To begin with, I mentally listed the major problems I faced in Etron. These were: the Blue Mage, the dragon, and the ongoing summoning ritual occurring in the center of the city. The first order of business would have to be stopping the summoning ritual so that the situation wouldn’t get any worse. The black dragon was a six-star monster, and it was possible that the ritual could end up summoning a seven-star monster if allowed to continue.

So, Thale, where do you think the ritual is taking place?

Underground, definitely.

With a ritual like this one, are the monsters summoned in the same location that the ritual is taking place?

The monster would have to manifest within 100 meters of the summoning circle. I assume you intend to interrupt the ritual based on your wording.

Yep. Do you think there’s any chance that the dragon destroyed the summoning circle?

Maybe. I wouldn’t count on it. If we’re not going to leave the city, then interrupting the ritual is the best course of action.

The hole created by the dragon when it burst out of the ground would serve as the best way to find the ritual, but that would be within the dragon’s territory. No, it would be smarter to travel through the sewer system. Hmm, that cultist I captured should know the way to the ritual.

You’re thinking out loud again. Stop it.

Traveling through the sewer system would allow us to stay away from the dragon, but that still left my biggest problem: the Blue Mage. I was pretty sure he could trace Haydith and me with divination magic. There was nothing stopping him from hitting me with the old teleport-and-kill combo.

Considering the level of enemy I faced in Etron, I knew that I couldn’t continue relying on simple blasting. In a straight slugging match, I wouldn’t last a round against the dragon or the Blue Mage. My only hope was to rely on the other schools of magic that war mages typically didn’t use for combat.

I wondered if I could use transmutation to stave off attack by the Blue Mage. An idea formed in my mind. The only components of liquid nitroglycerin were Nitrogen and Oxygen, which I could draw from the air in their pure chemical forms. Liquid nitroglycerin was so unstable that a sharp impact would cause it to detonate. If I synthesized several liters of nitroglycerin the moment the Blue Mage appeared, he wouldn’t kill me, because my collapse to the ground would detonate the nitroglycerin. Perhaps, I thought, mutually-assured-destruction would be enough to fend off the Blue Mage.

Doing the calculations in my head, I realized that this plan would not work. A liquid was about one thousand times denser than a gas. Even if I could draw from a massive volume of air, I would only be able to create a few cubic centimeters of nitroglycerin per second. The Blue Mage would be able to kill me before I could synthesize a firecracker.

Though transmutation wouldn’t help me, mutually-assured-destruction seemed like the right path forward. If the Blue Mage could not kill me without taking severe damage, I would be safe. I would utilize a porcupine strategy.

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I considered the schools of magic that I couldn’t utilize at the time. These schools were: warding, illusion, mind magic, summoning, divination, and alchemy. Of these six schools of magic, warding was the one that would be best for my porcupine strategy. I racked my brain for snippets of information from [Ferrum Online], and the word “contingency” bubbled to my mind’s surface. I remembered that warding circles could be used to set certain supernatural effects to manifest when a specific trigger is activated.

System. Do I have enough Experience to learn how to use the “contingency” ability?

ARE YOU REFERRING TO THE 3-POINT WARDING [SPELL] KNOWN AS [CONTINGENCY]?

Probably. Would this [Spell] give me the ability to activate a powerful magic effect upon the event of my death?

YES. AS LONG AS YOU HAVE A TRIGGER, MANA SOURCE, AND DESIRED EFFECT, [CONTINGENCY] CAN BE USED.

Sounds good to me. Use my Experience to teach me the [Contingency] [Spell].

BE ADVISED: LEARNING THE [CONTINGENCY] [SPELL] WILL REQUIRE YOU TO USE 84% OF THE EXPERIENCE YOU GAINED FROM YOUR PREVIOUS ENGAGEMENT. IN ADDITION, THE PROCESS OF UNLOCKING [CONTINGENCY] WILL ALSO UNLOCK THE [DEFENSIVE WARD] AND [PROTECTION FROM ELEMENTS] [SPELLS]. ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO CONTINUE?

Yes. Unlock [Contingency].

Powerful, deafening ringing shook my skull as the knowledge of hundreds of arcane circles and their meanings forced their way into my brain. A grunt of pain escaped my lips as I gripped my head and fell to my knees. I could feel a warm trickle of blood seep out of my nose. Over the course of just a few seconds, years of study flashed through my head.

Just as Kinro turned toward me with a worried look on his face, the pain passed, and I returned to my feet. With that short flash of information, I had become a warder of intermediate skill. The logic of warding magic was imprinted on my mind. Though a ward always took the form of a circle, every one of the circle’s elements held a meaning. The circle’s geometry was like a language all of its own.

Warding magic, eh? What are you going to do with that?

You’ll see.

I pulled back the sleeve of my left arm, making sure not to reveal the Blood Rune inscribed on the back of my left palm. Immediately, I began using my fountain pen to painfully draw a warding circle just under the shield bracelet. It was a [Contingency] circle, so I needed a trigger, a mana source, and an effect.

The runes marking the circle’s circumference stated that the trigger was “the caster’s death,” the runes in the circle’s center stated that the mana source was “the caster’s lower core,” and the runes surrounding the circle’s center stated that the effect was “release of all mana contained within the caster’s lower core.”

Once my work was done, I leaned back and admired my work. The ward was elegant in its simplicity. Most of the space in a warding circle was typically used to contain the [Spell] that would be used. This circle, however, did not require a [Spell] to be cast.

Every person on Ferrum could release mana without Expressing it. In most people, this manifested in an invisible force that could be molded into a magic missile with enough training. Those with the [Hellfire] Talent were the exception. When I released pure mana, torrents of flame sprang forth from my fingertips.

It only cost one point of mana to create a mote of Hellfire. With 3 mana, a spark of Hellfire could be expanded at such a rate that it caused an explosion. Pillar of flame only used 15 mana. My body’s natural circulation of magic prevented me from using more mana than this at once, but a death curse would bypass that limitation. I could only imagine what would happen if 300 mana worth of Hellfire was released in a single second.