Agnisotra: Origin Tails

I woke up later than I'm normally used to. I guess the fatigue is slowly catching up to me since I never really take the time to rest. I feel refreshed now. Yesterday I learned that telepathy is uncommon and generally not something that is done between people but requires special service. Another tidbit that proved how disconnected we were from this world. But I didn't care. I sent telepathic messages to my buddies to check when we would meet up to form a new plan.

Heyhey, look who’s awake! Hey, zip it! I was tired! What you guys up to?

Hmm well, I was planning to investigate some stuff in the sewers but I got blasted by high-concentration magic when I lifted the manhole so Gregory is checking up on me to see if nothing is wrong with me. I'm sure there is a lot wrong with you…

Hey, I don't mean it like that! Jeez, Raishin sit still! How am I supposed to make sure you won't get any magic corruption issues later on if you make this so difficult for me? Well, I was planning to try something Uraya told me but then this idiot came by saying that he might or might not have got himself blasted by a high-density magic blast. This guy sure is troublesome. I managed to calm some townspeople that were close by and saw it happen. We have a talent for setting energy blasts off. Why didn't you stop him if you were close by?! Uhh, I may or might not have been deep in thought thinking of new puns. So, here's what I came up with...

Ugh, I don't want to deal with this. I remember I have a lot to do maybe another time Ted, or never. I prefer the latter. I need to focus on Raishin’s checkup. Wow, you guys! Fine, I’ll find a way to pun-ish you guys for this!

You already are. Anyway I need to make some high-quality swords. Gregory, can you send a shadow clone to me I can only make 2 and I might need an extra set of hands to speed stuff up. Sure, I will have to make sure nobody will find out that I'm at two places at the same time though.

That's fine I will arrange for that when it arrives close to the workshop, just let it shadowmeld towards here. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot, when are we going to make a plan to deal with the pink broccoli? I heard people went to look for the pink blast everyone saw yesterday but nobody could find anything. Uhh, I don't have any plans after I finish this with Raishin. I can make some more potions afterward but that doesn't take the whole day just send a telepathic message when you’re done with your blacksmithing. Holy shit Raishin just sit still and stop touching all my stuff. Hey, what does this do?

No! Don't touch that that is concentrated anti-nausea extrac… AH IT STINKS WHAT IS THIS SMELL? IT IS AS IF SOMETHING DIED HERE!

WHY DID YOU EVEN TOUCH IT? MY NOSE! Wow, must suck to be you two, how about you Ted? I will just do some asking around, those two guys you and Gregory talked to might've found something by now. Just send a telepathic message my way too when you’re done.

Oh, by the way, Ted, it seems there is a service for telepathic messages here since it's not normal to be able to do it as we do. And it's called Teleroad. Hoo, that's a good one. I'd like to meet the person who came up with that!

Thought so, anyways I got lots to do. I closed the telepathic link or well Teleroad I guess and changed into something more suitable to forge some blades. I don't have time to do this normally as I would do it. I will for the first time in a long time use my Elgards eyes extensively to make some swords. I will have to lock my workshop since I'm planning to put my tails to use. It will be as if I had 7 extra limbs. Stuff will go exponentially faster but with my trend of shattering swords lately, I'm planning to make a lot of swords. So, I will use my 2 shadow clones to help out and Gregory’s clone for basic stuff like bringing materials over or fetching snacks.

I went downstairs when the doorbell rang.

“Can you get that for me Agnis?” Philip said from the kitchen. “Hera and I have an argument about the last dinner.” Did you find another way to not eat her dinner again? “What do you mean again?”

“Hey, Philip stop trying to escape this argument! Or do you want to go without dinner today?”

“Ugh no honey, I’m sorry.”

“Yes, you say that every time but you keep finding creative ways to manage to not eat my food. Your health keeps deteriorating because you miss so many dinners and eat those shitty cookies! You need good nutrition!”

“I’ll try to make sure that the next energy blast won't knock my dinner off the table.” Woops this instance of Philip missing his dinner might be our fault. I closed the door to give them some privacy and opened the front door. Hey Terry!

“Terry? My name is Jeremiah well I mean this is a company-issued clone so that I can enter Boshi town, while not physically entering it. I don't want to get stuck here!” Was it Jeremiah? I'm sure your name was Terry

“This is about the transaction of yesterday. In a half hour, your gold will arrive and we will pick up those ruby crystals.” He gave me a slip of paper. “We would like to exchange these valuables discreetly so if it's not too much to ask we would like to hold it at this location. I looked at the slip of paper and it had the name of the location and even a small map drawn on it.” That is fine.

