The trip back to Thudfall had not taken as long as it had taken to first make it to Gratsden. They didn't have to go along the perimeter of the safe zone's mana barrier and instead could just make a beeline to the village thanks to Mike's connection to it. During their travels the archers name had come up, which had turned out to be Ash. One thing that had surprised Mike about his party members was how fast they were. Mike had several levels on both of them, but since he never put any stats into his agility the two women were keeping up with his pace. He wasn't using self empower or burst step, but perhaps it was time to invest in agility.
When they arrived, the first thing they did was find Devin and Hobbes. The former had been eating at Otto's restaurant, and the latter had been walking around the village, writing down a to-do list on a piece of paper. He brought them to the village hall, which had a few of the council members milling about, talking about some of the more minor decisions that needed to be made for the village. Mike, Hobbes, Devin, Lila, and Ash all sat at the main table, and seeing the three highest ranked members in the village sitting with two strangers made many of the council members sit as well.
“I came in contact with another settlement today.” Mike said.
“Which one?” Devin asked. His tone was serious, as he could sense the gravity in Mike's words.
“Gratsden. It is a settlement not far away.” Mike spent some time describing everything that had happened in the settlement to the people around the table. He saw looks of concern, some of apathy, and some of contemplation. After he was done recounting his time there, he made an announcement to the gathered group. “We have to do something about it.”
“Do we? I mean obviously their situation sucks, but we have no obligation to help them. From what you said, it just sounds like we would be putting those people in more danger by trying to help them.” The words came from one of the councilors, and much to Mike's surprise several of his peers nodded their heads in agreement. He was about to argue, but another councilor spoke up faster than he could.
“Of course we have an obligation to help them! We can find a safe way to do it.”
“Any ideas on how we could do that? It sounds like he has that place locked down tight.”
“We could get them out one by one, it would take a while but-”
“Wouldn’t work.” Mike cut in. “We already discussed that, and if Roots notices that people are leaving, then he may trigger many bracelets in retaliation. I don't know how many people would be able to survive them going off.”
Many more ideas were thrown around, from assassinating Roots to sending in their best healers to fix the damage the bracelets would cause. Most of the people seemed to be squeamish to the idea of assassination, though they acknowledged that it may be a possibility.
The idea of letting the bracelets go off and fixing all the damage with an army of healers was also scrapped, as many would probably be instantly killed. Hobbes had mentioned the possibility of negotiating their freedom, but Mike was worried that bringing up the terrible things he was doing would make Roots get upset and trigger the bracelets.
No matter what they came up with, they couldn't think of a situation that would guarantee that the bracelets wouldn’t detonate. Mike could disable them, and not tell the wearer or let Roots know about it, but he would definitely notice that he was not receiving as much mana for his plants if half of the bracelets were disabled.
After an hour of brainstorming, the room came up empty. Assassination was the best plan they had, but they had nobody strong enough to kill the druid in just a single quick strike without being noticed first. Mike could maybe one shot the man, but he was not very sneaky and would be noticed and countered. Lucas was the strongest rogue, but he was still too weak to kill someone like Roots. The meeting ended with no feasible ideas being thought up, and Mike was extremely frustrated. It just seemed like no matter what they did they would lose.
Mike was not a risk averse person, but recently he had started to think more about how risks could affect the lives of others. Mike could feel the tension in his muscles and had to leave the room. Taking a trip to Otto's restaurant, he sat down to hopefully be calmed by the good food. The chef noticed his disgruntled look as Mike began eating his venison sandwich, and tried to strike up a conversation.
“Got something on your mind?” Otto asked.
“I have to make a tough choice.” Mike said. “I can either let people live trapped somewhere that sucks, or I can try and free them, risking most of their lives.”
“Damn, that's heavy.” Otto didn't seem to know how to console Mike, so he went back to cooking. Mike's table was the closest to the kitchen, and through an opening in the wall he could see Otto preparing meals. He used magic to cook and prepare the food, with some meals never even touching a grill, oven, or stove of any kind. He even at one point saw some meat cooked just from Otto using some mana.
“That doesn't look like any cooking technique I have seen before.” He said, watching a chunk of meat get cooked in seconds.
“Yeah, it's a skill I figured out just after I evolved. Mighty helpful for mass producing meals.”
Mike needed something to distract his mind, and he continued the conversation. “How does it work?”
“It works a lot like a slow cooker does, just really fast. The entirety of the meat is heated at once, and that allows the process to go quickly, without risking overcooking any one part.”
“How does your mana turn to heat energy to cook it?”
“It is simple, but it did take me a while to figure out.” Otto said, turning his attention fully to Mike. “Mana itself is another form of energy, similar to electricity or heat. I believe that it is the middle ground between all other forms, and can shift between them. That is how some of our mages are throwing around fire or electricity. The only difference is that with mana, we can exert our wills over it. I still have not figured out exactly how that part works, but it allows us to freely convert mana to these energies.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Does that include kinetic energy?” Mike asked, very interested in the conversation now. He remembered using his mana to heat up the water in the bath house, but hadn't really thought much about what else that could apply to.
“You do have a skill that does this, no?” Otto asked.
Mike thought for a moment, before remembering that he did have a skill that did something similar. “Not exactly, when I throw mana out of my feet with a burst step, I am not turning it into kinetic energy, I am throwing so much out that it is thrusting me forward. Newton's third law and all that.”
“Have you considered trying to turn that mana into something? It seems like such a waste to simply throw it out of your body. I’m sure you can do something with it.”
“I-” Mike stuttered. “I haven’t thought about that. I guess there really is no reason to not use it if it is leaving me anyways.”
