Chapter 145
The first part of their journey to the city of Zalnothel began and Anton noticed that Frederick wasn't in their carriage.
"From now on, the mage will be joining Father, Lucas, and Nemina so it will just be us in here," Anna said to his brother.
Colin also left the carriage since he was assigned a task by Anders and it was for him to assist someone in creating more of the lantern woodcraft so Anton would have more to enchant. The lanterns that he enchanted last night were supposed to be used by the caravan but since they were sold to that magic shop, he would need to enchant some more so the caravan would have something to use.
In the meantime, Anna was practicing her magic by casting her sole cantrip on an empty wooden tablet of air conditioner and then memorizing the cantrip again so he joined her by memorizing all the books that he purchased.
Anton was surprised to learn that he was able to memorize the three first-level spells that he purchased in less than thirty minutes and was also able to memorize the two second-level spells that he bought in less than thirty minutes as well.
He then started making his grimoire since according to Frederick, the process of creating a mage's personal grimoire was for the mage to write down the spell in his grimoire while the spell was memorized. Once the spell was written, he would need to activate the spell by casting the spell on the grimoire while looking at the spell that was written while holding the original spellbook where he learned the spell. After that, the original spellbook would be consumed and he could memorize the spell from his grimoire.
That was the main reason why spellbooks were valuable. The good thing about the mage's grimoire was nobody else was supposed to be able to read it not until the mage who owned it died but normally mages would attach a spell to their grimoire that would consume it once they died. Anton then wondered why the vampires he killed dropped spellbooks and according to Frederick, those happen sometimes. Wizards who acquired spellbooks and hadn't had the chance to enter those spells in their grimoire would keep those spellbooks with them.
Anton then asked the mage how did one create a spellbook and Frederick didn't know.
After memorizing all of the spells that he purchased, Anton still hadn't felt the feeling of fullness that Frederick and Anna said that one was supposed to experience once they reached the maximum number of spells one could memorize and that meant that he was supposed to be still capable of memorizing more spell and possibly higher level spells.
It took a couple of hours to complete his grimoire and memorize all of his spells again. Suddenly, Anna shouted.
"I can feel it! After I wrote down my first spell in my grimoire, I memorized the spell again and then cast it and after memorizing the spell again I felt in my mind that I could add another cantrip to my repertoire! A good thing I purchase a few of them."
Anton then knew that he probably made the mistake of not purchasing more spellbooks from the city since he was now planning to enroll in a magic academy together with Anna.
"By the way Anna, study your magic hard while we're traveling since Father and I decided to enroll in one of the magic academies in Zalnothel."
"I can understand why there's a need for me to join the magic school but why are you joining? Your magic came from something else," Anna asked.
"I can use the magic in this world so I will disguise myself as a regular mage. As for the reason, it is to increase our status in the city since Father's initial plan was for us to stay there in that city. According to Lucas and Nemina, Zalnothel is a very powerful city guarded by several archmages so even if the Undead Coalition reached there, it was fully capable of defending itself from the invaders."
Anton then thought to himself that he was getting tired of running as well so it would be a good thing for them to stop in that city and if the undead did reach that city, he would fight with them with all of his power.
After lunchtime arrived, Anton and Anna stopped their magic studies and Anna went back to reading her fantasy books. The carriage was still comfortable since they were using the metal butterfly sculpture that was enchanted by the air conditioner that Anton gave to his sister. Colin arrived with five newly created lantern-like woodcraft so Anton started enchanting them with the Fire Bolt light and soon they were done.
Colin then said that they were still crafting some more lanterns and would give him more once they were done. He gave the completed lanterns to Colin to be given to his father to be distributed.
Anton then went inside his Diablo II game but instead of playing, he went directly to the Rogue Encampment to begin studying the Warmth passive spell. After a couple of hours, he finally managed to pinpoint the mana pathways that would gather the ambient mana from the environment to be stored in the mana storage. There were three known pathways that Anton discovered. One for the suction of the mana in the air, one to filter and convert to general non-elemental mana, and the third one to direct the converted mana to the mana storage to be stored.
Once he discovered the mana pathways, Anton then proceeded to add them to the wooden tablet of air conditioner that he prepared. Unfortunately, even after three hours of trial and error, he was still unsuccessful since the wooden tablet's mana pathways were being distorted by the mana that was sucked from the environment. After hours of experimentation, Anton stopped since it was getting late but then he felt that he was on the verge of becoming successful in adding the mana regeneration pathway to his enchantments so he knew that he would persist later after dinner.
The caravan soon stopped and Anton joined his family for dinner. The table where they set up the food was very bright due to the enchanted lanterns that Anton made and everyone felt the feeling of cheerfulness in the environment. Anton wondered how a simple thing such as a bright light could alter an environment's aura.
After dinner, he went to the animals to heal them and provided mana water to them to make sure that they were all in their peak condition. All of the horses were still affectionate towards him as if they recognized Anton as the one who was making sure that they were healthy and the one who was providing them delicious water.
Anton then went and took a bath after providing mana water to his family and friends and then went inside the carriage. Everyone was truly happy to stay inside the carriages since it was comfortably cold inside and for a moment, he pitied the guards who were supposed to patrol the caravan during the night.
He then suddenly remembered his resolve to befriend the people in the caravan to prevent anyone from thinking that he was some sort of a snob. He didn't even know the name of the person who was driving their carriage and the only excuse that he could give was that he was truly busy every day.
Chapter 146
The next day after breakfast, Anders Merchant Caravan started traveling again. During the morning, Anna practiced her magic by casting her two cantrips to a wooden tablet of air-conditioner to spend her spells then she would memorize them again and then rinse and repeat. The fact that she was able to learn a second cantrip immediately filled her with motivation.
Regarding her maids, they tried so hard to memorize the first cantrip but they weren't successful and Frederick sadly informed them that they might not have the talent for wizardry.
