Eramith
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Book 2: Chapter 33
🕑 Added 2023-05-10 13:00:08 +0000 UTCThey walked outside to the vehicle they had previously constructed and Felix hopped into the passenger seat on the right while Martin hopped into the seat left of him. Martin checked a few things then gingerly pulled a lever between his legs to start the vehicle moving. They slowly picked up speed as they rolled through the field until they were traveling about the speed of a car on a residential road.
“Any more and the enchantments… Without batteries they might burn out.”
Felix wanted to get started with exploring the city but he also wanted to help Martin out and right now, he just wanted to see how fast this thing could go.
“Will the frame hold up at higher speeds?”
“Yeah it should be fine. Everything was welded together and it’s probably about as solid as any vehicle back on earth, if not more.”
“Can we test that?”
“Sure? With a battery?”
“No, I’ll just cast a force spell to push and slowly accelerate us until you tell me to stop.”
“Uh… Alright, go for it.”
Felix cast a simple force spell right in the chassis of the vehicle and slowly filled it with mana. As he channeled it, he increased it’s size incrementally, pushing the vehicle through the field. Once they had surpassed highway speeds Martin was starting to look a little nervous but told Felix to keep going when asked if he wanted to stop. They kept going until they had doubled that speed and it was nearly impossible to turn before Martin got Felix to stop them. Felix reversed the spell and brought them to a gradual stop.
“Holy shit that was fast.”
“Not too bad. The suspension is awesome, you did a really good job. I couldn’t even feel the field beneath us.”
“Thanks.”
“You up for another test of mine?”
“Uh, I don’t want to fly if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No no, although…” Felix thought about it for a few moments before shaking his head and returning to the present, “I have something else in mind, it’s an upgrade… I hope.”
“I mean I’ll take a look I guess.”
“Alright, let’s head back to your camp and I’ll make it on the way.”
“Uh, ok.”
As Martin drove them back to the camp, Felix crawled back into the seat behind Martin and began crafting a disc about a meter wide out of solid mana. He used 5 mana batteries to make the process faster than it would be if he were solidifying ambient mana, molding and fusing them together. Just as they reached the camp Felix finished up with inscribing the spell forms then hopped out of the vehicle. He placed the engine in his inventory as it didn’t quite fit through the narrow door and pulled it out on the other side. He handed it to Martin who gingerly accepted it and looked down at it with a cocked brow, “Uh… Thanks…”
Felix reached forwards and touched it using his own mana to kickstart the process causing it to whir to life. Martin jumped back slightly in surprise and Felix smiled.
“What is happening. What the hell am I holding?”
“I’ve been calling it a mana engine. Essentially it just pulls in ambient mana but it’s way faster than enchantments.”
“How fast?”
“Good question. I’ve never made one this small before so not sure. Let me see.” Felix reached forwards and placed his hand on the engine once again, this time sucking in all the excess mana it pulled while he watched his mana pool grow. He manually disabled his own mana regeneration to make sure the numbers weren’t too far off. Once he had a decent estimate, he pulled his hand back, “Looks like this one will do about 80 mana a second.”
“Holy shit, are you sure?”
“Yeah approximately. Wanna attach it to your car?”
“Uh… Yes. I take it this is how you figured planes would work?”
“Yup.”
“We’d need a lot more, or a lot bigger but if it really is 80 mana a second for this one, planes are definitely within the realm of possibility.”
Felix helped Martin attach the mana engine to the vehicle carefully placing it in the back to make it easier to reroute the enchantments to use the engine. Felix and Martin added more enchantments as well so the vehicle would move faster and be able to utilize the extra mana. Once they were done, the vehicle was way faster and a lot more fun without Felix manually pushing it along.
“Holy shit. This is awesome… Thank you.” Martin said.
Felix shrugged, “Sure. No problem.”
They walked together into the main tent where they left Jack and found Amani and Noah inside standing across the table from Jack.
