Cautiously, we approached the edge of the forest and checked if the coast was clear. Unfortunately, it was not. A whole three fire salamanders were lounging in front of the entrance, and more were lying on the shore of the lava lake opposite the entrance. The two mages must have startled them. I remembered my suspicion that there might be a nest of magical animals in the basement of the tower. Was the goal of the expedition perhaps not the research diary, or not only? Were they going to take the eggs of the fire salamanders, if there even was such a thing?

In any case, it was very inconvenient for us. As long as so many of the monsters were near the entrance, we couldn’t possibly get into the tower unnoticed. And if they discovered us... Well, I saw what had happened to the expedition.

Looking for a solution, I looked at the tower. Its walls were uneven and the windows of the study were only three meters above the ground, facing the entrance. If we managed to get the tower between us and the fire salamanders, it should be no problem to climb up the wall to the windows and get into the tower covertly.

Before that, however, we had to cross the narrow winding land bridge, and the chances of not being seen in the process were not good. We needed something to distract the monsters. I remembered the clouds of steam created by the interaction between lava and ice. I couldn’t conjure ice, but water was almost as good, it just needed a fair amount of it. My mana supply was full, but would dumping a bucket or two of water into the lava be enough to distract the fire salamanders and create enough steam to obscure their vision? Probably not. I needed something stronger.

I took the magic core of the monster fish out of my pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. How much stronger would it make me? I just had to try it. I called up the image of my mana vessel and dyed the mana blue to make it compatible with the core’s water magic, then clenched my fist around the magic core and tried to draw mana from it, just as I had done with the stones charged by the magic source. But this method didn’t work with the magic core, because it was a different kind of artifact. How did I use this thing correctly?

Since I had no idea at first, I used the knowledge symbol, hoping to get more information, but I only learned that this magic core came from a fish, which was not news to me. Damn! I really had to see about getting a magic instructor, this groping in the dark was just annoying. I needed more knowledge. Knowledge is power, so without knowledge, I was powerless. Knowledge is power, knowledge is power... Somehow I couldn’t get this thought out of my head, my subconscious wanted to tell me something. Exactly, power! What effect did this symbol have? Was it possible that it strengthened the spells? A powerful fire spell had to be much better than just a fire spell, right?

I placed the combination of power and knowledge over the magic core in my hand, sent the mental query “how do I boost my magic with this monster core?” to the magic search engine, and activated the symbols, costing me a full twenty mana. It was... wow! A eureka moment of the first order. The solution was conveyed to me so clearly that I had no qualms about using it. Although the thought of overloading a magic core in my hand would normally have worried me.

I channeled my mana into the monster core, much as I did when activating magic symbols, and watched in Magic Sight as the glow emanating from it intensified more and more, so that I could barely look. Then the monster core silently dissipated into a bluish cloud that was sucked in by my magic core and disappeared somewhere in my solar plexus.

Tensely, I looked at my mana jar, which was only about a third full. Overcharging the monster core had used 48 mana. At first nothing happened, then I felt a strange tingling sensation in the center of my body, where I thought my magic core was. The mana jar, which had been clear glass, gradually became covered in a fine blue pattern, and then the text Focus 1.16 appeared next to my mana level indicator.

This was unexpected. Surprised, I took note of the enhancement to my magic interface. The relatively small monster core from the fish had improved my magic focus by 16 percent! I hadn’t seen many monster cores before, but the fire salamander’s magic core was much larger. I wonder what effect it would have? If I could afford it, I really had to buy the magic core from Qu Ji. But if a mage could double his focus with it, the thing was surely worth a fortune! Well, that was a problem for another day.

First, I had to replenish my mana. I sat down under a tree, closed my eyes, and meditated until my mana supply rose first to 98 and finally to 99. Again I missed a clock, it would be interesting to measure if the increased focus had an influence on the regeneration of mana. But back to my plan.

Now that my Focus was stronger and I had discovered the possibility of adding more power to my spells, I assessed the odds better. Of course, there were still risks, but I saw no way to reduce them any further. I would do my best and hope it was enough.

I climbed a tree to get an unobstructed view of my target. It was a spot in the lava lake opposite the tower entrance, about twenty meters from it. A light breeze was blowing from that direction, so the steam should be carried by the wind to the tower. I placed the symbols power, water, arrow and fly above the treetops in front of me, took a few deep breaths in and out, targeted the spot and imagined a large, no, a huge jet of water hitting there while I activated the spell.

A feeling of emptiness arose within me as all my mana was pumped into the spell at once. The leaves rustled as a ball of water over a meter in diameter appeared out of nowhere, elongated into an arrow-like jet, and hurtled with acceleration toward the lava lake. I would have liked to observe the effect of the spell, but I had no time to lose. As fast as I could, I climbed down from the tree. I hadn’t quite hit the ground when I heard a dull thud, followed by the loud hiss of evaporating water.

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I pushed myself off the tree and jumped down the remaining two meters, which was no problem at all thanks to my increased stamina through magic. As soon as I regained my balance, I started running towards the tower. As I ran, I grabbed the arm of Qu Ji, who was watching the aftermath of the explosion, and pulled him with me. Fortunately, he did not resist and followed me closely.

