Infinite Mana - Chapter 186: One Wall at a Time (Patreon)

Sieghart returned to the dungeon that evening with considerably more interest in being attacked than usual. Mana Barrier had finally become a proper spell, but a description inside his Status could not tell him how useful it would actually feel. The camp was quieter by then. Most explorers had returned with their spoils, leaving only scattered lanterns near the entrance and occasional arguments drifting from the tavern. Sieghart passed them without stopping, carrying empty bags where merchandise had sat earlier.

He found his first volunteer beyond the passage where the upper mining galleries divided. A stone golem stood motionless beside an abandoned cart until Sieghart approached, then turned with a scraping sound and immediately began walking toward him.

Sieghart positioned a Mana Barrier across its path, leaving enough distance behind the transparent surface to retreat if necessary. Testing a defensive spell did not require trusting it with his skull before he understood its limits.

“Go ahead.”

The golem raised one enormous fist and struck. Pale light rippled across the barrier, spreading from the point of impact toward its edges before the whole surface cracked and burst into fading fragments.

Sieghart stepped backward, but the fist had already stopped. The barrier was gone, yet it had interrupted the blow rather than allowing the stone knuckles to continue directly toward his face. A replacement appeared while the construct pulled its arm back. The next punch produced almost the same result, shattering the boundary and forcing Sieghart to rebuild it before the golem could take another step.

“One punch. Better than my ribs.”

He repeated the exchange several times, gradually shortening the gap between one barrier collapsing and another taking its place. The golem supplied consistent impacts without becoming frustrated, changing tactics, or insulting his apparent age.

Eventually, Sieghart attempted placing a second barrier behind the first. Another defensive line would give him more time to react, especially against something capable of following one strike with another before his casting finished. The new boundary flickered into existence, and the old one immediately began unraveling. Sieghart tried holding both structures, but their edges blurred as his concentration shifted between them instead of preserving either.

The golem stepped through the collapsing first barrier and struck the unstable second one. Both disappeared together, forcing Sieghart to use Impulse before the stone fist smashed into the floor beside his boots.

“Right. One at a time.”

He disabled the construct’s knee with Water Jet, then extracted its main core after breaking the remaining control nodes. The next experiment could happen without something repeatedly trying to turn him into part of the tunnel. Sieghart created another barrier and pressed his fingertips against it. His hand passed through without resistance, followed by his forearm, though the pale surface remained visible around him through Magic Vision.

He stepped across completely and returned, finding no difficulty in either direction. That was convenient; he could place the barrier ahead, retreat through it, and leave a charging enemy behind the boundary.

His spells received considerably less generous treatment. Sieghart formed a weak Wind Blade and sent it toward the barrier, expecting that perhaps his own mana would receive the same permission as his body.

The blade struck the surface and broke apart. Light spread across the defensive plane, revealing damage where Sieghart had just spent mana attacking the protection he had spent mana creating.

“Of course.”

A barrier that allowed every attack from its creator through while stopping everything approaching him would have been wonderfully unfair. Sieghart would have appreciated it, but apparently that convenience required something more sophisticated than his first spell. He studied the space above the barrier instead. The upper edge remained below the ceiling, leaving enough room for a narrow attack if he could guide its trajectory without striking the stone overhead.

A second Wind Blade rose above the boundary, curved downward, and cut a shallow line into the abandoned golem’s torso. Sieghart watched the result with a small smile while maintaining the barrier between them.

His magic did not need to travel straight anymore. Guiding spells demanded more attention, but turning an attack around an obstacle was a minor inconvenience compared with personally intercepting whatever the obstacle stopped. The next golem let him test the arrangement properly. Sieghart placed the barrier between them, waited for its arm to rise, then sent a curved Wind Blade toward the exposed shoulder node.

The punch shattered his defense. His spell struck a moment later, cutting into the joint while Sieghart replaced the barrier and adjusted the angle of another blade with his free hand. Three attacks disabled the shoulder. He changed targets, drew the golem toward a narrower section, and cut its knee while the remaining fist hammered uselessly against another boundary that immediately broke.

The barriers were hardly impressive individually. Their value came from giving Sieghart predictable moments when the construct committed its weight, raised its arms, and exposed exactly the sections he wanted to dismantle.

For once, his boots remained planted through most of the encounter. He still needed to reposition whenever the golem approached from an awkward angle, but his legs were no longer responsible for every successful defense. That mattered more than the small protection value suggested. Against stronger opponents, a barrier might buy only an instant, yet Sieghart already knew how much could happen during an instant.

He continued through the upper galleries, alternating between guided Wind Blades and Glacial Fists appearing beyond the barrier. Water Jet remained useful whenever he stepped aside and gained a clear line toward a damaged node. The arrangement had limits that became obvious when two golems approached from separate passages. One occupied the barrier while the other moved around its edge, forcing Sieghart to abandon his comfortable position before both reached him.

He used Impulse to retreat into a narrow corridor and established the boundary there instead. The first golem blocked its companion’s approach, allowing Sieghart to dismantle them without managing attacks from opposite directions.

“So you’re useful. Just not an excuse to stand like an idiot.”

By the time Sieghart reached the next descent, he had become considerably better at deciding where the barrier belonged before fighting began. Corridors, corners, broken pillars, and abandoned mining cuts all changed how effectively one defensive plane could delay an enemy.

