Chương 340: B5—Chapter 60: From Brickwork to Bodywork: A Spellcaster’s Guide to Chaos

Perched at the highest point of the keep, I watched the hive of activity below, a constant flow of movement like an anthill in overdrive. Over the past week, Mahya had been making four to five runs a day, ferrying people across, and the first two hot air balloons crafted in New Sanctuary had joined the relocation efforts. Together, they transferred more than a hundred people daily. We still pitched in with material transfers using our Storages—especially Al.

He loved flying on the sword and didn't mind making a couple of runs a day to haul supplies. Not that he didn't grumble about it. He never missed a chance to complain about the "nosy, annoying amateur spies" poking around, trying to figure out how he was storing and moving everything. But beneath the griping, I could tell—he relished the cat-and-mouse game, no matter what he claimed. Things were moving along so well that, in my opinion, it was about time for us to leave.

Sure, we'd made friends here, and the progress felt satisfying, but this was never meant to be a place for us to settle. My wanderlust was growing stronger by the day, itching at the edges of my mind, restless and insistent. There were still a few things I wanted to wrap up, but the feeling was clear—it was time to tie up loose ends and get ready to move on.

This world had plenty of Gates, and I sincerely hoped one of them would take us somewhere exciting—somewhere worth exploring at length before we inevitably moved on again. I compiled a list of everything I wanted to finish before we left and started knocking them out one by one. First on the list was the new reinforcement spell. I was curious to figure out how it worked, and more importantly, I hoped it would give me some insight into working with the earth element.

Final Reinforcement For 500 mana, permanently enhances the strength and durability of a completed structure, making it resistant to wear, weather, and physical impacts. It reinforces weak points and solidifies joints. Multiple casters can channel mana together to share the cost of the spell. The results were… interesting, to put it mildly. And the spell description? Misleading as hell. I started with one of the newer buildings in the keep, casting the spell and watching as the structure subtly shifted.

The walls firmed up, the rough edges smoothed out, and the entire thing felt more solid, like the difference between raw stone and something expertly carved and fitted. So far, so good. Then, I turned my attention to the original keep, and that's when things got weird. As I channeled mana into the fortress, something felt off. Certain areas drank in the spell's energy greedily, while others barely reacted.

The difference was almost visible—where they had used the Fuse Stone spell to fix the walls, the structure held firm, dense, and immovable. But the untouched sections swallowed my mana like a bottomless pit, absorbing it without reinforcing the rest of the keep. Inspecting the outer walls, I found even more areas where they didn't use Fuse Stone. It made sense—they looked solid enough on their own, and whoever cast the spell had probably needed to conserve mana.

Still, the spell claimed to reinforce a completed structure, not just random sections. Three more casts revealed an even bigger problem. Once I fully reinforced a wall, its connection to the adjacent walls became crooked. The newly perfected section no longer aligned seamlessly with the less-refined ones, creating slight shifts at the joints. It wasn't bad enough to trigger a collapse, but it wasn't good either.

I set aside any hope of gleaning insights from the spell about earth magic and focused entirely on modification. Although my wizard skills absorbed my Minor Spell Adaptation, I still had it, and now had to figure out how to use it. For three days, I wrestled with the spell mesh, aspects and pattern, testing every angle. And then, finally, I cracked it. Buried deep in the spell was an aspect acting like a budget, reserving a fixed amount of mana for the cast.

I punctured that aspect, carving a channel straight into it. The effect was immediate. The spell shifted from a single cast to a continuous channel, guzzling mana like a bottomless pit. But I had mana to spare—more than enough to brute-force my way through. This version would be utterly impractical for almost anyone else, but that didn't stop me from swelling with pride as I pushed through, reinforcing the entire keep. Over 11, 000 mana drained in minutes.

