Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye, Shaun did very little during this time outside of creating multiple different designs that he thought would work well for the protections he wanted to put in place for the area. He had created 4 different designs, all of varying levels of difficulty. He took some short breaks each day, he had been approached by 6 of the people present with him, all as a group, asking if he would train them a little bit to help them in their classes so that they would have the strength to run an F grade dungeon so that they would be able to support their families. He had agreed, spending 30 minutes each day pushing them to their limits over and over, they didn’t complain once and listened to his every direction. He had also been getting updates from Eric every day on how they were traveling and what has happening outside of the walls. On the last update they had just made it back to the outskirts of the city they had arrived in, the reason behind it taking so much longer being that they were collecting people that needed help along the way. The current size of the group they were now traveling with was now over 100,000 and they estimated that that number would possibly be double by the time they got here. When he had first heard how many people they were collecting he nearly had a panic attack, he had no idea what they would do with so many people. Hey only reason he didn’t dwell on it was because Eric had promised that Viv had a plan and that with all the area he had claimed with the F grade dungeons they would have no issues rehoming these people and plenty more who came to them. At the rate they were traveling they estimated that they would be here anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks, which gave him plenty of time to finalise his designs and get started on the E grade dungeons.
The first thing he needed to do was ensure that his designs worked and test the effectiveness of each of them. He found himself an open area in the forest about 1 kilometre out from where they were staying and decided to make miniature models of the cluster, which really was just a circle of wall 10 metres across. He had utilised his Earth element to create the walls, replicating the walls he had built including the towers he had put in them. After that was where the real work started. The first design he tested was a simple warding that was engraved into the walls in equal spaces and powered by the E grade dungeons. He would need to individually connect whatever power source he managed to either buy or terraform from the E grade dungeons into a portion of the wall which would then reinforce the walls with magical protection. This was a similar process to a ritual but would be permanent, at least until it ran out of power or was broken. He spent an entire day engraving the walls with the runes and forming up the ritual, using 5 gems he had in his inventory to emulate the power source of an E grade dungeon area. When he powered up the final replica by feeding his own mana in the gems he was surprised to find success on the first go, even getting a level out of the success.
**[Basic] Runic ward successfully placed.**
**Profession: Elemental Creator has levelled up by 1 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Creator has reached Level 53. +5 Int, +2 Wil, +3 Per, +5 Soul **
**Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 64. +16 Ap gained**
It had been a while since he last got a level and after seeing the notification he realised how much he had missed it. Seeing that the ward was only basic, he immediately dismissed the idea of using it for the walls, it would be broken through way to easily by anyone of a higher level, but this was the easiest one of his designs so he didn’t expect much. Leaving the ward and replica in place he moved on to his second design, this one being more difficult than the last.
The next design was similar to the last but instead of just individually spaced runes he needed to create a full circuit throughout the wall. It was much more intricate and took much longer than the first design but it was still within his skill set. He did the same thing he had with the last, using 5 more gems to act as a power source and powered it up. He again gained one more level in his profession for this and the ward turned from basic to advanced. Testing the differences between the two designs he went up to the first and tapped the wall with his sword, feeling some resistance to his attack but he knew that if he put proper power behind it, it would break. The second one though was definitely more resistant, he could still break it, but it would take much more time and he would need to wear down all the mana he had put in the gems before he could actually physically attack the walls.
Two days after starting his testing he moved on to the third design. This one didn’t involve the walls, instead it was based purely on connecting each of the 5 gems and forming a purely magical ward that should, if it worked cover the entirety of the replica in a force field that repelled back anyone that tried to enter. For this one to work he needed to carve the ritual and runes into the ground around each of the gems and then a larger connection between those gems to each other. This one took a lot more power form the gems to the last two but when it did click into place, after a few minor changes, he got himself a true magical protection around the replica. He couldn’t see it with his eyes but when he went up to push his hand into the replica he was met with a shimmer in the air that pushed him back, almost like hitting a solid wall. When he did the gems glowed, using some of the stored mana to power the field. It was called a force ward, still only advanced grade, but definitely on the higher end. He got another level for his work, considering that this one had taken nearly two days to complete he was happy with the results.
His last design was much more complex. It was similar to a combination of the second and third design however the runes and rituals would encompass all of the E and F grade area as well as the walls. This one took nearly 3 days of work to get all the prep work down, he had to make changes along the way where he saw small things that didn’t feel right when he looked at the design in real life rather than on paper. He then needed to spend time actually powering the gems up before placing them as to power all of this up he knew it would take much more mana than all of the others combined. When he was as confident as he could be he placed each of the gems, five larger ones and 15 smaller ones to represent the F grade dungeons, in their spots and activated the ward. Immediately the mana in the gems dropped first by 25% and then nearly half before steadying of. It took a few minutes for everything to finish obtaining the power it needed to activate but when it did he was truly happy with the results.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
**[Epic] Convergence ward successfully placed.**
**Profession: Elemental Creator has levelled up by 3 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Creator has reached Level 58. +15 Int, +6 Wil, +9 Per, +15 Soul **
**Race: Human has levelled up by +1 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 64. +16 Ap gained**
Creating an epic level ward was an incredible feeling, the rush of levels also felt fantastic, but the real win was that the ward he had managed to create, even though significantly smaller than what he would need to do for the entire area, had enough power behind it to hold out pretty much anyone on Earth for a long while. It would take an army, and a powerful one, to break through the ward by wearing down all of the mana. He updated his designs where he changed things when actually creating the ward and then, after admiring his work for a while, he went to grab the people he had been training to test out the efficiency of each of the replicas.