The deeper stone constructs carried thicker armor around their joints, demanding more precise cuts, but they still relied upon the same internal network. Magic Vision allowed Sieghart to find those connections without destroying valuable material unnecessarily. One contained a dark metallic deposit across its lower torso. Another had several pale crystals embedded behind its shoulder plates, protected well enough that Sieghart spent extra time separating them after removing the central core.

He stopped collecting ordinary stone almost immediately. His carriage had room, but getting material back to it remained his responsibility, and carrying worthless rubble would make every valuable discovery afterward increasingly inconvenient.

Even with that restraint, the bags became heavier much faster than expected. Sieghart filled one with intact cores, another with ore fragments, and carefully wrapped the more promising crystals before packing them separately. He could have stayed longer. More footsteps echoed below, and every descent promised better materials, but testing the new spell while preserving his loot had already produced enough useful results for one visit.

On the return climb, he used Telekinesis to take some weight from the bags while keeping their straps across his shoulders. Losing concentration would make them heavy again rather than scatter his earnings down the tunnel.

The prospect of carrying more eventually brought his thoughts back toward the carriage. It had started as transportation, then become a workshop, bedroom, shop, storage room, and occasionally something he worried about more than his own safety. Sieghart was not filthy rich, regardless of how encouraging the latest sales had looked. Still, the cores and ores would provide more money, and practical improvements were easier to justify than another expensive book purchased because its title sounded interesting.

A proper sleeping space came first. He was tired of rearranging crates before lying down, then waking with the edge of a storage compartment pressed against whichever part of his back complained most loudly.

A folding bunk fixed above the cargo would solve that without consuming too much room. Better padding, drawers beneath the workbench, and stronger restraints for fragile materials would make the interior less irritating as well. He already owned diagrams for heating and cooling systems. Installing those before the weather changed seemed sensible, especially if better ventilation also kept engraving dust from collecting around everything he ate and slept beside.

Sieghart adjusted a strap against his shoulder and imagined a small lifting mechanism near the rear doors. Loading ore should not require wasting concentration on Telekinesis every time he wanted to put something away. All those changes were practical. The larger idea waiting behind them was considerably less modest, although Sieghart suspected it would become more useful than every other improvement if he eventually made it work.

He wanted the carriage to fly. The thought made him smile despite the weight on his shoulders. Roads, damaged bridges, blocked passes, and endless detours would become much less troublesome if his entire traveling home could simply rise above them.

He had already carried himself and Ronan through the air on a stone platform. Lifting a carriage was not impossible; keeping it stable, steerable, and safe without constantly improvising beneath the wheels was the difficult part. A wagon rocking through the sky while books, tools, and ore shifted inside sounded considerably less amusing once he imagined sitting at the controls. The cargo needed to remain balanced, and landing could not depend upon finding forgiving ground.

Still, runic channels could distribute lifting force through the frame instead of concentrating everything beneath one point. Separate formations might control direction while others kept the cabin level whenever the wind tried doing something inconvenient. He would need tests, materials, and probably several repairs before trusting the arrangement. That was fine. Sieghart rather liked the idea of looking at an ordinary carriage and deciding the lack of flight was a temporary defect.

“Eventually.”

Sunlight reached him as he approached the entrance, interrupting thoughts of steering formations and reinforced landing supports. The camp sounded busier than when he left, although the noise lacked the familiar rhythm of ordinary trading. Sieghart emerged carrying noticeably more than during his previous return and initially paid little attention to the people nearby. His first concern was whether his carriage remained where he had secured it.

It did. The chains were still in place, and nobody appeared to have touched the covered steering assembly. Sieghart started toward it, already estimating which materials he should sell and which might serve his next project.

A shout from the road drew his attention away from the bags. Sieghart looked up and realized that almost everyone else had already stopped what they were doing to watch something approaching. Several carriages were approaching the camp in a close procession, their polished roofs appearing above the surrounding wagons. Mounted escorts rode ahead, encouraging workers to move carts and equipment away from the main approach.

The lead vehicle was dark, broad, and reinforced without looking like ordinary military transportation. Metal fittings followed the corners of its body, while neatly painted insignia marked the doors beneath windows covered by heavy curtains. Two more carriages followed, along with covered supply wagons and additional riders. Their harnesses matched, their horses looked well maintained, and none of the drivers seemed uncertain about where the procession was supposed to go.

Sieghart slowed beside his own vehicle. The bearded trader who had complained about another dungeon runner was already straightening his coat. Near the tavern, several explorers stopped talking while a man from the camp’s administrative building hurried toward the road.

That reaction told Sieghart more than the decorative fittings. Ordinary merchants negotiated for space when they arrived; this group was being given it before anyone had stepped down to ask. He briefly activated Magic Vision and saw prepared enchantments running through the central carriage. The formations were too distant to examine properly, but their arrangement looked considerably more deliberate than the circuits he had assembled himself.

Under different circumstances, Sieghart would have found that interesting enough to keep watching the vehicle. Right now, the escorts spreading through the camp attracted more of his attention than the craftsmanship.

The flying-carriage project slipped from his thoughts. Whoever had arrived possessed money, authority, or enough influence that everyone nearby considered appearing unhelpful a poor decision. Sieghart had encountered that atmosphere often enough to recognize it without needing an introduction.

He lowered his bags beside the locked cargo compartment and watched the central carriage stop facing the dungeon. Apparently, the camp had acquired somebody important while he was underground, and ordinary business was already rearranging itself around them.