The return to the camp was somewhat subdued. Nobody was killed, but several were injured. Will was glad they all had concepts. It would increase their healing speed and reduce the chance of infection. Still, this left them in a difficult situation. They wouldn’t be able to raid with full force for several weeks. They had only just gotten to the point where they could raid without killing, and had fallen into a trap. Will knew that their bandit group was far above average. Most bandit groups had only one or two cultivators serving as leaders, while they had three gods. That four adventurers couldn’t stand up to them was a given, but still too much a threat to allow to live.
It still left them in a precarious situation. The guild would create quests to find out what happened, and that would only be taken by higher level adventurers. The kind of adventurers that would be a serious threat. Will was also unsure how long Lord Atherton’s forgiveness would last after they started killing adventurers. When they arrived back at the fortress, Will pulled Emerys aside.
“Could you send someone to keep an eye on the adventurers guild?” Will asked. Emerys nodded solemnly.
“I would have suggested it myself if you hadn’t. Sam, the swordmaster, can go and give lessons. It will put him in a good situation to overhear things.” Emerys said. “He won’t like what happened, but he will understand.”
“Nobody likes what just happened. If you think he will do it, I trust your judgment. You know your followers better than I do.”
With that, the two parted and Will went off to work on his enchanting. On the way he found the alchemy room occupied. Amalise as well as one of the refugee women were muddling their way through a concoction. Will watched, not wanting to interrupt. A few minutes later, they removed what seemed to be a small cauldron from the heat and stepped back to wipe their brows. The refugee woman jumped in surprise when she saw Will, immediately getting Amalise’s attention.
“What are you working on?” Will asked.
“Elixirs. Potions to enhance stats directly.” Amalise said.
“That sounds useful. How many can you make?”
“Not many right now, I am still learning. But with all the equipment left by Alchemist Savil, I should be able to make batches of ten to twenty at a time.” Amalise said. She looked down. “I was kind of hoping that we could produce these instead of raiding.”
That stopped Will in his tracks. Was there a way for them to do things without stealing?
“How valuable will these potions be during a food shortage?” Will asked.
“Very! They are one of the few things that get more valuable during times like these. A good strength elixir can double or triple the strength of a normal man, allowing him to do more and get paid better. A constitution elixir can reduce the amount of food that someone needs, to a degree, and make them more resistant to disease.” Amalise started to get excited. “We can make a profit, and help people, rather than steal from them!”
“Well then,” Will said awkwardly. “Keep up the good work. We can’t stop the raids until we have a good income stream. Then we can use the men to gather materials.”
Will left and returned to his enchanting. He was on the brink of creating a flame enchantment that he could project over an area within his aura. He could brute force it right now by using his heat aura from Inferno of the Tumultuous Mind, but he wanted it to be good enough that he could create it within his cold aura. He couldn’t get the image of the one adventurer dying due to the clash between his and Koma’s auras. If he could recreate that on his own, it could be really powerful. He also remembered a bit of basic science that said tornadoes were made when cold air was above hot air and they had to exchange places. He wondered if he could create wind effects using this method. Of course he could use his Feathered Winds concept, but that concept was far more gentle by its very nature. He had found difficulty getting it to do anything more damaging than messing up a desk full of papers. The two things he could do with it reliably was make himself lighter, and pick things up to move them around. If he could reinforce his wind control with the right surroundings however, he may be able to make it quite deadly.
Of course, that also meant that his concept control had to level up as well. He had finally been able to make use of his two mental concepts, but it was still cumbersome. They still showed quite a bit of power through the suppression, making it hard to get them to do what he wanted them to do. But Will decided to set aside working on his mental concepts for now. He would still practice his concept control, but by learning how to use the Feathered Winds the way it was meant to be used.
Will would learn to fly.
The next several weeks went by quickly as Will learned his enchanting. His knowledge grew by the day, but the fire area enchantment still eluded him. He understood a lot about traditional enchanting at this point, but there were differences when enchanting the spirit. His insight into the spirit gave him a lot of advantages with traditional enchanting, but something was missing the other way around. He had realized that the enchantments he had been using were horribly inefficient. The five percent boost that his body enhancement gave him was far too low for the power that was being used, even after the suppression. Of course he could overpower the enchantment, but that would cause it to degrade more quickly.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Will theorized that the problem was due to the inherent linking of the spiritual runes to physical proxies. The physical runes helped to stabilize the inanimate spirit of the enchanted object, preventing the enchantment from degrading and providing power as well. The problem was that Will’s spirit was far from inanimate, and it would be hard to carve runes into his body. Rune sequences, at least as taught by Isaac, started and ended with the physical runes. Will couldn’t do that, which meant that he needed to come up with all new sequences.
Rune sequences were all basically the same. The first part of the sequence dealt with power. It handled drawing power from a designated source. This was usually the wielder, though it could be a form of atmospheric mana or a mana vault made by sealing somnite in a special container.
