Knowledge is the strongest weapon there is, has been said on more than one occasion in my lifetime. I never was able to appreciate the rightness of that until now. Just bathing in the knowledge of an entire civilization is something that just pulls you deeper and deeper into it all. Of course that’s only if you haven’t prepared yourself.

Before I dived in I made sure to cast a spell on myself that would keep me lucid for up to a day. With that I searched and searched for the knowledge I was looking for. Until finally I was able to Will the knowledge of how to find out my affinity from the depths of the knowledge in my head.

It seemed to be an easy enough process I needed to create a crystal made purely of my own magic, then I needed to simply start infusing magic into it as if I was casting a spell until it lit up into a certain color and effect that would designate my affinity. Of course that was before I figured out what I needed to do to make the crystal itself.

First off apparently the crystal is what a mage used as their method of training their affinity. So yeah I not only needed it to determine my affinity, but also to train it so while convenient also not so. You see the mages of ulm when making their crystals usually go to the government and sign up to make it inside of a mana rich environment.

I'm not talking about something like the bunker no I’m talking about places were the mana is so rich that it’s actually visible to those who aren’t attuned to magic and even those whose body actively repulses magic.

The reasons are simple, first off it allows for higher mana generation by the aspiring mage so they can focus more on the crystal itself and less on making sure to regulate their mana flow. The second reason is the mana in the environment will attune the crystal better to the affinity of the mage using it.

Lets say there’s two earth mages one was able to make the crystal in a mana rich environment the other in one like the bunker. Well unless the mage made a new crystal in a better place then they would not only be slightly less attuned to their affinity at all times but they would also get less from the training itself.

So yeah you can see why I’m slightly hesitant to make the crystal at the moment, though I can always just make another one at a later date when I find a better place to do so.

In the end I decided to go ahead and make the damn thing so I wouldn’t have to waste my time trying to use spells that I’m not even attuned to using. Though I hope to god I don’t have a void affinity. I’d rather not risk the chance of every time I use my magic accidentally summoning a void beast.

Of course it was at that moment that I felt the pull to simply sink and allow myself to bathe in the endless knowledge that was in my head. I’ll admit I may have panicked a little as it meant I had probably been in my own mind for over a day, and there was the fact my own mind was trying to throw me into a coma.

So as my mind slowly gained strength and pulled on me harder and harder to simply fall back and let myself go I cast the spell that would wake me up. Though it seemed sluggish as well as my mind continued to gain strength and my metaphorical eye’s continued to darken. Then I was awake as the recycled air of the bunker hit me and I felt my heart beating at extreme speeds.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“My lord are you alright I’ve been trying to wake you for the last few hours, are you ok?” As my heart stopped beating and I could concentrate again I looked over to see hadrian in his armor looking worried.

“I’m ok, don't worry just need a second to gather my bearings.” As he nodded I slowly sat back up as the world finally seemed to go back to making sense again. “How have the defences come along while I was meditating?”

He looked once again at me as if wondering if I was truly ok then responded to my question. “Ivan has the sentry guns set up and the shield generator has finished construction, all that's left is for the generator to get enough mana out to power it all.”

With a raised eyebrow I looked at him before replying. “Wait, I thought the generator could make enough magic to power all of it?” He nodded before saying, “It can my lord but it’s not an instant thing even with the excess magic that was stored before everything was set up, it can take up too two days before everything is ready.”

With a grunt I stood up from my position on the floor before responding, “I understand, on another note how have the training grounds been coming along?” He seemed to perk up at that before saying, “Well my lord the shooting range on floor three have been coming along well enough, and the barracks and gyms on floor four have been coming along well enough. Though the forges are in need of more raw material to make the weapons and armor any new recruits might need.”

At that I simply smiled as things were coming along at a decent pace. “Good the sooner I can summon more of your brothers and sisters the sooner I can kill the parasites. As for the issue of materials, Have the bunker turn the lowest floor which I believe to be floor twelve into the start for a quarry.”

With a salute he was off as I was left to my lonesome once more. With nothing else to do I tapped into my connection to the bunker and had it throw up a display of the sentry guns and the ‘cameras’ that were outside of the bunker itself.

While there was the random crow or random animal picking over the field of battle, and the small husk that was once a soul floating around there wasn’t really much to report. Of course that’s when I saw the tell tale sign of soldiers moving through the underbrush.

At least it wasn’t the JSDF and was just the pseudo romans again. The swords, and leather armor gave it away all things considered. Well hopefully they would ignore the bunker like the wards were supposed to do and focus on the dead bodies of their comrades that were out in the open.

That's what I was thinking before I saw a man and women duo walk up with the soldiers holding staves and just GUSHING magical energy. It was also before they started chanting a spell that seemed to be pushing and banging on the wards almost as if it was trying to reveal..us… I hate mages that aren’t me.