While his Pocket-Star fueled Fire-Bolts did a lot of damage, they were unwieldy. His work on figuring out the firework spells though had given him an idea for a more traditional Fire Ball spell. He didn't want it to be slow at all though so he was planning on having it travel at speeds more similar to a bullet.
The fireworks spells were created using a delayed activation spell form, where one part launched a projectile, the other detonated the projectile with a spell form. It was so similar in fact, that Felix started with that spell form and simply swapped out the light node for a fire node. He spent a little while tuning the ratios but ultimately he was very happy with his creation. The actual spell being a delayed activation meant that he didn't have to worry about how quickly he fired the initial projectile. No matter how fast he tried to launch it, it didn't seem to destabilize at all. The spell cost a lot of mana, especially compared to Fire Bolt, but he had high hopes for the damage.
With the same principle, he also created variants using pure force, cold, sound, light, solid mana and electricity. They all seemed to vary in use, the force one was just an explosion, the cold one had the potential to freeze a limb solid, sound and light were mostly to temporarily disable senses. The solid mana variant was like a shrapnel bomb, but it wasn't perfect and needed some tuning. Felix currently didn't have a shape node for shrapnel so it was just weirdly shaped chunks of solid mana.
The last one, electricity, was questionable in value. Felix had no idea how effective it would be and would have to test it on something. He though about trying different kinds of delayed casts, like timed and conditional, but he needed much more time to figure those out and impact casts should be more than enough for now.
He was happy with his damage spells though so he moved on to shoring up his defense and mobility options. For mobility, he already had a jump spell, but it required time and concentration to cast. It was also a large burst instead of what he wanted to try and achieve now, which was smaller bursts over time. He started with some of the enchantment training boots from the second puzzle dungeon and began inscribing spells into the bottom of the boots.
The spell was a simple force spell that ended up being a weird mix of enchantment and spell forms as it used an enchantment source to power it from the mana in his feet. The weirdest part for him to figure out, was that he wanted the spell pointed towards himself, instead of away. On his initial attempts, he would pump mana into the soles of his feet but it wouldn't do anything. When he cast a force spell, the force was created from mana which meant there either was no equal and opposite reaction or he had no idea what he was pushing against. It seemed he couldn't use them like a rocket's thrusters and push outwards. Instead he needed to push the force into himself, he wanted to move himself after all.
Once he wrapped his head around it, he designed a simple leather wrap, like a crampon, that attached to the outside of his normal boots. He didn't currently have the materials for it, but he would get them in town when he went back. His initial tests, were extremely positive. As he ran around, he could pump mana into his boots and launch himself a short distance each time. It was effectively multiplying his movement speed, which wasn't necessary when traveling, but in combat, it made changing direction and dodging much easier.
For defensive options, Felix wanted to work on tuning his mana shields to be more effective. The base spell was decent at what it did, but it was also unwieldly being so big and right in front of him. It just tended to get in the way. Felix spent a little while designing bracelets he could pump mana into that would create the same spell, at about half the size, Infront of his forearms like a buckler on each arm. This made the spell much more mobile and way more usable. He thought about making bracers instead of bracelets to better distribute the force of impacts, but realized it wouldn't be unnecessary when he remembered the spell itself absorbed blows.
Ultimately, he could have just cast these spells himself, but that took more time and precious concentration. Inscribing these new spells into items allowed him to focus on his other spells and the battle itself. It gave him more options and more options was always a good thing. He could only currently cast about 5 spells at once. If he cast one on each foot and wrist, that would leave him with just one spell left to deal damage with. Having only one extra spell was unacceptable to Felix and, in his opinion, asking to die. How all the other caster's managed with so few spells and only one at a time, he didn't know.
He knew he needed to go back to the city to commission the items soon so he could practice with them to improve his reactions and make them instinctual. He also wanted to work on his reactions when fighting, but he didn't have any good sparring partners so he would have to figure that out as well. Felix really didn't want to see anyone at the moment, as he still felt some residual shame from losing, but he didn't really have a choice so he headed back to Tri-Peak.
It took him less than 20 minutes to make it back to the city. He made sure to equip his mask and shuffle his disguise before entering as he didn't want to be delayed. He ran straight through to one of the forges with an active smoke stack in the industrial district, but not Henry's. He commissioned the two bracelets and four plates of metal, two to strap onto the heels of his boots and two for something else he had just thought of. He had them all made of simple steel, half an inch thick just to be safe. The smith clearly found it a little odd to make heal shaped steel plates but didn't seem to question it much as he dealt with similarly odd orders every week or so.
Once that was done, he used his map to find a tanner's workshop in the industrial district and got them to make him simple straps of leather. The tanner didn't find the commissions nearly as odd as the smith, likely because random straps and sheathes had been commissioned for the magical items people were getting from dungeons. Felix paid them and headed back up his tower to the lab room so he could engrave the plates and fasten them in place.
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He found that, though he couldn't really nail the soles into his boots, as they were magical, he could strap them to his calf and foot tightly enough that they didn't move. He thought about engraving his boots directly, but he was worried it might ruin their current enchantment and he hadn't finalized the inscription yet. Once it was finalized and he had new boots, he might try it out. He also thought about buying enchanted boots to test on, but decided this was good enough.
