Glaustro’s expert failed to turn up a definitive location for the attacker’s point of origin.
The jinn did have a spatial artifact for storing some personal items, but it was both surprisingly small and sparingly used. The only contents were some local currency, changes of clothing, food and drink (some of which was distributed amongst the troops as a special treat, because it was of premium quality), and a batch of radiant mana crystals.
No identification. No distinctive talisman. No labels saying ‘If you happen to find this item, please return to the city Such-and-Such.’
I was trivializing the work of Glaustro’s expert seer, of course. The point was that the jinn had taken extra pains to make sure no one could easily track his origins.
This meant we were stuck with plan B: get a magical compass of some sort and follow the trail the jinn had left during his journey to the occupied city. I honestly couldn’t figure out what kind of trail a flying, sandstorm-resistant magical being would leave behind. But, apparently, powerful seers were good people to know in such situations.
So, into the desert we went.
As it turned out, the tents in our new equipment kits were not a rare show of generosity on the part of the legion. They were an absolute essential. Without the sand-proof tent, I would have gone insane the very first night of our desert crossing.
When we first set foot on Lagyel, I assumed our experience was a preview of what we could expect from this world. The howling winds and swirling sands were a lot, but they were still possible to endure. Back then, of course, I also assumed that we were simply unlucky enough to land right in the middle of a mini sandstorm. Winds have to stop blowing eventually, right?
Wrong.
As we trekked across the desert, I decided Lagyel was a hellhole worse than Torment. Winds constantly howled in our ears. Sand got into everything.
And. I. Do. Mean. Everything.
After one terrible hour, I took up casting the cleansing spell every five minutes or so, just to keep the stupid sand from slipping into my underwear. I was not going to endure something like that twice.
Of course, then Mia started sticking even closer to me so she could force me into casting it on her, too. It took me hours before I remembered that I had handed the grimoire over to her ages ago and let her copy the knowledge from it. The smug cat could cast the spell herself.
Still, even when she realized I had remembered that little tidbit, she kept following me. Every so often, she would give me the signature cat look of superiority. Like the weak human that I was, I just kept serving as her personal cleansing spell dispenser.
At least the spell was easier now than it used to be. Technically, I could cast it even without drawing the runes. My focus and the memory of how mana twisted to form the spell were enough. Not that I let it get to my head, mind you. I still needed to focus and follow the proper steps to cast Mage Shield and Mana Bolts, not to mention Wind Blade.
But despite my newfound ability, I didn’t skip the proper casting steps for the cleansing spell. If anything, I performed it even more meticulously. By drawing out the runes and making them spin around my hand, I could improve the potency of the spell immensely.
This was very helpful when, you know, the thing you were trying to cleanse yourself of was literally all around you.
For a very, very brief moment when it first took effect, my spell could even pause the grains of sand in their flight. Sure, the sand carved through the spell almost instantly, especially since it wasn’t a sustained spell to begin with.
But seeing that happen did make me decide to experiment.
I was one rank away from the peak of power Berlis could offer. On a universal scale, that was thoroughly pitiful. On the scale of Berlis? Well, the spells I was using had to come from somewhere, and on Berlis, it was primarily Advanced and Grand Mages that made them. In other words, I now had the qualifications to start messing around with my spells.
I didn’t have any grand immediate aspirations. I wouldn’t be crafting spells that could level cities any time soon. What I wanted was to turn my cleansing spell into something that could be channeled continuously, rather than a temporary effect that fizzled out shortly after casting.
This turned out to be a more complicated task than I expected.
The magical limitations of Berlis meant most of the world’s spells were designed to be cast and forgotten about afterwards. Wind Blade, Mana Bolt, Fire Ball, and Cleanse all fell into this category. You couldn’t continuously supply them with power, and you couldn’t steer them once you fired the spell.
But I knew both things were possible.
First, because I did have one sustained spell in my arsenal. Mage Shield’s sustainable mode linked the spell directly to my mana core, letting it drain my mana with every attack I took in order to maintain the defense.
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Second, because I had recently watched Glaustro conjure rock spires and then send them chasing after the jinn. Now, it was possible that this effect was just baked into the spell. Some kind of tracking component, perhaps, that latched onto the mana signature of the target.
I chose to ignore this suspicion. It made Glaustro’s actions less amazing. Besides, I really wanted to believe it was possible to manipulate the elements like that, as if they were my own limbs.
I need to find some grimoires or magic primers the next time we’re in a friendly city, I thought idly, wondering what demonic magic was like. Far more advanced than Berlis spells, that was certain.
As for whether I could afford such texts? Well… I’d worry about that later.
For now, I had an immediate need for a more efficient cleansing spell, a deep interest in mana experimentation, and hours of desert journeying to fill.
I summoned my grimoire to my hands, then carefully pored over the spell guide for my shield. It was… not easy. The sand tried its best to obscure my vision. If not for the mutation my eyes had gone through, I probably couldn’t have managed.
