Chapter 724 724 Rearranged
At the end of the tunnel was a small landing that overlooked a lake of partially liquid lava. That was the glow that he had seen from the entrance, and the aura in here was pure fire magic.
After the world had been remade, there was nobody left alive with the strength to finish the process and smooth out the distribution of the Elements, and this place had been left as a repository of intense Fire Magic. It would be an incredible spot for others to come study, and for Witches or Demons with an affinity for Fire, awakening their powers here or just meditating for a few days would cause their aptitude to break through to a higher level without causing any negative effects on the volcano.
A location as powerful as this should have some sort of guardian, most likely a beast that had been absorbing the Fire Elemental power, but Wolfe didn’t sense anything at all. There were no signs of use in the tunnel, no claw marks, bedding or other signs of inhabitants.
Wolfe didn’t detect anything at all, so perhaps whatever was keeping the trespassers out was a form of Elemental, or a barrier that he had failed to notice. There were many leftover barrier spells in the world, and not all of them were obvious unless they stopped you from doing something.
Most of the world wouldn’t even notice that the [Kind Intentions] spell was in place until they saw the core, or it stopped them from taking an action, and with the overwhelming Fire Magic in the middle of the volcano, any number of spells could easily be hidden.
With no threats detected, and a strong Rank Six Elemental Armour spell in place, Wolfe settled in to comprehend the Fire Element. If this was where he was drawn to, this must be the best place for him to break through to Rank Seven, and since there didn’t appear to be any sort of secret hidden treasure or building here, he would just wait and comprehend the nature of fire while the power in his body condensed and grew.
It was very close to breaking the limit, and the pull was no longer dragging him anywhere. This place felt right, but his body needed a little something more to help it breach whatever conditions Rank Seven came with.
Not just the subtle uses that Wolfe had overlooked were contained in the fire magic circulating here, the nuances to the combat magic were here as well. The use of Explosion type spells was incredibly inefficient, Wolfe realized. With only a few tweaks to how the Arrays worked, he could cut the mana cost by nearly two thirds without needing to cut the output.
That alone would be a huge improvement for the other users of the weapons that Forest Grove produced. With a two-thirds mana reduction, the Witches could fire at a greatly increased rate using standard ammunition, and even the weaker beastkin could activate some of the enchantments.
The rifles were only a small part of the total offensive weaponry that they were using, magical blades were still the mainstay of the combat groups, and as it had been when he first joined the front lines against the monster tide, the ability to activate multiple magical items for an entire line of combatants was crucial to the overall defensive power of the villages.
The same was true for the defensive magic spells. If he created them from just Fire, Lightning and Unholy Magic, all of which were at or reaching the Adept level, the total mana cost was negligible to keep them active while being attacked.
In a battle of attrition, the adept level barrier would allow for much more attack power before running out of mana, and a three element array was far superior in both efficiency and strength to a single element.
Time passed without Wolfe noticing as he meditated on the great truths of Fire, until suddenly the element erupted around him, gathering at his will as his control over it reached a peak.
Adept Rank Fire Affinity, the third Element that he had reached Adept Aptitude with, and from what he had learned, the most Adept Elements that any Magi could hope for at Rank Six.
It was beautiful, but that was as far as the remaining energy in the volcano could take him. If he wanted to reach Expert or Master level affinity, he would have to find somewhere with purer laws of nature and try to collect Fire Element knowledge there.
What was more important now, was that the mana here was just right for an advancement to Rank Seven. Every part of Wolfe’s body felt in tune with this place and the strange collection of broken curses and leftover spells.
So, he carefully formed a mana gathering array and began to increase the mana density until it was at the same standard as his room during the effort to push the witches to Rank Four.
That seemed to be precisely what he needed, and the sixth mana core was condensing and gaining a new lustre. Then, the alignment began to shift. The six mana cores moved into a ring, constantly circulating mana between themselves, and the mana in Wolfe’s body began to resonate.
Being inside a volcano suddenly did not seem so optimal, as the mana in his body was unstable, and he didn’t want to cause a volcanic eruption that would devastate the nations to the east of him, where the prevailing winds would blow the ash. All that he could do was try to keep his power under control, and focus it inward, to where the seventh mana core was trying to form in the centre of the ring.
There was still something missing though, his progression wasn’t completing, despite the massive amount of mana that was flowing into his veins, threatening to explode every cell in his body.
Wolfe frantically circulated the mana between cores, building the links between them, but that wasn’t enough. No, there weren’t enough links between them to move the power that he had to in order to reach the level of a Saint.
Wolfe considered the solution for a moment and then smiled. He knew what he had to do, he had seen it in every Rank Six male Demon. From Core to Core, he created additional bonds inside the ring, a six pointed star with a structure that overlapped, allowing mana to move freely between the cores and not just in the circular rotation.
As the structure completed, a barrier that crossed over the six internal points to create a faceted enclosure around the nascent seventh core formed. The mana that had been leaking from the six cores was focused into that barrier, and it quickly turned to a gemstone with the seventh Mana Core at its centre.
The gemstone was pure mana, condensed to the theoretical maximum by Wolfe’s potential, and the seventh core was both protected and nurtured by the intense mana density inside. It was a thing of beauty, a personalized work of art painted in the fluctuations of every Element that Wolfe could control.
Then, his body began to adapt to his new status.