By the time I finished, the world tilted, my vision wobbled, and a skull-splitting headache crashed down like a hammer. I spent the next half an hour swaying on my feet, willing the pain to pass. Then I checked my profile. Spell Creation had progressed from [Junior] to [Medior]. I let out a loud whoop, bouncing on my toes like a maniac sports fan who had just witnessed a last-second win. Then reality set in—oh right, I was in public. That creeping sense of oh no, people saw that started to crawl up my spine.

I looked around, trying to appear nonchalant. A couple folks had noticed. One or two smiled. Thankfully, no one burst out laughing. It could've been worse. Now, the spell appeared on my profile as Perpetual Reinforcement, and when I poked it, the description had changed too—which threw me off. When I'd used a scroll to merge Verdant Grasp with Bramble Shield, creating Thornbind Barrier, the original spells had remained on my profile. But this time, the original spell was gone, replaced entirely by the new version.

Perpetual Reinforcement By channeling mana continuously, this spell strengthens and fortifies a completed structure, enhancing durability, resistance to wear, weather, and physical impacts. The spell reinforces weak points, solidifies joints, and adapts dynamically to structural integrity. Unlike the original version, this spell no longer functions as a single cast, but instead consumes mana as long as it is sustained. While highly effective, the mana cost is extreme, making it impractical for most casters.

Multiple casters can channel mana together to share the burden of reinforcement. Stolen novel; please report. That was strange enough, but things got even weirder when I tried to relearn the original spell from a scroll. The scroll burned up as usual, but I didn't get the spell back. The same thing had happened to Mahya when she tried relearning spells she had converted. I glanced up at the sky and grumbled, "It's not fair. I didn't sell it or convert it, so why can't I get it back?"

The system ignored me completely—didn't even send amusement or anything. I waited until my mana regenerated before channeling the spell into the wall. Since they had built it using the new spells, I figured it wouldn't need nearly as much mana. Turned out I was dead wrong. Sure, per square meter, it consumed far less than the keep. But when the wall stretched nearly fourteen kilometers long and stood almost thirteen meters tall? Yeah, that was big.

This time, I remembered my original goal: to learn something about the Earth element from the spell. Before casting, I wrapped the entire structure in my mana sense, letting it seep into the stone to feel what was happening inside. The experiment was… enlightening. The spell sucked me dry in less than ten minutes, reinforcing only about thirty meters of wall.

Worse, the further my mana traveled from the point of contact, the more expensive it became—almost as if some of the energy was being lost in the effort of bridging the distance. Then, there was the really strange part. As my mana worked through the stone, it wasn't just reinforcing it—it was altering it at a fundamental level. The composition changed, almost on a molecular or even atomic level. It was still stone, but it was… more stone-y.

Denser, more solid, yet somehow infused with a flexibility that didn't exist in regular rock. Weird stuff. And definitely not something I had the skill—or the faintest idea—how to replicate. Not now, not in the near future, not even in the medium future. This was waaay over my head. It took me three weeks to complete the wall reinforcement. Every time I ran out of mana, I used the downtime to answer Rima's endless stream of questions.

More than once, I found myself looking back fondly on the days when she had been shy, uncertain, and too afraid to speak up. Those days were long gone—buried deep and forgotten. Now, she was making up for lost time by bombarding me nonstop. One topic she kept circling back to was the concept of reversing healing magic—using it to harm instead of heal. She kept poking at the idea, turning it over from every angle, until I finally had enough. I frowned, crossing my arms as I leveled a look at her.

"Why are you trying so hard to find a way to hurt someone with your magic? We're healers. We heal, not harm." Rima huffed, rolling her eyes.

"I need to protect myself." She gestured sharply, frustration edging her voice.

"I'm a woman. That already makes me weaker than most men, and against guys with strength-focused classes? I'm at an even bigger disadvantage." Her expression hardened.

"The guards are great, and they do their best, but I've already had to fend off some aggressive advances." She leaned forward, her tone taking on a calculated edge.

