Evelyn's day hadn't gone as planned. She had guided the priest and the two mana users to where the spirit was, where she'd been told to wait for them by the road. It should have been a quick ordeal according to the larger user, Adam, especially since the spirit was so small. Then she'd heard them tell the priest to go a bit further back. She was slightly nervous having heard that, but they knew what they were doing... Right?
She had started to doubt her thoughts when Evelyn heard incoherent screeching, and soon thereafter, incoherent screeching with a rhythm. The moment she heard the priest scream in shock, she knew something had gone horribly wrong, and started running towards the clearing.
Before she could even take a proper step forward, she was forced to a halt. Evelyn couldn't move an inch, and was barely even able to breathe. It was as if the very air around her had frozen, and locked almost everything to stay still. Fighting against the pressure surrounding her with every fiber of her being, Evelyn just barely managed to take a single step forward. It was like walking at the bottom of an ocean, or in syrup.
Evelyn was really regretting never bothering to learn how to manipulate mana, doubly so when she saw the priest stumble towards her from the clearing. Even someone who gave up almost all of their mana was able to defend himself from the spirit better than she could.
"What... Happened?" She said, barely able to whisper the words.
"The spirit... It killed the helpers, took their mana, and grew. I don't know how large it is now, but we need to get out," Thomas said. Evelyn had tried to follow the priest as he walked past her, but she had too much of a hard time trying to push past the thick air. Just as she was about to call for help, she felt the pressure lessen, and eventually dissipate to nothing. The spirit had let her go. Evelyn hadn't wasted time before taking the opportunity, and running after the priest.
Now, Evelyn felt both guilt from inadvertently causing the deaths of the two helpers, and the resulting growth of the spirit's domain. If it managed to reach the village... She didn't want to think what the evil thing might do. Then again, maybe it wasn't all that evil. It had let her go, hadn't it. But that was just a slight hope in her heart, her village might be in danger, and that took the priority.
"Is there any way how you could find out how large it became?" Evelyn panted once the priest and she stopped running.
"No..." Thomas wheezed,before taking a few deep breaths and continuing. "You know what the helpers guild is, don't you?"
Evelyn nodded, everyone living outside of the large cities knew that they were a large organization of mana users who were available for hire. Since clerics could only operate within their gods domains, the helpers were the people to go to for help outside of the domains. They couldn't do anything near as complex as what a god would do for a prayer, but for protection from bandits, manual labor and taking care of the occasional wolf pack ravaging the countryside, they were perfect.
"They were members of the helpers guild who specialized in taking down evil spirits. They have faced dozens of spirits more powerful than what this one was, killed them and then absorbed their mana. Now, the spirit you found has all that mana. It could be anywhere from a hundred steps to a mile across." Thomas briefly explained as he started walking down the road towards the city with a rapid pace. "You should inform your village of what happened, and I'll make sure there are no other villages in or near this... demon of a spirit's domain."
Evelyn looked at the road leading to her village, and remembered the feeling of the spirit's hold on her, how scared and sure of death she had been once she realized she could barely move. She would have to learn mana manipulation before she would ever willingly step on that road again. Evelyn would walk a long way around it for now.
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I had a plan. It consisted of four, or maybe seven steps. First step was to figure out what the people could do with magic, and see if I could learn anything from them.
The second step is to find the limits of what I could do with my magic. The humans had moved their magic out of their bodies and kept it as theirs, instead of it becoming mine. I wanted to be able to move my magic out of my space, or domain. I liked the word domain more, it felt larger, and I was a big ball now. In addition, I wanted to know if I could replicate what I was, but simpler. Or in other words, I wanted to know if I could make bits of magic do some simple tasks independent of me.
The third step is to see if I could attach my own magic to people, while keeping it my own. This was my brilliant idea. If it was possible, I could potentially be able to give people parts of my magic that they could use, and take outside of my space domain. Then I might be able to gather magic outside of my domain. The people could get more magic from me, that they could use while in my domain, and then I could fill their magic reserves outside of my domain so that they could bring it to me, while being none the wiser. If, and it was a pretty large if, I would be able to do that, then I wouldn't even have to kill people. All the magic a person might own could be mine, just that they too can use it. Then when they die, I could bring all the magic the person had ever gained in their lifetime, and bring it to me no matter where the person died.
The fourth and final step is to make a giant structure full of potentially lethal and dangerous traps, puzzles and the like. The purpose of it is to first and foremost, protect me. I could build it around me, and if someone wanted to try and kill me, they would have to reach the center of the structure, where my magic would be at its densest. If someone were to steal my magic and make me smaller, then they would have to go through the structure to be in my domain again.
That, of course, ties in with the second step. I wanted to have fully automated magic protections that didn't need me to make them work. Or, if one part of the structure wasn't in my domain at some point in time, I wanted it to still do its job.
It would also tie in with the third step. I needed people to come in my domain so that I could attach my magic to them, and I was definitely not patient enough to wait for entire lifetimes for those who used my magic. Going through the structure would give the people rewards of more magic, or a higher maximum amount of magic, along with equipment that could be useful in getting even further along the structure. It would also cause people to spend multiple days in the structure at a time, so that their magic that wasn't mine, or natural magic, would also be absorbed by me. In a similar way to how all the animals that had come and gone from my smaller space had given me magic, without me having to do anything but hold a magic vacuum around them.
People would use up my magic in my structure, or outside it, and then go outside the structure to rest and recharge my magic. Along with that, they could be drained dry from all the magic they naturally gain living life outside the structure, over the hours and maybe even days that they spend in the structure. It was like killing two birds with one stone, without actually killing anything.
Depending on what I learned, I had a 3.1 step, which was to change the shape of my domain from a sphere to something more like a tower, with the densest part of my magic at the very top. My plan needed people to easily come in and out of my domain, and it wouldn't exactly be easy were I grow to the size of a continent. A tower also had the benefit of being an easily identifiable landmark. If that wouldn't work, then I'd move my domain mostly underground, so that only the entrance above the ground would be in my domain.
The 4.1 step was to figure out how I could keep all my animals inside the structure. I'd come to really like them. They didn't try to kill me even once. I honestly had no idea if my plan was even possible, but with my knowledge the plan didn't have anything that I was absolutely certain wasn't possible. And if there was a part that I couldn't do, then I could always just figure out another way to do something effectively similar.
If I were to manage to complete all of these steps, I would theoretically be able to get absolutely immense amounts of magic, and have fun watching people do their best to get more magic at the same time, only for that magic and more flow right back to me.
But finally, the most important step of them all, was step zero. I needed to form a last line of defense around my center for all the wannabe murderers. I was thinking a giant diamond sphere that would have to be broken if anyone wanted to kill me, but that would only work if people couldn't move their magic through solid matter. I needed to do step one before this, but for now, I did decide to prepare a bunch of large spikes beforehand to shoot at my enemies.
Having done the important stuff, I started with step two and three. Step one could wait untill after I found another magician.