All except the one on the elven cage, every other cage in the place opens. The beasts immediately rush out of their cages, some leave the room and others seem confused. A few look like they want to eat me and the elves, which is why our cage is still locked.

Within seconds I can hear screams and roars from the floor above, this draws the rest of the beasts away. Once the beasts are gone I open a gate from inside the cage to the city gate. Silverstream and her team have taken over the gate and killed all the soldiers.

As soon as the gate is open I send the elves through and leave them to Silverstream. By now the screams and roars have been joined by explosions. The mages should be completely distracted at this point, so I head for the building's library.

Unfortunately, there are locks and seals on the doors of the library, which I have to deal with. As I am working on unlocking the door, I can hear alarms ringing over the sounds of fighting. It sounds like more than just the guild's alarms, which should mean the guards are heading this way.

That should make the elves' missions easier, all the guards will be out of their way. Of course, that means I need to be quick or I will end up surrounded. However, the magical knowledge that might be in this library is worth a little risk.

Besides, the beasts should be able to keep them busy for a little while at least. Breaking through the locks and seals on the door is quick but mana intensive. The only reason I am able to break them at all is because I don't use spells.

Wards, seals, and locks are all very structured, the spells involved are extremely complex. However, that very rigid structure is what makes them so vulnerable to pure mana. They have no way to adapt to an attack or deal with an overload of mana.

Basically, I just find a hole in the spell and shove mana in until it breaks down or explodes. Although, with my luck, it is mostly explosions, but I can contain them easily enough. With a pop the last lock shatters and I am able to open the door and enter the library.

The library is a large round room with aisles of bookshelves radiating from the center. The center of the room has a weird statue of a large, coiled up snake. The bookshelves are filled with books of all shapes and sizes, and I want all of them.

However, the first thing I do is spread my mana throughout the room to check for traps. One specific bookshelf on the outside wall is covered in traps, but the rest of the room is clean. Since that bookshelf is the only one with traps on it, I of course head for it first.

It takes me another ten minutes and a good chunk of mana to get rid of all the traps. After doing so my mana is now below half, but I figure the books on this bookcase should be the most valuable. However, as soon as I touch the bookcase I hear a creaking groan from behind me.

When I turn around I see that the statue has raised its head, opened its eyes, and it is staring at me. I should have known that there would be some kind of guardian in here. From the sounds it is making as it starts moving towards me I am guessing that it is a golem.

Normally, I would just hit it with a fireball and melt it, but that isn't a good idea in a room full of books. So, instead I hit it with a massive lightning bolt, but it doesn't go as planned. When the lightning bolt hits the golem, the golem's skin shimmers and absorbs the lightning.

Then, not even a second later, an even more massive bolt of lightning shoots out of the golem and hits me. It is a really good thing that I am immune to lightning or that might have killed me. From what I could tell the lightning bolt that came back at me was twice as powerful as the one I threw.

So, not only does the golem have the ability to reflect spells, but it amplifies them as well. That is an amazing ability, one I would love to put on the ship if I can figure out how. Maybe if I take the golem apart I can figure out how it was done and how to duplicate it.

Of course, the way the golem is coming towards me would indicate it is not in the mood to be examined. So, it looks like I will need to dismantle the golem and then examine the pieces. I try scanning it with mana, but that doesn't work so I charge forward and take a swing at it.

*CLANG!!*

My claws actually bounce off the golem, meaning it has an amazing level of defense. In response to my attack the golem tries to bite me, but I slap the attack aside. When its bite fails it wraps itself around me and starts trying to crush me.

Since it is a contest of strength I am not worried, at least not until I am unable to break free. The golem is almost as strong as I am, but the worse part is it has more mass than me. While I am able to prevent it from crushing me, I am not able to break free.

It has been a long time since I last found myself in such a tight spot, but I don't panic. Instead, since I am trapped by the golem, I start feeling around trying to find a gap between its scales. As soon as I find one I slide a claw inside and then release my mana through the claw.

As I was hoping, the magic defense is on the outside of the golem, it has no defenses inside it. From the mana scan I am able to tell that the body of the golem is extremely simple. The only complex part of the golem is the control core in its head.

That is one of the most complex items I have ever seen, the only thing that beats it is the core of the tower. It is a mix of an artificial core and some kind of spell matrix, like nothing I have seen before. Luckily, the connections between the core and the golems body are simple.

So, I create a blade out of mana and simply cut them all and that ends it. As soon as the connections are cut the golem stops moving instantly. It still takes a few minutes of struggling to get the thing off of me though.

Luckily, now that the matrix is disconnected the spell reflection is gone. Meaning I can cut the head open and remove the matrix, which is about the size of a basketball. That goes into my pouch, the rest of the body goes into one of the backpacks of holding.

The books on the special bookcase go into my pouch as well, all but the one that won't move. At first I think it won't be moved by mana, but I quickly have another thought. So I grab the book and try tilting it instead of pulling it, when it tilts forward there is a loud click.