“So what is the deal with these gang members all hanging out here, they aren’t even trying to disguise who they are.” The bartender continued looking at Arthur as he spoke wondering where he knew him from. “ In my opinion they are just trying to get themselves killed in one big attack.” Arthur whispered and the bartender immediately recognized who he was. He nearly panicked and backed up but managed to hide his shock and fear, for the most part.

“You shouldn’t be here again, and why didn’t you kill the high rankers when you had that opportunity?” The bartender showed a little of his bottled up anger as he whispered, but ultimately he was wondering why Arthur left without killing anyone.

“There was a complication in the matter, when it happened I decided to leave before I was surrounded. I was confident in killing the leadership of this gang, but not so much against everyone else here without burning the place to the ground.” The bartender flinched at the mention of burning. “Regardless, I need to know when the next meeting between gang leadership will be. This time I intend to kill them all quickly after all the crap they have been pulling.”

“They have meetings at the end of every week at around noon. But I should also tell you about the increased security they have been having since the last time you were here. They have started bringing along their second in commands for both protection and council, the amount of people you will need to kill will be doubled from last time.” It was currently the fourth day of the week leaving Arthur with another three days to prepare to kill off the leadership of this gang.

“That's fine, better actually. This way a power vacuum will be left and the gang will likely fall apart into much smaller and more manageable pieces for the city guard to deal with.” Arthur said as he considered his options.

‘Pyromancy spells are definitely not an option unless I want to risk burn down the whole tavern. That just leaves me with Hydromancy, geomancy, and aeromancy to work with. My biggest worry will be how they will react when I launch my first attack. I should try to kill or wound as many as possible to remove them from the fight, a barrage of small earth projectiles would achieve that with a minimal mana drain. When I get home I can think about this further and figure out all the possible ways they could react.’

“I will see you again here at around noon in three days. Don’t tell anyone about our conversation, because I doubt that the gang members would be so kind as to allow you to walk afterwards.” Arthur quickly finished up his drink and left the bartender with those few threatening words to keep him from blabbing.

On the way back to his home Arthur followed the way back in which he came from until he arrived at an intersection in the dirt road that led back to his home which he promptly took. Arthur also switched his shirt and cloak to the higher quality shirt and his overcoat that he normally wears to avoid suspicion from the gang member that was watching his house. Unfortunately he did not have an opportunity to change his pants, but he doubted that anyone would notice they were different and he could just change them once he got inside.

Once inside his home Arthur quickly switched his pants away from any windows and began to formulate a plan as well as contingencies for when he would attack the gang meeting in three days.

First he would need to create a large barrage of small earth projectiles to deal as much damage and create as much confusion amongst everyone as possible. There were two important possible reactions that he would need to be prepared to react upon, the first was if they took cover behind the table or something else that was nearby. The way to bypass that was to simply use his manipulation of one of his evocations and direct the projectiles around.

The second was if they decided to rush and attack him, in that case he would need to be prepared to conjure up a wall or an obstacle of some sort to either stop or block them. Arthur could just use the Force Wall from his mage staff to block them, but that would be a last resort as he really didn’t want to rely upon it too much as that could cause problems in the future relating to his magical skill set. But it was possible for Arthur to conjure up a barricade or something similar enough to keep the gang members from hitting him, although that would likely be quite expensive in terms of mana.

‘Looks like I will need to take a look at the library again to see if I can find something that fits my requirements.’ But it was starting to get late by this time so Arthur decided to put researching for a spell that fit that criteria off until tomorrow morning and instead decided to practice casting a few spells he thought he could improve upon and try creating a large amount of small earth projectiles to see how many he could control with just his geomancy manipulation skill.

First thing in the morning that soon arrived Arthur ate a full breakfast and quickly left for the mages guild library. When Arthur stepped outside he noticed that a gang member was still watching over his house, he was trying to be discreet but failed miserably at it. Arthur paid him little attention and simply went on his way despite feeling the gang member's eye burning a hole in the back of his head.

By the time Arthur reached the guild it was already nine thirty in the morning and the crowd of people standing in line were all ready and waiting by the time Arthur arrived. He squeezed through the crowd and walked down into the underground of the guild towards the library.

Inside the library Mrs. Florens the librarian was showing a young human woman that looked to be around the same age as Arthur something related to the library sorting system. ‘She must be helping Mrs. Florens with keeping the library organized.’

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Arthur paid the two little attention and simply walked to the apprentice section and began looking at the various spell books for something that fit his need. Each book that he found he flipped open and took a look at each page before deciding if what it contained would be useful, if it wasn’t then he simply went onto the next. In total Arthur went through three whole books each with at least fifty spells before he found what he was looking for within the fourth book.

‘Earth Barricade. A tier two spell that conjures up a small barricade of conjured earth that reaches up to the stomach of an adult human man. Sounds like exactly what I need.’ Arthur smiled as he looked at the diagram that was included on the page the spell was on, it showed an outline of a humanoid next to a big thing that looked to be made up of a bunch of thick sticks and connected together that formed a structure that looked like it would block anyone from passing.

