Page | 14 to the Asuran border. Perugius had a number of other circles in his fortress, but this was the one that would bring us closest to our destination. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like functional circles remained in every city on the map. All of those in the floating fortress itself were kept active by Perugius’ mana, but in order to actually use them, the circle on the other end also had to be actively powered. Under normal circumstances, you’d have to ensure both circles were activated simultaneously by people on either side. Which sounded incredibly inconvenient. But there was a workaround of sorts, which involved a kind of special magical implement. Supposedly invented by the same genius mage who created the teleportation circles themselves, these implements were capable of automatically absorbing mana from their surroundings to keep the circles perpetually active. However, they only worked in certain areas where the air was thick with mana. That naturally limited the locations where the teleportation circles could be placed. This was probably the reason why the circles I’d used on my way to Begaritt, for example, had been in such inconvenient spots—deep in the forest, or way off in the desert. Generations of researchers did eventually find a way around this issue. Circles in other places could be continually powered by magical crystals, as long as they were regularly replaced. It was a manually- powered alternative to the older, automatic design. The Kingdom of Asura was located in a region with very low mana density, so nearly all of its teleportation circles had been of this newer type. They were powered when strictly necessary, and left inactive otherwise; only a handful of people even knew where the magic crystals needed to be placed in order to activate them.