“Alright, my colleagues will see you there. Oh, also my name is Jeremiah! Don't forget.” I won't! Cya later Jerry!

“Ugh, I swear kids these days.” I watched as Jerry walked off and almost tripped, looked back to check if I saw that, realized that I was smiling at him, and ran off embarrassed. Alright since I have to be there in a half hour, I will have to briefly delay my blade forging. The spot wasn't far so even if I had to physically drag those heavy ass crystals there, I would make it with about 10 minutes to spare. The problem was I didn't want to do that. I can't come there with empty hands. I will have to do something I have never done before.

I looked around and nobody seemed to be watching me. I took the cart out of my dimensional pocket. But it didn't have the rubies in it. I just put some light stuff in it but they took up a lot of space. I would carry this to the spot and when I'm close or after I arrived, I will swap them with the ruby crystals. I had a veil over the cart so it should work although the change of deformation under the veil might cause some issues. I ran some magic through the veil to make it cover the cart like it was a box. Maybe I should make it the shape of a dome? Both shapes looked weird. I decided to go for the cube-like shape and froze it solid. Now it just looked like a cart that had a huge box on it. I did some experiments with swapping items that are outside my dimensional pocket with those that are inside. It seemed to work quite well. I then tried to replace everything with the rubies in one go and I succeeded! Great! Now time to go to the meeting spot. I grabbed the cart but got pulled back by the weight. Right, I have to swap them back with the light stuff. I swapped the rubies out for some stuff and headed off to the meeting spot.

The spot was outside Boshi town just outside of the barrier at a quarry, it was easy to get there. While dragging the cart to the meeting spot I did some small experiments to see if I could swap the location of objects that weren't inside my dimensional pocket. It was some form of spatial magic or well, a skill I should be able to do. Since it is a skill, it doesn't use magic but its effects can be improved with magic. The reason why mythical and legendary creatures are so strong is that they have skills that normally would need magic to be executed. For example, my dimensional pocket. It costs me 0 mana because this falls under what nine-tailed foxes can do as a race. Any other race would have to burn a lot of mana to do stuff like this. A good comparison is when I use shadow techniques and when Gregory does this. He could throw around shadow clones all day and do his edgy shadow stuff because it is a Shadowcat skill.

Meanwhile, I have to burn mana to make shadow clones because I don't have that skill. Lately, we've been relying a lot on our racial skills because we get nauseous from using too much mana so we will try to be as effective as possible without using too much mana. That is the reason why I've been working on making weapons and improving my weapon mastery. I can't use a lot of my racial skills in public and that's the same as my buddies. I guess Ted can though. And I say weapon mastery but I would only consider myself to have somewhat mastered the sword and daggers. I can use spears, hammers, and bows too but I won't be using those for the fights where life and death matter, like fighting the pink broccoli or the last boss of that dungeon. If I had to fight Charlize or that chunky guy, I could use those to mess around. I managed to make some leaves and rocks swap places. I wondered if I could swap bigger objects.

As I was about to try this out on bigger rocks I arrived at my destination. Might not want to do anything weird now, there might be people nearby. I parked my cart ad a good spot and swapped the contents of the cart with the ruby crystals. Guess I covered the cart with the veil for nothing. There was nobody here yet. I undid the freezing on the veil and it covered the crystals so that you could see the shapes underneath it. Not long after I arrive, I heard a low humming and sensed a magical signature approaching. And there it was a big vehicle that was quite long that just hovered in and parked close by. We were at an abandoned quarry so there were tons of space. Three men in black suits and with black shades stepped out of the vehicle and approached me. I had the odd feeling that they would zap me and wipe my memory or something.

“You must be Agnis, right?” Said the first man in a black suit. He looked quite bulky and was bald. He had bronze skin and didn't seem like his body was made for wearing black suits like that. That depends on whether you guys are planning to wipe my memory or not.

“Ha, this kid is funny! He must be Agnis, Jeremiah told me about his conversation with him, truly a unique character!” I consider myself quite normal though. After I said that I realized that I actually was anything but normal. Hmm, maybe I should alter my self-assessment.