Anton spent the morning playing his Diablo II game. He planned to spend the mornings playing to make sure that he would level up and complete the Hell Difficulty then he would grind for items and levels. He was still excited to get the second class but he was not that anxious anymore. The fact that he was now able to see, manipulate, and carve the mana pathways and mana structures to items opened up his magic system to endless possibilities and he had just started with a few sorceress spells. He hadn't even experimented with creating new spells based on the original sorceress spells.
Of course, having more spells from the other class would immensely help in his research regarding enchanting items and creating new spells and the spells from the other class would make him more powerful. Anton even had this idea of not entering the academy and becoming a recluse so he could concentrate on playing the game and enchanting items but the thought of becoming a NEET even in this world gave him the heebie jeebies.
Besides, Anton becoming part of the academy and graduating from it will ensure that he would have the prestige and power of a graduate of the city and would ensure that his family would be somewhat safe in this dangerous world. It would also allow him to possibly enter the world of politics in that city but he wasn't interested in playing that convoluted game.
Another good thing about entering the academy was he would find people and friends who would look at him equally or be looked down upon as a simple student. Being looked up to by the people surrounding him as someone untouchable because of his power was becoming tiresome real quick.
Anton managed to reach the last waypoint before the Chaos Sanctuary when he was interrupted by Anna calling him so he exited the virtual mode and minimized the game.
"Anton, Colin brought more lantern wood thingies that you need to enchant your mage light into."
Colin then handed him a sack and when he looked inside, it had around seven or eight lanterns. When he checked the time, it was about an hour before lunch so he decided to enchant all of the lanterns with the Firebolt Light and was able to complete everything before lunch was served by Colin.
After lunch, he practiced and played the Lute for about an hour then entered the game again but this time he went directly to the Rogue Encampment and began studying enchantment again outside the safe zone.
He began by applying the mana pathways that he learned from the Warmth passive spell to the wooden board that contained the air-conditioner enchantment but even after two hours, he was still unsuccessful.
The three mana pathways from the Warmth passive spell still kept on distorting the other mana pathways that were already carved into the wooden tablet. He kept repeating the experiment, trying to find ways that would allow Anton to incorporate the pathways to the wooden board without distorting the other pathways from the Frozen Orb spell but after destroying several wooden tablets, he was still not successful.
To contain his frustration, Anton switched to studying the magic wand that he bought that had the magic missile spell but after studying the wand minutely using his mana senses, Anton was dismayed to see that the magic system in the wand was completely different from his.
There were magical runes that were in the wand that looked like his Diablo II runes but were different. They only looked like Diablo II runes but when he studied them minutely, there were no runes that had the exact appearance of any of the few runes from Diablo II.
Anton could study the new runes by isolating each one and then through trial and error, learn what they were but that would be a massive undertaking of a lifetime and he would rather concentrate on his magic.
He felt a bit sad that he would not be able to utilize the enchanted items of this world to his brand of enchantment that meant that he would need to find ways to activate his enchantment on the items apart from a switch or else, he would not be able to create a magic wand.
Anton could still make use of the switch to make a magic wand and even a magic sword but it really felt awkward to him to have the users of his enchanted items keep switching their items on and off.
He then thought that people who would be able to use an enchanted item wouldn't mind having to utilize a switch to activate the magic in the items since it would still make them powerful.
Then he thought of the possibility of using a switch and a button to activate the wand that Anton would make. He thought a switch would activate the spell on the wand and the button would release the spell. He thought that it might work so he started making a wand from one of the wooden tablets immediately. He noticed that he now had fewer wooden tablets that he could use for enchanting so later he would need to ask Colin for more. They didn't even have to be wooden tablets since he could carve any general shape that he wanted using his telekinesis but then again having the wooden tablets would make it easier so he decided to just ask Colin for more.
When the wand was ready, Anton carved the switch first then he thought of how to create a button but since he didn't have any sort of spring, he decided to use a second switch. Basically, the first switch was the one that would connect the spell structure to the mana storage, therefore activating the wand but the second switch would be the one that would allow the user to release the spell, sort of like a trigger.
After carving the mana pathways for energy storage, the mana pathway for gathering the elements, and the pathway for the level one Ice Bolt spell, he connected the pathways to the two switches. The way he made the switch for the wand was different from the air conditioner and the light. The switch for the air conditioner and the light was a rotation switch but for the wand, it was a slide switch. The user would just need to slide the button up to activate it and slide the second switch up quickly to release the spell and switch it down to stop the spell.
Anton laughed at how awkward it was but that's the only thing that he could think of at this time. He would definitely change the way to activate the wand once he was experienced enough. The wand was still destroyed after the tenth Ice Bolt but that was because of the material that was used. He still decided to show off his prototype to his family though since it was sort of a success.
Chapter 147
Anton exited out of the virtual mode of his Diablo II game and minimized it. He saw that the carriage was parked already and Anna and her maids were about to exit. He asked Colin to stay since he wanted to talk to him about the wooden boards.
"Colin, can you prepare more wooden tablets for me? I will need a lot of them, thanks."
Colin nodded his affirmative and they both exited the carriage. Anton joined his family to the table that was set up for their dinner and they waited for the cooks to finish cooking while Anders was talking to the others about their business.
Anton could see that Frederick was now already part of what he privately called the Anders Council which included Nemina, Lucas, Lunelle, and now the mage. He knew that Anders had assistants and Nemina also had some but they didn't introduce them to him. Soon, night arrived and the enchanted lanterns were switched on causing the camp to brighten.
"Anton, you're enchanted lanterns are truly great!" Lucas praised while he was observing the campsite, which was now very bright because of the lanterns.
"Are you planning to sell enchanted items, Father?"
"As of right now, I'm not planning to sell any items that you enchanted if not needed since I don't want to bring attention that you're an enchanted item maker since that could cause envious eyes to gaze upon us. We're still going to focus on weapons and armor since they're needed in these times."
