After assigning the most urgent tasks at hand, I decided to take a trip over the expanding territory. Since it was barely dark, the buildup of mysterious energy was limited, giving me a chance to take a look at the other projects. Two in particular, the steam mana-condensers, and the protective shields.

I decided to examine the new mana shields, two of them already looming over the towns on the mountain outskirts, to get a general idea of their power and performance. Steam mana condensers had bumped down in the priority scale a bit when I discovered an active leyline in the swamp.

The walk to Maria's location didn't take long. I just needed to find the flickering dome of mana over the next town. The blue hemisphere shimmered faintly in the dark, like moonlight caught in a slow ripple, flashing on and off repeatedly.

A quick trip later — where I stopped to pick some of Maria's favorite food, knowing she had a tendency to forget while working — I was near the auxiliary dungeon entrance, which was quite crowded, as workers were busy setting up reserves of monster parts and crushers, all linked to a system of pipes to a singular gold plate.

It was the easiest way to supply shields with mana, especially since we had an excess of insect shells due to the most recent trouble after the Drakkan attack. It was still useful, especially since gates were in perfect position to absorb the excess tainted energy back to the dungeon.

Ideally, I would be able to find a way to supply mana directly through the gates, but for the moment, it had to make do.

I could feel flares of magic from a small building near the operation, so I went there and knocked on the door. "Unless the town is about to explode, go away," Maria called.

"Food delivery for Lady Maria," I called, and the door immediately opened. I took a step inside, chuckling. The door slammed behind me. Maria was at the center of the living room, papers, and metal plates sprawled around her. In her hand, there was one large block of gold, a pure alloy if my senses were not deceiving me.

"It smells good," she said as I approached.

"Your favorite," I said and approached her. That earned a smile for me. "Do you think you can afford to take a small break?"

"As long as you accompany me," she responded, her smile widening.

"Excellent," I said as I started to remove the metal containers that held the food. "I can use a break as well."

"Tough day?" she said.

"Not particularly," I said. "It can wait until we finish the dinner."

"As you wish, my Lord," she said, even giving a mock curtsy.

"Not this," I sighed in frustration.

"Fine," she replied, her smile turning gentle. "You're yet to hear the story of how Eleanor almost caused a riot at one of the villages we visited, right?" she said.

"Yes. This is the first time we're able to sit down and … talk," I replied. "Go ahead and tell it."

As we shared a simple but delicious dinner, Maria told an exaggerated story of misunderstandings and accidents. Objectively, it was not the greatest story, or delivery for that matter, but we still found ourselves laughing and giggling long after the story ended.

The sheer luxury of leaving everything behind and enjoying the calm for a few minutes was a precious opportunity. Only when the food was long gone, did I point at her work, a set of gold plates, some marked with papers that were covered with glyphs and runes. "Tell me what are you doing?" I asked.

"Trying to level up my enchantment skill," she said. "I picked it up while traveling, but it's the first time I have had the chance to play with it," she said. "Not exactly a travel-friendly skill," she replied.

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"No doubt," I said. "Do you think I can help?"

"Maybe," she said. "I don't know how it works with Wisdom-based casting, but I'm sure we could come up with something," she said.

"Did you forget all the tricks I came up with for Meditation even before I got Wisdom," I replied. "Don't underestimate the power of math."

"Good point," she said. "So, do you prefer if I start with a practical example, or should I start with an example?"

"Let's start with the latter," I said. "Give me a brief on the first two shields you set up, and what part annoys you enough to brute force your skill improvement."

"Is it that obvious?" she asked.

"Well, if you were happy about it, you would have activated all of them at once rather than playing around with what seems to be our remaining gold reserves."

"Good point," she said, and pulled a large sheet of paper, and scribbled a complicated web of runes on it, hundreds of interconnected pieces. "This is the basic scheme I used for the first two shields," she said. "Strong enough to deal with most of the common beast's attacks, siege bombardments, and magic spells combined."

"And, what's the drawback?" I asked.

"It doesn't do well against focused overwhelming force, and its replenishment rate is less than ideal," she said, then pointed to a section. "This part, in particular, has a tendency to burn out due to mana overflow whenever I hit with a spell of my own, but attempts to modify it are causing a cascading failure."

"I see, and what about your ideal case?"

"I want to have a layered set, the outer layer weak but easy to regenerate, while a solid inner layer in place to hold the attack, but trying to establish multiple shields at the same area is not easy. It has to be linked to the same core."

"An ambitious plan," I said. "Now, let's see if it can be achieved. Why don't you explain to me how the mechanics of enchantment work," I said. "Is it similar to how spells work?" This translation is powered by the readers at M|V|LE9MPYR.

"Essentially the same, but runes are anchored on the metal, which keeps them stable and powered rather than fading away."

"Alright," I said. "Then, we can start talking with spells," I said, and pulled a paper in front of me, and drew a set of runes.

"W-what's this?" she asked, her tone flat. I smirked, amused by her attempts to keep herself from lashing out, like an OCD sufferer looking at a crooked frame.

"My own invented spell, beautiful, right?" I replied, trying to sound enthusiastic rather than amused. "How is it? Amazing, right?"

"Well, it's a d-decent attempt —" she started, clearly struggling to come up with a compliment rather than a selection of insults. That was all I was able to hold before exploding into laughter. "Jerk," she said as she slapped my shoulder. "What a nasty prank to tease me with a useless spell," she said.

"Amusing, I have to admit, but it's not entirely useless," I said as I raised my hand. Ten runes appeared in the air one by one, and then a decay bolt rushed forward.

[-50 Mana]

"And, how's that not useless?" she asked.

"Like this," I said as grabbed a random metal appliance, and reshaped it into a target that could handle the decay effect. The same ten runes appeared in the air, but I started pumping the purest decay mana I could into the center rune. Five seconds later, I let it launch.

[-4000 Mana]

Admittedly, as far as spells went, it was a disgrace. It lost its stability halfway, losing both shape and focus. It failed to land at the center of the target, yet it still destroyed the immediate impact point and its inherent anti-decay qualities of the metal. "Like this," I said.

Her eyes were wide as she examined. "That… How? You have overcharged the spell to a ridiculous degree, but even with Wisdom, that level of purity should take far more —" she muttered, and then her eyes widened. "You're using the dungeon to focus the concept," she said, her eyes wide.

"Exactly," I said. "Unfortunately there are many drawbacks, not to mention coming up with my own spells is not exactly a trivial thing. It's not as simple as coding a functional program. The runes interact with each other weirdly."

"They do that," she said absentmindedly, clearly occupied by the implications. "Do you still have that Fire Bolt spell?" she asked.

"Yeah, having a spell to check is a good way to make progress, and it's not like I'm flooding with decay spells —"

"Have you ever tried to use the fire dungeon to cast a spell?" she cut in.

"It hasn't been a long time since I took over that dungeon, and I had other priorities —" I tried to add, only for her to cut me off with a gesture.

"Not anymore," she said sharply. "We're going to sit down and see if you can do the same for the fire."

I opened my mouth to argue, but looking at her sharp expression, I decided against it. Her expression was familiar. I had seen it many times, often in the mirror, whenever a particularly interesting research project caught my eye.

Considering her nature as a fire mage, it was easy to understand exactly what caught her gaze.

"Fine, but I can only promise two hours a day," I said.

"Four," she countered immediately.

"Two," I insisted.

"Fine, two," she said, her tone dismissive enough that I didn't believe her sincerity for a single second. But, I still sat down. I could recognize a lost battle easily.

And, all things considered, coming up with stronger fire spells wasn't exactly a great sacrifice on my part.