“Haha, see this is what I mean! What kiddo just randomly ends up in the largest ruby transaction in history?” Wait this is the largest? I thought you guys buy and sell a boatload of rocks all the time.

“Hahaha, ouch my sides, I can’t, this guy is too funny.” The two other men were looking at the guy who thinks anything is funny rolling on the floor laughing. What's wrong with this guy? Did you guys wipe his memory and brainwash him?

“Hahaha! Memory wipe! Brainwash! Ahahaha!!” He tried to smack my back but I sensed a lot of power behind that smack. I dodged it. Are you trying to kill me?

“Kill you? Wahahaha of course not!” “Alright, Brock, it’s time to shut up, we can't do business when you keep laughing like this in an unprofessional manner! We’re in front of a client!” “Oh right, I'm sorry. Hi, I'm Brock, I'm in charge of leading this transaction.” You’re the leader? Hoo boi, this company of yours is in trouble. The two other guys laughed a bit.

“See I told you this kid was funny!” Anyway I'm quite busy today so I want to get this over with. I walked to the cart and unveiled the cart.

“Whoa hearing about it is one thing but seeing it is something else.” Man in black nr 3 walked over to the cart. “May I touch it?” You don't have some weird magic that melts rocks on touch, right? Coz if you do, please don't.

“Wahahaha.“

“Alright, Brock, that is enough!” The man in black nr 1 seemed to cast something that looked like summoning magic and a big crate made out of metal fell out of the sky and fell on Brock. Well, to be exact it seemed to be hollow so it trapped Brock inside. “Alright, now we can't hear him. I am the designated backup leader in case something happens to Brock. Do you have any objections to this?” Is he going to be alright? I asked as I pointed to the big metal box that stood in the middle of an abandoned quarry.

“Don't worry this is not his first time in the metal box, he will be fine.” Oh, in that case, I don't have any objections.

“Can you confirm the details about what's written down here?” Yup, yup that's correct.

” Alright then we have your gold in this vehicle but... I know this is not my business but how are you going to move all this gold?” Magic!

“Well yes, we guess so but… You know what, never mind. If you want us to help you move it, we can do that free of charge. Normally with this weight, it would cost a lot but the CEO told us that we got these for quite cheap so anything you need extra we can provide for free that is if it's within our power.” Oh no, it's fine, it must've been rough on you guys getting this here to the middle of nowhere within 1 day.

“You have no idea!” Man in Black 3 got a tear in his eye. “Being stuck with Brock in a cramped space for a whole day was hell! Also, this gold is heavy as fuck so we almost caused 4 accidents. And Brock decided that it was funny and he couldn't stop laughing!” Man in black nr1 walked over to the vehicle and opened a big door on the back of it. I didn't see gold but I saw some weird-looking bags.

“Oh, these?” The man in black nr 1 asked while pointing at the bags with his thumb over his shoulder. “These bags compress space so that large volumes get uhh less voluminous. The weight stays the same though.” Oh, can I have a couple of those?

“Well technically all these bags are yours now with the gold in them but we can throw in some extra yes.” Let me guess they are really expensive but because you guys got these rubies for cheap it's free. “

Smart kid." Man in black nr 3 said while looking at the metal box. Well, my cart more or less works similarly to that, it seems it was a cart made in ancient times and I found it in the mountains. It can do the same as those bags but it also cancels out a lot of weight So I can move those easily. That was obviously a lie but failing to give them hints or an explanation of how I can move all this gold will raise suspicion.

“Ohh that explains how you got those rubies here and don't look very tired. Ancient technology is so cool.” The man in black nr 3 looked at the completely normal cart in awe. “I've heard that a lot of weird things are found in these mountain ranges so I'm not surprised. It is said that one of the very first teleport gates was found in the Lucidus mountain range.” Anyway I can move them myself so you guys don't need to worry. I used water magic to lift the rubies out and then flushed the bags out of the vehicle and into the cart. But I just moved the bags on the bottom of the pile into my dimensional pocket so the pile didn't seem to be growing.

“Whoa, awesome!” The man in black nr 3 was impressed. After I flushed the last bag on the cart, I covered it with the veil and froze it. I then swapped the gold bags under the veil with some random crap I had laying around in my dimensional pocket and started to move the cart around which was quite light now. “Wow! Hey, how about you sell us that cart?” Man in black nr 1 smacked the back of man in black nr 3’s head.

“Do you have any idea what such a thing is worth? We will probably need 2 of these vehicles full of gold to pay for that and you know what's the worst part? We have to share more cramped spaces with Brock!”