Though I briefly worried about my grimoire taking damage, the book held out remarkably well. However, I was intimately aware every time a grain of sand impacted it. There was a tiny pull on something deep within me, as if some store of energy I couldn’t tap into had been slightly diminished.
It didn’t take me long to come up with a theory about that. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I strongly suspected my grimoire was pulling on my soul in order to remain unblemished. Still, this wasn’t enough of a concern to make me put the book away.
After all, I already knew soul energy could be harnessed. I was part of a demonic army. Even a hick mage on a middle-of-nowhere world like Berlis had managed to figure out how to sacrifice a soul and pull power from it. Her method was crude as hell, and most of the power was wasted, but it worked.
The nice thing about souls is that they’re not as fragile as people tend to think. They are tough little things that can take a hit. Hell, my own soul had been savaged and then shoved into the body of a dying teen, where it fused with the remains of his soul. And I was perfectly fine!
Trauma and identity crisis notwithstanding.
So, I kept the grimoire out. I kept analyzing the sustainable mode of Mage Shield. After several grueling hours, and one memorable occasion when Mia poked me with her claw as a reminder to cast Cleanse, my studies eventually yielded the runes I would need to make a sustained spell.
The runes themselves were not a surprise, but the way they were implemented was a shock.
The first time I studied the shield spell, I struggled with its five runes. ‘Self’, ‘shield’, ‘harm’, ‘ward’, and ‘anchor’ were tough to form and then maintain until the spell triggered. I had focused so closely on this step that I never paid much attention to the mana weaving and manipulation required to pull off the rest of the spell.
That was a mistake.
Now that I was digging deeper, what I found was fascinating. The spell’s mana patterns naturally intersected to form more runes within my body itself. Once I began dissecting this formation and placement of ‘core’, ‘sustain’, and ‘spell’ runes inside my body… well, I had to admit it: whoever first crafted the spell was, without a doubt, a genius. If I attempted to shift a single rune intersection, even by a little, the result was either extreme pain or a mana rampage.
If I wanted to make a spell of my own, or even adjust a spell like I was trying to do for Cleanse, I would first need to understand any internal runes it required. Then I would have to figure out all the intricacies of mana weaving and manipulation necessary to cast the spell, and then find the places where I could insert the additional runes.
Despite all my enhancements from the ascension boost and soul sacrifices, I soon realized this would not be a quick process.
The effort still came with some quick benefits, though.
Fiddling with the spells forced me to examine my shield a lot more closely, which led me to the conclusion that it wasn’t running optimally. It definitely worked, and I could entrust my life to the spell in battle, but it was by no means as potent or as mana-efficient as it could be.
The reason was that Mage Shield was meant to be a universal spell, accessible to all mages with the requisite mana and skill. The internal rune placement was generically applicable to all humanoid bodies, so it wasn’t perfectly aligned within my specific body. The schema required adjustment to work at maximum capacity.
It took me four days to discover the spell’s optimal placement schema within my body. Four long, long days of traipsing through a hellish desert, with no weather improvements in sight and the constant burden of a thousand distractions.
It was so, so worth it!
The Mage Shield spell came faster, could handle more power, and even cost less mana to maintain. All the improvements made me feel like my shield’s power had doubled outright, even if the direct improvement in toughness was only fifty percent.
It both amused and annoyed me that my improved shield still couldn’t help me with the sand.
‘Fifty percent’ didn’t mean much when my mana’s resistance to the sand was zero. In order to affect the sand, I would need to add an elemental twist to my shield. Maybe something like lightning to repel the grains. If I continued to count on my mana alone, it would stand up to Lagyel’s assault just as well as any other pure mana construct.
Read: poorly.
I was excited to test out the shield in battle, though. With all the modifications I had implemented, the spell was, in my humble opinion, far closer to demonic-style casting than to its Berlis origins.
True, my improved casting had some unexpected side-effects. As long as the spell was in effect, its runes constantly orbited my hand. This was… distracting.
It also prevented me from using my hand to cast other spells. I then had to make a point of casting the spell with my left hand, since that hand was typically holding my sword anyway. This would leave my right hand free for additional casting.
Of course, that led me down the rabbit hole of trying to cast a spell while holding something in my hand…
On and on we walked. On and on I trained. I took to either clenching my sword or holding my arms out in front of me, palms pointed down and fingers splayed, for hours at a time.
Eventually, I realized Mia was laughing at me. Granted, I’m sure it was a rather humorous sight in the middle of a sandstorm, but I was her friend, damn it!
The cat menace didn’t find it as funny when she finally asked why I was making a fool of myself and I forced her to train with me.
We almost lagged behind the rest of our unit, messing around and trying to trip each other up. Still, we managed to get away with a single scalding look from Glaustro. After that, we kept up our training, but we actually paid attention to our surroundings.
As much as we could in a blasted wind-blown desert, at least.