“Oi, you drew him a map before me?” Noah scolded Felix.
“They provided a pencil. I don’t carry disposable paper with me. Or a normal writing utensil for that matter.”
“I’m kidding. Jack’s gonna let me copy his and we’re gonna keep each-other updated as we go.”
“Does anybody need anything else from me? I’m kind of itching to go explore the city.”
“You are welcome to try.” Amani said with a smirk.
“What do you mean?”
“The city seems to be protected by a force field of sorts.”
“You already tried going over it?”
“Just arrows. Jackie has been trying since she got here.”
“Well, I guess I’ll take a look.”
“Can you fly other people?”
“Uh… I’ve never tried…”
“If I hold onto a rope, can you fly me over?”
“Yeah, probably?”
“Excellent. Definitely beats walking.”
Felix and Amani walked outside and she handed him one end of a rope while she tied the other around her waist. She also wrapped it around her arm, so the loop around her waist acted mostly as a backup. Felix grabbed the other end of the rope and tentatively rose into the air. He adjusted his spells on the fly and tuned them just a bit to compensate for the extra weight. Moving side to side was hard but if he just flew in a straight line, which was the plan anyways, there didn’t appear to be any issue.
Felix slowly accelerated so Amani didn’t swing around too much and flew over to the city. The winds made it a little challenging but Amani didn’t seem to mind, wearing a large smile on her face as they zipped through he air. Felix slowly decelerated a hundred meters from the wall then cast feather fall on the two of them and dropped Amani’s rope. Her face panicked for a second before she realized she was descending slowly.
When they touched down, she turned to him, “You dick. You could have warned me before you just let go.”
“Oh, sorry. Honestly I didn’t even really think about it.” Felix apologized.
“I… Fair enough. Thanks for the ride, it definitely beats walking.”
Felix nodded as they walked up to the wall, next to Jackie who was firing off different kinds of arrows above the wall. Some were covered in fire others looked like icicles but they were all diverted and shot back before passing over the threshold.
“Any luck?” Amani asked.
“Nope, nothing.”
“Have you tried people yet or just arrows?” Felix asked.
“Just arrows. Wall is too smooth to scale and I can’t get a rope arrow above it.”
“Alright, I’ll try flying over”
“Make sure to open the gate if you get through, don’t just leave us stuck out here, ok?” Amani said as Felix flew up towards the top of the wall. The wall was about 20 meters high and made of what looked like stone or marble. It was completely white with some gold trim. The most surprising thing to Felix was that after the great battle and the passage of time, the wall was entirely intact and undamaged as far as he could tell. Once he was above the top of the wall he slowly pushed himself forwards with a gentle push from a force spell. He pushed a little harder and the spell pushed back, completely resisting him and not letting him pass any further inwards.
Felix backed up and tried firing off a barrage of various spells all over the place but each and every one was met with a wall of force and held out of the city’s perimeter. He thought about trying to overpower the spell but he didn’t think he had nearly enough mana for that and figured there had to be an easier way.
Felix descended back to the ground looked towards Jackie and Amani, “Looks like everything is blocked. Guess we try the gate then?”
“It’s locked too.” Jackie said, her eyes never leaving the top of the wall.
“Probably easier than this though.”
“Maybe.”
Felix shrugged and walked over towards the crowd of people he saw gathered around the gate with Amani in tow. The gate was a large white double door made of the same material as the walls with the same golden metal used for the hinges and locking mechanisms. The top of the doors arced upwards to a point 10 meters off the ground, the entire gate as a whole just as wide. The people gathered around the base appeared to mostly be loitering about though some were banging on the gate and others inspecting it. Felix and Amani made their way through the crowd, right up to the gate and stood next to an average height man wielding a sword and a shield who stared up at the gate. He nodded to the two as they approached then turned his head back to the gate.
“Any clever ideas?” Amani nudged Felix.