The second part was the transformation sequence. It helped to purify the mana, and align it in the manner that was needed for the enchantment.
The third part was the actual magical effect you wanted to create. This was, fortunately, the easy part. The magical effects could more or less be pulled entirely from existing enchantments, though Will suspected that he would need to work them to be more stable without physical runes to rely on.
The fourth part was almost unnecessary, only being used in items that needed a lot of mana, and that was the routing of the used mana. The used mana, being so low in energy, would need to return to the world to recharge. This was normally only a problem if you were using a lot of it, as so much could still hurt you or your surroundings. But Will had realized that the used mana was vented into his spirit, not the atmosphere. It meant that he had to charge the mana himself with his soul energy, or specifically vent it into the atmosphere. With his Ether Gate, he thought he could do something interesting with this.
Still, it meant that the fire enchantment was still unusable without overcharging it with his aura. He was sure he would have a finished project soon, but not yet.
When he was tired of enchanting, he worked on flying. He flew around the castle courtyard, crashing into things all over the place. as much as he wanted to fly, he could only hover a few feet over the ground. It wasn’t a power issue, but one of finess. He could blast himself into the air just fine, butter stabil\izing himself on the updraft seemed impossible. So for now he was practicing his hovering.
But as always, the time came that the food was soon to run out. Amalise had yet to learn to produce the elixirs, which meant it was time to go on another raid.
Will got the men together, and went to a different road than they had last time, they sent out their scouts, and before long they had a target.
It was a cart with a cultivator leading the mule. The cultivator looked mean and ready for a fight, but Will still hoped to avoid an actual combat.
When the time came, Will whistled and everyone jumped out, nearly startling the cultivator into drawing his sword.
“Give us whatever is in your cart, and we will let you go.” Will yelled. He mentally urged the man to let them take the goods.
“I don’t have anything you would be interested in, wolf.” the cultivator said. “Let me be and I won't tell anyone I saw you. I have no food, or goods of value. Please just let me pass.”
“Very well,” Will said. “But I will look in your cart first, to verify you are telling the truth.”
“Stay back, Wolf. I have heard of you. I know you are a vicious and ruthless man, but there is no need for a fight.” The cultivator said.
“As I said, if you are telling the truth, I will let you go without harm.” Will took a step toward the cart, but the cultivator imposed himself between Will and the cart. The cultivator drew his sword.
“Stay back Wolf! Stay back or you will burn!” The cultivator then burst into flames, with jets of fire emanating from beneath his armor.
Will responded by pulling out his Inferno of the Tumultuous Mind, causing the heat to feel like a warm summer breeze. He could vaguely tell that his companions staggered back as his aura spread out.
The man’s eyes widened as Will lunged with his rapier. He parried and attempted a counterattack, but Will stepped back and made another lunge. Will could hear the screaming of the flames as his own concept tried to distract him from the fight. He tuned out the excess thoughts, not even listening to the shouting, fearful face of the cultivator. The Cultivator had thrown away his sword and was trying to repeatedly shield bash Will away from the cart. It was no use however, Will was faster than the armored man. And he dodged out of the way repeatedly.
Questions tried to invade his mind as he fought. Questions like, why did the man throw away his sword, and why did the man look so scared? Why was the fire screaming so loud? But Will tuned all of it out so that he could focus on one thing, killing the cultivator before him.
The cultivator bashed him one last time before turning tail and running for the now burning cart. He didn’t get three steps before a blade pierced his heart and he fell to the ground. Will grinned, and turned off his fire aura. He hadn’t wanted to kill the man, but it had been a while since he had fought so hard. Even with everything trying to claw into his mind, it had allowed him to reach a momentary state of peace. He then noticed the burning cart, and remembered why they had been there at all. He turned on his cold aura and snuffed out the flames hoping there was something left.
He wished he had listened to the man.
The cart was covered in cinders, barely holding together. But Will could see that there had been a box built in the cart. It was small for what it contained, but had possessed a door that could be opened from the inside. The door had fallen off, revealing something Will wished never to see again.
The cultivator had kids. And a wife. With emphasis on the ‘had’. Will stumbled back from the four burnt corpses. He tried to rationalize it. Why had they been in a box? Why didn’t the cultivator just tell him? If the cultivator had said something, he would have let them go! He would have let them go! He didn’t want the deaths of children on his hands. This wouldn’t have happened if the cultivator had just said something! It was his fault! Will was not a child murderer.
The man had taken them into a dangerous situation, and started using fire magic of all things. How irresponsible can you be? The man had condemned his own wife and children to death. Will felt the cold seeping into his very bones, but it did not make him shiver or freeze.
“This one is a bust. Let's go find another.” and he started walking off, his men following behind far more reluctantly.