Abel started to see the difference in geography as he passed by the hundreds of magic towers. He could see that there were a bunch of valleys here and there, and further up, there were even higher mountains. He also realized something else as he was moving with the “instantaneous movement.” The rocks on the ground were now mostly hematites. He was a grandmaster blacksmith himself, so it would be easy for him to see how high their quality was. It was strange, really, seeing how such fine minerals were just laying on the ground like pieces of pebbles.
Anyways, he marched forward by teleporting himself. He was starting to discover something again. This was a mining site. There were more and more of these very fine minerals. Wizard Hal was fast to cast “instantaneous movement,” so it wasn’t like they had the time to slow down and take a tour around the area.
Wizard Hal faced a valley to teleport towards. Frankenstein followed Abel the whole way, and Abel was just starting to see the castle on the mountain. As he got closer and closer, he realized that the castle was made entirely of steel. It was truly a castle of steel. It would be a lot easier to build castles here with steel rather than rocks, he imagined. As for who built this one here, it was easy to tell since it was done in classic dwarven style. As they went closer towards the steel castle, a scanning wave swept across him. It was like their identities were checked immediately, and a man walked out to wait for them.
“Hal! Why aren’t you coming with the teleportation circle? A middle-aged law-defying wizard asked and smiled, “And that’s Master Bennett, I presume. Welcome to the lightning clan’s battle fort.”
Wizard Hal was very polite, “Greetings, Wizard Davy. Abel, that’s one of our veteran law-defying wizards.”
Abel bowed and responded, “Sorry to intrude, Wizard Davy.”
As friendly as Wizard Davy’s demeanor was, Able couldn’t ignore the blood on him. It was like his entire conscience was focused on killing, and whether this intense was directed towards any specific person, one would have to guess that he’s just had a very messy fight no long ago.
Wizard Davy made an inviting gesture, “No worries, Master Bennett. Here, let’s go inside the castle first.”
Frankenstein brought Abel through the spell circle barrier and followed the two into the castle hallroom. As they’ve arrived, three law-defying wizards that were waiting for them went up to greet them. Abel was very surprised, of course. He didn’t think that there’d be this many law-defying wizards in one place.
There were three inside the palace and one on patrol outside. That was five law-defying wizards in just two minutes. As they all had their formal greetings with one another, they began to take their seats around a long table. After that, a rank 20 advanced wizard came up to serve drinks to all of them, which was not something Abel would expect a rank 20 advanced wizard would do.
Wizard Davy smiled and explained, “So this is where the lightning clan marks their post on their frontline. Master Bennett, our mission is to guard this battle fort and ensure that the valley and all its surrounding areas were safe.
Wizard Hal was quiet. Wizard Davy must be the figure of authority in this place.
Abel was very keen, “I’ve noticed that there were a lot of mines around here, Wizard Davy. How come they are so abundant over here?”
“Same question as anyone else, haha!” Wizard Davy laughed, then pointed towards the sky, “Before, there would be dimensional cracks around the sky here. The sky demons came to our world through here. At the same time, the same strange dimensional force generated countless mining sites that just came to be.”
Abel continued to ask, “Are these castles guarding the hematite mines, then?”
Wizard Davy responded, “No, our castles don’t guard the hematites. We guard the magic stone and mithril.”
Magic stones were a given, one would guess. They were irreplaceable for switching on spell circles and puppet mechanisms. It was pretty much what supported the economy of the central continent, in a sense. The mithril was an even rarer type of ingredient that was widely used for all magic items and spell circles.
Abel was quite astonished, “This is a treasure from the heavens. That’s what I’d call this place.”
Wizard Davy shook his head suddenly, “No, Master Bennett. This land is cursed!”
“How come?”
“You’ve seen it for yourself,” Wizard Davy responded, “Only those who’re rank 20 or above are allowed to be deployed here. Every once in a while, the nation of evil unleashes a terrible ripple force that will ruin anyone who’s below rank twenty. Some of the incidents that happened before… you wouldn’t want to hear it.”
Abel was curious, “I do. The ripples. You mean they come from the sky demons? Again, I don’t know too much about what goes on here at the frontline.”
Wizard Davy tried to be patient, “Supposedly. The regular ones are fine, and every once in a while, when there’s a more major ripple force, even the second row would be harmed if the doomsday defense wall there. The interval is estimated to be around each century to even a millennium. Every once in a while, an intensive wave would pass through the wall and go straight into our world.”
As Abel listened to this explanation, he began to think about the food crisis that was happening several years ago on the Holy Continent. Perhaps it was really started by the sky demons.
