Loran’s enhanced spell was able to heal more than 200 HP with each cast, and while that was a good amount for non-Tank players, but that was just a drop in the massive bucket that was The Guardian Elder’s 6000 total HP. No matter how hard he tried it felt like he was barely having an effect.

‘Even if I were to burn all the MP I’ve got it wouldn’t even be 1000 HP. It can help prolong the fight, but I need something to give her an advantage.’ Loran grits his teeth in frustration as the finished spell faded away. ‘...Even at Level 32 I’m just not strong enough.’

The surrounding Guardians were all boss-tier monsters between Level 30 and Level 40, and The Guardian Elder was at Level 72. Loran was Level 32, but his magic stats were all very low by comparison, and even with the massive bonus from [EXTREME PERCEPTION] it just wasn’t enough to provide decent support in such a high-level battle. Even if he wanted to try helping The Guardian Elder by attacking the Guardians directly, their armor was just too thick for him to have any effect.

‘There has to be something I can do!’ Loran tried to think of something, anything to have a real impact on the battle, but there was nothing. ‘...Is prolonging the fight my only choice?’ Loran didn’t have the time to think of a plan. [EXTREME PERCEPTION] would go on cooldown in just about four minutes, and if he waited for the Skill to become available again it might be too late to do anything. This was when he was at his strongest, if he wanted to help at all, he needed to come up with something now.

‘...I’ll just have to spam the healing spell,’ he thought, defeated. Since the healing process wasn’t instant he couldn’t afford to wait too long. At the very least he could burn through his MP supply and start taking down Warriors again. It wasn’t a good plan, but it was his only option. Loran sighed. ‘I guess I shouldn’t have expected too much from a basic healing…spell…’ Loran’s brow furrowed as an idea surfaced in his mind. ‘Basic…couldn’t I just make a better healing spell?’

Ordinarily, Loran would have considered the idea so unlikely as to be impossible, but things were different right now. The casters hadn’t put much time into creating a healing spell with idea manipulation yet, so that already had potential, but [EXTREME PERCEPTION] also gave him an effective Intelligence stat of 90. As critical of New Eden Online as Loran could be, he refused to believe that such a massive increase in stats couldn’t create an improved healing spell.

‘Still… making a brand new spell again?’ The other casters had already considered it impossible to create a new type of magic in a day, and even when he proved them wrong it still took him an hour.

Now he wanted to try doing it in just a few minutes?

‘...No point in not trying!’

Quickly opening his menu, Loran spent all his remaining EXP to reach Level 35 and dumped all his Ability Points into Spirit, raising it to 37. He was going to bet everything on finishing this spell.

Loran summoned up all the mana that he could. He didn’t have the time to take it slow or take it step by step; he needed this spell to be as powerful as possible. Pushing his concentration to its absolute limits, he began using shape and idea manipulation at the same time.

‘I need a healing spell so think…warmth…closing wounds…relief…regaining strength and…what else?’

He wasn’t entirely sure what ideas he should use, but that seemed good enough.

‘Now focus…’

He could feel the mana fighting his attempts to control it.

‘Focus…’

He closed his eyes.

‘Focus…’

He blocked out the sounds of battle.

‘Focus…’

…The mana stabilized.

Loran smiled with grit teeth as he felt the healing start, but his smile faded as the healing didn’t go as well as he had hoped.

‘Double?… it’s only twice as effective?’

It was… disappointing to say the least. The spell felt so much harder to cast, so he was expecting there to be a massive boost in power.

‘No…it’s not the spell’s fault…’ Loran’s brow furrowed as he realized what was happening. ‘I don’t have the stats to cast it properly.’

With [EXTREME PERCEPTION] active, Loran effectively had 90 Intelligence, but even after dumping all his AP, he could only get his Spirit up to 37. Spirit had a qualitative change on his mana supply, so much so that increasing his Spirit increased the output of his spells. It wasn’t out of the question to say that lacking Spirit meant a penalty to his spells.

‘I guess magic isn’t as easy to min-max as physical combat is.’

His new spell healed The Guardian Elder by a little more than 500 HP, bringing her up from 28% to 37%. Loran could sense a feeling of shock come from the elder goat as she felt the spell restore her this time. She was so surprised that she actually stopped moving for a moment and took a few unnecessary hits.

