Slime Evolution

Chapter 415 - Analyzing

”Are you sure nobody from the Council followed us from Thalendor, Sariel?” Eldrin asked quietly, stopping at the edge of the ravine and looking at the cracks where purple smoke leaked out continuously under the moonlight. ”If any of those guards notice what we’re doing here before dawn, our scouting contract will be canceled before the sun rises over the city.”

Sariel let out a scornful sigh, adjusting her bow strap with her gloved fingers. ”The outer perimeter is completely clear, Eldrin. Thalendor’s elves are far too arrogant to patrol this rift before dawn. They believe our original seal is indestructible because of the lie we told at the city hall. But we need to be quick. The smell of this rotten mana is getting too strong for the locals to ignore, even I can sense it now.”

”This leak is the direct result of your stupidity in using lower grade runes to save money,” Garius muttered, crossing his golden metal arms and glaring at the mage with obvious irritation. ”We spent a fortune renting the headquarters to impress the newcomers and now we have to fix the barrier in the dead of night like some vulgar criminals from the Low Zone underworld.”

”Keep your mouth shut, Garius!” Eldrin hissed, his voice full of anger as he struck the base of his staff against the stone ground. ”The money we saved on the previous seal was what secured everything we’ve built up to now, you idiot! If we hadn’t pulled that accounting maneuver, the Broken Suns would still be fighting other smaller guilds for dominance in Thalendor. We already knew the barrier would eventually need energy reinforcement, the only thing we didn’t foresee was the void pressure rising faster than I’d originally expected.”

Orion cut into their argument, pointing at the special leather pouch Eldrin carried tied to his waist. ”Stop fighting like children before the rift collapses in front of us. Eldrin, open the pouch and get the level twenty runes. The price of those three magic gems was over three hundred gold coins. That amount practically emptied our internal coffers. If we fail to apply this level twenty sealing barrier today, we won’t have the resources to try again for weeks.”

Eldrin swallowed hard, touching the leather pouch with fingers visibly trembling from the financial weight of it. ”I know the cost, Orion. I won’t get the spell wrong. But to apply the level twenty runes, I need you and Garius on standby covering the rear. When I open the gap in the previous spell to merge in the new energy pathways, the void mana leak is going to have a violent spike of thermal radiation. Make sure your barrier is up to protect us from the corrosive damage... and holy shit, what a fucking pain it’s going to be dealing with a seal above my level.”

”Understood,” Orion nodded, raising his prayer tome, which began giving off a pale, protective light, while Garius drew his sword to provide cover against any wild creature that might be drawn by the mystical glow of the runic stones.

The blue robed mage stepped forward, approaching a rock wall that looked perfectly solid to untrained eyes. He extended his crystal staff, pointing the glowing tip at an imperceptible groove in the stone.

Eldrin began whispering the words of incantation extremely slowly, carefully, and rhythmically, making sure his mana flow was in perfect sync with the channels of the level twenty runes he pulled from his pouch.

Because of the level gap between him and the seal’s spell, he kept making mistakes, having to repeat parts to correct something spoken or inscribed wrong in the magic circle in front of him, which made the process take much longer than it should have, and much more draining than he had originally expected.

Hidden in the shadows of the bush, Lohan activated his parallel processing at full power, expanding his hearing and spiritual perception to catch every word of the spell, analyze every rune inscribed in the magic circle in front of the mage, and track every magical fluctuation occurring in the air.

He watched the solid rock wall begin to tremble subtly, revealing the outline of a huge three dimensional magic circle glowing in a sickly purple hue.

The magic circle contained complex lines of runic script that Lohan began methodically analyzing with his intelligence.

As Eldrin chanted the sealing magic, the three level twenty gems floated around his staff, releasing neon blue currents of energy that tried to crush and close the purple cracks in the barrier.

Lohan focused all his attention on deciphering the geometry and logic behind that containment spell, feeling that unraveling the anatomy of that Broken Suns magic would be the first step toward consolidating Astralis Requiem’s full control over this major problem.

What good would it do him to uncover the problem if they didn’t have the slightest ability to deal with it? After all, Astralis really didn’t have any mage with sealing capability like Eldrin.

Lohan mentally recorded every runic symbol and every fluctuation of that corrupted mana, preparing his core to intervene at the exact right moment of that illegal operation.

His membrane began trembling with excitement as he absorbed the fundamental secrets of that magical barrier, knowing that Astralis’s stars would shine even brighter in the deep darkness.

He felt that with every millisecond of synaptic analysis, his network of knowledge was expanding qualitatively.

Watching the containment runes glow under the dark night of the Mythlorien forest, Lohan began simulating the spell’s structure in his own mind, mapping the exact pressure points that made the void mana retreat under the impact of the magic circle.

The geometric complexity of the level twenty runes was indeed impressive, but with the Magic Core Harmonizer operating in perfect sync with his Superior Magic Core, deciphering that magic felt easier than he expected it to be.

Sure, it was still extremely complex, and from what Lohan was gathering, something he’d need to practice for days just to reach the mage’s level, but progress this fast was already incredibly quick!