"By the way, I managed to create a prototype magic wand! It's not very stable yet and it's awkward to use and I will need a long time to perfect it."
Frederick gasped when he heard what Anton had said and the others looked surprised. Anton retrieved the wand that he created and showed it to his Father. Everyone studied the wand while Anton explained how to use it.
"You're right. It is awkward to use," Anna said while laughing and Anton just shrugged since he already explained that it was only a prototype.
Frederic tested the wand on a faraway tree and the mage enjoyed using it so much that he didn't stop until the tenth Ice Bolt was released and the wand was destroyed. At first, the mage looked dismayed since he thought that he accidentally destroyed the wand but Anton explained that since the wand was made of ordinary wood, the material would be destroyed once the tenth spell was released.
"So if you used a magical material or sturdier material the wand should last?" Anna asked.
"It should but I haven't tested it yet. I also wondered what material magic wands are made of. Unfortunately, I haven't learned anything from that magic wand I bought since it seemed like the magic used to create it was totally different from what I used to create my magic items."
Anton then gave his sister the wand of the magic missile and told her it only had three charges since he bought it cheaply to destroy it to learn the enchantment inside.
Soon dinner was served and after they ate, Anton immediately retired inside the carriage after taking a bath. He wanted to continue his enchantment studies.
He was about to enter his Diablo II game when suddenly Anton heard a shout from outside.
"Bandit attack!" Someone shouted.
Anton immediately went outside while telling his sisters and her maid to remain inside the carriage. He was surprised to see that the number of bandits attacking their caravan was so many that they were like an army.
He was glad to see that Lucas, Genod, Kudar, and Budolf, the leaders of the merchant guards were quick enough to organize themselves and mount an effective defense but he saw that they were severely outnumbered.
Anton saw his father joining the fight by using his magic wand of Fire Ball but suddenly some sort of magical shield appeared at the location where the Fire Ball from Anders's wand was supposed to land and that meant that the bandits had wizards of their own and powerful ones at that since they were able to nullify a Fire Ball attack.
Anders wasn't disheartened and without regard to the number of charges on his wand, he kept casting Fire Balls from it to the middle of the bandits who came from inside the forest and soon some Fire Balls managed to penetrate the enemy wizard's shield and caused devastating damage to the bandit army.
There were shouting from the bandits that they should hold on since the magic from the wand that the leader of the caravan was using should be expended soon and that caused Anton's blood to boil.
The bandits reached the group of guards and soon the melee fight was full-blown. Anton saw that the merchant caravan's guards were valiant and courageous and then he heard Devon shouting to fight since even if their arms and legs were cut off, their wizard would be able to heal it, and that caused him to sigh.
Anton cast his defensive buffs and flew up. He then saw some sort of red bolt coming up to him and before he could react, it reached him but was dispelled by his Energy Bolt and the defense of his armor from the inside of the game. He did notice that his HP decreased by one-fourth and that meant that the spell was powerful but his auras immediately healed him.
He saw the three mages looking up at him and they had horrified looks on their faces when they saw that Anton was not affected by their spell. He saw that the three mages began uttering a group incantation and red light slowly gathered in their midst. That confirmed that the red bolt was a group spell and the fact that he was able to nullify that supposedly powerful attack from them caused them to wear the horrified expressions.
Anton had to admit that the three enemy wizards were brave since even though they knew that he was powerful and was able to dispel their first attack, they kept casting their spells.
He activated the special effect of his auras and buffs so that everyone's eyes would be on him and he heard some of the bandits saying that Anton was an archmage.
Anton then attacked the three mages by using his telekinesis spell. He wanted to capture the mages since he wanted to question them. It appeared that the bandit army attack wasn't an ordinary one and the mages should be able to answer his questions.
He held the three mages using his telekinesis and lifted them, causing their spell to be interrupted and Anton could see the pain of the spell backlash on the mages' faces. He brought the three mages near him.
"Stop casting spells or I'll drain the magic from your bodies and turn you into frogs that I would keep in a bottle!" Anton bluffed then he saw the mages fearfully nodding.
When the bandits saw that their mages were captured by him, they began running and it helped that even Anders kept using his wands to target the bandits.
Anton flew down and saw that two people were almost fatally wounded and three had lost their limbs. He was glad to see that Lucas immediately gathered the wounded guards together so when he reached them, with the frozen enemy mages floating behind him, he immediately added those wounded guards to his party.
The three supposedly bandit mages were horrified to see that the two almost dead guards visibly recovered, their gaping wounds knitting together rapidly and after a few minutes, they stood up as if nothing happened to them. The three guards who lost their limbs began to regenerate their missing limbs and everyone was cheering at the scene since it brought them hope that if something similar happened to them, their wizard would be able to restore them fully.
Chapter 148
The three mages who were still frozen because Anton's Telekinesis was holding them were floating behind him while he walked around the campsite making sure that no one was still injured.
After that, Anton went to where his father was and immediately had Charsi recharged Anders's wands since they were highly useful in battle.
"Father, I captured these three mages and right now they can't move because of my spell. Can you have someone interrogate them? Honestly, once I released them I didn't know how to stop them from casting spells. They're really powerful," Anton whispered to his father so that the prisoner mages wouldn't hear him.
"Let's bring them into the forest and try asking them some questions while you're holding them with your spell."
Anders then called Lucas and Genod and asked them to follow Anton and him to the forest to interrogate the captured mages.
Once the trees surrounded them, Lucas began questioning the mages.
"Who are you and why did you attack our caravan," Lucas asked the mages calmly.
The mages ignored Lucas and looked at Anton.
"Sir Archmage, we're part of the Wizard Emporium in Ruandelle and we were instructed to capture the young mage Frederick since according to our intel he was the one who made the enchanted item that makes a room cold and the enchanted lantern. We were informed by our people that the only defenses that your caravan had were mercenaries and the master of the caravan who was wielding powerful wands. The enchanter was supposed to be a very weak mage." One of the capture mages said.