“Oh, hell no! Your cart is cool but some things are just not worth it!” Man in Black nr 3 said while he backed off. I looked over at the metal box. Speaking of Rock, I think he escaped.

“Impossible! He has never been able to escape my perfect metal box prison!” I think he dug a tunnel, this ground here is easy to dig through, after all, I said while I looked at the ground.

“Oh no!” Man in Black nr 1 said. What?

“It was nice meeting you Agnis but we’re in a hurry!”

“Yeah, we're in a hurry” man in black nr 3 echoed as they hurriedly stepped into their vehicle and rode off at a high speed. I wonder what they are going to do about Rock. Anyways, that is not my business. I scanned the area to check for the Rock’s presence but it seemed he wasn't in this area anymore. What a weirdo. I put the cart in my dimensional pocket and teleported back home.

I checked out the town to check the status of the shadow clone Gregory would send over. It seems the clone was halfway. I looked over at Gregory’s house, it seemed Raishin was still there. They looked like they were cleaning his lab. But it didn't seem to make much progress since Raishin kept knocking stuff over. It has been about 45 minutes since I last talked to them but I have the feeling they will be doing that cleaning for quite a while. I tried to look for Ted but since I didn't know where to look it proved quite the challenge. After 10 minutes of looking for him, I spotted him helping and talking to some of the elderly of the town. What I would give for a “search for” option for my eyes. I cast an illusion on the approaching shadow clone Gregory sent me and went down to the workshop. I made two shadow clones myself and waited for Gregory’s clone to arrive.

When it arrived, I locked the doors and cast an illusion around the workshop. Nobody would be able to disturb me now. I released my nine-tail spirit fox state and the clones followed suit. Even though we normally fight strong opponents with some of our tails out it's not the same as releasing the power of our race. As we normally fight, we’d be recognized as humans with tails or beast kin since there is still a level of disguise there. Releasing our true form will alert anyone close by that's sensitive to this energy that a mythical or legendary creature is close by, it will also give us access to more of our racial abilities and stuff. I laid a 5 layered illusion so that nobody would be able to notice that so all good. I don't look that much different in my released form except my hair is full silver now. I also have some blue will-o-wisps floating behind me. I have way better control over my eyes, tails, and magic in this mode. It's kind of funny that I use this to make swords but never in combat. But it would be like shouting hey a rare shiny mythical being is fighting here! I think I also have an influence on my environment when I do this but I haven't noticed anything of this yet. When my mother releases her phoenix form it turns into daytime regardless of whether it's night or day and it also seems to become like it’s summer, everything reverts to normal when she cancels it though. This illusion I made is not only to keep people outside but also to keep whatever this release does to the environment inside.

I started crafting some swords. This is the first time I did this in released nine-tail form but damn this goes fast and efficiently. It normally takes me 1 to 3 days to form one high-quality blade. After 5 hours I've already made about 17. Normally I don't lose track of time because I have a good internal clock but I was so absorbed in making swords that I forgot to pay attention to the time. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and looked at the 17 swords I made. Not a single failure. I did work myself and the clones to the bone though. If you would describe a nine tails power in short it would be spacetime and deception. I've used some minor time control to speed up processes that normally require time. I'm way more proficient in spatial control. If you were curious Gregory’s powers would be darkness and energy manipulation in short and Raishin would be energy generation and fundamental natural forces. Hmm? you thought it was electricity or lightning? Well, it is what they use the most, they mostly use electromagnetic forces but they also have access to the other forces that make up the 4 fundamental natural forces. I think electromagnetic forces are the easiest for them to use and they are super strong with those alone so I guess that works for them, each of us is overpowered in our own way. Now, why do we keep losing and have to run away? I wonder that too myself. I guess being overpowered is not enough sometimes. I put my swords in my dimensional pocket and contacted my buddies.

Yoo sorry guys it took longer than I expected but I'm done now. I realized that my illusions might interfere with this message so I canceled my transformation and illusions and dispelled my clones and sent the message again. Oh, I got worried there, we visited your house to check on you but you didn't seem to be there even though your workshop was empty.

Yeah, sorry about that I put up some strong illusions to keep people outside. And? Did you manage to make anything cool?

