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It came out of nowhere.
Felix was flying through the shattered skies, enjoying the sights of the many portals, taking the occasional selfie. Then the threads of energy formed between the portals. Felix almost flew straight into one. That kind of thing never happened. And the threads multiplied and filled the air until one...
...Felix now is somewhere else entirely no idea how he got here. While flying through the wilderness the pain starts and eventually culminates with a blood-covered pebble coming out of his mouth. Which was only supposed to happen if Felix was somewhere else so far that the magic that allows his immortality couldn't reach and the only possible place like this would be another universe entirely.
An hour, he gives himself that much time and uses it, but by then Felix decides that crying isn't useful anymore no matter how much he wants to.
Instead Felix searches for civilization, since he is going to stay in this world for the foreseeable future.
"Man, who knew magical reverse engineering would be so complicated," Felix says with a mocking tone, "I just do tacky furniture, no complication there."
"Engineering, pah. It's closer to art, sliding everything together to get more efficiency, or pivot it to a slightly different use. I have the stuff I use a lot down to very elegant efficiency with different variants for different power levels and so on."
"Efficiency is more of an engineering thing, but again, I have no direct way of knowing what it feels to be putting all these effects together."
"Engineering works with known properties generally, I think."
She holds one hand up to her ear. "The unusual resources guys have a list for you now apparently."
"There's time for me to figure this out. Maybe the mirror will get me something to make me better at magic."
Fenris levitates the boulder-plus-fountain away and starts walking to the portal and then to the resources people. "Do you think there is any hard limit to what your mirrors can do? Or at least one that you have already run into?"
"Too soon to say. If I can do epic level stuff with them though it will be by reflecting a reflection of a reflection of a reflection a hundred times deep."
"A bit, but it might be 'too complicated' instead of 'too magic'. It's not like I ran controlled trials."
"Er, the experimental confirmation? I'm not a scientist but the Neuroi war kicked them into really high gear I think."
"I guess that is what is called here, but I will check with the scientists and send them the relevant literature if necessary. And, wow, I knew there was pressure, but still."
They leave Felix's dimension.
"The church flipped from punishing science to rewarding it. Europans working with Arab and Eastern and Albish scholars relatively peacefully. Twenty years since then, knowing that new things hurt the Neuroi so much more than old ones."
"That still a lot, even - or specially so - with a threat like the Neuroi. I wonder if you might've been comparatively more advanced already, or something. Maybe the church couldn't been as bad at persecuting people if there are witches around?"
"I wouldn't know. I think most everything big is in the last couple decades, years after the Neuroi, once we were semi-organized and had half a clue how to fight them."
"I spent a year and a bit mostly helping the boffins at London University. Some of the stuff they've come up with is really interesting. You have to be a genius or something to think of this stuff without outside help."
"Yes, I confess that I would naively assume to be impossible to think so many things so fast."
"It works because they literally do thousands and thousands of experiments a day, like, a hundred thousand people working on science all at once."
"Wait, are you trying to convince me that your society's advancements aren't impressive? That would be a first."