Published at 24th of February 2024 10:33 am

Chapter 60

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Council meetings were, unsurprisingly, boring. Karad had reports from the field overseers—food was still growing at the same rate it always did—and Solidaire had reports on movement sights out in the wastes—none—while Shel had reports on the arbor, which at least had something of substance thanks to all the work I’d been doing.

Melmir did decide to attend personally, much to my disappointment. It turned out the reason he’d done so was that he knew I was going to be there—probably before I knew, which again annoyed me that I’d been given no advance notice—and he wanted to level some accusations against me.

“I have here in my hand reports on all the mana tithed over the last two weeks,” he said, brandishing a dozen or so papers, “and the numbers aren’t adding up. That’s because this monster in disguise right there is stealing from us. He’s no better than Noctra was.”

Everyone turned to look at me while Melmir shot me a triumphant smirk. Without waiting for a response, he went on. “I’ve had my people carefully monitoring how much mana we’ve been taking in with this shyster’s scheme, and while I’ll admit that the new crystals have been more efficient than the draw stones and people have been amenable to donating what mana they have, the barrier’s up time hasn’t increased to match. Where has all the extra mana been going, hmm? Tell me that!”

Well, the truth was that I was skimming some mana off the top, but that didn’t make Melmir less of an idiot. “Did you account for all the mana I’ve used helping the arbor? I must have made a hundred panes of glass in the last few weeks?” I asked.

“I did! According to your own statements for how much you need for that work, that still doesn’t account for even half of what we’ve taken in.”

I nodded along. He was right about that. Probably about half of the mana I collected went into the ward stone. But it was their mana, and if that made the villagers feel safe at night, far be it from me to point out that they’d been without a barrier for fifteen years and had been fine.

“How do you think I’m making those storage crystals?” I asked Melmir. The smirk slipped off his face and he glanced around the room. “Forgot to account for that in your calculations?”

He scowled down at me and dropped back into his seat, his face red. Solidaire and Karad weren’t quite laughing, but I could see amusement on their faces. Shel, on the other hand, was openly snickering without making a single effort to hide it. I wasn’t laughing, though. I’d seen the look he’d given me when he’d sat back down, and I had a sudden suspicion that he was thinking if murder was good enough to solve my problems, it might just be good enough to solve his as well.

“Those storage crystals aside, you are correct,” I said. “I have been keeping mana back, which leads into the topic I am here to discuss. Within the next few weeks, I will be putting the four candidates through their ignition rituals. This will consume some mana, which I’ve already stored, and more importantly, it may draw in monsters that are sensitive to large mana workings. An ignition ritual uses at minimum seven times as much mana as the subject can hold in their core.

“For that reason, I would like to coordinate with the Barrier Wardens to keep watch and schedule the ritual for a time when the barrier is active. After completing the ignitions, I will be available to handle any monsters that notice.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Solidaire said. “You never told us anything about monsters coming to the village when you sold us on this plan.”

“It’s not a real issue,” I replied. “It’s just something to be aware of. The risks are negligible, and I am taking steps right now, in this very meeting, to mitigate them down to nothing.”

“What if they breach the barrier somehow?” Karad asked, turning to Solidaire. “Could your men handle them?”

“Depends what it is and for how long. Our job is really more about detecting monsters soon enough to give Lord Noctra time to respond. That’s not going to work for obvious reasons. I guess the real question is how well can we rely on a child to protect us?”

“Perhaps a demonstration is in order,” I said. It would be a waste of mana, but it might help get them to take me more seriously. Part of the problem was that they were still under the impression that I was asking for permission. I wasn’t. I was informing them what I was doing and requesting that they coordinate with me. If they refused, I would still go ahead with my plans. It would just be more inconvenient for them to deal with the aftermath.

I hopped out of my seat and walked over to the door. After pushing it open, I made sure everyone was watching, then I pointed to a big, round rock so large that I would have had to climb to get on top of it and wide enough for me to lay down on. I used stone shape on it to split it down the middle and into multiple chunks.

A resounding crack echoed out from where the rock split, followed by a series of thumps as individual chunks hit the ground. “Monsters are much less resilient to damage,” I said, leaving the door open as I returned to my seat.

The demonstration was ridiculous. The spell I’d used wouldn’t even work on a living monster, not unless it was some sort of earth elemental, and even then, the monster would resist such a weak spell. A flesh-and-blood creature would require a completely different type of magic, but none of them knew that. The split stone would serve its purpose of verifying my offensive magical capabilities in their eyes, even if what I’d done was a simple transmutation.

“Now, as I was saying, it’s possible that the ignition rituals will draw monsters hunting mana towards the village. I will let you all know in advance so we can coordinate extra Barrier Wardens to watch for incoming threats. When one is identified, I will… handle it.”