As we left the forest, I saw that the fire salamanders had all turned toward the impact site, some even running a short distance away from the tower and toward it. As expected, the vapor cloud was headed in their direction and had almost reached the tower. I loved it when a plan worked! We rushed to the land bridge and followed the winding path to the tower. The wind did seem to be a bit stronger, or maybe the heat from the lava was acting that way, but the steam was already starting to dissipate. After the waves of the explosion had died down and nothing else happened there, the Salamander guards apparently wanted to return to the entrance. Which unfortunately meant they turned around and looked in our direction.

Qu Ji and I just disappeared behind the curve of the tower wall. I couldn’t see if the monsters had noticed us, but that was certainly no reason to dawdle. Those buffs were really a blessing, otherwise I would have had to take a breather and wouldn’t have made it up the wall so quickly. But now, like two geckos, we climbed up to the windows in a few seconds and disappeared inside the tower.

Skeptically, I looked at the trapdoor that blocked the stairs down. In case of doubt, it would not stop the monsters for long, yet we had to gain as much time as possible. Gesturing to Qu Ji, I told him to help me put the cabinet on it. Thanks to the increased strength, we lifted it with ease and lowered it silently onto the trapdoor. On the floor above, we weighed down the trapdoor with the bed before continuing to climb to the top of the tower.

On the level below, I stopped and glanced at my mana display, 18/99. It would be just enough for a powerful knowledge I wanted to cast on the portal. I was about to take the last flight of stairs when Qu Ji touched me on the arm and pointed towards the window. Apparently, he saw something he wanted to show me. Cautiously, I looked down and froze: the fire salamanders must have noticed us after all when we entered the tower, because five of them had spread out around it and two more were just joining them. Their heads were turned towards us, they were definitely preparing something and I had a sure feeling that we wouldn’t like it. We had to hurry and get out of here before it got uncomfortable.

I thought again about my plan to use the knowledge spell on the portal and changed the plan. I would most likely need mana to set the portal, but it looked like the lizards would not give me time to meditate. With the storage of the wand, I would have more than enough mana available, I just lacked the instruction manual for it, so I used my last mana to gain that knowledge.

With the effect of the spell, extensive knowledge about the use of storage crystals manifested in my mind. I could only hope that such processes had no side effects, such as brain tumors. I shook off the disturbing thought and concentrated on redirecting mana from the staff into my mana vessel. This process had to be controlled, because too much mana flow could harm the magic core. However, the increased magic focus allowed for a slight over-expansion of the mana storage, so I took in a total of 112 mana and only stopped when the feeling of warmth inside me grew stronger and stronger and finally felt like a burning sensation.

I looked out the window again and the sight gave me even more impetus: the fire salamanders, eight of them by now, had positioned themselves in a semicircle under the windows of the tower. Their red glow in Magic Sight was slowly but steadily increasing in intensity. Some nasty fire spell was in the making.

“Come!” I murmured to Qu Ji and we ran up the stairs. Once at the top, I immediately applied powerful knowledge to the portal. New knowledge flooded into my brain, I now knew that stationary portals also had mana storage and that this portal’s storage was currently about half full at over 2000 mana. That didn’t sound bad, assuming the storage was full when the two mages used the portal, and the distance they traveled wasn’t much smaller than what we needed, this amount of mana should be sufficient.

To set the portal, I had to access the portal spell with my mana. I now had the theoretical knowledge about it, but theory and practice were, as always, two different pairs of shoes. After several failed attempts, each of which cost me nine mana, I finally managed to establish the connection. Except for the last location, there were no saved destinations, either the previous portal failure had erased everything or the portal anchors of the time no longer existed after the long time. No matter, I had my own destination in mind, anyway.

I imagined the wolf’s den in the Devastation, recalling every detail I could remember, from the animalistic stench to the dim light inside to the claw marks on the sides of the exit, and then channeled my mana into the portal spell to target the place. At some point I had a clicking sensation in my head, the glow of the portal went out, but no sooner had I noticed with horror the empty portal frame than it sprang back on. The portal was aligned with the new target and ready to go.

Whew! I wiped the sweat from my brow, the mana display was at 3/99. It had just been enough. Sure, there was still plenty of mana left in the wand, but time... “Jason!” shouted Qu Ji, who was standing against the chest-high outer wall, watching the monsters below us. His voice sounded extremely tense, which didn’t bode well.

With two quick steps, I was with him and looked down. A thick jet of fire sprang from the center of the semicircle formed by the lizards, as if there were a huge fire thrower standing there. With a loud roar, the jet of fire traveled up the wall to the first row of windows, lingered there briefly as the room beyond filled with fire and everything in it burst into flames, and then continued to creep up. The surrounding air was already warming up noticeably. We had only seconds left before we were roasted!

“Quick!” I grabbed Qu Ji by the shoulders and pushed him towards the portal. Without hesitation, he walked towards it and disappeared into the blue glow. I, on the other hand, stopped short of it. Portals had done me no good in this world so far, but on the other hand, I hadn’t taken much damage from them yet... A surge of heat in my back abruptly cut short my time to think. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a wall of fire coming towards me before I jumped into the portal.