Chapter 91: Baby Steps Against The Whirlpool

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

Quinn sighed as he rubbed the insignia from the third vault safety mechanism. He really wanted to know how this tattoo could teleport the bearer. Assuming that no person was casting a portkey or a similar spell, then there was an enchantment that could produce teleportation magic without human or any magical species' help.

"Both the first and this vault had complex runic and warding magic," noted Quinn as he looked into the triangular entrance to the whirlpool. "Just how much planning and execution went into creating the vaults. The people who created them must have given all of it a lot of thought when creating them."

Quinn still usually went inside the first vault to do research and learn more about the mechanism. He would collect the energy from Absolute Zero for his engraver and make observations for an upcoming project that he was working on.

But all the time, including last year, when Quinn had become greedy towards a lot of things, and one of them was Absolute Zero. He had tried hard to figure out a way to get the Absolute Zero out of the vault. But Quinn still didn't know a way to create a portable containment system that would allow him to carry the Absolute Zero without dead-freezing everything around and causing a long-term climate change that would plunge Hogwarts into an ice age for decades to come.

Whoever built the first vault knew what they were doing. The builder had used the energy from the Absolute Zero to trap itself. A self-sustained system that wouldn't degrade as long as the prisoner itself stayed strong.

It was clear that the builder who had made the rune cluster knew how Absolute Zero worked because without an understanding of the alchemic material that was being contained, without the proper knowledge of the power source and runes, the containment arrangement would've collapsed a long time ago because of the corrosive, cold energy from Absolute Zero.

Standing inside the third vault, Quinn went into thinking about the first vault, the Icy vault, for several minutes, before taking a sharp breath and shaking his head.

"Not the right time or place, Quinn," berated Quinn himself, looked at the ceiling of the cave, and said, "Sorry about that." Quinn talked to the third vault as if it was a girl, apologizing because he was thinking about another girl while on a date.

"Let's effin' go," said Quinn to hype himself as he looked at the triangular entrance.

Quinn loosened his body, wriggled his arms and legs, and made sure he was ready before running towards the triangular water-filled entrance where was Poseidon's Wrath. He felt the water cover his body, immediately followed by a tug on his body, and with a ripple in the water, Quinn was gone.

- (Scene Break) -

After a momentary loss of his sensation, Quinn's senses returned: his eyes showed him the raging water, his ears made him hear the loud and continuous splashes of water; he could feel the moisture in the air against his skin, his sense of smell detected the heavy scent of water. Finally, even his tongue sent a signal of a nearby presence of water.

This time, though, Quinn wasn't surprised and was ready for the sudden teleportation. He turned upside down, away from the water, faced upwards, and immediately used one of the spells he had come to look forward to.

The second the magic triggered, Quinn stopped dead in the air; the charm slowed his body's velocity to zero, to the point he was no longer falling and stayed in a spot in the air.

Arresto Momentum was a fascinating spell that was capable of slowing the velocity of the target. If used properly, it could also stop the target completely.

Of course, there were limitations to the Arresto Momentum spell.

First, the difficulty of slowing down objects was directly proportional to the initial velocity of the object. The faster the speed of the target, the more magic and skill from the user it would take to slow down the target. Factors like mass, surface area, and acceleration of the target all added to the spell's difficulty.

For example, an object dropping at its terminal speed would be much tougher to slow down than an object thrown from the top of a short building.

Second, if an object was brought to a complete stop, it would get harder to keep it stationary if the object 'moves' while it's held stationary with magic. Any external force that wasn't in work before the complete stop would be against the nature of the magic and would break the spell after certain limits.

If Quinn wriggled his body in the situation he was currently in, he would break the spell and he would continue to fall. A turn of the head, curl of his wrist, or anything minor wouldn't threaten to break the spell. Anything greater than some minor movements would exponentially increase the difficulty of keeping himself stationary in the air.

So Quinn had to make sure he didn't make any excessive movements. As such, he first turned his backside to the vortex so that his front body would be facing upwards.

Quinn could've used the levitation spell, Wingardium Leviosa, on his clothes to anchor himself in the air, just like the creator, Jarleth Hobart, had done in the first public use of the charm, even though at that time Hobart himself didn't understand what he had created. Nonetheless, that wasn't possible because Quinn only had a pair of trunks on him and those weren't enough to anchor himself in the air.

"Well, I could've transfigured clothes to provide more support," considered Quinn before lightly shrugging. "Whatever, I like this spell better."

Quinn looked up above and smiled because his conjecture was correct.

"I knew I was right; this is an expanded dimension," chuckled Quinn, watching the pure white ceiling and walls of the place he was currently in. The white walls were telltale signs that this was a created dimension like the one in his suitcase.

