A fireball, something that normally wouldn’t excite me nearly this much shoots out of the poking runic staff from the inner world. Only the size of a ping pong ball, the result of 5 points of mana, and not capable of causing any serious damage. On the other hand, instead of a meter and half long long staff coming from the inner world, only about 10 centimeters are poking out.

After getting it working I realize that there are severe limitations, especially considering that I either will need large parts of the engravings outside, or better materials and more intricate designs in the part that will be poking out, which precludes the use of wood. That said, finding out that it worked at all was a little progress at least.

Without stopping to tinker with the fireball runic schematics, I work on the other half of the equation, the staple of any mage: the mana shield. If the fireball was a breeze only needing a few slight modifications to the design, the shield is another matter altogether.

I fight and continue to try different designs, but even two hours later the only one I succeed with has just about all the runes on the outside of the inner world. With almost the entire shield projector outside, it mostly invalidated the very reason that I wanted to use it.

With a large fireball turret that only needed to poke its ‘muzzle’ out for a moment to shoot some enemy, I would have incredible maneuverability.

The shield would be another story. While I could work around the restrictions, sending the large shield projector out of a portal would be far too cumbersome and slow mid-combat.

Still possible and certainly useful under certain circumstances, but to make it smaller and more powerful I would be required to make most if not all of it to be made with copper and silver, instead of having only a small ‘tip’. Inside the inner world, the larger sizes and lower mana densities of the runes made from wood are a non-issue but moving hundreds of kilograms of wood still attached to the inner world is too slow.

The entire time I work, no solution comes falls on my lap, so I stop trying it for now and instead go to the forge looking for Blackwood’s mithril-tipped. He may not be here at this late hour, but there are plenty of others keeping the shop open.

I pull a thick copper sheet from the inventory which was sitting together with a large stack of other copper plates and start the work on the first fireball turrets.

“It really is too convenient, both the inner world and the inventory,” I mumble.

“What?” One of the helpers in the forge asks me, but I just shake my head.

“Nothing.” At least nothing that I wish to say aloud anyway.

With a chisel in hand, I start work on the external portion of the first turret.

With taps from my hammer, deep sulks form on the copper. All at nearly identical depth, as even the shape almost magically forms in front of me.

I outline six tabs around a hexagon in the copper plate and get ready to cut the parts I won't be using. I melt a few droplets of silver in a small crucible and pour the silver right on top of the copper with great care. With the same tool, I engrave on the very silver redundant lines in a process similar to how I inlay copper in my staff or the impact swords that I produced so long ago.

Putting the cut copper plate in the vice, I bend each of the six tabs inward carefully, forming the rough shape of the cup with flat sides and the more fragile engraved side hidden.

I move out of everyone’s way and sit in a corner to work modifying one of the formations I had there. I didn’t stop to get the ones left behind after the fight with the panther, but I had a few more in place.

Only minutes later, I open a small portal and a fist wide rod of wood pokes out with the only type of rune that seemed to work across the portal. The one responsible for transporting mana from one place to another.

I try to push the six-sided cup into place, but the fit is too tight and I take another hammer from the inventory, this time a wooden mallet. With a couple of careful taps, everything fits into place and I head out to test it.

I run to the closet edge of the village, the back wall facing south.

Getting there, I see the 6 meters tall stone wall.

Lower than at the front wall from the inside, but much higher from the outside given the cliff surrounding most of the village. Getting atop the wall with a pair of scouts some fifty meters over in view of my position I prepare myself mentally to make it as fast as possible

I repeat in my mind: open portal, push forward, activate trigger, wait for a split second and pull out before closing the portal.

Nothing exceedingly complex, but if I wanted to make effective in combat, I would need to be a lot faster than the conscious following of each step would allow, especially as in combat there was always other stuff had to pay attention to.

Taking a deep breath I exhale completely and start on the sequence.

I open the portal, then as I push out the six inches by four inches wide hexagonal prism I activate the switch. Mana in the batteries starts the process of being transformed into fire mana and being conducted out of the inner world.

A split second later, though with my high mental stats and perception it feels longer, a 500 hundred points fireball the size of a basketball shoots off at an even faster than usual.

Did the silver help increase the speed?

Instead of letting the question and others consume me, I pull the pit of the turret inside and close the portal.

The fireball heads farther and farther. Almost two hundred meters in about 2 seconds before it expandis and slows a lot, both signs that the attack just lost all of its ‘kick’.

Still, greater range and speed than what I had seen up to now. Both are very good signs, but it’s the higher speed that interests me, I will need that in our next fight with the beasts.

And of that I had no doubt, we would be forced to fight again. And we might not head out immediately, but after getting the preparations in place, it’s the only choice we could live with.

