174 174 Spread The Wealth
“We need to head back home for a while. Is there anything we should do to bring your house back online or help it maintain its stasis? You have done me an incredible service this time, and I would like to help you out.” Wolfe offered.
“Waking my subroutines was sufficient for this visit. The mana collection device in the main hall is intact, and the Lumix Family home has taken minimal damage over the years of stasis, so even without a Family member present to assist, the integrated spells can begin the work of repairing the internal structures and spells with minimal staff levels.
All that I would ask is that once your Consorts reach Rank Three, you bring one back here to do something about the Garden. The wildlife living in it has become extremely hostile, and that simply wouldn’t do should the Lumix Family inheritor return here and wish to enjoy the outdoors.”
“If it is possible for them to help, I certainly will. But for now, I recommend letting them roam since they contain the human infestation and prevent additional damage to the property.” Wolfe suggested.
“Well said. It has been a pleasure meeting you, Wolfe Noxus. If you wish to search for your Ancestral Home, the map is in your Inheritance. But I should warn you that there was very little left of your Clan’s territory in the south, even when I was deactivated.”
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If his sense of scale wasn’t greatly off, the marked location for the Noxus Family home was the Great Dead Ocean, not far from Morgana Coven’s Fortress City.
That also meant that it was currently in a thousand meters of water and surrounded by the sorts of undead that made it not just a no-travel zone for ships but also a no-fly zone for planes and magical creatures on patrol for the Covens.
If their personalized spell [Necrosis] was intended to be something that the Undead could be revived from, it was possible that he did still have ancestors roaming the world—just not living ones.
That begged the question: was the entire undead infestation their last-ditch attempt at saving the civilians from the nuclear fallout and the rampant effects of broken spells? That would be glorious irony. Their last attempt at saving the people may have been turned into the scourge that the entire continent feared.
But then, it was quite possible that it was their version of a Curse as well and that they had intended eternal suffering for the forces attacking them and had turned the World Army forces into undead as retaliation. He simply didn’t have enough knowledge to say either way.
Wolfe headed back to where Ella was waiting by the door and scooped her up in his arms for the jump down. Even after one day of the basic physical enhancement magic being active, she felt noticeably lighter, and with the upgraded version of his armour, the gravity magic would dampen the impact if he jumped, while the air magic could be used to slow his fall, as well as increase his running speed.
“Let’s get back to the base.” He told her with a wink, shifting her into a more comfortable on-hip position.
“You promised me upgraded armour. Don’t think that you can get away with forgetting just because you’ve got me in your arms.” Ella laughed.
She deactivated her current spell, and Wolfe replaced it with the upgraded version, with an appearance identical to the original since it had made for such a good disguise in all situations during the winter.
He jumped out of the tunnel with her in his arms anyhow, since they would need to be touching to get through the barrier, and landed gently in the grass near the cliff.
“Try out your new strength. I don’t know how much the benefits of the armour will help you, but I should really be able to move now. Who would have thought that one simple interaction with an ancient host spell would be enough to surpass the entirety of what the Witches can currently use for defensive magic?”
Ella laughed quietly. “You forget, this isn’t our magic. The five layers of the spell we could combine into an amulet, but the last bit, where you combine them into one integrated spell, is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
From what they teach at the academy, that final spell is not even Elemental Magic unless there is an aspectless Element. Or maybe it’s all of them at once, and that’s why I couldn’t determine what it was. Witches can’t use Unholy Magic. We couldn’t use your version of the spell anyhow. We would have to use water armour and find a way to unify them all again.
She took off at a jog that was closer to a flat-out sprint without enhancements, but Wolfe found that he could easily lope along beside her, not needing to strain himself.
They did sense some monsters in the forest around them, but after noticing their speed, the beasts decided it wasn’t worth the bother. Agile targets were annoying to hunt, and the humans had provided them with two buffets in one day, so they weren’t anywhere near hungry yet.
Their luck was good today. The bikes were exactly where they had left them and undamaged when they returned. Wolfe channelled a bit of mana to the batteries to top them back off for the run back home and followed Ella down the river.
After they turned off the river and into the hills, Wolfe began to sense that something was very different about his perception today. His body was much stronger and more agile, as he had expected of the physical enhancement spells, but [Detect Hidden] was becoming very sensitive as the day wore on, and eventually, he actually turned it off for the first time since he left the Academy.
He could sense the flow of mana all around them, revealing every living animal within hundreds of meters as clearly as if he could actually see them, and the detail of the world that he was seeing with his eyes was incredible.
The physical enhancement suite of magic enhanced all of his body. Not just the muscles, it enhanced his eyes, his sensitivity to mana, and even the durability of his bones. It was a brilliant bit of magic to trick the body into enhancing itself, but he was positively starving. All of these changes, using the body to enhance itself, were using a lot of calories.