"Okay, you can do it. No pressure," reassured Quinn as he took in several deep breaths before taking an extra deep breath and stored it inside his lungs and eked out without breathing out. "Here I come."

The magic stopping his fall disappeared, and Quinn began falling. In the short few seconds of his fall, Quinn crossed his hands over his chest and made sure that he would enter the whirlpool feet first.

Quinn entered the water vortex with a loud splash and immediately sank inside the raging water.

Inside the water, Quinn held his breath as he allowed the turbulent flow to pull him. He kept his body flat as a board and seized his body straight in order to not get hurt from the water.

He hadn't transfigured the gill respiratory system that allowed him to breathe underwater because it didn't work inside chaotic water. Even while in the Great lake, Quinn maintained a calm water envelope to allow a stable water flow because he used water magic to push himself to speeds greater than any aquatic species he knew.

Plus, the bubble-head charm was also completely out of the race because it was too fragile and would pop the second Quinn entered the raging water.

So why was Quinn diving inside the most dangerous waters he had experienced without proper breathing measures? Well, the motive of this dive was to observe the conditions inside the water so he could gather some data.

Last time, the sudden teleportation had taken Quinn by surprise, so he didn't get a clear read on the conditions. But this time, he was ready and was getting a feel of the current with his body.

Quinn had made a plan to get his transfigured gill respiratory system work in his current conditions, but he needed physical data to verify if his method would work.

The flow of the water inside the maelstrom was rough, and the last time, Quinn had experienced water entering his body through the gill side. This wasn't suitable because the water was supposed to enter through his mouth and gently flow over the gill leaves before exiting through the gill flaps.

Water entering through his gills with speed could injure his lungs and cause complications that Quinn didn't want to deal with. So before implementing the changes that would allow him to breathe in his current conditions, Quinn needed the physical data that would roughly show that his idea would work.

Hence, for three minutes, which was his limit for holding his breath, Quinn, with his eyes closed, focused all his attention on his body, feeling the water current, carefully and consciously perceiving the water velocity.

When Quinn felt he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he sent magic to the insignia, and at a certain point, he felt the tug of teleportation. Right after, Quinn disappeared from inside the water.

- (Scene Break) -

With a ripple in the water inside the triangular entrance, Quinn came out with water surrounding him as it laid him on the floor before disappearing without a trace.

Quinn opened his eyes and immediately took long breaths of air. He laid on the floor for half a minute before sitting up and saying, "Okay, that was good."

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He got up and started to pace around the room, a look of deep thought evident on his face.

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Quinn had got the physical data he was looking for, and the results he observed looked positive. Now he just needed to do some calculations and make some decisions before he could get started.

"Alright, I need to increase the thickness. The flow was on the higher end of my safe zone," muttered Quinn and did more calculations in his head. "Do I need to have them inside or outside? Nope, not inside, the gills have nerves, and I'll definitely feel pain. Yup, yup, yup. Definitely on the outside."

"Hmm, I will need to eject water as usual, but it will take more effort this time around," groaned Quinn with a sigh. "If only the Gillyweed potion didn't have side effects on repeated consumption."

Gillyweed was a magical plant that, when eaten, allowed a human to breathe underwater. It was said to resemble a bundle of slimy, grey-green rat tails. When eaten, it gave the consumer gills, allowing them to breathe underwater and webbing between the fingers and toes, allowing them to swim underwater with ease.

Then, there was the Gillyweed potion, which would enhance the effects of the original plant. The Gillyweed when brewed into a potion would increase the efficiency of the plant by multiple times and would allow the consumer to breathe underwater for a few hours — in the same amount of Gillyweed that would only allow one hour of underwater breathing.

The advantage of consuming Gillyweed was that the respiratory system given by the plant was automatic. Quinn had taken the potion while traveling around the world, and at that time, he only had needed to gulp in water, and his work was done.

The muscles given by the magical plant took care of everything. Quinn's system was entirely manual, and he needed to direct the water into his lungs and then eject it through the gill openings using water magic.

If Quinn wanted the automatic system, then he would either have to research aquatic creatures in more depth than he had done, or he would need to transfigure his body into an aquatic species as Victor Krum did. Quinn didn't think that doing more research was worth the returns, and changing himself into another animal wasn't something Quinn was thrilled about.

But there were the side effects of consuming raw Gillyweed or the Gillyweed potion when taken regularly. The side effects included developing fishlike features, pale and oily skin, webbing between fingers and toes, and the worst: fishy breath and, similarly, fishy body odor.