Anton was surprised that the mage was so forthcoming and based on the other two captured mages, they were not blaming the wizard who spoke.
"Why are you telling that information readily?" Lucas asked curiously.
"We're not loyal soldiers! We're businessmen and yes we sometimes do unscrupulous things but we're only supposed to intimidate your caravan into giving us the mage and after that, we would have let you go. How are we supposed to know that your caravan is under an archmage," One of the mages shouted.
Anton cast his buffs and activated his three auras then turned on the special effects. He then floated up so now he looked like a powerful being glowing and floating.
"Father, I'm angry. Will you allow me to go back to the city of Ruandelle and destroy the Wizard's Emporium or possibly the whole city itself!" Anton asked his father but he winked first to make sure that Anders would understand that he was just bluffing.
The three mages were horrified to hear what Anton wanted to do.
"Sir Archmage, please. The city of Ruandelle had a lot of innocent people that don't deserve to die!" One of the mages said.
"Hmmph, you just don't want the people of the city to know that your actions resulted in the destruction of the city," Genod said angrily.
"Still, we didn't know and we don't want a lot of people to get hurt. Nobody died in your caravan!" One of the mage prisoners said.
"Only because they were healed by my son! As you can see, he is a powerful archmage at a very young age. He's not some old wizard who's wearing a young face. What he looked is what his age is and his master is also a very powerful archmage from the city of Zalnothel and we're headed there so my son can join him. If his master learned that he was attacked by a counselor of your city, I'm guessing that that counselor and his family and possibly the whole city would disappear!" Anders angrily said.
Anton was impressed at how good his father's acting was but then he reckoned that Anders just channeled his anger at being attacked to that statement.
"We do apologize Sir Archmage and Sir Archimage's father. If you let us go we will return to the city and report that counselor to the council so that he can be punished!" One of the mages pleads.
"If something happens again, I will do everything in my power to trace and destroy all of the people involved! Now go!" Anton released the three mages and they immediately ran back towards the city of Ruandelle without looking back.
"You should have killed them," Genod said angrily.
"No. What Anton did was correct. No one died on our end and the only people who died on their end were thugs they hired. If they truly reported what happened here, and based on the information that we gave them, those mages were cowardly enough that they should, the counselor who was one of the owners of that Wizard's Emporium should be punished."
Genod just harrumph and immediately went back to the campsite. While Anton, Anders, and Lucas were walking back, Lucas suddenly asked Anton something.
"Anton, ever since I've known you, I haven't seen you kill anyone. Have you ever killed a person?"
"You're correct Lucas. I've only killed monsters and the closest thing that I've killed that looked like a human was those werewolves and those vampires. But if me and my family are threatened, I will not hesitate to kill but for now, I'll let you handle the killings since you're used to it," Anton laughed.
Anders looked extremely proud and Lucas smiled at Anton's innocence.
Anton sighed and told Lucas something that he had thought of before.
"Since I haven't consciously killed anyone before, I know that once I do I might encounter emotions that I haven't before like the feeling of guilt of taking someone's life of a father or a brother or someone's son but I started preparing for that ever since I woke up from my sickness. I know that this is not a peaceful world and I can't live like I'm somewhere benevolent and I'll deal it with once it comes but for now, I'm living my life with my family while enjoying our adventures."
Unexpectedly, Anders suddenly hugged Anton.
"If your mother is alive, she would have been very proud of you right now."
Anton blushed and patted his father's back.
Since it was still nighttime, Anders planned to continue resting in their camp but Anton saw that the mercenary leaders doubled the guards who were patrolling the surrounding area.
Anna and her maids were outside their carriage together with Colin and Nemina, Lunelle and Frederick were outside theirs.
"Why are you waiting outside?" Anton asked his sister.
"We wanted to know if everything is fine now," Anna answered.
"Let's go inside the carriage and I'll tell you the details."
Once they were inside Anton told his sister that the bandits were not really bandits but thugs that were hired and led by three mages from the Wizard's Emporium shop from the city of Ruandelle. They only intended to scare the caravan into giving up Frederick since they thought that he was the one who made the wooden tablet of air conditioner and lantern of Fire Bolt light.
He also mentioned that Anton had already released the captured mages and would return to the city to report the counselor who made the nefarious plan of capturing the enchanter. He told Anna that the mages were frightened that he would fly back to the city to rain death and devastation to their shop and even the city because of their actions.
"Even if you do something like that, they deserve it!" Anna harrumphed and Anton just smiled.
Chapter 149
The next day, the caravan started the journey early since Anders wanted to leave the vicinity of the city of Ruandelle as fast as they could since he didn't want any misunderstanding to form between the city and his caravan. Anders was still planning to become a business mogul and he didn't want the city to be closed to him due to this incident.
Of course, since the Undead Coalition was attacking, Anton's father wasn't planning to create a business route to the cities that were being attacked or near the Undead Coalition armies.
After breakfast and while they were traveling, as usual, Anna began the day by filling up the mana storage of an empty wooden board of air conditioner by casting her two cantrips on it and then memorizing her two spells again. She was truly motivated to become a powerful sorceress as soon as possible, especially when she learned that she would be joining a magic academy when they reached the wizard city of Zalnothel. Not only that, with her powerful brother around, she had the ambition to become as powerful as he was someday.
Anton also began the day by playing his Diablo II game. He really wanted to complete the Hell Difficulty as soon as possible but the fact that his skill points were scattered to different spells, his spells were a little underpowered for the difficulty. It did help that he was fighting the monsters personally and the process of him utilizing his teleport and telekinesis to move around helped a lot. Also, the traveling from one location to another in the game was longer when he was inside personally but as soon as he completed the Hell Difficulty, he would begin the grinding process and it would be faster since he was planning to use the on-screen option for that and only enter the game if he wanted to practice his spells or experiment on enchanting items or creating new spells.