We had to find a way, a strategy that might work. We had to grow strong enough to handle the beasts.

What could the others be doing to prepare right now?

-----------------------------

Greg’s POV

“Weak… weak… weak,” I repeatedly strike a dummy in the training ground.

I could practice with the others, but that is too dangerous for my goals, for as much as I may be calling my strikes weak, they were just not enough to compete on the level of the HLZ beasts. Each strike was strong enough to break the bones of anyone stupid enough not to dodge it even if I was using practice spears.

Even the couple of level 90 fighters a few paces away from me couldn’t keep up. It would do us no good to train if half of the village was too injured after each training session.

I activate two of my skills at the same time, as a gust of wind blows from my entire body and a mix of white and red light emanates from my skin. That gives me more strength, the other skill heads in the spear, making it almost impossibly sharp and propelling it faster. As I take the first step my muscles twitch. All at the same time.

Nobody can see the red glow emanating from my skin only the white light, so everyone looks with concern at me.

“Don’t worry, just trying to get a handle on a certain skill.”

Nodding as each of them knows that a few people get skills that require a lot more control than most others.

I succeeded once before in using both skills at the same time.

The extra strength and damage potential are very useful but I also lose dexterity and even a little speed. If I could get both working at the same time maybe I could keep up with talented people like Alex for a while longer. So far the only advantage I have is my size and the early Exp. I gained. But that won’t be enough to keep up with Alex and the other catching up to me.

I should have been more aggressive, during the last attack on the village, I needed the last few experience points to increase my level. If I hit level 100 I will have a chance to keep up for a little longer. The last of my choice with the tools in my belt right now is learning to use both skills simultaneously.

And then I will have the highest speed, much higher strength, and an impossibly sharp spear all at the same time. That will be the bane of any beast we encounter.

The armor set I wear clanks around as I step forward and back, trying to get used to my skill in the limited time that they will be active before the hour ong cooldown.

At least I can temporarily turn them off and get back to my feet before sending mana and stamina to burn through the skills and activate them again.

I fail again and again, but even as the invisible red glow and the white light on the spear fade, I keep training while I wait for the cooldown cycle.

----------------------------

Brad leaving Max’s village

Finally, some action against Nash, even if it’s indirect I will be taking something precious to him.

I look back and everyone is keeping pace towards the HLZ. There are not nearly as many people as a proper attack would require, but without fixed defenses, the silver mine is very vulnerable. The fact that it doesn’t technically belong to anyone means the contract won’t come into effect.

We keep a pace constant and slow given the pair of magic users haven’t put a single point in the endurance stat. But our ‘slow pace’ is still 20kph, something unprecedented before the system, now commonplace. Everything going to plan, it will take us 4 day to arrive at the mine.

Something bubbles inside me at having managed to convince Max to authorize this attack. Luckily I had heard the message even before him and had filtered out the unnecessary parts that would just make him hesitate. Like the fact that Walter wasn’t yet in on it at the start.

I move back and ask one of the scouts from our village

“The mages are going to be able to keep up?”

“So far it looks to be the case. Luckily they have the unlocked stats and plenty of mana to pair with their support skills. They will probably even gain a point or two in the Endurance stat.”

“Good, good, keep an eye on them and tell me if you think one of them may force us to slow down.”

“Sure thing boss.”

I keep my focus on the steady and fairly slow pace we are all keeping. I also hadn’t put any points in the endurance stat, but it had reached 21 points and my class was a physical one so I could even talk during the run.

Approaching the representative that joined us in this excursion. Somebody from Walter's village, I bring my class-A smile and ask him.

“You keeping pace ok?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about me.” He says. “Do you have any news on the situation with the HLZ?”

“I don’t think it has changed too much. Just don’t poke the beasts on the other side and we will be just fine.” I say.

“Now go ahead and steal their silver mine.”

“It's not really theirs, they are appropriating it.”

“Ohh, yeah absolutely.”

“Let’s go reappropriate our right.”

“That’s the spirit.”

--------------------------

Representative of Leatherworker’s Village on the way to the HLZ

Manipulating this idiot really was a piece of cake. Finding out that Greg even intercepted the original message for Lord max delivered him in the palm of my hand.

Best of all, he had no idea of what I was doing. For some strange reason, he has a deep hatred of Nash and though he has become a lot less vocal about it in the last month considering what our spies have reported, I didn’t doubt it was mostly because he didn’t want to alienate others.

I just needed to keep him on a short leash.

If I couldn’t have the whole cake, at least I would get part of the way there. Acquiring a very important economic resource would force Walter to see the wisdom of my plan. He would have no real choice unless he was ready for a much larger fight.

Today is a good day. Soon we will have in our possession one of the best resources for engraving and magic around.