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Chapter 76

“Is that it? Have you done it all?”

Erika nodded. “I’ve set up as many formations as I know that can block spatial storms. With the help of the astral gate, we should be able to hold them back for at least twelve hours. Are you sure your father will open the gate by then?”

“Yes, he will… most likely.” Erika shot him a glare, but he merely snorted. “If I didn’t provide you a dozen ingredients, you wouldn’t have been able to buy us even an hour. Don’t act like you don’t owe me anything for our survival.”

Erika blushed slightly. “That’s right, I’m sorry.”

He noticed her complicated expression and his scowl eased a bit. “Reanna is not an insignificant lady in my father’s court. The cave where this unstable space was discovered is only a few hour’s travel from the capital city. If she survived, she would have headed back and made sure my father was aware. If she died, he would have found out even quicker and perhaps gone directly to investigate.”

“How could such a space end up so close to the city and undiscovered?” Erika voiced a question very similar to the one I had in my head.

He shrugged. “Perhaps, it appeared suddenly. The boy who showed it to me was merely the son of a vassal to my father. He was trying to curry favor. For all I know, this was a secret his family had been maintaining for generations waiting for the right time. People like him are always trying to suck up to people like me.”

“I know what you mean…” she mentioned, nodding, but then froze. “Ah! I just meant I’ve been approached by countless people who want to enter the Arcford Academy through me.”

He gave her a look. “You are also a noble. Don’t forget it. The way I spoke before was intimidation. We were strangers in a strange place, and I didn’t know if I could trust you. However, you should know that I would never have allowed that other guy to touch you.”

Her face turned red. “Well, you could have had me fooled.”

“In truth, I’m used to being surrounded by sycophants and idiots all day. There are either women like Reanna sucking up to me or vassals trying to butter me up. They’re not like you though…”

“R-really?” She asked.

Really? Is he trying to hit on her now? Is this one of those ‘you don’t want to die a virgin’ ploys? I knew them well enough. I had used them countless times myself. I noticed he deliberately didn’t say whether he would have touched her himself. I had to say this guy wasn’t as smooth as I had been in my prime, but he was certainly making an effort. I didn’t know why, but it annoyed me that Erika seemed to be falling for it too.

“You’re smart and knowledgeable. I only recognized a handful of these formations.”

She looked a bit excited. “You know formations?”

He waved his hand. “I only dabble in them. I know enough to see how profound your knowledge is. You must have had a worthy teacher.”

She was nodding. “I do! He’s the best formation expert in Arcford… I mean, other than the provost.”

He was smiling with interest, although he had the look of a wolf. “When we escape, perhaps you can teach me some of your formations.”

“That could be…” Her expression froze, and then she looked down. “That’s right, we’ll be in another province.”

“Have you ever left your province before?” He asked, idly, although he was still watching her carefully from the corner of his eye.

She shook her head and a tear started to well in her eye. “I’ve never even left the Ramphart region. This is the farthest I’ve ever been from home.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled, stepping closer to her and lifting his hand to swipe the tear before it fell from her cheek. “We’ll make you feel right at home.”

“Is that…” She swallowed, but then her tone turned cold. “How do you make Reanna feel?”

He blinked. “Eh?”

She took a step back, wiping her cheek with disgust. “I believe you can see a person’s character based on how they treat the people around them. You didn’t bat an eyelash over your vassal’s death, and you didn’t hesitate to send that girl through the portal and potentially her death. You even sent your vassal after a mere mortal to kill him.”

“I don’t see you crying over that mere mortal.” His expression finally returned to a sneer.

Erika winced. “He… never tried to suck up to me. He’s the first person I ever met who seemed to want nothing to do with me.”

The noble raised an eyebrow. “He’s just a mortal.”

“The girl held herself around me differently as well. I still suspect that she might be a noble. Sometimes, nobles hide their lineage for certain reasons.” She continued, not seeming to hear him. “How am I ever going to be able to face her after this?”

“You won’t have to worry about it for a long time.” He seemed to be done flirting with her. “Even if we gave you access to transportation formations, it’d still take half a year to return to your region. It might be years before you face her, if ever.”

I felt a bit relieved that she had seen through his act, although it was a bit disappointing to see him give up so soon. He was overzealous and lazy. That was the impression he gave me, from one playboy to another. He was looking at her mockingly, but she had a serious expression on her face.

“The fog is coming.” She spoke, instantly wiping the expression off his face.

The pair looked as the fog began to fill the room on the other side of the windows. Every window was closed now, but the fog still managed to infiltrate through every crack. When another bolt shot out, but it seemed to bounce off the window. It was made of something far better than glass, as it seemed to resist the spatial storms, just like the rest of the castle.

Once entering the courtyard, the fog continued to creep forward unhindered until it suddenly began to rise. As more of it entered, it started to form a shape. There was a distinct wall where the fog didn’t seem to pass. As more and more fog entered, that wall was revealed to be a small dome that filled the courtyard up. It was the barrier that Erika had set up.

Another tear in space appeared. It struck the dome, and then it suddenly shattered with a cracking noise. The fog rushed into the space, but it quickly found a new dome about six inches smaller. The boy shot Erika a glare.

“The outer dome is the largest and weakest. As the domes break, the one underneath is stronger and stronger.”

Although she said that, the next dome was already shattering to another subspace crack, collapsing the space again. However, after fifteen minutes passed and four domes shattered, they started increasing the number of tears they could be struck with. The progress of the fog toward them seemed to slow. At the same time, the runes on the astral gate all started to glow, emitting a light that seemed to fill the barrier they were within almost like it was giving support for the domes to remain.

As for me, I remained hidden at the edge of the dome, but I decided quickly that some experimentation was needed. I was told that even a lord could die to spatial storms if he wasn’t careful. However, I wasn’t a lord, and I was always careful. I decided I needed to see the damage for myself. I tentatively sent in a few body parts that I separated with Detached Automatism.

These were mobile drones I was creating on the fly. They’d move through the fog before being struck by lightning.

-1,000 HP

-10,000 HP

-20,000 HP

I was slowly making my drones increasingly more powerful to see how much HP a standard lightning strike took. After testing a few more times, I managed to settle on a number.

-60,000 HP

I had a biological drone that had about 100,000 HP, and it took the strike and kept going. It died on the second strike. I took a breath and then tried creating one with half a million HP. It managed to last the longest yet. Each new version of my drone was more mobile and reinforced.

“Perhaps, if I use Encapsulation outside of a mobile unit.” I could cut the damage in half, but I also lost a great deal of the mobility of the drone.

Six hours passed by, and they were down nearly fifteen of their barriers. The space between them and the astral gate was getting pretty tight. As for me, I had tested the damage ratio of the subspace and concluded that I could probably survive it unprotected for some time. At least, as long as I stayed in the castle, I would be able to heal about as quickly as I was damaged. It was at that moment that I received a message from my other self.

“I have finished reading the records.”

“And?” I asked.

“There is a secret hidden in the library.” He responded. “You should obtain it at all costs.”