Ajax P.O.V.

I could barely pay any attention to the last few announcements the professor made before he dismissed us, something about us being allowed to bring our companions on school delves going forward along with a long speech about how the school takes no responsibility should something happen to them inside the dungeon if we do decide to bring them. It didn’t really matter or apply to me as I didn’t have a bonded companion and I was too excited about finally getting to try out my theories for magnetic mana.

I all but dashed through the noble section of the capital as I made my way towards our estate. I was so absorbed into my own theories about what could and hopefully would work that I didn’t even notice how many people were following me, that there were more than there should be inside the noble district or that they were getting a lot closer to me than usual.

“Sorry about that.” A man said as we bumped into each other as I turned a corner.

The man made to move along like it was no big deal but that small contact was all it took to bring me back to the present at the speed of light. [Enigma] triggered defensively the moment he touched me and despite that he still managed to get a full read on everything but my skills, he had my name, level, stats and even my age and for the first time from somebody else’s skill that I was a human.

I didn’t hesitate for a moment longer as I quickly pulled both my axe and my hammer from my spacial ring and swung both as I turned [Mana Syphon] up to its maximum setting. My axe was aiming to take his head off his shoulders whereas my hammer was trying to cave in his chest.

The spy, as there was no way he was anything else, didn’t even hesitate the moment I made my move and stopped his acting as he broke off at a run. My [Judge Threat] quickly returned a medium threat designation on the man letting me know that while he wasn’t somebody who could kill me in a straight up fight I definitely won’t be catching up to him any time soon considering his stats would be skewed towards speed and perception.

The spy hadn’t made it more than two steps away from me, I hadn’t even finished the swing with my weapons when I felt a mana membrane spread out all around us, not knowing what it was or who cast it I didn’t use [Mana Syphon] to drain it just yet. From the spy’s reaction to the membrane it clearly wasn’t something he was happy with.

“Damn it” I swore as I withdrew both weapons into my ring and quickly brought out my bow and one arrow. Hopefully I would be able to land a good shot that would allow me to catch up.

I drew back the arrow and held almost nothing back, for the first time ever I supercharged the arrow by dumping a full one thousand mana in a lightning enchantment as I fired it, anything so much as a scratch and it should send his whole body into an electric seizure.

Unfortunately it seems that I was too slow to come to that decision, by the time I loosed the arrow the spy was already more than a dozen feet away from me, not only that but his accomplices had also made a suicidal dash in hopes of slowing me down. One of them even threw themselves in front of the arrow.

Even with the power tradeoff that my casting style suffered from one thousand mana was a large amount to pump into a single spell, not only that but I had fully envisioned the lightning enhancement as a paralyzing current rather than a penetrative force, the moment the arrow sunk into the accomplice’s shoulder lightning arcs started to spread out from the point of impact.

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One of the arcs even managed to hit the spy but unfortunately it didn’t do more the have him almost trip and lower the speed his was building up to in his mad dash. The poor sod who got hit dropped to the ground and started shaking uncontrollably while the third one came straight towards me.

“ARRGGHH” I swapped out my bow and arrow for my hammer and axe once more but as I went to infuse them magma and iron I felt my mana channels revolt in protest. The one thousand mana arrow I launched had clearly been a step too far, I wasn’t used to outputting that much mana all in one go and never mind doing it without any build up.

At least I could maintain [Mana Syphon] as I leaned into my [Berserker Style] and lashed out with a curse slash. It seemed that this lackey had learned from his downed friend as he was prepared for me to retaliate, despite that he was simply not strong enough or fast enough. He might have dodged a meaningful hit but he still got hit by my curse.

It was a valiant effort, sadly for him even the light scratch was too much of a hit for someone of his level. I quickly stored my hammer again and light channeled as little holy mana as I could while still getting a cleansing spell to gather in my hand. The pain was quick to reappear but with the lower mana amount it was still manageable.

A wail of agony greeted me the moment I made contact with the lacky, his legs gave out from under him as the curse was swiftly cleansed. Considering the small amount of curse mana that I managed to inflict on him I knew the pain didn’t last for more than an instant and he would be back to normal shortly, that moment of weakness however would be too much for him as I swung my axe towards his throat.

“How much did they learn?” a cold voice sounded off to my left as I felt an iron grip take a hold of my hand stopping me from decapitating my attacker.

I quickly turned my eyes to look at the person holding my hand, [Judge threat] put him solidly above me, definitely someone I should think about fighting currently, it was only the royal family sigil on his leather armor that let me calm down and look around for the spy. I found two more royal assassins each standing next to one of the other two spies. The runner had two spears going through his thighs and was tied up in chains. I was feeling a bit smug to see that the third assassins hadn’t done anything more than tie the hands and feet of the spy I hit with my lightning arrow.

“What do you mean?” I asked after I took in the situation.

“His Majesty's orders regarding any spies that make contact with you are clear, we are to get your approval before taking them in for interrogation.” the assassin said. “The barrier we deployed stopped them from transmitting whatever they gathered to anyone else but he might have already passed it along to the two of them, your privacy skill should let you know what information they managed to take, how important was it?”

I took a moment to process what he was telling me. It seems the king was well aware that I was still keeping a few things from him despite revealing my second Legendary skill to him. I have to admit I appreciated that he let me make the decision on the interrogation just in case they might have collected something sensitive that I was keeping from him. Then again I had no way of knowing if they had already learned all of it from when they interrupted his attempt at communication but my gut told me they didn’t.

“You’re fine to take them.” I said as I came to a decision. “The king already knows everything they managed to get a peek at, though I am surprised how much they managed to get a look at.”

“Two Epic skills will do that.” the assassin that stopped the running spy said as he dragged the man across the ground by the chains that tied him up. “This here is one of our own knights that seems to have betrayed the kingdom, he has the epic skill [Investigation] as well as [Empowering Restriction]. He must have limited his skill to a touch requirement to boost its power.”

I let out a low whistle as I thought about the potential of such a skill especially in combination with my already varied kit. “Thanks for the help there.”

“Do take it easy for the rest of the day, you really overtaxed your mana channels with that arrow.” the third assassin finally chimed in. “Hard to argue with the results though.” he said as he prodded the spy who was still twitching here and there from the lightning in his system.

That comment nearly sent me into a fit of curses as I thought that I will have to postpone some of the experiments with magnetic mana until tomorrow at the earliest and I would be relegated to simply so light observation of phenomenon for the rest of today.