His bracelets worked flawlessly, he just had to make sure they were tight enough to maintain the proper orientation at all times. They looked more like cuffs, but Felix didn't really care so long as they worked. Finally, the last two plates he strapped to his chest and back and engraved with a bigger variant of the Mana Shield. He used a simplified version of the spell, as he didn't need all of the functions the original came with. Those two worked as well as he could have hoped.
The biggest issue Felix had with all of the spells was the source node. The normal source node for the wielder's mana relied on skin contact but he found that he could simply modify it with a targeting node to have it source mana through his wraps and boots. The plates on his chest and back, he simply had pressed against his skin so the source node wasn't an issue. His bracelets were also a little superfluous as he already had the energy wraps but he wanted the bracelets incase he needed to block something less solid, like a stream of fire or a blast of wind.
Once he was done with his new equipment, he ascended to the roof. His map had updated slightly when he was out and there was a world boss directly north of the city. While he wanted a rematch with the Griffin, killing this one first was the shortest path to taking them all out. He also didn't want to go after the Griffin just yet as he was still recovering mentally from dying. When Felix ascended to the roof, he found someone, or something waiting for him. As soon as he closed the trap door, Grim floated over to him.
"Your alive."
"Barely."
"Honestly, I wasn't sure you had made it."
"I was dead for a bit there, had a magic ring that barely saved me."
"How close did you get?"
"To winning? Not sure. Not close enough."
"I know what world boss means in theory, but I didn't expect that thing. That was way more than a normal Griffin."
"The System recommends 250 level 50s to take it on."
"You mentioned that before. Is level 50 high?"
"A bit higher than most people in the city."
"I see. That estimate actually seems a little low in that case. So what now?"
"I try again, but I don't lose this time."
"You… Oh, you created your first conviction. Unrelenting? No, not quite. Indomitable? Sort of. More something between the two. That's a gamble."
"I didn't do it intentionally, it just kind of resonated with me. Didn't even realize it was a conviction until you said it just now, but I probably should have realized it sooner."
"Interesting. Most convictions take a while to nurture, and only happen much later in life. I'd heard of life altering events being a catalyst for them before but never for anyone as young as you are."
"Is it a bad thing?"
"Could be. It will affect just about everything you do. If you break it, your soul will shatter and you will likely die. That's why indomitable is such a gamble. You can't ever give up on anything you decide to do. That might not sound too bad but if you get yourself way in over your head, you could be screwed. You likely won't be able to ever ‘let someone win' unless you already decided to ahead of time. I heard about someone with a similar conviction that died because he tried to let a girl win a match in a tournament to woo her."
"Ouch, don't really have much of a choice at this point though."
"Yeah, you are kind of stuck with it now."
"How'd you make it back?"
"I just flew back over here. It took a little while, fly a little bit then rest and let the batteries recharge. I just assumed you'd be back here eventually if you weren't dead."
"I guess you were right. Honestly I thought you would have teleported or something."
"Can't. Don't have enough mana and you would have to figure it out first. I'm not allowed to reveal or teach anything to you."
"What's with all these rules?"
"Think of them like imposed convictions, I didn't choose them but, if I break them my soul shatters. I likely won't die, but it's not a fun time. Best case you lose a chunk of your memories and personality."
"Huh, well that would suck."
"Yeah, it's not great. So how are you gonna kill the Griffin? I was not expecting the wind storm."
"Haven't figured that one out exactly just yet. I'm going to work on flying now, then I'll figure out how to see and hit the Griffin through the wind."
"You know, with your mana sense you could probably mark it."
"With mana? What do you mean?"
"Hit it with very high affinity mana right at the start. A Mana Bolt or something, then make sure it embeds under the skin. You should be able to sense it's position at that point, have you tested how far your mana senses reach?"
"That is an excellent use case for high affinity mana, I thought it was essentially useless. I haven't tested the range just yet, no."
"This is a pretty niche use case. High affinity mana is pretty niche in general for most people. Only really used when the ritual is incredibly precise."
"I'll test it out after I figure out how to fly."
Felix stood atop the tower and tuned the force spells he intended to use to fly around. His current attempt involved four separate spells, two under his feet and two under his hands. He already knew he had to direct the force into himself instead of away like thrusters. The spells were similar to the ones on his boots, but these were channeled so he could keep himself in the air. Rather than go all out right away, he slowly channeled mana into the spells until he just barely lifted himself off the ground by less than an inch. He practiced with his balance until he felt ready then slowly lifted himself higher in the air.
He wasn't darting around through the sky just yet, but he hovered back and forth across the roof of the tower. He knew he had Feather Fall, so it wasn't a huge risk to hover over the edge. Slowly, Felix leaned further forwards and propelled himself faster through the air. He almost fell a few times, but it was trivial to cast Feather Fall to catch himself then readjust and continue. It took him almost an entire day until he felt somewhat comfortable using flight just for travel alone. Luckily, that was all he intended to do with it for now. . . . . .