Anton took the whole morning to defeat Diablo in the Chaos Sanctuary and complete the first zone in Act V and as usual, he didn't receive any notable drops which was expected since he would only be able to do so once he focused on grinding. He didn't even earn a level but the fact that he was already level sixty-nine meant that it would take a long time and many monsters before he earned a level especially since he hadn't activated the Player X code yet to increase the experience gained.
After reaching the first waypoint in Act V, Anton went back to the Rogue Encampment and parked his character there then minimized the game. It was a few minutes before lunch so he joined his sister in partaking in the food that their cook prepared for their consumption even though lunch was usually a simple fare.
While they were eating, someone knocked on their door and when Colin opened it, it was Devon. He informed Anton that a messenger from the city of Ruandelle arrived to inform them that the Counselor who orchestrated the attack on their caravan was imprisoned by the government since what he did was highly illegal and against the laws that were created to protect the merchants that came into the city.
Anton then remembered that Ruandelle was called a merchant city and that meant that it was supposed to be especially protective of merchants since they were the lifeblood of the city. He then just shrugged since he truly didn't care about it anymore.
After lunch, Anton went inside the game again but this time he concentrated on completing his project of incorporating the mana pathways from the Warmth passive spell on the wooden board of air conditioner.
After a grueling five hours of experimentation and trial and error, he was finally successful. The prototype of a wooden table of air conditioner that would regenerate the mana in its mana storage was created. The first successful prototype would regenerate ten percent of its mana storage after twenty-four hours. That meant that a full mana storage would take around ten days.
Anton was satisfied since he knew that further experimentation would only cause the regeneration to go faster but it would probably take a long time. He then exited the game and minimized it and at the same time, he felt the carriage stopping, meaning it was time for the caravan to stop for the night.
He saw that his sister and her maids were already outside the carriage and only Colin remained there waiting for him.
Anton joined his family at the dinner table but he saw that dinner was not served yet and was still being prepared by the cooks.
"Father, I was successful in incorporating an energy regeneration on a wooden board of an air conditioner but I'm still in the early phase. It would only regenerate ten percent of its energy after twenty-four hours meaning that it will only be full after ten days. Still, I know that it wouldn't take me long to decrease the regeneration time," Anton told his father.
"You're truly a heaven-defying enchanter, Sir Anton!" gasped Frederick when he heard what Anton had said.
"Does that mean that if you added that power to a wand, the wand that you created didn't need to be recharged anymore?" Anna asked.
"Yes. But there is still the problem of durability. Even if I use a sturdier material as the wand's base like a metal, I'm sure that after a certain number of spells, the wand would be destroyed. It's a pity that I didn't get any information when I studied the wand that I purchased," Anton said.
"I'm sure that you will be able to solve it soon but I highly recommend that you only share what you have learned about your enchantment with your father. The abilities that you were showing as an enchanter will be highly coveted by powerful people so to avoid dangerous eyes looking upon your family, secrecy is still your best weapon. At least until you are truly a powerful and famous archmage that everyone would be afraid to target," cautioned Nemina.
After thinking about it, Anton knew that Nemina was correct and it was indeed a bit foolish of him to announce everything that had been happening to his magic to everyone so he decided to follow that advice to give updates to his father only.
While they were eating, Anton thought of which project he would do next. He then thought of making the guards more powerful by giving them enchanted weapons so he thought of doing the project of adding a fire enchantment to swords next.
He thought that it might be easier since there's already an Enchant spell under the fire tree skill and he would only need to study and tweak the spell structure and mana pathways and then etched them to a sword. After that, he thought of adding a Frozen Armor spell enchantment to an armor. Anton imagined the day when Lucas or Devon fought their enemies while surrounded by the Frozen Armor spell and their sword glowing with Fire Enchantment. That would be glorious and would make his father's merchant empire famous.
Of course, Anton knew that it wouldn't be that easy and he must not forget to make sure to prioritize his leveling up his character in the game since that was truly the best and fastest way to increase his power.
Chapter 150
Two weeks of travel brought them to the third village that they would need to pass through on the way to the wizard city of Zalnothel. That meant that the caravan would take only about a month and a week before they reached the said city and a few more villages and some towns.
Everyone was happy when Anders announced that they would stay in this quaint little village for three days and two nights to rest since they had been traveling non-stop since the Wizard Emporium from the city of Ruandelle attacked them.
Even Anna was behaving crankily at Anton and kept requesting more movies but he didn't show even one since he was truly focusing on leveling up and grinding from items.
Since Anna and her maids, Lunelle and Frederick had long completed the David Eddings books that he had copied from the internet, Anna kept pestering Anton for more movies and books. Even the ones that she had purchased from the city of Ruandelle were already consumed by her but she kept complaining that the books from the city were shallow and uninteresting.
Anna, of course, didn't stop practicing her magic and was able to finally memorize a third cantrip. Her problem was that she focused on her magic during the morning and during afternoons she kept complaining that she had nothing to do.
Frederick once suggested that she should focus on her magic even during the afternoons since she was truly talented in magic and once she was able to memorize her seventh or eighth cantrip, that was usually the time that first-level spells would be available for her to memorize and that was the time that she could call herself a first-level mage.
The mage himself kept announcing to everybody that he had already memorized his second first-level spell and kept muttering that soon he would become an archmage while wearing an exhilarated expression.
Lunelle kept rolling her eyes at the mage since everyone knew that it would take a regular mage decades before they could become an archmage and with Frederick's talent, it would probably take him more than a hundred years. Frederick spent all of his savings and the coins that Anders already gave him to prepare several first-level spells that he purchased from Ruandelle for him to memorize once he was able to and he kept saying to Anton that once they reached Zalnothel, he would purchase second-level spells.
Anna did spend some afternoons focusing on her magic learning but she finally frustratingly announced that she couldn't do it every day. Anton finally relented and copied a few Anne of Green Gables books from the internet for his sisters and it took him a couple of hours.
Anton was amused to see that Anna and her maids and Lunelle who joined them on their carriage were crying while reading the Anne of Green Gables books.
