14 Dilemma

Cole pulled the tent flap open just enough to look inside. It had been a week since the duelist's injury. He was looking a bit better, but still spent the majority of every day resting. The cleric was able to walk around and perform daily tasks, but it would still be at least another five days before it would be safe for him to perform any healing magic.

Cole let the tent flap fall closed and rubbed his his face, hoping he could somehow wipe away his worry.

The truth was, they didn't have enough provisions to stay here much longer, so they needed to come to a decision. The original plan was to follow a specific route that would loop all the way back to the entrance of the dungeon while passing through several points of interest. Doing so would allow them to collect rare materials that could be sold for an excellent price.

However, the party used up all the holy crystals they had gathered and there weren't any more known holy crystal deposits along the rest of the route they planned to take.

Every adventurer was taught a few basic healing spells so they could patch themselves up with a holy crystal in a pinch. Holy crystals were essentially first-aid packs for adventurers, and the gentle dog party was fresh out of them.

The guardsman was the leader of the group, and he was a very cautious man. He wanted to head back the way they came and save the rest of the trip for a later date. However, everyone else wanted to push forward, including the two injured members. The rest of the party spent a lot of time trying to convince the guardsman to let them continue to expedition.

If they continued forward, they would have to do so with no healing capabilities. If they wanted to acquire more holy crystals, they would have to turn back and deprive themselves of the other, more lucrative resources which were farther along the route.

It was a classic dilemma of risk vs reward.

Besides that whole matter, there was something else on Cole's mind. He turned towards the range he set up on the other end of the safe haven.

There was a mass of brown vines growing from the wall where he made his first attempt of the vine casket spell. It was the very first attempt he made, and thus was the only one that didn't hit his metal target. It was meant to be an inactive spell that shouldn't do anything, but it turned out to be a slow-growing version of vine casket instead.

He made sure to cut away the new vines every day, but couldn't cut the spell source- the seed- from the wall. The vines continued to grow in every direction. If this kept up, they would eventually reach the ring of glowing runes that encircled the safe haven.

He wasn't too worried about the runes themselves, as one part of the safe haven's walls was covered with a mass of magic ice crystals. A mass of magic vines shouldn't cause an issue either.

However, it was possible for the seed to eventually crack the stone that held the runes. Cole couldn't help but wonder if it would be fine then or not.

Cole stretched his shoulders in an attempt to forget his worries and went to join Aizen at the range.

Aiz had gathered a bag of crystals from the ice wall and was practicing the ice shard spell Cole had taught him the other day. At the moment, he was consulting his notebook, trying to solve some unknown problem.

Aizen was surprisingly studious. He was currently sitting next to the bag of magic ice crystals, reading from a notebook where he recorded everything Cole taught him. He was a magic user like Cole, but like most, he was an unstudied one.

It was expensive to study at an academy for magic and difficult to acquire entry too. Every mage could perform magic that matched their own mana attribute, but learning true spells required extensive knowledge on arcane theory as well as experience that was dangerous to gain without guidance.

Besides that, learning spells outside of one's own attribute often times would only be effective when using a magic crystal to supply mana of the appropriate attribute, and burning through mana crystals was expensive.

Aizen noticed Cole walk up and stop nearby, checking up on his progress. He wondered what attribute Cole had, but decided against asking. Instead, he got up and faced down range, preparing to demonstrate his progress.

Aizen held out one hand with his fingers curved slightly forwards. Using his other hand, he placed a crystal on the back of his wrist, just behind his outstretched hand and held it in place. Then he took a deep breath and focused his mind before activating the spell.

A blue light flashed as a shard of ice formed in front of Aizen's palm and immediately shot forward. It hit the wall to the right of the target and shattered, leaving a small patch of ice on the wall where it hit.

Aizen let out a frustrated grunt before turning back to Cole.

"No matter how many times I try, it just doesn't hit the target."

Cole nodded and picked up Aizen's notebook. Turning to a new page, he began to draw a partial spell circle. It was a simple one with only a few branching lines and a smaller circle in the center with a more complex pattern.

"That's mostly because the projectile isn't spinning. You can actually get that effect by fusing three ignition structures together and twisting them like this. It costs more mana, but works well- especially when you don't have a rifle like mine to handle the spin."

Cole finished drawing the circle and placed his palm against it, infusing it with enough mana to record the modified ignition portion of the spell before handing it back to Aizen.

Aizen then placed his own palm on the circle and added some mana so he could feel the structure stored in the page. His eyes widened as he felt the new changes.

This was a brilliant addition to the spell. The typical ignition structure was a simple component that allowed a mage to spark the spell with their own mana and then transfer the mana feed to another source, thus allowing the spell to feed off of a mana crystal instead of the mage's mana.

But this modified version of the ignition structure fit perfectly after the spell's first ignition. The first would handle the attribute change, so the modified ignition would end up igniting the next part of the spell with the right mana attribute. Since the second ignition didn't need to make the conversion, it was far simpler. It's only function at that point would be to open another channel back to the crystal and pull more mana.

It was simple, but provided a massive power boost. This would explain why Cole's spells exhausted the crystals so fast and how they flew with so much more power.

Not wasting any time, he put the book down and tried the spell again, this time with the modified ignition.

Another blue light flashed as an ice shard was thrown forward, swirls of ice dust spinning behind the projectile. This time, the shard struck the edge of the metal target and shattered on impact, letting out a clear ring.

He finally hit the target with a spell! Aizen could hardly contain his excitement, but kept his cool while Cole gave him a few more pointers.

After a few hours, Aizen was exhausted and decided to rest for the remainder of the day. Cole had been able to relax a little while mentoring Aizen, but a small part of his mind couldn't let go of his worries.

From the looks of it, the guardsman was going to give in to everyone's request and let the party continue the expedition. Now alone with his thoughts, Cole's mind returned to the event that got them all in this situation in the first place.

He remembered the attack of the abnormal lizardmen. The redscale's charge replayed in his mind with strange clarity. The sound of its claws scraping against the stone floor. The sight of inhuman muscles flaring under its scaled skin. The vibrations he could feel as the beast's feet thrashed against the floor as it chased after Elaine. He remembered it all.

"... I have to improve."