With a smile Joseph started to fill the magic circle lines. The other mages joined in, until all of the lines were connected.
Suddenly, his mind expanded. He could control the amount of mana from each of the mages and all of the other participants who hadn't yet donated mana to the GATE. It was both exhilarating, and humbling. Exhilarating, because of the extreme amount of mana at his command. It far exceeded what he wielded in the icy fog. Humbling, because none of these people had any defense against him. He could drain the stamina, and then the life from every participant in this circle. They all came willingly, but once that choice was made, they couldn't take it back. Even if they didn't mean to, every one of these people had completely entrusted him with their lives.
Stella still stood next to him, even as magical power washed over him, she trusted him. She was with him. Fully trusting him with her life.
Concentrating to his fullest, he started to drain mana from each of the people contributing. It was like trying to pour a swimming pool into a bucket. He wasn't a big enough container for this much magic. Fighting to not waste one particle, he cast: GATE!
Space ripped open in front of them.
The stone wall suddenly opened up to show plains before them. Mutters of awe, as people turned their wagons towards the mountain wall, filled the valley. The GATE was as wide as a football field. Joseph took all of the excess mana, and began to loop it, layer by layer, and line by line, inside the magic circle. The mana would slowly feed through for days, maintaining the spell. If he tied off the end, he could even make the gate permanent, but he didn't feel the need, and it might even be dangerous.
Finally, the extreme flood of mana left him and he sagged. Stella was there to catch him; unaware how important her position had been.
William called out and people started to rush through the gate. Five people, at the town gate, watched from their side, as a huge portal appeared before them, letting intense cold they had never experienced and snow to drift through as thousands of people started to rush through towards them.
(FOR CASTING THE FIRST SPELL OF THIS RUNE, YOU GAIN 3 LIFE POINTS.)
(FOR CASTING A RUNE THAT WAS LOST, YOU GAIN 5 LIFE POINTS.)
(FOR CASTING A SPELL WITH OVER 1,000 PARTICIPANTS, YOU GAIN 10 LIFE POINTS.)
(ENACRA IS IMPRESSED WITH YOUR ACHEIVEMENT. HE HAS BESTOWED A GIFT.)
(AMCC HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO COMPARTMENTALIZED MIND.)
(YOU HAVE GAINED A SECOND COMPLETE MIND, CAPABLE OF ANYTHING YOUR MIND CAN DO, INSTEAD OF ONLY CALCULATING RUNES.)
(ONLY ONE OF YOUR MINDS HAS SINGLE-MINDED.)
(YOUR SUCCESS IN CEREMONIAL MAGIC, HAS GRANTED 27 HOURS OF COMPREHENSION TO MANA CONTROL.)
(WERZ, THE GOD OF TRAVEL, HAS GAINED AN INTEREST IN YOU.)
(TECHALA, THE GOD OF BARBARIANS AND BATTLE, HAS GAINED AN INTEREST IN YOU.)
(KENRON, THE GODDESS OF LOVE AND FAMILY, HAS GAINED AN INTEREST IN YOU.)
(FIRE HAS BEGUN TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU.)
"Wow, Stella, a lot of gods just became interested in me, and I was given another brain," he whispered in exhaustion.
"All men have that, Master Joseph," she replied softly.
Joseph paused for a second. If he didn't have past life memories, he would have never understood that comment.
"STELLA?!"
She just smirked.
"Shouldn't we go through the gate now?" she asked, innocently.
He sighed. He gave up. He had already learned to recognize when he was losing an argument. Her smirk broke into a full smile when she realized he wasn't going to fight back.
It was a very busy couple of days as people settled. Joseph spent those days, organizing the mages and barbarians, while his dad handled everyone else.
Whenever one of his minds grew tired of the stress, he would swap out to the other one, and let it study magic. It definitely would take some getting used to, but at the same time, really helped him deal with the stress. During the worst times, both of his minds had to pay attention to everyone speaking and giving out directions, but he already had a good bit of practice handling a lot of people asking him questions at once, so he only needed to do that a few times.
Though the mind in charge of his body, versus the background mind, worked well together most of the time. Whenever the background mind started thinking of funny stuff, and shared it with the mind in charge of the body, he would start laughing for no reason.
They both understood that they could only do that around Stella, so he didn't have to explain to everyone he wasn't actually crazy. She already thought he was, and still chose to stay with him, thankfully.
The new mind, the background one, chose to travel to the magical realm one morning, which was really odd, because the other mind suddenly couldn't talk to him. Then, a little figure appeared in front of his chest, startling him.
"Um, Stella?"
"Master Joseph, is your other brain in that rune world you talk about?"
"Um, yes. That was the plan. Whoa! The little me is speaking origin words!"
He could suddenly feel a breeze. He was going to learn CREATE AIR.
"Stella, does this happen every time I do this?"
She looked at him, "You mean, you aren't doing it on purpose?"
"Oh, shavist!"
Joseph ran to the bed, to lay down. He had to get to his other self, to make him stop. Quickly entering the magical realm, he dived into the AIR rune. He startled himself.
"What are you doing here?"
Joseph quickly explained the situation to himself.
"We can't practice like this anymore."
"But isn't this a perfect opportunity to practice group magic?"
"What do I mean? Oh of course!"
"Here each of us is independent, so we would cast magic separately, but since we still share minds, we would also be group casting."
"Exactly! We would be able to practice our ceremonial magic at the same time."
"Excellent! Let's try that!"
They started speaking the words together and observing the differences. It was amazing. As one of them spoke the main words, the other could speak the inflection and get much finer control, than he could alone. After what seemed to be several hours, he looked up at Stella.
"Uh, I got distracted a bit."
She put her hands on her hips and looked at him for a moment before saying, "For someone with supposedly such high will, you seem to have failed to resist quite well."
"I can't help it. Nobody is better at talking me into something than myself. We are properly reflecting."
She just sighed and handed him a cookie. "Here, you'll need this or you'll be tired."