“Is there anything else we need to do to prepare beforehand?” Karad asked, his eyes lingering on the split boulder outside the house.

“No, no. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“When do you think I’ll be ready?” Shel asked, cutting Melmir off just as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Probably within the next three weeks, but we’ll see,” I told her. “Vhan might beat you there.”

None of them would be undergoing the ignition ritual until I finished my own lattice and upgraded my core to stage two, regardless of whether they were ready or not. I still had my own safety and wellbeing to consider, plus I wanted the increase to my mana generation before I worried about fighting off hostile invaders. Speaking of which…

“Another topic I wanted to go over is your preparations for dealing with whoever comes to investigate Noctra’s disappearance,” I said.

“I don’t think that will be an issue,” Karad told me. “It’s been weeks and no one’s showed up.”

“So?” I asked.

“So what makes you so sure they will?” Melmir asked.

“Because he was in contact with a cabal and has been sending them your stolen mana for over a decade,” I said. “What makes you think they won’t send anybody?”

“Well,” Solidaire said slowly, dragging the word out, “It’s not so much that we don’t think there’s a chance it’ll happen as it is that what are we supposed to do if it does?”

“Defend yourself, maybe?” I suggested.

“Sure, and we’re doing that. All of my people have swords, and we’re practicing with them more,” Karad said. “But you just split a rock in half like it was nothing. How do I parry that? You didn’t even have to touch it. We don’t know how to fight against someone who can kill us just by looking at us.”

That was a fair point. I hadn’t gone out of my way to teach them how to hunt mages specifically because I didn’t want them hunting me. For the time being, it was very likely that whoever showed up would be stronger than I was. If I started teaching people basic invocations like mana shielding that they could do without an ignited core, I was teaching them how to defend against me too. It wasn’t that I couldn’t break through a simple mana shield, but I couldn’t do it fast enough to overcome a few dozen people using it at the same time.

“So you’re relying on me to… what, win a duel against this theoretical mystery mage?” I asked. “It’s not that I mind fighting, but it would have been nice to be asked first.”

“Yes, well, as I said, it’s been weeks and no one’s shown up. It might never come to that,” Karad told me.

“I suppose this brings me to my next point. We’ll need to discuss what spells I teach our newly minted mages, and in light of your defense preparations, it would seem prudent to add at least a few combat-oriented spells to their repertoires.”

“If I’d known we were doing that, I’d have chosen different people,” Shel said. “None of the Arborists are interested in fighting. Perhaps someone from the Garrison or Barrier Wardens should be added to the class.”

“The next class, maybe,” I said. “We don’t know how much time we have left. You’ll have to learn how to cast a basic fire blast and hope you never have cause to use it.”

“I don’t know-” Karad started to say.

“Fire blast, mana shield. Sleep, perhaps. Sharpened senses will be a must. Healing touch, if we have time. Unfortunately, the most useful spells are not novice ranked, so we’ll have to work up to them. I suppose elemental manipulation would be a good starter spell. Perhaps light, though that’s not particularly useful except on those rare nights with mostly new moons.”

“How long is this going to take?” Solidaire asked.

“That will depend entirely on them. My father grasped a novice tier spell in less than two days, but that was with me exclusively focusing my attention on him and assisting him. This is a different set of circumstances.”

I didn’t go out of my way to give this council much more than the basics for what spells I planned on teaching. I didn’t want or need their approval for my curriculum, and besides, every apprentice was different. Conjuration was by far the best discipline to draw from when looking for combat magic, but some apprentices just didn’t have any talent for it. I wasn’t going to force someone who wanted to be a diviner to become a conjurer instead.

I would insist on a well-rounded assortment of novice tier spells though. The whole point of novice tier spells was to get a chance to find out what a new student was good at, to find their strengths so they could lean into them and identify their weaknesses so they could fix them. In all likelihood, it would be me who fought off any cabal spies or assassins anyway, so while I wanted to impress on the council the need to take the threat seriously, I wasn’t overly concerned if their preparations didn’t measure up.

“I think that’s about all I have to say on the subject for now,” I told them. “Oh, but a bit of news to make Melmir happy. Once this first batch is ready, I plan on handing over mana collection duties to Ayaka. You’re all handling the storage crystals anyway, so one of you can charge up the ward stone. It’s not hard. I’ll show her how and make sure she can handle it on her own, but then I’m clearing that job out of my schedule.”

“You can’t just make decisions like that!” Melmir objected.

Funny. I’d have thought he’d be happy to have a bit of responsibility come back under his control. There was just no pleasing some people.

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