Delayed Transfer

The next day, the circus opened at exactly nine in the morning. The first screening of the movies would start at eleven in the morning and the last screening would start at ten in the evening. Hamil did the same thing of showing the movies on alternate days meaning Star Wars Episode Four would be shown that day the next day would be the next movie in the franchise and on the third day would be Episode VI. But this time Hamil decided that on the fourth day, he would show Episode One: The Phantom Menace and then the next films in the franchise the days after.

This announcement was displayed on the huge television screen that was set up beside the ticket booth and it greatly excited the fans who traveled from Narcone and followed the circus to this tiny town. Mark kept hearing that seeing the announcement of the showing of Star Wars Episodes one to three vindicated all the hardships they had experienced following the circus as if the travel from the city of Narcone to the Drovan town was a great and difficult tribulation the idle young people had experienced.

This made Mark laugh so hard not because he was mocking those passionate young men and women. It was because he was the same as them back on Earth. He and his friend Sam did exactly the same during conventions and movie screenings that they were looking forward to.

After breakfast, Hamil came to their RV and asked Mark to follow him. He was led beside Hamil’s carriage and there the elven sisters, Norunta the witch, Dozon, the eldest brother of the acrobat team, Nilfur the dwarf, Zenethor the leader of the zoo, and Lorendo the magician were waiting seated around a table.

“What’s going on?” Mark asked when he sat on the chair that Mentorra indicated.

“Hamil told us that you have the power to establish a warp gate and would allow our customers from Narcone to use it to travel to wherever we set up the circus so they could watch the movies. Can you explain to us how it works?” Solinae asked and the others were listening carefully.

Mark looked around and saw that everyone was interested so this time he knew that he would need to explain his warp gate spell in detail. Of course, he would still stick to saying that he could only establish two warp gates since more than that would be a huge burden to his MP pool.

“Since I was focused on my research during the last days in Narcone, I finally completed my research on Warp Gates. This would allow me to establish a warp gate to my chosen location and then establish a second one. I can dispel the gates anytime I want and cast them anytime I want as well and creating the warp gates would not use any materials. Establishing the gates would consume a huge amount of my energy though and as long as they are in existence, a portion of my energy would be on hold,” Mark told everyone then he paused a bit and distributed cans of beer so they could have something to drink while they were discussing the details of the warp gates.

“So your warp gate is not creating a permanent warp gate but more like you casting a spell that allows two places to be connected?” Norunta asked.

“Yes. The good thing about my Warp Gate spell is it will actually create a physical gate that looks like a doorway and the composition of that warp doorway would be based on where it was cast. If I cast it on a cave, the warp gate would look like it was created from the materials found in that cave. That gate would only be as wide as a normal house doorway,” Mark paused and took a sip of his beer to let everyone think for a bit.

“Before we left Narcone, I sneaked into the park beside the Library of Cormantura and established a gate there. Since I hid it there, I’m hoping that nobody would notice it and if they did, it would look like a park decoration. Now every time I activate the gate, it would consume my mana and would remain open for ten minutes. There are two settings to my warp gate. The first one is I can set it so that anyone can use it and the second is only those I assign can operate the panel to activate the warp gate. One advantage for me about my spell is I don’t need to be there for the warp gate to be activated.”

After telling the details of his spell, the group then began their discussion.

“I’m sure that any major city would prohibit us from establishing a warp gate inside their city. It’s a major security risk,” Mentorra said.

“We are a well-known circus and I’m sure that we can use the gate as long as we set up the circus outside the city and allow the city’s government to assign a guard on both sides so they would know that they’re in control. They would know that we are only after their coins and not their lands,” Nilfur said and everyone could see that his eyes were glowing with greed.

Everyone knew that if they did allow their customer to come to them from far away, the coins they would earn would be astronomical.

“It’s a pity Mark can only create two gates, If we can connect to more major our customer base would be as plentiful as the stars and we would become the richest circus in the world,” Lorendo the magician said.

“I can create two gates for now but since I’m still learning, I could probably add more gates soon,” Mark said, which shocked the whole group.

Mark saw that the mages in the group were shaking their heads.

“I think we can do this. The amount of coins we would earn in small villages is miniscule compared to the amount of coins from large cities. The idea to allow the city to assign guards to both sides would comfort them.”

“If we’re planning to go ahead with this idea, we need to make a bigger theater tent,” Norunta said.

“Or you can make more than one theater tent and show three different movies at the same time. Back in my country, that’s what we do,” Mark said and this made everyone's eyes light up.

Mark could see that Hamil and the others were already imagining the amount of coins they would earn.

“Now we need to talk about pricing and the amount of tax we could agree for the government to receive then we will need to conduct testing on Mark’s warp gate,” Hamil said to everyone.

“I don’t want to get involved with that. Can I leave now? Just tell me when you’re ready to test the warp gates. I also recommend that you call Milena since she’s the one handling our family’s finances and would know best when it comes to my cut of the earnings,” Mark told Hamil and everyone just shook their head regarding Mark’s disinterest in earning coins but they knew that it would be different this time since they were talking about mana stones.

After that Mark left, followed by Hamil who would ask Milena to join the meeting so she could check the details of the discussion and share it with Mark.