‘Makes sense she’s surprised, I can’t imagine these goats have seen any magic before today.’ Loran grinned bitterly, not wanting her to be impressed by his failure. He shook his head and focused again. ‘Whatever. I’m not done yet!’

Increasing his Spirit had also increased the amount of MP he had left. Nearly emptying his new reserves, Loran continued casting until The Guardian Elder was back to 88%.

With most of her strength restored, The Guardian Elder didn’t need to keep being defensive and was back on her focused assault, nearly throwing Loran off as she became more aggressive.

“Whoa! Okay, time to bail!” Loran wasted no time leaping off the back of the giant goat, landing briefly on the ground between the Guardians. One of them tried to bite him, possibly realizing that he was the one who reinvigorated The Guardian Elder, but with [EXTREME PERCEPTION] active he could easily dodge the attack. Jumping right between its mandibles, Loran passed through the crushing jaws with barely an inch to spare and landed on its head.

He hurried across its back but paused as he looked up at the mound of Drone bodies. ‘That… might make things difficult.’ Loran had made it past the mound originally because of the Guardian corpse left by Alexx and Yang, but more Drones were starting to use that path to get past the barrier and the players above were focusing fire on the area to stop them.

At this point, Loran’s only option was to go over the mound directly.

‘Okay, I’ve got about a minute left before Extreme Perception cuts off,’ he thought as he practically threw himself toward the precarious pile of bodies. ‘I can definitely do this. I just have to get there before the Skill goes on cooldown.’

He ran across the still-living Drones approaching the mound, dodging their bites and balancing on their heads. He recalled Zed doing something similar when they first fought a large number of Drones, and it seemed far easier than he thought it was. ‘Maybe I’ll try this later without using the Skill.’

Once he reached the wall of bodies, things became so much worse. It was much harder for the Drones to get traction on the carapace of their dead kin, so if he stepped on one they would lose their footing and start falling. If he wasn’t careful he would go with them. Ironically it was the dead Drones that provided better stability. Their bodies had started to settle into place after being here for so long.

The dead Drones might be more stable than the living ones, but that didn’t mean they were perfect. Every now and then he would find one that was just barely staying in place and would drop away if you so much as breathed on it too hard. It was almost impossible for him to tell at a glance how stable they actually were. Perhaps he could do it if he was more experienced with [EXTREME PERCEPTION] but for now, he just had to gamble with it.

“Shit!” Loran shouted as a body slipped away under his feet. He just barely managed to stay upright with his other foot but was forced to stop for a moment. Without hesitation, a few of the still living ants in the area turned to bite him. He managed to avoid most of them, but one managed to grab onto his bad arm.

“Oh HELL no!” Loran quickly brought his sickle around and beheaded the Drone. “You bastards already broke that once. I’m not going to let that happen again!”

He continued climbing up the pile and quickly reached the top.

‘Forty seconds!’

The climb down the other side of the mound was much easier. When he lost his footing he could just let his momentum carry him down, even if it did mean having to land on the ground shoulder first.

‘Thirty seconds!’

Ignoring the throbbing from his arm he kept running, leaping onto the backs of the Mountain Goats to speed things up. The number of Warriors still fighting was drastically reduced so he was able to focus completely on running.

‘Twenty seconds!’

Soon he reached the wall of the canyon and with [EXTREME PERCEPTION] active, he made it to safety with no issue.

“Alright!” Loran nearly shouted with satisfaction. ‘Made it back with ten seconds to spare.’

Loran let the Skill go on cooldown and immediately felt his senses fall back to their normal levels.

‘There has to be a better way to use this thing.’

Using the Skill for its entire duration would probably work in shorter battles, but during such a large-scale siege like this, it was annoying having to take such long breaks between uses. He knew it was important to take breaks, but he had 30 Endurance and could easily keep going for longer.

‘I’ll need to see what it looks like at Level 10.’

He was assuming that the cooldown time will become a one-to-one ratio with the activation time once the Skill was maxed out. If so then he might be able to use [EXTREME PERCEPTION] like [SPRINT], limiting it to short bursts and going all out during harder fights.

‘The constant perception shifts might be too much to handle though…’

As Loran continued to consider how best to use his new Skill, the battle continued below. And as The Guardian Elder soon finished off the remaining Guardians, the siege slowly came to a close.