Gerald took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and slowly exhaled. "Okay, I give up."
He could clearly copy the form, but apparently not the essence.
"A millimeter of ice…" he muttered and tears nearly welled up in his eyes. He was sure he did everything exactly the same as the Flame Barrier, and yet... That was all he could do?
Depressing!
He held Xilia's hand and set her finger bone back in place and immobilized it. He reconnected the bone together, but the break was now extremely brittle. For it to properly heal it would still take a few weeks, even with potions.
Having nothing else to do except rest, she went up to Blum and sat down.
"Hello, would you like to read something?" the guy queried, and after she nodded, he handed her a book about Wind Magic.
"It's about Gerald's magic theories and theoretical Wind spells for flight, though I think he abandoned those… Still, I thought you might like it."
Xilia smiled at him and took the book.
"Thanks," she said and opened the book to start reading.
Blum also looked down at his book and continued with his [Mental Imaging of a Spellcaster] book.
***
"I did my best," Gerald sighed. "It was a perfect copy of the magic structure, and yet…"
Whoever made the barrier had to be much stronger than him, or there existed another way to do things that he wasn't aware of.
He turned towards the Royal Palace and squinted. "King Robart III, huh? I wonder what he's hiding…"
He wasn't delusional enough to think he could just go there and demand to know. The government, or in this case, the Royalty, always had some secrets that the common folk would be ignorant of.
It was how they kept their power over the centuries. Those honest and open rulers were fools as they would easily be exploited and replaced in no time. The tyrants would also quickly crumble, usually because the number of enemies they would make while climbing to power would be too great.
The sweet spot was right in the middle. Open, honest, and just to the outside, while being scheming and full of tricks on the inside.
Gerald was all too aware of how politics worked and that's why he wanted to stay as far away from it as possible.
It was best to stay away from their twisted games and corruption if you wanted to have an easy life. As such, he stuffed the thoughts into the back of his mind and went inside the warehouse.
Niter production was going well. Actually, the workers proved themselves to be quite capable. They already refined a full barrel of the stuff!
Perhaps they were just terrified of war going on just on the other side of the wall and wanted to finish quickly to go home. In any case, Gerald was satisfied. It was enough to make one bomb for now.
Gathering charcoal to make black powder was all too easy. He just had to take a step outside and he could see it everywhere. So many buildings burned down in the attack, it wasn't even funny.
Getting his hands of sulfur was much more difficult. That was mostly because it was used in large quantities in combination with the Earthen Blood to burn the beasts.
Luckily he managed to scrape together a barrel full of it after visiting various shops around the city.
The following hours were spent carefully grinding and mixing the ingredients together to create the most violent concoction to date, excluding magic.
The space inside the two metal halves was filled with black powder and packed tight. It was just that, at the bottom, he carefully placed a few vials of Bottled Thunder, armed and ready, before covering them completely. That was his trigger.
As soon as a strong impact broke them, all hell would break loose and the ensuing explosion would probably be strong enough to demolish a mansion.
It was a long shot, but hopefully, it would be enough to kill the Giant.
Just in case it was not enough though… Gerald returned back home and slew the Pixie.
It was a good thing he did it too. The damn beast nearly escaped from its cage and once it was free it would be nearly impossible to catch again.
Who knows what kind of damage it could do before being stopped. Normal people certainly weren't up to the task.
He cleared out the intestine and stored the meat for later consumption. The Light Crystal was quite big for a small creature like this, about the size of a chicken egg. Still, it was not much, for five spell scrolls at most.
But even though making a laser manually was simple, putting it on paper was a whole different game.
Unlike other spells that could take a bit to completely form, this one had to burst into action nearly instantaneously for it to show its strength.
Runes for energy gathering and containment had to be overlapped and then Mana had to be guided along multiple channels from the energy source until it could be triggered all at once to form a single burst of concentrated light.
He used the blood of the Pixie as a base for the paint and the skin of the Ogre as a canvas. Crushing the Light Crystal and mixing it in, he created a one-of-a-kind bloody spell scroll, powerful enough to instantly burn through the skull of even the toughest of opponents.
That was probably an exaggeration, but Gerald was certain it could at least permanently blind the Giant if nothing else.
And now, after spending hours of designing and making the first spell scroll of its kind, he copied it and made four more…in thirty seconds.
Oh, and he gave it a much cooler name.
He called it…