Felix shrugged, “Nothing clever. You?”
“I was hoping you could just fly over. Now… I fear we will have to drill through the damn wall.”
“If I were Erolan, my city is under attack, I probably lock the gates from the inside and activate every defense at my disposal. I think drilling may be our only option.”
“Damn. Yeah, I think so as well. I guess we wait for Martin to get here and see if he can come up with a giant drill or something.”
“Shouldn’t be too long. I’m going to fly around the city, explore the area. If I find a way in, I’ll open up the gates.”
Amani waved goodbye and turned back to the gate. Felix shot up into the air until he was high enough to see most of the city, then began circling around. He fired off a smattering of spells every once in a while to test the barrier but it was the same all the way around and all the way up as far as Felix could tell. He was actually really impressed with the shield, it didn’t seem like it was always up as the wind seemed to pass through unaffected. Instead, the shield would detect when something that met it’s criteria was approaching then apply exactly the right amount of force to repel it. Felix was really hoping to get a look at the enchantment so he could do something similar with his robes. This was, far superior to his current mage armor in Felix’s opinion. It didn’t require him to notice the incoming projectile and activate the spell manually, everything was automated, at least so he assumed.
Felix flew all the way around the city and noticed a couple of things. The outer wall, the one they couldn’t seem to get through, was a traditional wall. The next wall inside of that held what seemed to be about 5% of the city and it looked like a wall from afar but Felix realized it was actually a platform. It stood almost twice the height of the outer wall and the ground inside of it was level with the top of the wall. The retaining wall around the platform was made of the same white stone with even more intricate golden decorations.
At the center of that raised level was another platform, this one only another 10 meters or so high. On the inner most platform lay a single building, a massive white pyramid surrounded by a large garden or park with trees, flowers and grass. The oddest part to Felix was that it was still well kept. The plants weren’t overgrown or destroying the building like he would have expected. Around the back of the city, there were two staircases to ascend to the top of each of the platforms, though he suspected the elevators he had seen all around them got more use. Overall, with the platforms in the middle, the entire city reminded Felix of a multi-tiered cake, like one for a wedding.
Having circled the entire city and finding only three more locked gates, Felix decided to venture outwards and explore the rest of the event area. As far as he could see, there was no border or wall marking the edge of the event area, like the tutorial had had but figured there had to be one, somewhere out there. Felix flew straight outwards, away from the city which sent him east if the camps were to the south, which was the convention they had decided on ahead of time.
As he flew, the city gradually shrunk in the distance until it lowered below the horizon and out of sight. Below Felix, the ground had started to become less flat with hills and valleys covered in long wild grass in every direction. Eventually, Felix hit the edge of the area which was simply a slightly blue glowing barrier that seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky. Felix touched it and it felt like a solid object but nothing more, there was no difference in temperature and it’s texture was best described as indistinct.
Looking at his map, that was filling itself out as he flew, he had traveled a couple thousand kilometers from the city. The area that comprised the world event was about 5,000 kilometers across. Felix turned to his left and shot off to the north, keeping the boundary wall just a few meters to his right. If his quick mental math was right, it would be just over 31,000 kilometers to circle around the entire area. In total, Felix should be able to make it around in just over a day or so which would hopefully be enough time for everyone else to find a way into the city.
Felix thought about helping them, but ultimately he figured having a map of the area and knowing about any monsters they might encounter outside the city, was more helpful. If there were any monsters outside the city, and they managed to sneak up on the camp or they ambushed people as they escaped the city, people would likely die. The camps were currently used for non combatants like Noah, who was there to coordinate and plan things, as well as allow people to rest and recover from injuries. Neither of those groups were ready to defend themselves. On the other hand, Felix may have just been post justifying to himself because drilling a hole in a gate sounded super boring. A part of him was hoping to find something to do in the meantime. Worst case scenario he could do more training while he waited, but that felt like a waste when he could do that anywhere.
