Reincarnated Princess Stuck in a Door - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

There was no chance to begin with. A mere princess had no hope of catching Lukenian, the head of the Eternal Phase Tower and the likely successor to its master. It was obvious to anyone that Lukenian would devote his life to magic, live forever, and someday transcend his human body to become a higher being.

Only someone of his own kind could change a man like that. He was the perfect person to have a one-sided crush on. Nothing more.

Once you know you can’t have any effect on the other person, you’d be surprised how freely you can say whatever you want. To Lukenian, even if she acted like a fool, she was just one of his more eccentric disciples. And mages were a strange breed to begin with. Honestly, if anyone overheard this conversation, they wouldn’t be able to tell who was stranger. Him or her.

Lukenian’s shoes made another slow lap around her. Larissa stayed silent, resigned. Now that the adrenaline of playing the clown had worn off, a hollow emptiness settled in. Like she’d poured out her soul along with all those words.

He let out a sigh.

“Fine. I’ll help you.”

“Liar.”

“If calculating a phase shift into a higher dimension is too difficult, you could try matching the vibration frequency of the door particles and your body particles in reverse phase, then use tunneling to slip out. How about that? You wouldn’t need to calculate much.”

“‘Help’ as in you’re going to teach me the theory?”

“Eighty percent of magic is theory. And I’m baffled that you, a mage, just called this theory.”

“I’m a mage, so I’ll say it. Isn’t the hypothesis stage closer to the realm of theory? And the method you suggested is difficult.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I really am a fourth-circle ‘theorist.’ I started late, so my mana reserves are low. I don’t have the power to match the vibration frequency of every single body particle that’s dispersed into the surrounding area.”

The title of theorist was usually granted to someone who had fully mastered their school’s general theories and had a unique theory of their own recognized. Typically, spellcasting ability outpaced theoretical research, so by the time someone became a theorist, casting spells of the same circle was almost never an issue.

Larissa was that rare exception. She hadn’t learned magic and theory hand in hand in this life. Instead, she’d applied memories from her past life and pulled ahead in theory alone.

The genius seventh-circle archmage, who had probably never felt a shortage of mana in his entire life, now looked genuinely grave. As if the thought had never crossed his mind.

“If you generate tunneling and move in that state, parts of your body will be left inside the door.”

“Or parts of the door could remain inside my body.”

“Hm…”

But now that she thought about it, she could at least free her hands.

Then she could do calculations. Free her hands, draw a magic circle on the wall, use dimensional phase shifting to pull her body into a higher dimension, take two or three steps, and rematerialize back into reality. Separated from the door. She wasn’t sure if she had enough mana for all that, but just getting her hands out would make things much easier. She could even call for help outside the tower.

But somehow, she didn’t want to. She knew it was stupid stubbornness. But if she solved this herself right now, wasn’t she basically just doing what Lukenian told her to? No, if the head mage told her to do it, she should. If the school head told her to, she should. If the workshop master told her to, she should.

But right now, she didn’t want to. She wanted to defy him. After all that arguing, suddenly saying, “Yes, understood,” and casting the spell—that was a matter of a woman’s pride. No, wait. Stopping her from asking for help and dragging her here in the first place—that was unfair. It really was!

Lukenian spoke.

“Then let’s think of another method. Approaching the door particles would consume far less mana than approaching your body particles. How about annihilating the door particles?”

“If the energy released from annihilation isn’t handled properly, won’t this room explode?”

“That’s fine. The defensive barrier can handle that much.”

“Really? Isn’t this your personal room?”

Only after saying it did Larissa realize she was in the living room of the man she had a crush on. In the middle of the night. Though inside the Eternal Phase Tower, this wouldn’t even count as a scandal. A labor law issue, maybe. Not that Kailestia had anything like advanced labor laws. And grad students weren’t workers. They were slaves. So even if laws existed, they probably wouldn’t apply.