“That is the secret to pushing a skill past the heroic rarity.” Otto said, turning back to his work. Mike gaped at him.
“You have a skill past heroic rarity? What is it? What is the next rarity called? Why are you not answering me!?”
Otto shook his head with a small laugh. “Why don't you go and do some experimenting, and find out for yourself.”
Mike had nearly forgotten about his meal at that point, and he hurriedly left the restaurant. He hadn’t forgotten about what Otto had said entirely though, and as he looked for a secluded spot in the woods to practice his new skill, he thought about what the man said. He didn't think about what the man had said about mana, but instead another part of the conversation had been nagging at his mind.
Otto had said that when he flash cooked his meals, he had to ensure to do it all at once so as not to burn part of the meal. It felt oddly reminiscent of the situation Mike had to deal with. If he tried to save the people of Gratsden, he would end up “burning” many of them because he couldn't help them all at once.
The idea had been thought of to try and remove the enchantments from everyone at once, but that simply wasn't feasible. Mike could not be everywhere at once, and he wouldn’t be able to break the enchantments of everyone's bracelets all at once. Gratsden had a total population of about 20 thousand by Ash and Lila’s best guesses. That was about half of what Thudfall was currently at, and if he included Dunes population, just a third.
All this was to say that Gratsden was no small settlement. The only reason they weren't a village yet was due to having no currency. Mike would have to keep in mind never to give anyone from Gratsden a coin as that would immediately bump them up to a village, making his task even harder than it already was.
He suddenly remembered that he knew somebody specialized in large scale works of magic, and was torn between working on improving his skills and going to meet the man. It only took a few seconds of contemplation to realize it was best to just go talk with the man in question. He traveled across the land, using burst step to reach his destination quickly. He tried a few times to implement the ideas that Otto had put in his head, but he couldn't focus on the task very much since he was moving at such high speeds. After some time of travel, he glided down from the air, landing on the sandy ground of Dune.
He saw the idol of Surya still standing tall in the center of town, and even from hundreds of feet away he still saw the ever present halo of light around it. He entered the village hall of Dune, seeing only 4 of the 8 grand chiefs present, and thankfully Raj.
“Hey Raj.” He said with a wave. He also gave quick hellos and waves to the chiefs, as he didn't know their names.
“Hello Mike.” Raj said, nodding at him. “What brings you to Dune today?”
“I need your help. Could we speak somewhere a bit more privately?”
“Of course.” They walked down into the chamber where the two large enchantments were stored. There were the usual two heroic rarity enchantments, but he also saw several epic ranked ones now scattered across the walls. “What did you want to speak about?”
“I need your help to make a large enchantment. I know that you are very good with them, and I need a damn big one.” Mike explained to Raj what he needed, and didn't like the answer he got back.
“That will not be easy. I don't even know what you would need something like that for.” Raj said. Mike understood that he wasn't asking for a small favor. What he had requested was an enchantment similar to his climate control or repel foe ones. It needed to be large in scale, large enough to affect tens of thousands at once. Most importantly was the effect he needed it to have. He had asked for it to be able to disable any enchantments up to epic rarity. “That is far beyond the scope of my abilities. That would have to be something that is higher than heroic rarity, and I am sure you have noticed by now that my heroic enchantments don't get all of their power from me.”
“Where does it come from then?”
Raj pressed his lips into a thin line. “I am not permitted to tell you.”
“Alright, keep your secrets. Any idea how we can get something like this done?”
“I may have a few, but I need to know exactly what you are using this for. We may be able to cut a few corners.”
Mike explained the entire situation with Gratsden again, getting a head shake from Raj.
“So you need a way to get your mana into all of the bracelets, not to disable the enchantments within them. Besides, from what you said it doesn't sound like you need to disable any above rare rarity.”
“I can't rely on the bracelets being rare instead of epic.” Mike said. “Identify does not work very well on anything Roots makes, and I would bet a pretty penny that those bracelets have their true rarity hidden.”
“If you say so.” Raj paused in thought before continuing. “So we don't need to disable epic enchantments, that makes this more manageable. We just need to find a way to get a few points of your mana into every bracelet all at once so we can destroy the enchantments within.”
“So, can you do it?” Mike asked in anticipation. The pause Raj took as he thought about the question was agonizingly long, but eventually he answered.
“I can, but not right away. I will probably need a few weeks to practice and design the enchantment necessary. We will also need to do some testing, so try and get a few smiths from your village to make items enchanted in some way that attack any mana entering the item they are in.”
“I can make a few myself if you need me to.” Mike said.
“Your mana isn’t going to attack itself, if you make the enchantment then they will not be affected by your mana entering it. Remember, this all hinges on your trait allowing you to destroy these things. Lets just hope that nobody has a trait that doesn't allow the enchantment to reach their bracelet.”
“We can only hope.” Mike said. “I will give you some time to work on it, and of course I will pay you.”
“No need to pay me, you are doing this for a good cause, and I wish to help.” Raj said. “But while you are here, we do have a stockpile of coins ready to be infused so they may be introduced into Dune.”
Mike let out a groan, before looking at the man seriously. “Thanks man, I mean it. You are saving potentially thousands of lives.”
“It is the right thing, so of course I am here to help.” Rah said, a soft smile on his face. “Now go, I have an enchantment to work on.”
Mike walked up the stair leading out of the room, made his way to the bank branch set up in Dune, and began infusing the slightly over million coins that crafters had made for this village. While it was the least he could do to thank Raj, he still was dreading the long time that this would take him.