Since Anton focused on leveling up and grinding for items after he completed Act V of the Hell Difficulty, He had maxed his Telekinesis so it was now very powerful and he was now focused on maximizing the levels of his Frozen Orb, Cold Mastery, Meteor, and Fire Mastery.
Anton's gears were also becoming more powerful since he was successful in farming items from old Mephy, Diablo, and Baal. His current setup was the following: For weapons, he now had the Death's Fathom Dimensional Shard, and on his alternate weapon slot was the Harmony bow since the Vigor Aura was useful in the real world. On his shield slot, he was now wearing the Sanctuary tower shield.
For his helm, he was now wearing the Harlequin Crest Shako and for his belt, Anton was wearing the Arachnid Mesh Spiderweb Sash. His armor was a more powerful Skin of the Vipermagi with a UM rune. For his gloves, he was wearing Chance Gloves chain gloves and in the boots slot, he was wearing Aldurs Advance Battle Boots.
Anton's accessories consisted of a rare Glacial Amulet that added three to his sorceress skill level and resistance to cold and two Stone of Jordans. He was still collecting materials that would let him craft better rings but for now, he was still using the Stone of Jordans.
Anton was also planning to hunt for the unique charms once his level was higher but for now, he was grinding for levels on Baal. He was truly thankful that he had access to the Internet since it provided a detailed guide on how and where to hunt items. Even the video guides from the famous video streaming sites by the powerful and experienced players were very helpful.
The fact that he was grinding using the on-screen option and was using the player X code made his item hunting explode exponentially.
Nobody noticed but Anton's power in the real world was now much more advanced compared to two weeks before.
Of course, to avoid burnout, he was still utilizing his Internet to watch movies, animes, and T.V. shows and was also using it to read web novels but he was only doing so about two hours a day.
Anton's daily routine was playing the game during the mornings then enchantment research in the afternoon and then using his browser for entertainment before sleeping during the night.
For his enchantment exercises, he was successful in reducing the mana regeneration of items to half for both the wooden tablet of the air conditioner and the lanterns of Fire Bolt light. Since he made enough of the two items, every carriage had one and Anton didn't even need to recharge the enchanted items anymore since the number of items they had was enough for the rest to recharge by themselves so they could replace those with exhausted mana with those one who was full of mana because of the mana regeneration enchantment.
Unfortunately, he didn't make progress with the wands and enchanted swords, shields, and armor since he focused on item mana regeneration and he would need more time for the weapons and armor.
Anton also thought of starting another enchantment project which was some sort of mana power bank wherein an item with exhausted mana reserve would be placed on the mana power bank and the mana would then be transferred to the enchanted item but that project was temporarily put on hold due to its complexity.
While they were traveling, they encountered several attacks from monsters and bandits but the guards were mostly enough to fight off or deter the attackers. The guards were especially valiant due to the fact that they would be healed immediately by their powerful wizard once they got injured.
For the monsters who were especially powerful like the one basilisk who stumbled upon them, Anton was powerful enough to defeat it immediately and Anders and Nemina were particularly gleeful if something powerful attacked them since usually powerful monsters were full of treasure.
Anders also collected a lot of weapons and armor from the villages that they had passed through since the villagers were particularly gleeful in selling their broken and worn-out items to the caravan. Anton also repaired them immediately so they wouldn't accumulate. It was easier for him to repair a few than let them gather.
They arrived in the third village around lunchtime and fortunately, the cook who was the innkeeper's wife was very fast and skillful and managed to prepare food for everyone although she needed assistance from the caravan's cooks.
Anton wasn't worried about food since he still had a lot of food that he purchased from Ruandelle personally and was stored in his inventory. He only took some once in a while and shared them with Anna, her maids, Colin, and Lunelle, basically only on the people inside his carriage but the rest of the time, he ate what the caravan cooks prepared.
Chapter 151
Anders merchant caravan rented all the rooms in the inn but since the village inn was tiny, they only had six rooms. One room was assigned to Anton and he asked one of the attendants who was just a villager that the innkeeper commandeered to become a temporary inn attendant while they were staying in the village to lead him to his room.
The villager who was a young man was intimidated by Anton since the young man saw him behaving like a noble although, to be honest about it, Anton didn't know how nobles truly behaved and when he asked Frederick about it, the mage shrugged and told him that he didn't have much dealing with those sort of people.
Since it was early, lunch was still several hours away so he took a bath from the bathroom located at the inn's basement. Unfortunately, there were no bathrooms in their rooms so if they wanted to take a bath, they would have to go to the basement. There isn't even a separate room for women and men so if men were bathing first, the women had to wait and vice versa.
Since Anna wanted to bathe after him, after bathing, Anton took the time to refill the tubs with his infamous mana water. Anna was relentless in making sure that the water she was using to bathe and drink was Anton's mana water since she kept saying that it was very important to make sure that she and her maids and Lunelle became the most beautiful ladies in the land.
After using the water from melted Frozen Orb for so long, Anton basically confirmed that the mana water was truly beneficial to the people who were using it when it came to their health and appearance. Even his father now looked like he was in his early thirties and Anna looked like a princess who had never worked a day in their life when a few weeks ago, they were just a normal hardy farmer family on a tiny unimportant farm in a faraway land.
On a sad note, Anton kept hearing his father mutter that if his wife, Anton, and Anna's mother were alive, she would have been the most beautiful lady in the land if she used Anton's mana water and the first time Anna heard her father mutter that, she ran to their carriage once Anders was preoccupied to notice and she cried. When Anton followed her to console her sister, she cried more since she knew that Anton didn't even remember their mother.
When Anton went to his room, at first he planned to play his Diablo II game to continue leveling up but he was feeling burnt out so he took a nap instead. After about an hour, he woke up and saw that there were still a couple of hours before lunch so he decided to go inside the game and continue his enchantment projects.