Jeff and his new team happily came with him when he asked and after walking through the forest for a bit they came to his replicas.
“This is what you have been working on? What is it?” He got a weird look from the 6 people present which he could understand, it did look a bit odd if you didn’t know what you were looking at.
“Each of these is a replica of the cluster, I was seeing which of my protective wards worked best, or if I could do them at all. Each of these represent the area we are in and a different type of ward, all with varying degrees of power. I want you to try and break into each of them.” He explained to them.
“Wait, you are planning to create walls around the entire area, that’s a big job!”
“The walls are already up…. Sorry should have told you. This entire area is surrounded by walls over 30 metres high and several metres deep. All I need now is to add the magical protections.”
There were no more comments on the walls but he did get nods of approval, it seemed they had no idea that he had invested TE in creating protections around the area, something they were all happy about. Shaun pointed them to the weakest design and told them to break it all down. It took them a few minutes to break through but they had managed without too much difficulty. Scaled to size it would have been much harder, but at this level it wasn’t that hard. They struggled a bit more with the second one, taking nearly 30 minutes to get through the wall. After an hour trying on the third they gave up and the fourth they couldn’t even get close too.
Sweating from the amount of work they put in trying to get through the ward Jeff spoke for his team. “If you manage to put this around the entire area, I don’t think there would be anywhere safer on Earth than here. People will flock here once they hear about this place. It will literally be a beacon of hope for everyone, especially if you truly build this place up into a city, one that stands for your friend is trying to do for our planet.”
Shaun nodded back at Jeff, choosing not to really address the comments he made. They asked if they could use the last two replicas to train and he agreed, not seeing any issues with it. What Shaun wanted to do now was start re terraforming the F grade areas with his designs the issue with that was that he had a feeling that all the areas would need to be merged and the settlement crystals placed for it to work. Viv might also have some input on the walls and how to lay down the lines for the actual ward seeing as it would need to be placed throughout the F grade areas and not changed, if they were the protections would disappear.
Rather than wasting time redoing things and wasting TE he decided that there was now nothing stopping him from at least locating the E grade dungeons, maybe even go in one or two. The best thing about the dungeons here was that you could retreat back and leave the dungeon and enter it again later without impacting anything. He wouldn’t be stuck inside until he either finished or died. He still had a few weeks before Viv arrived and he had 5 mountains to explore to find the dungeon entrances.
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“Viv we can’t keep moving at this pace, remember most of the people here are only F grade, they aren’t able to push as much as we can.” They were all in their nightly meeting where they reported on the day, including food stores, the amount of people that had joined them, conditions of everyone and also any threats they found. Gabe was the one in charge of looking after people wellbeing, and if he was being brutally honest, for the majority of people present, it wasn’t looking good. People were losing hope, they were exhausted and with food being rationed most everyone was hungry.
“What do you think we should do then? The longer we take the worst it is going to get. Not to mention that we will still need to prepare everything once we get to Shaun.” Viv calmly replied, she refused to break under the pressure but she couldn’t deny that all of the responsibility with moving hundreds of thousands of people was getting to her.
“We have spoken about it.” Eric started. “You and I will take a small team, only those that can travel quickly without rest and go ahead. Gabe will stay behind and lead everyone after us. He can still follow you with the links so he wont get lost. That means we can prepare everything before the majority of people get there.”
“You think I should just leave everyone? I am supposed to be their leader.”
“And you still will be. This is what they need. I spoke to Shaun earlier too. He said…”
“You spoke to Shaun and you didn’t get me?” Viv interrupted.
“Yes, he said that he can’t move forward with his plans until you are there. He Had everything ready to go but without merging the F grade area and placing the settlement crystals he can’t start to lay the foundation of the ward. That means he can’t start on the E grade dungeons, otherwise nothing will work how he needs it too. You not being there is holding him back, which is holding us back. You can’t get there without me and you have to be there.”
Viv thought this all through, the benefits and the downsides. She agreed with one condition, outside of Viv and Eric, the strongest fighters had to stay to protect the people. After that it was decided that they would move out the next morning after some rest. Eric gathered three people he knew he could trust to go with them and he contacted Shaun again to give him an update. By his estimation it would be about a week before they got to him, then the real work would begin.