With that over, Jonathan was able to run through his runes, and search for possible synergies. However, with the addition of his new array, he had a better idea.
Jonathan made his way down the side of the mountain, using his superior stats to traverse the side of the sheer rock face, in order to get out of the city. He reached the ground, dropping the last hundred feet, and began to engrave his new array into the ground around the wall. Further out into the plain, a few Earth mages were using their powers to dig a massive ditch around the city, lining it with jagged spikes of rock. Jonathan watched them for a moment and then got back to work.
He created one of the arrays every dozen feet, waiting for his Divinity to regenerate in between them. He could tell that he was close to ranking up his pathway skill, what with his new array, but it would still be quite far away.
Between the time taken to engrave the runes, as well as the time it took for his Divinity to regenerate, Jonathan spent almost six hours walking around the wall, creating his runes. He made sure that they were far enough away from the wall that if they were triggered, nothing would happen to the city wall. All of the damage would be directed to the enemy.
Each of these constructs were a lot more powerful than they would have been had Jonathan created them when he first started along his path. His understanding of the runes had one up, as well as his Divinity reserves. As a result, they would probably be able to kill almost any Tier 1 threat, and perhaps damage a weak Tier 2. As for the stronger fighters, Jonathan would have to deal with them himself. All that mattered was that the city was ready.
By the time that he was finished, the city was ringed with the reddish arrays, even around the back of the mountain. He knew that some of the stronger enemy soldiers would be able to simply jump over the arrays, but for the foot soldiers, they would be potent demonstrations of Jonathan's might. Each explosion would be able to take out dozens of the fighters, and while that would likely be nothing in the face of the hordes to come, it would be a good opening salvo.
The next stage of defense was up to the defenders however, and Jonathan made his way back into the city to see what was happening. Some of the artisans had been sufficiently motivated by the threat of encroaching death to begin the construction of various artillery pieces, some of which were already on the walls.
From ballistas to catapults, all manner of magical siege weaponry was arrayed against the enemy. Jonathan would have tried to create guns from his knowledge about Earthling weaponry, but he had to remind himself that these weapons were made out of materials that transcended mortal boundaries. Each of those ballistas was equivalent to a cannon back on Earth.
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He hoped up onto the wall to begin his circuit, inspecting the weapons as he went. All of them were quite hasty in construction, but they were definitely serviceable. Some of them had magical effects attached to them, added by various enchanters around the city.
To Joanthan’s Truesight ability, it looked as if there was a faint haze of mana around them. He had realized that his skill could show energy concentrations in an area if he used it correctly, and with it active and in its channeled form, he could detect traces of elemental energy.
All around the weapons were trails of power, from the orange energy of Fire, to the yellow energy of Earth. The colors of the various elements had been shown in the diary, and Jonathan knew them off by heart now. As he moved, he ticked them off. Fire was a bright orange color that flickered faintly. Earth was yellow in color, similar in hue to sand. Water was of a silvery blue tinge, and its form moved like the waves of the element. Air was white, tinged with yellow. Light was, unsurprisingly, pure light. Darkness was similarly colored based on its nature. Life was green, and Death was a mixture of blackness and purple, tinged like rot. Time was a silvery gray color. Fate was a collection of golden strands, winding around each other to infinity. Order was dark blue. Finally, Chaos was a mixture of all the other colors, flickering like a rainbow. And then, from his own experiences, he knew that the Void was purple.
Judging by the concentrations that he could see, some of the elements were rarer than the others. A lot of the weapons had the respective hues of the Natural Sphere of elements around them, but far fewer had ones from the other elements. Out of the two dozen or so weapons that were already placed on the wall, none of them had any imbuements from the elements of Fate, Time, Order or Chaos. Those were likely the rarest elements among elemental practitioners, with only the Void being rarer.
From his readings, he knew that was because they were a lot harder to use than the other elements. Time required a great knowledge of relativity to utilize effectively, and one would have to be able to adjust to changing time scales as they fought. Fate was an element that had its own downsides, as the users were bound by the fates that they observed. Order tended to suborn the will of the caster to propagating absolute law in the world. Chaos did the opposite. Chaos practitioners who did not possess control over their elements were generally hunted down by the authorities wherever they were. No city ruler wanted the equivalent of a loose nuke wandering around their city.
A Chaos practitioner could summon power far beyond their means, but they would have no control over it. Because of this, anyone with a Chaos affinity would either hide it, or die early.
However, Jonathan knew that all of the elements were potentially useful, and if not for his True Affinity, he would have tried to learn how to use them. The Void was a far more potent mistress however, and Jonathan would remain faithful.