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I would have never guessed that my target would be away from the Civil War as far away as possible, one would think they would get inside the chaos and use the opportunity but my birds found the target near a town that's on the edge of the country while his more human like familiars collect the bodies/blood what ever he wants and my target is situated in the mountains that's looking over the town the only reason this guy slipped up was because some people wanted to climb the mountain but gotten taken by this guy's familiars, basically i got lucky.
Thinking about the number of dead inside doesn't really assure me, not that i am afraid of getting hurt, with my current set up i can just let them hit me all day long, the problem is that if i take too long this guy can ran away, so i sold some of the gold i had, because i had to buy mines yes you read me right mines, anti personal mines to be exact and i took it's explosive mechanisms apart and build the whole thing from scratch to make it into my newest design, i come up with it during my pistol design process.
Remember my Ice Flame spell ? now it's time to turn it into mines, i have been unsuccessful with making bullets that works alongside with this spell since it would require me to carve the spell with runes alongside every bullet but explosives were easy to make and i can even turn it into reloadable mine by making it into mystic codes i just have to reload the explosive, in the end mystic code will function like this.
The mine shall explode like designed after stepping on it but instead of explosion spreading around it will concentrate in the 1 meter radius while the spell forces heat into the flame pillar that will be made while making a ice pillar due to focusing the heat into one point but the top would be left open unfortunately can't close the top while there's a flame pillar going strong, anyway ice pillar will trap anything that survives basically it reversed Ice Flame mixed with mines huh now that i think about it isn't this better for killing ? the mine itself has turned from 25 cm to a 50 cm in diameter but it's a sacrifice i am willing to make.
The mountain itself is empty, like there aren't any land animals living, so anything that could set the mines off will be either him or his familiars but to fool him, i am going to run in like a amateur that i am and engage with his familiars while he runs away only to set my mines off, i don't think he would notice any prana signatures since the mines have minimal prana in them even i would be fooled by it thinking about it now, i just created something terrifying, didn't i.
I set the mines on the paths that are most viable for escape having bird's eye view helps a lot and got ready to engage the horde of death, by the time i was ready it was already midnight thankfully it's not full moon, they get more powerful at full moon.
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I started climbing the mountain from the side of the town, i don't want anyone seeing possible 20m ice pillars popping up.
While i was climbing i started to run into The Dead (That's their designation in the Wiki) not wanting to expose my physical strength i started to fire up the reverse ice flame that i decide to name as "Ice Bomb" due to it's effects, the guys i hit with headshot would have the heat around their head focus on a single point (Which is the initial small and fast fireball that i shoot) and have their head enclosed with an ice globe, what i didn't expect was the Ice globe exploding alongside the whole head thanks to air pressure inside the ice globe. Ice Bomb indeed.
After this awesome and rather disgusting discovery i started to pick up pace and my enemy of course recognized my threat even if i act like a idiot and started to send more people then i can shoot, before they get close i finally powered the runes on my knuckles lighting them in red flames, since i don't have my pistols yet, i transferred the heat i am generating to my fists alongside the "Phoenix series" martial arts moves proving to be rather effective against the dead.
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Once i have killed the last of it, i heard one of the mines go off with two other following it, it appears one of them wasn't enough to stop him.
Running over i saw one 10m and one 5m pillars smashed apart and my target stuck in the third with his head sticking out, to my embarrassment the pillars aren't at the exact same height, it seems i didn't factor in the temperature of the atmosphere. Going over to my target i draw my targets attention.
Chris: What a nice night to go on trekking isn't that right Mr. Wei.
It appears he can't talk anymore, shrugging i fire a Ice Bomb only for it to sizzle down while generating no ice.
Wei: Hahahaha it seems it's too weak for me even after i got weakened.
Huh he can talk after all but this is a problem, he's already encased in ice i can just kill him straight away but i need to find a way to bypass the temperature difference not that i need a warm weather to win but it's going to be annoying to fight in winter, well why not make a bigger fireball but that wouldn't always work, not like i can go against physics, magecraft has to follow the rules of the world otherwise it would've been magic.
While cursing thermodynamics, i readied bigger flames even adding some Qi in it then compressing the basketball sized golen flame ball into golf sized ball, i set it off to his head results are gross as expected but my job here is done, i just need to go back to his place to pick up some evidence, he isn't strong enough to have a successor so his other familiars must've died as well i will look into it before going back to the temple. This hunt showed me that i really on fire element too much gotta get some variety. Well my armor uses combinations of wind and fire but you got what i mean.
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Going back to the temple took me a couple days due to running out of money(Yeah it finally happened and yes i was faster than trains between 1920-1930) i was surprised to see the Master Li waiting at the door.
Master Li: Done with your litte vampire hunt ?
My head gave a blue screen, my face must've been something if it caused him to burst into laughter.
Master Li: Hahaha, naive child of course i know you're a magus come in now that you have nothing to attend to let's have a little chat.