From the second Quinn confirmed that the third vault was going underwater, he knew Gillyweed wouldn't be in his plan. Quinn knew he was going to spend a lot of time in the water. There was no way he was going to keep consuming Gillyweed every time he went into the water.

"Okay, I'm done," declared Quinn, raised both his hands above his head and closed his for a few seconds before opening them. "Come on, you can do it."

Quinn channeled his magic through his body, and the muscles under the skin of his neck and chest wriggled violently before his skin split apart and grew into gill flaps. From the outside, there was nothing different from before, but Quinn could feel the changes inside.

He immediately walked towards the triangular entrance and touched the safety water orb. The orb got sucked in, and once again, Quinn had the royal blue teleportation insignia on his arm.

As Quinn's upper body immersed in the water, he felt the breath of life return to him. He gulped in more water.

'Alright, it's working in calm water,' affirmed Quinn as he flexed his gill muscles and felt the new addition working on his commands. 'Let's hope it will work in the vortex.'

Quinn teleported with a ripple in the water and a tug on his body. The second the water teleported him into the air, Quinn conjured a pair of swimming goggles over his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.

Quinn said out loud his last words before plunging into the water: "Let's go!"

The water swept him away, and with a prayer to the water gods, Quinn took a couple of big gulps of water into his body.

He felt the water travel through his body. Some water diverged to his neck gills while the majority went to his lungs. Quinn patiently waited for the water to cover the gills and spread over the blood vessels inside the gill leaves. The oxygen moved from the oxygen-rich water to the oxygen-deficient blood inside the blood vessels.

Now came the main event, the climax of Quinn's motive today.

The problem with his respiratory system was that the turbulent water would rush into his restructured lungs through the gill openings.

Thus, in order to fix that problem, Quinn turned to biology to find a solution. And Quinn didn't have to travel far because the answer was inside the human body all along.

The human heart consisted of four chambers: two upper chambers and two lower chambers. There was a valve through which blood passed before leaving each heart chamber. These valves prevented blood from flowing backwards.

These valves were actual flaps located on each end of the two lower heart chambers. They acted as one-way inlets of blood on one side of a ventricle and one-way outlets of blood on the other side of a ventricle. As the heart muscle contracted and relaxed, the valves opened and shut, letting blood flow into the lower chamber and upper chamber at alternate times.

Quinn realized that his water problem was somehow similar to how the water rushed from the wrong direction. He needed to stop that backflow, so he decided to copy the heart valve system.

Quinn increased, first of all, the size of the valves and made them more sturdy than the heart valves because the pressure of water from the undertow was much higher than the pressure created by a human heart.

He devised a layer in these valves that would sit under the gill flaps and above the actual gill leaves that held the blood vessels, so after the water was done with the gas exchange, Quinn would guide it towards the valve layer. When the gill flaps would open to let the water out, the valve layer would stop the water from rushing in.

And then Quinn would loosen the valve muscles and push out the water with water magic. He would have the initiative as the valve openings were small enough to give Quinn the advantage and eject the water like jet streams, opposing the back-flowing water at the same time.

This was all theory, and now came the time to see if the system would work in real-life conditions.

The batch of water went through the gills, and, as it moved on for ejection, Quinn opened the gill flap. Immediately, he felt the water from outside trying to rush in, but in times of need, Quinn's new valve cover held strong against the water.

That observation and success brought a smile to Quinn's face as he confidently moved onto the next stage, which was loosening the valves for ejection.

Quinn readied his water magic and covered the water inside with his magic while simultaneously slowly loosening the new gill valves. When the valves opened up, Quinn commanded the water to shoot out, and it obeyed and went out, flowing against the water flow outside.

Inside Quinn's body, the water had formed a blob with Quinn's water magic in control of every droplet. As the water went out, it acted as a seal that didn't let water inside, emptying out Quinn's reconstructed lung cavity for the next batch of freshwater.

The process was successful, and the blood had fresh oxygen circulating around Quinn's body.

Quinn, who felt the success, raised both his hands on instinct above and kicked his legs. Immediately, he lost his balance, which made him tumble and rotate inside the vortex.

'Shiiiit!' screamed Quinn as he triggered the safety insignia for the second time and disappeared away.

- (Scene Break) -

In the stone chamber, Quinn had a big smile on his face. He was happy even though he had to deploy his safety measure.

"I definitely need more practice on the valve system to make sure that I can do it more easily," smiled Quinn and laughed as he joked. "I'm coming for you, Aquaman. One day, I will rule Atlantis... Wait, is Atlantis a city here? Oh, another thing I have to check out. Goody!"

Quinn West had found a way to safely breathe in turbulent water, which was a first step in his exploration of the third vault.

Quinn West - MC - Aquaman (Cool rebooted version) in making.

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