As I was walking towards a large building in the town while being led by the elven woman, I quickly returned to my senses after my attention was stolen by the splendor of the town and asked her.
"The teleportation from earlier was «Shadow Transfer»? So this is the elven nation? How was I made to sleep for so long by the fairies? And what is the fundamental difference between the spirit stone I received earlier and a mana stone?"
There were so many unknown things that I couldn't help but want to know about and when I asked all of them in one breath, the elven lady looked at me with an amused smile.
"Umm? This child sure has a great thirst to know about the unknown. You're a great child, great child."
After saying that, she lifted my witch hat and roughly patted my head.
"H, Hey!"
I reached out and took back the hat, holding onto the brim to protect my hair from being messed up.
Seemingly finding my reaction amusing, the elven woman laughed heartily.
"Don't be mad. This place is the true capital of the elves......"
"Really? But, the sky is......"
Both the water and air were clean, and sunlight was also pouring down.
However when one shifted their gaze to look above their head, what spread there wasn't the familiar boundless sky but a ceiling, indicating we were somewhere indoors.
"You're quite an intelligent child. It was indeed shadow transfer, and it's really one of the best ways to teleport people."
Altair-san had mentioned that her shadow transfer could only transport letters or small items at best. However, the elven woman before me displayed teleportation magic that effortlessly transported even people by utilizing the power of the dark spirit when she wasn't even a dark elf.
It was evident that she held a position of great importance within the Eldar Forest Kingdom.
"We cannot reveal our precise location, but rest assured, we reside under the grace of the Heaven Goddess Leriel-sama, whom we worship. The secluded springs you encountered were sacred places created by the Goddess-sama in various places of the Great Forest for the spirits to find solace in and rest."
"I see. Goddess Leriel's power, huh? The fairies must have used it."
Furthermore, considering it was Goddess Leriel who governed not only the wind but also space and time, something like creating looped or closed subspaces, such as the spring, was well within her abilities.
"Correct. And as for how you were made to fall asleep for so long, it was through the magic of the fairies."
“Their magic? But I'm sure I had put up a robust barrier by pouring in quite an amount of mana……”
In addition to the barrier magic I had put up, the conventional mind magic should not have been effective against me due to the vast mana I possessed. It would have been another matter if I was running out of mana, but they were able to bypass my defenses so effortlessly when I should have been closer to my top condition when I reached the spring.
"You indeed have an impressive amount of mana for a human, but you should not look down on spirits as well. You may see us, the elves, using spirit magic but spirits are at best our neighbor whose power we are borrowing, not beings we rule. After all, even if they're lower-class spirits close to intermediate-class, they're still the reincarnations of nature. They're not something people can oppose without any preparation."
She further elaborated that resisting spirits within their territory was nearly impossible, given how their mana permeated the surroundings.
"Even if it's just fairies from lower-class spirits who can not materialize, they can make use of the sound of the water, the rustling of trees, the gentle sunlight, and the floral scent carried by the wind in their territory as catalysts and can toy with people however they want."
It really makes one wonder how strong these intermediate-class fairies were.
Dragon Grandpa has roughly 3 million mana.
The Archdemon that was once summoned in the past had 100,000 units of mana although its summoning was imperfect.
Let's suppose the almost intermediate-class fairies capable of materialization possessed mana between the range of 100,000-200,000 units and there were 6 of them, they may have easily surpassed my mana by adding up each other's mana.
"Besides, barrier magic only blocks physical attacks, it is ineffective against light or sound. On the other hand, defensive magic reacts to malice, ill-will, and hostility but is rather slow when it comes to goodwill."
"That was goodwill? Making me lose sight of my friend, forcibly putting me to sleep and even draining a large amount of my mana? I wonder if you can really say that....."
Their action caused my barrier magic and body-strengthening magic to come off, it was a situation where one wrong step would have put me in jeopardy.
Normally, I would have been angry in such a situation, but the sudden turn of events slowed down my thinking, and since the elven woman in front of me got angry on my behalf, it rather stopped me from getting angry myself.
Thinking back about the situation, it was really dangerous.
"This is just my speculation, but I think those fairies had taken a liking to your mana and invited you to that spring."
"Invited me into the spring......"
"I think they didn't have any intention to put you in danger and should have protected you as you slept. However, lulling you into a healing sleep was purely an act of goodwill."
According to her, fairies usually provided a space to heal the tiredness of the people they had taken a liking to, and mostly even took care of various things for them.
In return, they took a bit of their mana as compensation, but in my case, they had apparently taken a liking to the quality of my mana and they got a bit... careless.
Recalling the situation, I might have indeed been tired from walking in the forest for so many days.
However, when she explained the situation to me again, apart from whether I should get mad at them or not, it made me realize once more how spirits and fairies were fundamentally different beings.
"I've been asleep in a different dimension for a whole month due to their goodwill...... Thank you for waking me up."
"Hmm, you understand now? Next, the spirit stones. Well, they're basically no different from mana stones."
"Let's say, what will happen if they're used to make magic tools?"
The thing I mainly wanted to know about was their difference in scenarios where a mana stone was used. For example, magic letters could be engraved on mana stones and they could be given various effects with enchanting magic afterwards. Or other cases, you could crush them into tiny bits to mix them into a magic potion or during the production of a magic weapon.
"Spirit stones can only reach a certain size, and their rank is determined by their density. However, the effect they provide, if you replace them with the gems in ordinary jewelry like accessories and rings and imbue them with even the simplest enchantment, is tremendous."
As an example, if you compare a mana stone and a spirit stone of the same size, a mana stone would have E-rank equivalent mana while a spirit stone would have at least B-rank or higher mana.
So not only did the small size of the spirit stone provide extraordinary wearable comfort, but their effect was also amazing.
"Their drawbacks are they don't exist in large sizes, so they aren't suitable for complex or large-scale magic tools...:"
As an example, the mana stone used in the manipulation mana tool to control the earth veins of the «Empty Wilderness» was the large-size mana stone we got from the large insect-type monster, Mother, whom we presumed to be an S-rank.
So when a spirit stone possessed an equal amount of mana to a mana stone, it would have enough mana to exhibit the same type of effect as that mana stone, but its small size would also make it harder to fully engrave the complex magic characters or inscriptions required. This was where the difference between spirit stones and mana stones became apparent.
"That being said, an S-rank class monster rarely appears once every century or so. It's highly unlikely one will appear during your lifetime, child, so just take this information with a grain of salt."
"A, ahahaha, you're right......"
I replied with dry laughter...... and decided to be silent about our encounter with one such creature and that we defeated it.
Thinking about the new material, the spirit stone, I had obtained this time inwardly delighted me as I followed after the elven woman who was leading me down a path.
The place we headed to was a towering huge building—— or not. Rather, it was the white chalk castle visible behind it.
"We're at our destination, come over here."
"Excuse me...... can we really enter here? Are you perhaps one of the nobles in the castle?"
Being able to capture fairies, and having a contract with a dark spirit that could carry people meant that she must be quite a renowned magician—... I mean, spirit user.
I expected her to have the same status as a Court Sorcerer working for the elven nation.
And when I further followed after her, the people in the castle respectfully bowed their heads.
"Welcome back, Erneah-sama."
Editor's note: Still call bs on the fairies kidnapping her easily while this elf (who I assume is the elf queen) can manhandle them easily enough.