Hehe, I made 17 swords. What? What kind of sorcery did you use? Not sorcery, forgery, anything that needs to be cut can be cut now. Will save me the use of mana. How did the cleaning go Gregory? Please, I don't want to talk about it…

It was that bad huh? He has like a million things that are super easy to break! Anyway we all did the things we wanted to do; we were just waiting for you.

The usual place? Yes. I cleaned up the place a bit and wondered if I should just walk there or teleport. I'll have to master these teleports sooner than later so using them a lot will make me more familiar with them. I tried to send a ping to Raishin’s hut to teleport but the ping came back distorted and I decided to not go through with the teleport. What could be the cause of this? Was the dense magic leaking out of the sewers that was messing with the teleport ping? I don't know if this was a problem I had because I've not mastered this yet or if this is a problem that is normal for this technique.

I sent a stronger ping and it came back undistorted. Oh, this was definitely me. At least now I know that the pings can get distorted by going through differing magic concentrations. To test I sent multiple pings of different strengths and the weaker ones came back somewhat distorted. This was an interesting interaction. Not only does the user have to be aware that his teleport could possibly end the teleport up in the incorrect spot in similar situations I've also found a way to counter this if an enemy would ever attempt to use a short-range teleport. The pings only seem to distort whenever they moved between different concentration fields, I suppose just like light will refract when it goes from one medium to another. The magic being dense doesn't seem to affect it but going from normal into a high-density magic area will throw it off. So, I will have to account for that when I want to use it to escape. Or I can throw off enemy teleports by creating various magic concentrations between him and his destination to mess up his teleport. I smiled at this discovery that could allow me to mess with teleport spammers. I sent a strong ping toward Raishin’s hut and teleported there.

Sup! You are all probably wondering why I've gathered you here! Didn't I gather us all here? You're speaking nonsense again Raishin.

But it's my hut! So, what is the plan, Gregory?

Meh, I'm being ignored. Well since the tree seems to regenerate with the help of its roots it stands to reason that we deal with those first before we nuke the tree. Agnis if you can please? I projected a 3D map of the area from my eyes and indicated the locations where I saw the energy flow from after we nuked the tree.

These locations are where I felt energy come from and where Agnis saw energy coming from and flowing into the tree after we nuked it. I felt 7 flows but Agnis only saw 6 energy flows. I don't know if he might have missed one but there is also a possibility that one is well hidden. I located 6 roots, I looked for the 7th root with various filters but since there wasn't any energy flow I can't pinpoint where to look for and it didn't show up on any filter I used. Hmm, these roots seem to be quite far from the tree, so judging from that the 7th root could be practiced almost anywhere.

It makes me think of the message that Agnis deciphered. The real one isn't here. Maybe that root is the most important one but it is not here or something like that. Hmm, we would be screwed if that is the case. If we can't destroy all the roots we will probably be stuck here forever since the tree will just regenerate. Hmm, what if we destroy a root and then kill the tree, you can then ignore the flows you've already seen and coordinate with Gregory where the last root could be.

That sounds like a good plan, it is not like we have a lot of options. I have one concern though. Which is?

Well, this tree is obviously an end boss so what if the seven roots need to be destroyed simultaneously to kill the tree? And they regenerate if you don't. Hey, doesn't that make this tree like World Boss tier? We don't have enough people to deal with something like that! Hmm.

I agree with Raishin here, remember that summoning circle that spawned after we found it in that PB cave? Yeah, it summoned something strong. Not something we could handle solo or let a shadow clone deal with.

And if the PB was just a regular trash mob then that would make the problem worse. Boss? Trash mobs? What are you talking about Agnis?

Hmm well in games a boss marks the end of a stage or bars progress to check if you have the required skills to progress. And trash mobs are just enemies to pad out the encounter and slow and wear you down before the boss fight. But this isn't a game? Ted is right but I can see what Agnis means. I didn't know what Agnis meant with “phase 2” when fighting the PB but there was something more to it even after it seemed to be defeated.

Yes, the last boss in that dungeon I fought was the same. I seemingly defeated it and then suddenly it spiked in power and got up and started doing different stuff than it did before. I'm assuming whatever that circle summoned and the tree to do the same. Ugh, we just want to leave this town why is doing something so simple such a pain in the ass? Hmm, I see that PB definitely was a weird case and anything about this pink broccoli is weird. So how would you propose we tackle this non-tree-vial problem?