Arthur looked over the verbal and hand signs that were a part of the casting and memorized them before he closed the book and returned it to its place on the shelf. ‘I need to find a proper place to test this spell out, but that only leaves home and the training rooms in here and I have no idea if I need to rent a training room beforehand or what. And even if i don’t need to rent it I will still probably take a few hours to all day to learn how to cast the spell on my own.’

Arthur decided to return home so he could practice this new Earth Barricade spell in his backyard since he did not know the rules regarding the training rooms. When he arrived he took notice of the gang member still standing across the street as if he hadn’t even moved since Arthur left around an hour ago. ‘I almost feel bad for him from how long he just has to stand there watching me.’

Arthur quickly walked to his backyard and readied himself to cast the Earth Barricade spell. He stood straight and kept his feet in line with his shoulders and raised his hands to begin casting. “Ego terrae praecipio creare vallum et inimicos meos a transitu prohibere, ego terrae praecipio creare vallum et inimicos meos a transitu prohibere.”

Arthur felt the mana within him attempt to formulate the spell, but fail regardless. So he tried again and again for a whole six hours before he was successful in casting the spell. What the spell conjured was a barricade that was a bit over a meter in height and around two meters in length, the thick beams that made up its structure also had sharp pricks scattered throughout like the stem of a rose that made any attempts to climb over it very painful and harmful.

‘Oh yeah, this will work very well for what I have in mind.’ Arthur smiled as he thought about how to implement this into his plan and prevent the gang leaders from escaping their own meeting room. Arthur remained out there for another hour practicing the spell with regular success so that he could perfect it for when he needed to cast it most.

But despite this he still had another two full days before the hostile gang would have their meeting and present the opportunity to use this spell. That left Arthur with the question of what he should do during them. ‘I don’t think I have enough time to fully read up and begin working on the next stage of flesh golems that Brexius recorded within his journal, I could definitely read it just not do anything with that knowledge. I could continue working on creating a barrage of small earth projectiles, but I don’t know how much I can improve that at this point.’

Arthur was rather stumped, he wasn’t sure what he should spend the two days he had doing. He could continue learning about flesh golems through the journal but he wouldn’t have enough time until after dealing with the gang to do anything with that knowledge. He could also spend his time reinforcing his skills to ensure that he retains his grasp over his magic and increase his odds of success.

He didn’t feel that he should just continue practicing, but that didn’t mean he was right either. That strange feeling he would often receive would only ever occur when he was very close to the source of the danger and only ever happened within the same day from his experience. Though his belief in the source of the feeling may be wrong he wasn’t exactly certain how or if he was even able to prove it.

‘If I practice more the worst thing that can happen would be that I just put extra time towards something I didn’t necessarily need to. If I read the journal and learn more about golemancey the worst thing that could happen is that I die.’ Arthur sighed and placed Brexius’s journal back into his bag and stood up from his chair. He had come to a decision, and even though he didn’t want to, he decided on practicing his magic in preparation for the upcoming attack, specifically he was going to be practicing his geomancy.

Recalling some exercises from some of the books he borrowed and read from the library Arthur began following some of them but scaled them up so that they would become more mana intense and require more focus on his part to control. It was very boring and repetitive but it was the best way for Arthur to reliably improve his control over a large amount of earth through geomancy that he knew of.

While his HUD didn’t give any explicit change in the number that represented his skill level, he felt a greater degree of control over the earth he utilized whether it was conjured or not. The amount of small earth projectiles he could create increased by two, it wasn’t much on paper, but in practice that was about a eight percent increase to what he could do before, and only the gods knew what that would look like in the future.

*********

One the last day of the week and the day of the gang meeting within the tavern Arthur woke up like any other and ate a full breakfast before he changed into his disguise. He didn’t look all that impressive, but that was the point of it. He looked no different from anyone you might pull from the street and that was if you were actively looking which Arthur doubted anyone would do until he started killing the gang leaders.

But before he left he left a note at the front door for Gaelin that he would be back at around one o’clock and to either return then or tomorrow.

To bypass the watchful eye of the current gang member watching his home Arthur was forced to sneak out the backyard and pass through one of the properties located behind his home. Thankfully as he passed no one started shouting at him and alerting the gang members of what he was doing, they must either not see him or be at work.

Arthur circled around towards the north until he found the road that he took to the tavern three days prior and began following it back. By the time he arrived there it was around nine o’clock, he was three hours early but the bartender said that the meetings would usually happen around noon. That still left room for an early meeting and he would rather be too early than too late.

To keep from being suspicious Arthur ordered something to eat and a small cup of beer to drink with it to keep up the disguise. He took a seat towards the back of the dining area and avoided the eyes of the few gang members that were around at such a nearly time.