61 Barriers

Grizz was fuming all throughout the way back home, each time he grumbled about either the king or the army, he got angrier. Orou wanted to help him calm down as the black mist he was producing was equal to several beastman standing in one spot, but at the same time, he didn't want to approach too close in fear of making Grizz suffer, so he simply observed Grizz along the way. Honestly, he still didn't understand why Grizz was so mad, it's not like the army would show up and start killing everyone, though Orou had never seen one in action, only hearing distant tales of wars from Izz.

Making their way back to shop, Grizz started packing his things. He didn't have a lot with him, but the few things that he did he packed in his backpack. Waving goodbye to the shop, the two of them started heading not toward the western gate but towards the north. Various impressive looking buildings greeted them as they headed towards the north. Now that Orou thought about, he had never really gotten a chance to explore this city, he was too busy with his magic research to fully uncover what this city was holding. This desire only got more intense as he saw several shops selling what seemed to be magical devices and various strange things he had never seen before.

They had only stayed in the city for a few days before they had to leave, but if that was what Grizz wanted, how could Orou refuse him. It wasn't all that bad, if he could learn several more ancient spells from Grizz, he would be set for a good while. Thoughts about magic distracted him from his recent findings and soon, they arrived next to the barrier. Of course, the barrier was constantly active so there was no way of knowing the king's latest decision. Grizz motioned Orou over and pointed at the barrier, asking him: "Can you do something about this?"

Turning on his spirit vision, he didn't see anything out of the norm. A massive amount of spirits were woven together by fine, silk-like thread. He was familiar with both the barrier and the spirit thread, so he should have no problems creating a doorway through the barrier for them to pass through, or so Orou thought until he actually tried to bypass the barrier. First, he simply tried to move the spirits, but as was the case with every barrier he had seen, the spirits were simply impossible to move.

Moving on to the next method, he tried to disrupt the barrier by trying to manipulate both the string and the spirits, changing them into different forms and shapes, but just as before, the formation was near immovable, it was like the spirits didn't have a will of their own, behaving just like they were when they were under the effect of the greater spirit, only the effects much more noticeable this time. Perhaps there was something even greater than a greater spirit, able to garner the respect and the fear of regular spirits, but that was something that Orou simply didn't know at the current time.

Making a note to study barriers later, he started thinking of other solutions. Sheer force clearly wouldn't work, otherwise, the barrier would be nearly useless in any regular situation. The only other choice was to circle the barrier and intently look for any weak spots, but it was difficult to do in the current situation, the barrier was way too large. Still, seeing no way around his problem, he started heading towards the east, circling the entire city. His pace was quite quick as he was intended to finish by the end of today, but even then, he would have to move kilometers and he likely wouldn't be able to fully circle the city.

He carefully observed the spirits as he moved around, but at the end of the day, he noticed that there wasn't a single crack, a single blemish in the formation. Turning around to Grizz, he slapped his tail against the barrier and hissed at it before deciding to head back to their quaint, little shop. As Orou did that, Grizz looked like he had lost all hope about escaping the city and just as Orou, he started to make his way back to the city, dejected about his failure. Of course, Grizz wasn't one to give up so easily, suggesting to Orou plans of bribing the guards or, in the worst case, finding a shelter for them to hide during the assault.

Orou was thinking about how he would convey it to Grizz that he wanted to find someone who knew more about formations, but by the time they arrived back at their temporary home, Orou still didn't have an answer. Setting down his backpack and unpacking the things he had packed, Grizz lied down on the bed covered in silk and satin, saying to Orou: "As much as I don't want to, I'm going to have to meet with Mar tomorrow and procure more information. I stormed out in rage in front of him, but a few crystals and it will be like this incident never happened. What about you, you want to tag along?"

Orou thought about Grizz's offer and to Grizz's surprised, Orou hissed in denial. He had plans of properly exploring the city, perhaps breaking into a few magic shops and looking closer at what the city had to offer. It would be more interesting with Grizz, but since he was likely going to spend the rest of his day travelling through various alleyways and speaking with his contacts, Orou decided to not bother him and go do it on his own. Grizz shrugged in response to Orou and turning on his side, he slowly went to sleep.

Orou also wanted to try and sleep, but despite saying that he wasn't worried about the army, he decided that it would be the best for him to practice his spells again. Battles between two armies always were chaotic and catastrophic, resulting in a huge number of deaths, at least so he had heard in stories. If worst comes to worst, he had to be strong enough to defend Grizz and who keep himself safe at the same time.

Although Orou considered himself to know much about magic, he still didn't know that many formations. He could create balls of light, heal himself, devour a person's blood and turn them into dust, but out of the four options he had, the only one which wouldn't wake up Grizz was the blood serpent. While he could cover himself in golden light, he didn't see a need to do so. He could heal beastmen perfectly fine when he first learned the spell and there was no reason to make it stronger than he was.

This time, he was considering doing something new. Since he had two wills, wouldn't that mean that he had two potential spells that he could cast at the same time? Of course, he learned soon after that his line of thought was very idealistic, concentrating on constructing two different formations at the same time was beyond him. Now, creating another spell formation while maintaining an already existing one was different. Using only one of his wills, he slowly but carefully constructed the blood serpent and keeping it under his control, he started constructing another.

This proved to be more difficult than he actually thought as the blood serpent was constantly pressuring the will that was holding it in place, placing more burden on Orou's mind as he was constructing the second spell formation. To his own surprise, he succeeded in creating two identical blood serpent, though not everything was as simple as it seemed. He simply couldn't move the two of them at the same time, each time he did, one of the blood serpents collapsed and he had to start the long and complicated process anew.

He spent the entire night fumbling about with spells just like he usually did, though, by the end of the night, he had learned how to efficiently multitask. It wasn't enough to either construct or move two spells at a time, but Orou was excited about the possibilities of combining two spells not just in a way that adjusted their formations. As Grizz got out of his bed, Orou excitedly wagged his tail like a dog, looking outside and thinking about what magic he could find in the city.