He wanted to become successful in creating an enchanted sword so he focused on the Enchant spell under the Fire Spell Tree. Anton was successful in isolating the spell structure of the fire enchantment and was also successful in separating the mana pathways from each other.
He needed to solve the problem of the duration and was sort of successful by attaching the spell structure to the mana storage but the consumed mana was tremendous since the fire enchantment was basically a continuous active spell.
Anton finally isolated the mana pathway that would allow the spell structure to act like a light fixture instead of an active attack spell and would only do so if the sword hit an object. The consumed mana while the enchantment was active by using a switch, which was sadly, still the only way for him to activate his enchantments, was just as much as the consumed mana equal to the lantern of Fire Bolt but once the sword hit an object, the consume mana would be equivalent to the mana of one Fire Bolt attack.
So that meant that if the user activated the Fire-enchanted sword, it would light up, consuming a tiny amount of mana but when he used it, every attack that successfully hit would consume mana equivalent to one Fire Bolt attack which would consume a huge amount of mana.
The first thing that Anton did was carve the spell structure and the mana pathway on a sword but he didn't include the mana regeneration first since he needed to find out if the mana pathways and spell structure would be carved successfully.
After wasting a few swords, he successfully created his first fire-enchanted sword. The switch in the hilt to activate the enchantment looked and felt awful to Anton and it made him sigh.
Based on the mana storage capacity, the light effect of the sword would last as long as the lantern of Fire Bolt and when Anton attacked a wooden dummy, after the twentieth attack, the mana storage was exhausted.
The two indicators that he attached which were admittedly, were extremely complex, would indicate the amount of mana left in the mana storage and the amount of uses left before the sword was destroyed. He even put a line on the durability indicator that would indicate the safe line to prevent the total destruction of the sword and if the user wanted to fully restore the mana charges and the sword's durability, he would need to bring it to Anton to have Charsi repair it.
Anton was a bit proud and excited to finally complete an enchanted sword although truthfully, a full mana storage would only last the user for twenty attacks but those attacks would be very powerful. He knew though that further study and experimentation would increase the power and durability of the sword but then again, it would take him quite a long time to do so.
He exited the game and went to join his family for lunch. During lunch, he informed his father, Lucas, and Nemina to meet him in his room since he wanted to show them something but Anna complained and asked to be included so he allowed his sister to join them.
After lunch, Anton's father, Anna, Nemina, and Lucas followed Anton to his room. When they entered the room, Anton retrieved the enchanted sword that he had just created and gave it to Lucas for the sword to be inspected.
"I have successfully created an enchanted sword. If you turn on the switch, the enchantment on the sword will activate."
Lucas immediately turned on the switch and the sword lit up with fire enchantment. Everyone gasped when they saw the gorgeous sword.
"What does it do?" Anna curiously asked.
"When you first turn on the switch, the enchantment would activate and it would light up. It would be like the Enchanted lanterns that I've made but once you hit an object with the sword, the attack will include a fire attack."
Anton then retired a wooden dummy that Colin made for him and asked Lucas to hit it with the sword. When Lucas hit the dummy, sparks came out and everyone could clearly see the fire enchantment that cut the dummy in half.
He then told everyone that if the sword were used as a simple light, the enchantment would last as long as the enchanted lantern but if they hit something with the enchantment active, the mana in the sword would only last for around twenty hits. He also mentioned that since it was the first prototype that he had made, he was sure that he could increase the power and durability of the sword.
Chapter 152
Unexpectedly, Devon requested to have the Fire Enchanted Sword prototype and before Anders and Lucas could protest, Anton took the sword from Lucas and gave it to Devon.
Anton laughed out loud when he saw Lucas looking at his son sternly while Devon was wearing a smug expression. Devon stood up and did some sword moves and it looked like he was dancing. The sword that was glowing made his moves very mysterious and powerful at the same time and it attracted the attention of everyone in the inn.
Lucas looked abashed when he heard Anton's laugh.
"Don't worry Lucas, I can give you an enchanted sword too, although I would prefer to give out the enchanted swords once the attack could last longer than twenty hits. You can still use it as a showpiece or during emergencies," Anton almost said the word "toy' but luckily he was able to hold himself from saying it.
Anton noticed that the other guards were looking at Devon enviously and the smug look on Lucas's son's face became greater.
"Anton, can you give a magic wand that does nothing but light up?" Anna suddenly asked with a red face.
"Why?" Anders asked his daughter curiously.
"I want to wield the wand while casting my spells to fill up the mana storage of the wooden tablet of air conditioner during my magic practice. It would feel like I'm a very powerful sorceress!" Anna said while dreamily imagining what she would look like casting spells with a wand that does nothing but light up.
Anders and the other laughed heartily when they heard what Anna had said and Anton's sister started protesting to everyone to stop laughing. Her face was so red it almost looked like smoke was coming out from her hair.
Anton finally told Anna to get the wand later and she calmed down.
After lunch, Anders told Anton that they would continue their business of buying things from the villagers and he told his father that he would return to his room to meditate and experiment on his enchantment.
Before he went to his room, Anton saw Devon surrounded by some of the guards asking about his enchanted sword and he heard Devon bragging to the others about the sword's capabilities. Curiously, even though they heard that the sword would only last for twenty hits they still looked like they coveted Devon's sword.
That meant to Anton that he would need to focus on improving the sword's enchantments so he could produce them and allow Anders to distribute them to their guards.
"Colin, can you make sure that I'm only disturbed if it's truly important?"
Anton suddenly remembered that he had already run out of wooden tablets so he asked Colin about more of them and Colin nodded.
The first thing that Anton did when he arrived in his room was to enter the game. Since he was still in the Rogue Encampment, he began creating a wand of light for his sister. What he wanted to do was find the spell structure that would allow the lights to change their color.