Well, if this tree is world boss tier, we’re seriously fucked but if we can kill the roots one by one and then destroy the tree it sounds quite doable. I just think we should try out and find out which of the two it is by getting rid of the only root that has been visually confirmed by me and Gregory and where we already know what the situation is around it. It will give us an indication of what to expect for the remaining roots. I hope… You hope? Well, this is very different from the adventures we've had before. You could say this is our first real adventure. We don't have our siblings or mothers to bail us out when things get dangerous So I can understand the slight uncertainty.

Hmm, it's not that, it seems I can't see what's going around the roots unless I get close to them. That's why the PB cave root is the only one I know about what to expect. I can't see what's going on there now. But since I have been close to it before I can take a guess. I think the tree has something to interfere with or influence perception of it. But indeed, not having our siblings or mothers around to help when things get dangerous is certainly a problem. If we mess up, we might die for good. Yeah, we don't have many lives, only those we got from that fun dinner before the attack. I can't relate to that but it does seem that getting hit by those spears would one-shot you so even if you have multiple lives, you could still get killed off by this tree.

It gets even worse; I told you about that dragon, right? If you get hit by it and survive it, it will mess up your magic balance. It didn't kill off that dragon but left like that he would definitely die. If any of you guys get hit by that I would probably still be able to do something by it but if I get hit then I think it's probably game over. Oh, right I forgot about that. Not that I was planning to get hit by it anyway. Do we know what the roots can do? So far, the only thing we know is that it can summon stuff and has seals protecting it. So, we will probably have to lift the seals fight whatever it summons, and then destroy the root. Not in that order, we will see how we’re gonna tackle that when we get there.

Oh! Can I fight whatever is there? I'm not good at magic control or seal stuff like you two but I know how to smash stuff! Yes, I noticed when you were in my lab… Hmm, how about this: since Agnis had the toughest job last time he gets the seemingly easy job of dealing with the seals this time while looking out for other possible incoming threats. Raishin and I will deal with the big threat and can you deal with the smaller ones Gregory?

Sure, I would need some of your offensive input from time to time to finish them off. Ok, let's go to smash some roots! Yes! Let's get to the root of the problem! Are we gonna walk, teleport, or Sonic Boom Express there?

Uhh, teleport, please. Can you port us there Raishin? I want to see how you deal with this situation. I'll leave some illusions of us behind to make it look like we’re uhm still in town. Huh? Sure, I don't know what situation you mean though, aight time to teleport!

Wait you didn't notice that the magic density interferes with… He grabbed us and his teleport went off. I saw Raishin sending the ping which came back distorted but he still accepted the ping anyway.

Oh, something didn't go well here. I facepalmed. We were at the correct location. In front of the PB cave entrance. There was one problem. Instead of on the ground we were about 1500 meters in the air. You always find new ways to surprise us.

Whoa, what happened I'm sure I got the location right! HOW CAN YOU GUYS BE SO CALM WHEN WE’RE FALLING? Ugh, you see Raishin when you send a ping through various magic densities it comes back distorted, you either have to correct it, send another ping, or just not accept the returning ping. Ooh. So how are we dealing with this situation? I don't like the idea of us turning into red splats on the ground.

I could do something but I'm sure Ted is not gonna like it. At this point, I'll take anything over turning into a red splat on the ground! I know what you mean but you shouldn't word it like that to Agnis, it will just give him ideas to try out crazier stuff next time! I fired up my tail dynamo and froze an ice ramp that will direct our falling trajectory into one that will slide down the steep ice slope and into the PB cave. I made sure to undo the frost wall I put there some days ago so that we wouldn't turn into red splats on the frost wall.

I am speed! Wait!

Too late! I grabbed my buds with my tails and slid with high speed into the cave and shot into the area where the root was.

So, guys… Oh no.

I forgot to make a plan to make us stop, any suggestions? I knew it! Gregory sighed and made a big shadow wall in front of us and covered us in a shadow cloak. We crashed into it but it felt more like a lot of dense gas was cushioning our impact.

Hey, couldn't you use this to break our fall? This is a wall; walls are vertical structures…

How pointlessly useless. Hey! It saved us! Ugh, my heart. Hehe, that was fun! We all looked angrily at Raishin.

Hehe ok, it might've been my fault I'm sorry. It's fine. I said as I made a frost wall behind us blocking the blow of a very large creature. There was a lot of power and magic in its punch but my frost wall didn't care. If I made an ice wall then that would've been a problem though. So, this is the big threat, it looks impressive but I was expecting more, it doesn't seem to be able to do much against your frost wall. Don't let that lull you into a false sense of security, Agnis’ frost wall is quite overpowered. It is probably the only good defensive skill he has.