He became very keen to ask something, “Wasn’t there just an incident back a few days ago, Wizard Davy?”
Wizard Davy nodded his head, “Yes, Master Bennett. That wave shock has ruined the food supply chain on the central continent. Things are still not running back to normal even at this moment.”
Abel sighed and said, “Not just the central continent. Where I come from, the subcontinent has also been in dire situations because of the wave. Countless wars have been waged because of shortage of resources across different regions.”
Wizard Davy was more interested in something else, “Could you reveal the rankings of the law-defying wizard next to you, Master Bennett? For the upcoming war, we’ll need a legitimate way of organizing the men.”
Abel smiled and spoke, “Sure. Frankenstein here is a rank 21 freezing elemental wizard. His actual fighting capability is definitely higher than what his ranking shows. I’d like to add.”
Wizard Davy shook his head, “Thanks for telling me that, Master Bennett. I didn’t want to cause any misunderstanding by doing a power of the Will scan on him. He’s rank 21, you say? If he’s above that in actuality, where would you say his true strength lies?”
Abel stuttered for a bit, “Uh, well, uh, I, he’s above 21… probably two ranks above?”
Abel’s not going to talk about the gears. That would cause chaos if he told the others about gears there that could improve one’s rankings. He wasn’t going to tell anyone about the runes, either. He would only let his most trusted summon creatures wear the buff gears, and before he was without any true rivals on this continent, he was not going to give away any of his secrets. The study of runes was not a very thoroughly studied field in this world. The lack of fundamental education and some historical reasons made research stagnant at the very early stage.
“And can you bring Master Bennett around, Hal? For lunch, apart from the wizards on post, we’ll all commence our operation at once, ” Wizard Davy spoke to Hal, then turned to Abel, “Excuse us, Master Bennett. Have a look around this place as we ready ourselves for another operation.”
Having said that, Wizard Davy and the other law-defying wizards left the hallroom, leaving just Abel and Hal right where they were.
Wizard Hal finally had a smile on his face, “So, yeah. We have a lot of law-defying wizards in the lightning clan, don’t we, Master Bennett?”
Abel wasn’t going to say he’s one as well, “They must be very powerful.”
Wizard Hal wasn’t going to be humble about it, “Wizard Davy was a rank 23 wizard. He’s about to be promoted to rank 24 now. The other three wizards were all rank 22.”
After becoming real lightning clan wizards, that was when people started to realize where the clan’s true strength was. The zapping spells were the key, really. Because of the strengthening effect, they’ve managed to reach a point where it was enough to kill a person. This was already the case when one just became a law-defying wizard. A level one “command lightning” could boost all lightning spells by 50%. After that, with every rank, the spell would boost by another 12%. When the spell reached rank five, one would automatically become a rank 22 law-defying wizard.
Abel couldn’t help but speak with awe, “So this is how powerful the lightning clan is.”
Wizard Hal seemed to like the remark very much, “All the more after you join, Master Bennett. Right now, there are a total of six lightning law-defying wizards in total, and with you, a dragon druid and Wizard Frankenstein, and Beamon giant beast, there would be a total of nine law-defying wizards worth of fighting force in total.”
Abel spoke humbly, “But there is a time limit to my dragon transformation. We cannot fight for too long, and every time we perform a transformation, there is a long freezing time.”
Wizard Hal couldn’t help but laugh at that, “Coming from someone who beat up four fanatic knights in less than a minute, ha! Let’s go, Master Bennett. I’ll take you over to look at the mining pit.”
As they left the battle fort, Wizard Hal performed an “energy shield” and “freezing armor” on himself.
Wizard Hal spoke to Abel, “We didn’t stop on the way coming here, but we ought to be more careful now we’re heading towards the mining pit. Please, Master Bennett. Call out all of your forces to protect your own safety.”
Having heard what Wizard Hal said, Abel activated the spell rune in his hand and generated a “storm armor” on him. He then called out a grey bear, the Beamon giant beast, and five undead crows. The undead crows were a bit of an extra, but he thought that it was helpful if they could spot enemies from afar.
Having seen the defensive circle on him, Frankenstein began to get to work. Its fighting instinct made it add defensive spells on its body. Again, Wizard Hal was at the front as he was supposed to lead the way. Frankenstein was carrying Abel and the grey bear from behind. Frankenstein’s power of the Will was wrapped around the undead crows as they teleported together. Doff was the only one that was teleporting himself. However, they all moved together in formation, and it was like they were an army of their own.
Wizard Hal didn’t say anything, but he was quite jealous of the number of summoned creatures Abel owned in truth. It wasn’t like he didn’t own a few before, but they just became irrelevant as his ranks got higher.