ignorance-born misfortunes, Lady Luck finally showed Theo a shy, restrained smile.

'There!'

Theo's eyes twitched as he spotted a small dot of blue down below, just a bit off his current fall-trajectory.

Straining the limits of his mana-gate, Theo created a pair of a simple explosion spell coupled with just as simple a barrier anchored directly to him. Then, by letting the explosion go off...

Whoosh!

The shockwave of the small explosion pushed Theo in his desired direction, even if at the cost of nearly a fifth of his magic netting getting destroyed.

Theo's rate of fall grew, but not to the lethally dangerous levels. And while the small trick allowed him to correct his trajectory...

'This is going to be painful,' Theo gritted his teeth before bringing his arms together and turning himself into as thin of a needle as he could.

With just a few meters of height left, Theo finally let go of his magical parachute, redirecting the mana used for it to reinforce his feet instead, and...

Crash!

At his speed, the surface of the small lake he noticed from above was nearly as tough as solid steel.

Nearly.

With his feet reinforced by both an active spell and his cultivation, Theo managed to cut through the surface of the lake, dropping directly into the water before his speed pushed his dive nearly as far as the lake's depth went.

It was the best landing spot Theo could ask for. And yet, after holding his breath for the entire duration of his flight, he grew quite desperate with kicking the water as he rushed up back to the lake's surface, feeling the burn in his lungs while resisting the desire to just open his mouth and breathe the water in, in foolish, irrational hopes there would be at least some air in it for him to breathe.

And then...

Theo's head broke through the water's surface, allowing him to finally open up his mouth and take in a greedy breath, filling his oxygen-starved lungs with the delicious, fresh air.

"Haaaa.... Haaa... haa..."

Struggling to stabilize his breathing for a moment, Theo just floated in the lake, allowing the excitement of both the flight and the less than pleasant descent to wash over him, the cold of the lake's water helping to drive down the adrenaline-induced heat.

"That was really something, huh..." Theo muttered to himself as he finally started to calm down, only to twist himself in the water and look around, searching for any potential witnesses to his unorthodox actions.

Thankfully, there appeared to be none around, with the farmers too busy with their fields to give a damn about something happening beyond the sphere of influence of their city.

After all, the less they cared about the cultivators' shenanigans, the less likely they were to get involved in their mess!