I nodded and followed along while trying to not to think about Zelretch calling me naive as well, i didn't think this temple would belong to the Ommyoudou, following Master Li, i sat down and waited while he readied some tea.
Master Li: Now let me say from the beginning this temple is not affiliated with Ommyoudou. We're a secluded temple that seek inner peace and follow "The Way", of course we would defend ourselves and fight any Vampires, demons, ghosts or whatever in the surrounding but generally Ommyoudou would take care of it before we can get to it unfortunately we don't have enough man to send people across country.
Chris: Then how did you knew i was a magus.
Master Li: Because of our seclusion we're more close to earth allowing us to sense the changes in the life force well let's say mana for your sake, so when we sensed some birds with mana which alerted us but seeing that it's just for observation and the target is not being us we didn't touch it, so i was surprised to see the owner of the birds coming to the temple most Western Magi would spit on our teaching. (Rin didn't know Shirou was a magus even though they gone to same school, these people can sense if you're one even if you don't show any signs that's some bullshit.)
I can only scratch the back of my head while giving a wry smile.
Chris: You guys know how to hide.
To my comment master shook his head in denial.
Master Li: No, child we didn't hide we have been ignored, you see we don't pursue true magic just "The Way", those who obtained true magic don't touch the "truth" of the world because those who touch the "truth" disapear from the mortal world...
Yeah they reach Akasha, i wonder what she does with those people ?
Master Li: ... and those who reach but don't touch is hunted by the Red Shadow. We, in this temple try to reach the "Truth" through "The Way" and leave this mortal realm behind, because of this we were ridiculed by the West and Ommyoudou was too caught up with handling troubles that plagued the land, in the end only this small temple left.
Chris: Have anyone recently "Ascended" ?
Master Li: The last person to "Ascend" was our great master he did it 100 years ago. Before you ask i am 120 years old, i have witnessed it myself ahh it left a deep impression in my heart.
Damn this guy looks barely 40 years old, Zouken can learn a thing or two from him.
Chris: So am i allowed to stay ?
Master Li: hahaha of course it's sad that you will have to leave, i can see that you can't leave behind your path to follow ours but we'll be happy to teach you our ways.
Hearing him, i nodded and kept drinking my tea choosing to stay silent, i doubt he wants me to thank him.
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I stayed in the temple until 1928, i still need to find a catalyst for my servant summoning after all, while i was sad to leave i had to. I made many friends here but i have to go because i have a feeling Akasha will find a way to play a prank on me with the servant summoning, well even if she does i won't have a way to prevent it but not giving up is the essence of being a hero.... wait this is not BNHA.
I have progressed leaps and bounds during my stay here (that's what they call it in CN novels) Research came up with "Internal Cultivation V2.0" which surprisingly uses tiny bits of my Prana alongside the regular Qi.
First time i used it, Qi in my dantian finally solidified creating a golden orb following that it burst into flames, now i have a miniature star like something in my dantian and the four little balls inside has started to orbit around it much like planets and i have no idea wtf am i doing anymore, the balls absorb the sunlight ? and then what ? although i noticed that they spin in a way that would draw a Yin Yang symbol(Imagine two planets orbit drawing a circle and the other two planet make up the black and white dots) but what do i make of it ? i can only keep cultivating even though the feeling of soreness has increased by a lot. I can only cultivate for an hour otherwise i am bed ridden for the rest of the day.
Apart from the changes in my dantian there wasn't any change in my physical prowess, saddening but i finally have a good grip on my power, i have D rank in physical parameters which is already inhuman but i finally had proper CQC training well it's just Kung Fu and Tai Chi moves merged but it's better than before, i was feeling like i was just pressing on skills on keyboard now i have fluidity in my fighting, i never noticed how ridiculous i looked while fighting before.
The alchemy training was awesome, sure they just making medicine it can be used for many areas and although they disapprove making artificial life(Homunculus) i am not bound by that rule, not that i would but it's going to help during 4th war, i aint letting Irisviel die after all i am not going to let her fall in the hands of Kiritsugu *Cough* i said too much.
In summary time i spent here allowed me to check multiple stuff off the list including lack of social interaction, now i just have my pistol blueprint and the jeweled sword to work on i have been working on them for quite a while, pistol just needs to be built but there's not much progress with the jeweled sword neither with the Teleporting i already know that it's near impossible but i figured i could do it like flying thunder god or something similar but it didn't work out well.
Now first things first i am going back to England and start searching for a catalyst and i might as well update the RuneOS to it's second version, you see with the first version you could use it to try out rune sequences but no one figured it out yet since they all bought the extra mystic code that would let you use a spell instead of using the RuneOS like how much of a biased you can be anyway, this one works more like a PC since i got bored and wanted to play solitaire. (Yes i made solitaire with runes)
After going back to India, i boarded a ship back to England, let's hope i won't go back to being gloomy, who am i kidding anyone who likes swimming in that shits creek is crazy.
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