Merging Two Spell Diagrams

Earlier when Kevin dropped off the black horse, he had no intention of heading over to help Lexia even if it ended up with her heavily wounded.

He knew these people wouldn't be able to kill her and at most, they would deplete her energy and exchange their lives for heavy wounds on her part. Thus, he retreated to a fairly large boulder and sat down lotus style while sinking into his thoughts.

The difference between a novice and an amateur rank mage was somewhat similar to a normal person and an awakened person. While an awakened would attain their innate <Concentration> spell to cultivate their magic powers, the next step is another spell of a higher level to start off in the amateur rank.

Such spells usually help construct a sea of consciousness from someone's mental power with the third eye as the core, and they are referred to as Mental Cultivation Spells.

It's common knowledge that the basics for an amateur mage is the capacity to easily launch 8-node spells three times consecutively, but not many are aware that this process is simple to them because the sea of consciousness of an amateur is constructed from 24 nodes.

The advanced concentration spells are provided to the mages from three sources; lucky encounters, their backgrounds, or the Magic Academy.

Each source has its ups and downs, but Kevin knew that he had a fourth option; his unique third eye.

The same way he drew out his spells, Kevin thought to gather the accumulation of his mental power and strike the third eye whenever he had enough of it to cast fully powered three 8-node spells consecutively.

To do that, he was spending every opportune moment analyzing his 8-node spells, especially the <Shadow Bullets> and <Mind Break> as they were his most frequently used spells at the moment.

In his mind, the diagrams of the two spells hovered side to side while he studied them simultaneously. The more he looked at the diagrams, the more they seemed to match yet at the same time, divert.

As he observed, a bold idea suddenly struck him.

What if he overlapped these two spells into a new diagram?

However, just as he came up with the idea he shot it down. Even if it did work, this would birth a 16-node spell diagram, something beyond his current limits, and would prove redundant.

Tossing the idea back and forth in his mind for a while, Kevin decided he might as well go with it and prepare himself early. If he stepped into the amateur rank with a spell already prepared, it would be much better than experiencing the headache of manually obtaining a spell from the third eye.

Taking a deep breath, Kevin's first attempt was the most direct— he overlapped the two diagrams and pressed them into one another to grasp their respective differences.

What he didn't expect though was that the forceful merger of the conflicting nodes of opposing forces would rumble with a mind-splitting backlash, jolting him awake from the meditation with a severe headache and blood trickling down his nose and ears.

"Fuck, my head!"

Kevin clutched at his cranium with his left hand as the migraine struck. He opened his eyes as blood vessels throbbed within, spotting a cloud of dust kicking up in the distance with three people in a fan formation galloping over on their horses.

"Did they run away?" Kevin raised his eyebrows despite the pain. "No, they don't seem panicked at all— they must be looking for me then, albeit not specifically."

Kevin rubbed his chin as he slowly stood up on the boulder; very much conspicuous. The glaring black clothes in the dim lighting of this cloudy day drew the attention of the three from afar as they pulled closer.

Kevin could hear their laughter and riot from a distance— he was now sure that they weren't a group that escaped the net, but rather, a lookout party.

"Boss was right, there is someone nearby… He doesn't have a horse though, are you sure they're together?"

"I don't know. That girl didn't yell out for help or anything."

"We could bring his head over and check things out; if they knew one another then that would be the fastest way to confirm, right?"

"You're so awful, haha. If we weren't in a rush, I'd have toyed with these two for a bit—..."

Bang!

This man was still on about with his mouth as they drew within a few dozen paces from Kevin and thus, since the latter was also in a rush for time, he deployed one of two shadow bullets that rested in his palm.

Under normal circumstances, eight shadow bullets was the maximum number derived from the original spell while four was the number most conservative of mana. However, even though Kevin had enough mana to spare, he didn't have the stable mental power to run through the diagram and smoothly launch more than two bullets.

Then again, this was alright.

He grinned at the remaining two chaps with a faint shadow bullet silently levitating on his hand as he took the opportunity to say, "I'm in a good mood so I'll spare one of you; the one with the most value to me."

Gulp…

The two swallowed their words back to themselves as they realized this was no ordinary young man but a legendary mage; something beyond their weight class.

"I… I… I didn't mean to offend you, great mage! We got the wrong person!"

One of the other two with his horse in the front stuttered to speak. If he wasn't comparatively closer to Kevin's position, he wouldn't have opened his mouth to speak at all.

"Your apology is of no value to me," Kevin frowned and reached out with his palm as the bullet threatened to fly. "You can die now."

"Wait! Wait! I'll tell you everything I know!"

Smack!

He was about to cave but was smacked to the back of the head with something heavy and squared, fainting on the back of his horse with wide eyes. Heavy breathing came from behind as the other man, with cloth on his face, regulated his breath despite the panic in his eyes.

Kevin raised an eyebrow, amused.

"I know more than he does!" The man breathed out before he hurriedly declared. He didn't want to die yet, and he surely didn't feel like being picky with what to say or do. Furthermore, he was clever enough to notice the direction in which the little girl came from and thus made some mental calculations.

He immediately spilled the beans; they were dispatched by a man who was clothed from head to toe in layers of black, identity unknown. However, he did have a lot of silver and copper to spare, especially for this mission of running havoc in some settlements and towns under the jurisdiction of the Badger Barony.

They were also informed that they weren't the only group on the payroll but they were simply the closest to the destination.

"Can I leave now?"

The clever man asked expectantly after revealing everything he knew. As for Kevin, the latter's expression frosted over as he thought to himself; if I didn't bring Lexia along…

As his thoughts traveled to this point, he tossed out the shadow bullet without hesitation and blasted the informant's head to smithereens of blood and brain matter, with tidbits of fractured bones.

The horses were oblivious to the destructive power of the shadow bullets due to a lack of threat indication such as the loud noise introduced to but not exclusive to firepower and similar weapons.

Even as blood trickled down two of their bodies, they didn't move out of place. Kevin sighed, understanding that these steeds had witnessed too much bloodshed to care about such trifles at the moment.

…

Lexia who was resting against the side of Kevin's black horse suddenly opened her eyes and glanced back. Accompanying the footfalls of rapid hoofbeats, a shallow cloud of dust itched from afar.

Seeing as it was only one horse instead of three, she breathed easy. She knew it must be her big brother who got rid of the other three. Creasing her brows she wondered; should I have killed all four of them?

She didn't have sufficient mana to do that much, though. Then, she figured that if this happened again, she would draw out a fight with her personal attributes and rely on mana as a last resort; a final ace. She figured this way it could have been possible to keep all four bodies behind.

"Only two?"

Just as she was contemplating, Kevin's voice drifted to her ears. His voice gave her enough comfort to relax and before any words left her mouth, her waist bent over as she gaged and wretched on the ground, her features pale.

She was done holding back to her nausea, but this was a much better result than the last time when she immediately passed out. Kevin took notice of the unstable m]fluctations of mana on her body— he connected the dots.

"Still inexperienced I guess," he muttered before dismounting, approaching Lexia while leading the horse by the reigns. She weakly lifted her head to look up, a hint of shame in her eyes for letting two people go.

Kevin's heavy hand, at least from the little girl's perspective, landed on her head and ruffled her hair. "You did great… I thought I'd come back to my little sister on her last breath with heavy wounds— you've surprised me."

"Really?" Lexia's pretty eyes sparkled, feeling excited.