There were no available staff today except the actual cooks, as everyone was busy preparing an evening meal for fifty times their normal population, but there was still a huge pot of stew on and the usual breakfast staples, pancakes and monster bacon.
Wolfe loaded a cart with food and brought it back to the table, where the Witches were discussing the rest of the tasks to be finished this morning while they fed mana to Khalifa, who was leading the spell to adjust the city boundary.
Wolfe barely noticed that he was eating until his plate came up empty when he went for more bacon. But, by the time that he was finished eating, he had a decent grasp on how the barrier spell was going to need to be cast. He just wasn't sure that he had the power to cast it alone. With the Mana Gathering Array, he could probably activate it if given a full day, but even a small lapse in focus while he was gathering the mana would make him start all over.
Grand Magic was no joke, but with so many helpers, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the barrier erected and activated.
To his surprise, so much time had passed that the city altering spell was nearly finished, and almost all the Witches except the Rank Three group had been released from their need to help. Khalifa was just putting the finishing touches on it, preparing the homes for occupancy, and for that, it was mostly her and Kira that were needed.
Kira had the arrays to create the furniture enchantments inscribed into her robes when Wolfe upgraded her wardrobe. They were considered day to day essentials, after all. Sleeping on the hard ground was unacceptable when you could take your garden nap under a shade tree in comfort.
"Can I borrow someone's notebook? I've got to start carrying one of my own for Inscriptions." Wolfe sighed.
"There is a stack by the plates because the students forget to bring one all the time. There are pencils there too, and some metallic markers so that they can make working inscriptions if they need them. They've got Faerie Dust in them for the magical component, though, and I'm not sure if that's compatible with your spell casting." Mary replied, proud of her foresight in placing them there weeks ago.
The Faerie dust likely wouldn't hurt anything when he was drawing the inscription, but he would leave the paint pens for those who needed them.
Wolfe grabbed a small notepad that would fit in the pocket of his pants, a short pencil, and an eraser, then returned to the table.
He could draw it out on the [Whiteboard] spell, but that often led to a residual bit of magic in the form of the spell when he got it right, which Wolfe didn't want happening this time, due to the potency of the magic, so he did his best to get the rune placement correct on the notepad, following the instructions in the Inheritance.
He carefully drew it out, then traced over it with his mana, trying to find the mistake. One after another, tiny errors became obvious, some as small as the direction of a pencil stroke when writing the rune. But eventually, he had it right, and when he repeated it, the feeling of correctness settled through his mana flow as the spell was recorded in the [Recently Used] section of his Inheritance spell. So, it was time to gather the spell casters again.
They hadn't gone far, most of the witches in town were standing on the grass below the tower, waiting for their next task and taking a much-needed rest after channelling to enlarge the size of the village.
[Everyone, I'm about to set a new barrier over the city. If you could lend me your aid, I would appreciate it. For those of you without a Servant's Mark, holding hands with someone who does have one will allow them to transfer mana from both of you. You might owe them dinner afterwards, as this could be a lot of work.]
Wolfe finished his announcement with a joke, and the Witches got ready to get back to work.
He carefully started drawing the Inscription in his mind, closing his eyes to focus more clearly and tuning out everyone else as he worked, and the additional mana began to flow into him.
Carefully he imagined the precise construction of the runes and the intricate flow of mana that went into the simultaneous layers of the Grand Magic. It was only five layers, two in each element mirroring each other, plus a binding layer, but the process was straining his mana control far more than any normal array should be able to.
It was a learning moment for Wolfe. The true power of a Grand Magic wasn't some complex and fancy Rune Array, or thousands of layers of interwoven spells, but the perfection with which they interacted to bring a concept to life.
The air itself seemed to sing with power as he worked, but Wolfe kept his eyes closed and ignored the distraction, working on his first attempt at finishing a Grand Magic without a second spell caster.
The spell gave a final surge, absorbing all the loose mana in the air, and then coalesced and wound itself around the floating sphere of defensive magic in the air above the spire.
[Nether Lightning Array Active]
The Inheritance had never gone as far as telling him that a spell was working before, it just gave a chime to let him know that it had completed successfully.
Halfway around the world, in an opulent palace gilded with the finest of historical achievements, from statues to paintings and magical items, two ancient witches suddenly turned ashen in the face and shifted to face the same direction.
"We both felt that, right?" The thinner of the two asked.
"We did. Call off the team headed to the Fae Forest. They won't win that fight. I don't care if the politicians get offended, they haven't grown brave enough to stand against us yet.
I am going back into seclusion. If I can make this breakthrough, I will be Rank Eight, and I will have the power to undo what that Immortal Bastard and his friends did in one single strike." The other replied.
She hobbled off to her courtyard, and the lone Saint still seated at the table sighed. They had both been trying since the war to break through, and she had long since given up on ever reaching the Pinnacle of the Seventh Rank. The backlash from the counterspell to save the world had crippled both of their potentials, along with their descendants and Covens, and there was nothing to be done about it unless they were going to visit the underworld and beg that bastard Eternal Saint for forgiveness.
Even then, she knew he wouldn't give it. He never forgave, and he never forgot. Not him.
Once her tea was done, she picked up the phone and sent a simple text message to the World Government's President.
[Order your troops not to attack the city in the Fae Forest directly, unless they wish to lose their very souls.]
ker1
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