If someone were close enough, they would be able to see a golden glow in Rina’s eyes. At least if they were looking at her from the front, anyway; she still had yet to develop literal eyes in the back of her head. The golden glow was coming from magic circles surrounding her pupils that acted like mana lenses, and they were currently zooming in on the runic construct that Aron was carving.

Ever since receiving her blessing, she had been putting at least five hours, Earth time, into studying it and practicing its usage. And with the time dilation factor in Aron’s private “sandbox” in the simulation, that equated to five HUNDRED hours each and every day. So, in effect, she had spent more than a decade within the simulation doing nothing but learning from Aron and various virtual instructors, having the theory of magic pounded—sometimes quite literally—into her.

She had long since begun putting the theory into practice, and following that, begun developing new theories of her own and even pushing the boundaries of the knowledge that Aron had purchased from his system. That had put her second only to him in her theoretical, and practical, knowledge when it came to mana and the usage thereof.

Still, though, she understood that it would be incredibly unlikely for her to surpass him, as evidenced by his quick, easy, and more importantly, easily understandable answers to the veritable barrage of questions she would fire at him with machine gun rapidity during every training session. It was something that did nothing but increase her admiration of him; she had always appreciated smart people, after all. And the fact that her husband was one of them was simply icing on the cake.

And Aron’s advantage over her was being put on display on a grand scale now, as despite all the knowledge and experience she had gained through subjective decades of study, she was still finding it insanely difficult to understand the process taking place in front of her. That said, however, runes weren’t exactly in her wheelhouse. Sure, she had some basic knowledge of them, like their structure and such, but that basic understanding did nothing to explain the ease with which Aron carved the fractal pattern of the runic construct, nor the odd change in its color from gold, to blue, then finally to white.As she was lost in thought, trying to explain the phenomenon, Aron finished imbuing his intent into the runic construct and opened his eyes. He nudged her shoulder, sending her into a slow spin in the zero-gravity environment, and asked, “What’s on your mind?”

“I think I just found my calling,” she said as she came back to herself.

“And what’s that?” he asked. He knew she had been thinking of what she wanted to do with her life since the founding of the empire had upended her previous goal of being a business magnate and leader of her family. She didn’t exactly NEED to do anything, not now that she was his empress, but she had never been one to laze around or rest on her laurels and he respected that about her.

“I want to push the boundaries as a magic researcher. I want to learn what causes the awakening phenomenon, and the mechanics of how mana operates. And maybe come up with a human-specific branch of magic, something different than what the nerd herd in the Lab City gold labs are working on.

“Right now, I’m thinking of focusing on trying to come up with a way of doing what you do, but without your runes. If I can do that, if I can integrate mana and technology, there’s no end to the things we can do with it!” she breathlessly announced.

Although her idea may seem like an abrupt spur-of-the-lightsnovel

lightsnοvεl moment decision spurred on by what she had seen moments ago, it was actually nothing of the sort. She had quickly fallen in love with magic in all of its multifarious forms, and since she’d already reached the peak of her life in terms of temporal power, she’d transferred her ambition and drive to the field of magic quite handily. The new, mystical system of magic had limitless possibilities, and combined with her personal drive to excel, the limitless possibilities excited her into sheer breathlessness.

Plus, she could learn it at her own pace, and wasn’t being forced into it like her family had forced her into the business world with all of its arcane, draconian, and downright weird family rules. There was no tradition—yet—to bind her to a certain path, a certain way of thinking. Instead, she would be the one to blaze a trail for others to follow, and the thought of that triggered a nearly sexual satisfaction in her.

Perhaps her upbringing had affected her more than she would like to admit after all.

Still, her decision had long been made, and it was only now that she’d spoken it aloud to another human being for the first time. The experience of watching as Aron had carved a grand runic construct was nothing more than the last puzzle piece falling neatly into place and affirming the goal she had long unconsciously set for herself, solidifying her decision to delve deep into the fields of magic and awakenings.

“I look forward to what you come up with,” Aron said with a smile on his face. Even—or perhaps, especially—with his system, he knew that new innovations and inventions were being discovered and built every day by countless beings across the infinite fabric of the universe, just like he had done when he’d invented the hybrid BQR-X computer system. There was no end to learning, to discovering, and innovating, and anyone who claimed otherwise was either severely mistaken, or trying to sell you something.

“We can talk more about it when we get back to Earth, but for now, let me just finish tethering this to the reactors. It’ll take too long to expand it using just my own personal mana, since there’s almost none of it around Mars to begin with. Especially not compared to Earth.”

The two started moving toward the space elevator connecting the surface of Mars with its moon, Phobos, where the reactors that would power the Mars Planetary Defense Shield were housed.

Rina nodded like a chicken pecking at rice, throwing her into a bit of a flailing spin as she tried to reorient herself. She was new to zero gravity, so maintaining her orientation—especially while moving—was quite a difficult task for her.

Aron laughed so hard that he bent over and began his own slow spin, but he soon recovered and drifted there, waiting for his wife to recover as well. Which she eventually did, but not without a string of curses that would blacken the ears of any sailor in Earth’s Age of Sail.

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