"If I can find a way to do it with my magic, it could be the perfect solution. Imagine some winter hog trying to paw at me and suddenly sneezing uncontrollably or, I don't know—getting explosive diarrhea." She sighed dreamily but with a vicious edge that made me shudder for a second.

"I don't know, Rima... this feels wrong." I tried again to make her drop the idea.

"In the past, I took an oath to do no harm." Rima crossed her arms and stared at the ground.

"I lost my husband. And my friends. I'm scared I'll be next." Her voice was tight, but she kept going.

"Yeah, I want to protect myself from the aggressive, disrespectful types in New Sanctuary—but it's not just about that. I know we'll probably be safer here, but you can't promise me we'll never be attacked again." She looked up, meeting my eyes. Steadier now.

"If someone lays hands on me, I want them to regret it. I need to protect myself, John. I can't keep waiting for someone else to step in." That broke through whatever hesitation I still had. I gave her a slow nod. I wasn't completely sure about all of it—but I understood her. I understood the fear. And I couldn't say no anymore. Figuring out how to weaponize healing magic turned out to be one of the strangest projects I'd ever been roped into.

For four weeks, between reinforcing the wall and moving on to the new buildings of the keep, we experimented. We started with theory—dissecting how healing magic worked at its most fundamental level. Healing repaired tissue, restored function, and balanced internal processes. The trick was figuring out how to push it past balance, how to use that same magic to disrupt rather than fix. Rima, of course, was far too excited about this.

"So, if we accelerate healing in a way that forces the body to overcompensate…" she mused, pacing back and forth while I rubbed my temples.

"We could trigger inflammation," I admitted grudgingly.

"Maybe even fever. But that's a slow effect, not exactly useful in a fight." Rima snapped her fingers.

"What about allergies? Sneezing, swelling, something that hits fast?" This led to three days of testing different methods to trick the body into reacting as if it were under attack. I cast spells on patches of my own skin, forcing temporary rashes and congestion. Rima, on the other hand, took it a step further, giggling like a madwoman as she made a burly volunteer break out in hives after a single touch. He wasn't amused. The stomach approach was next.

If healing balances bodily functions, unbalancing them should, in theory, prompt an immediate reaction. That was how we spent an entire evening making unfortunate test subjects—including ourselves—sprint for the nearest toilet.

"This is so much more effective than poison," Rima declared proudly, arms crossed as another poor soul groaned.

"Yeah," I muttered, pressing a hand to my stomach.

"It's also so much worse than poison." The key breakthrough happened at the end of the third week. I had been experimenting with the concept of misdirected healing, attempting to send rapid signals to the nervous system. Instead of fixing pain, what if we induced phantom pain? If we pushed the body to react to injuries that weren't there? Rima practically vibrated with excitement when we tested it on another volunteer—a willing one, of course.

"How do you feel?" I asked, watching closely as the man flexed his fingers. His face scrunched up.

"It's… weird. Like my legs fell asleep, but everywhere." Rima poked his arm. He jolted violently.

"Ow! What the hell?" Rima grinned, triumphant.

"We made your nerves too sensitive." By the fourth week, we had a small arsenal of effects to choose from—sneezing fits, sudden nausea, phantom pains, and, of course, the ever-reliable explosive diarrhea spell. Rima's personal favorite. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with the whole thing, but I had to admit—it worked.

"This is the best thing we've ever done," Rima declared, hands on her hips as she surveyed our notes. I stared at the list of symptoms we had successfully weaponized and exhaled slowly.

"This is definitely the weirdest thing I've ever done." The strangest part wasn't just that Mahya and Al found our experiments fascinating—it was that they actively contributed. They threw out ideas, debated techniques, and even volunteered as test subjects more than once. Rue, on the other hand, had zero interest in the magical intricacies of biological sabotage. His stance was simple and unwavering: just bite them. In his opinion, there was no need for sneezing fits, phantom pains, or sudden digestive distress.

Biting solved everything. Honestly? After four weeks of magical trial and error, mana exhaustion, and too many trips to the toilet, I thought he had a point.