Hey! I can't help it that I was born as a glass cannon! So, can I nuke this thing now?

Go ahead I need to deal with all these seals that seem to want to activate stuff. I froze all the seals that wanted to activate something. It would stop their activation but I couldn't keep them frozen in frost magic forever. It just bought me time to disable them one by one instead of having to worry about some activating while I was still dealing with other seals. Gregory made 4 shadow clones and erected some shadow walls to block the corrupted bats that got attracted to all the noise we were making. I will try to make some space so you guys can fight that abomination to your heart's content.

Just a warning guys, those punches that thing is doing at my frost wall gives me an enormous amount of energy so beware of getting hit by it or getting near it when it slams something could send you flying or even kill you. Understood! You can lift the wall now.

I removed the wall and the abomination’s punch headed toward Raishin. He charged up his fist with a lot of lightning. And before the fist was about to hit him it sifted to red and he met the punch with a punch of his own. Raishin didn't get sent flying it only canceled out the power of the 7-meter-tall abomination. Just like me, Raishin is also a glass cannon but as long as he can cancel out something like that punch with his own power, he won't have to worry about taking damage. Raishin is the true damage dealer in our group. I looked over at the seal in front of me. I unfroze it and looked at the magic flow. How I managed to figure out how to break the slave crest is observing the magic flow and magic runes used to make it and understanding how it affects the seal. I rerouted the magic flow in the seal to disrupt it. It won't activate for a long time now but I didn't disarm it yet. I will have to mess with some magic runes.

I will either have to insert some disruptive ones, which I don't know how to do, or rearrange them or knock some out to disarm the seal. After that, I restore the magic flow in it and it will implode. That is If I do it correctly. If I don't knock out influential runes or mess up the wrong runes it could turn into practically anything. Even though I don't have a lot of experience dealing with seals it would only take me about 2 or 3 seals to get an idea of how every seal in this room works and perhaps even all the seals protecting the other.

Every magic circle uses magic runes so if I get proficient in this, I might be able to mess more with magic circle formations. So far, I could only influence them when I’m in direct contact with them. I see 3 magic runes that seem to be very important to the functioning of the seal. 1 seems to be a trap though, knocking that one out might just summon another monster or explode or something I don't want to happen, so I knocked the other two out and swapped the order of the trap with some other runes. I restored the magic flow in the seal and the seal fizzled out. Alright, I'm not gonna do something risky like trying to find a faster or more efficient way to disarm these because that might be a bad idea, I want to but as I look around, I see that there are about 43 seals on this root. Someone really wanted to protect this root. I went to the next seal and did the same thing I did to the previous one. The last seal took me about 5 minutes to disarm, I don't think I can do it much faster than 5 minutes though because it could blow up on me if I got careless. 43 seals times 5 minutes, eh? This is gonna suck. Time for my shadow clones! It will make it 3 times faster but it's still gonna take a while.

Yoo, guys, I need about an hour and 15 minutes to deal with all these seals! Are we allowed to kill this abomination before the seals are lifted? I don't know! Do you need help? I can send 2 clones your way but I can't spare any more than that. Will you be okay with using fewer clones to deal with those corrupted bats? Eh? It should be fine, they are numerous but not that strong, as long as they don't bite me and corrupt my mana, I’ll be fine, I have my shadow cloak on so no way that will happen. Aight, I’ll link your vision with mine with instructions on how to disarm these, if you find a faster way surely do tell me.

I linked up my vision with Gregory, which had the effect of it also linking to his clones. With the 2 clones of Gregory helping out it would only take about 45 minutes to deal with these seals unless we find a faster way. I disarm 3 more seals and they don't seem to be any different. I think the caster of these seals assumed that there was no way to deal with these seals activating before anyone can get to them so just copy-pasted the same seal over and over. It certainly was effective if I couldn't stop their activation with frost magic. Anyways dealing with these seals is monotonous and not very exciting. The only noteworthy moment was having to dodge the abomination that Raishin and Ted were throwing across the room. At first, they seemed to be struggling with it but after they got used to the attack patterns and the abomination’s habits, they started to slowly overpower the abomination. It might be me but it seemed like the abomination looked a bit different than I remembered.