Anton was surprised that just changing the color of the light was more complex than allowing the sword to light up. He did encounter some difficulty when he created the spell structure that would allow the Fire Bolt spell structure to integrate a mana pathway that would let the blade of the sword light up using the fire elements instead of a ball of Fire Bolt spell appearing on top of the sword. It actually took him the whole afternoon to create wands that would light up in blue, pink, and green colors. He was mightily impressed at himself for being able to create the mana pathway of colors and he recorded them in his book of Spell Structures and Mana Pathways.
When Anton checked the time, it was already six in the evening. He couldn't believe that the process of creating the mana pathways for the colors took him five hours. He exited the game and looked for his sister to give the newly created wand to her. He found her still in her room together with her maids.
"Why does it have three switches?" Anna asked when she noticed the switches on the wand's hilt.
"Try them out but avoid turning on more than one switch since it wouldn't work if more than one switch is turned on," Anton said.
Anna and her maids gasped when they saw the wand light up in three different colors depending on the switch that was turned on. The only part of the wand that was glowing was the tip since Anton didn't want the whole wand lighting up since it would look like a tiny lightsaber if it did that.
"Since the light is so bright, avoid looking at the light directly. The enchantment should last as long as the lantern of Fire Bolt. Maybe even longer since the lantern is turned on for several hours each night and besides, you can fill up the mana storage yourself using your cantrips," Anton told his sister.
Anna hugged Anton then ran downstairs and Anton assumed to show off his wand to their Father. He followed his sister and when they reached the inn's common room, which was just downstairs, Anton saw that Anders had set up his purchase business there.
The villagers who were selling their broken and worn-out equipment to Anders and Nemina gasped when they saw Anna holding a wand that was glowing with pink light.
"Father look at what Anton made me! It glows in three different colors!" Anna then changed the color of her wand from pink to blue and then green.
Anton almost laughed out loud when he saw his father's customer's eyes grow big while looking at Anna who kept changing the color of her wand's light.
"I want one too," Lunelle unexpectedly said to Anton.
Anton just nodded. He saw that Anna's maids looked like they wanted to request wands too but they held themselves from requesting. He sat beside his father and created three wands right there since it would only take him around ten minutes each to carve the mana pathway on the wands. The research and development of the enchantments were the ones that would take several hours or even days.
After thirty minutes, he gave Lunelle and Anna's maids their own wands. Anna's maids were surprised when they received wands of their own and thanked Anton. He was amused to see that the common room looked Christmassy with different colored lights lighting up the place. Devon even joined in on the fun by lighting up his enchanted sword.
"Okay turn them off, I'm getting dizzy!" Anders scolded the women which made Anton laugh.
Several minutes later, Anders closed down their business and told the villagers that they would continue purchasing their items the next day. They ordered dinner from the innkeeper and luckily for the innkeeper's cook, she was still being assisted by the caravan's cooks since there were a lot of people from the caravan that needed to eat.
While they were eating, Anton told his father and Anna that the enchantment for the different colored lights was highly complex and that was the reason why he didn't include the mana regeneration enchantment to the wands. Anna told Anton that it was alright since she would just use her spell to fill up the mana storage of their wands.
Chapter 153
After dinner, Anton was about to go upstairs to his room so he could start watching some animes before sleeping when they heard screams and shouting outside the inn.
Anton heard the shouts saying that undead monsters were attacking the village. He looked at his family and he saw that everyone had a look of horror in their faces. They were already so far away from Leminthor and the merchant city of Ruandelle was between them and Leminthor. Did that mean that Leminthor had fallen and Ruandelle was being attacked? How powerful was the Undead Coalition that two cities were attacked even while they were at war with the powerful holy city of Tiande?
Anders commanded his daughter and her maids to remain inside the inn while Anton ran outside to check. He was glad to see that the caravan's mercenaries were organized so he flew up to check the situation.
To Anton's horror, there was truly an army of undead that was arriving in the village and he even saw some liches and vampires in the middle of the army that was surrounded by elite-looking undead like skeletons riding skeletal horses and huge ghouls and zombies. The liches wore robes so they looked like wizards with their cowls down and Anton could only see glimpses of their bony heads. There were three liches and around ten vampires surrounding them.
Based on the distance of the army, they should arrived in the village after around ten minutes so he flew back down and told his father the situation.
Everyone had a look of horror on their faces when they heard that there were liches and vampires amidst the army of ghouls and zombies. Anders and Lucas commanded everyone to immediately prepare the caravan so they could begin running.
Impressively, the caravan and its mercenaries were ready after five minutes and began moving outside the village towards the city of Zalnothel. Everyone in the Caravan knew that they were sacrificing the village so they could run but the villagers were not idiots. Most of them joined the caravan in their exodus out of the village but soon the caravan outdistanced everyone that was on foot since the caravan was letting the horses run as fast as they could.
Since the caravan was huge, Anton couldn't do what they did before in letting the horses join in on his party system so he could use his auras to make the animals run non-stop. There were ten carriages and the carriages were pulled by two to four horses each and not only that, the mercenaries had their own horses as well.
Their immediate plan was to let the horses run as far and as fast as they could and when they couldn't anymore, Anton would heal and restore the animal's stamina using his auras, seven horses at a time. While the caravan and the villagers were running outside the village, Anton told his father that he would attack the army to give them more time to flee.
Anders looked at his son worriedly and told Anton to run if he was ever in danger. The caravan continued running while Anton activated all of the defense spells and auras and made sure to turn on the special effects so the undead would focus on him instead of the fleeing people.
The undead army reached the entrance of the village when Anton cast his first attack spells toward the undead army. He cast Meteor one after another in the middle of the army where the liches and the vampires were.
Flaming rocks appeared from the heavens and hurtled down to the liches and vampires who were in the middle of the undead army but suddenly, a glowing red magic barrier appeared protecting the monsters.
Anton wasn't surprised since he encountered the same situation before. The huge flaming meteors crashed on the magic barrier and the sounds of the impact of the spells resounded in the area. He saw animals in the forest causing a stampede in their mad scrambling to flee.
Anton could see that the three liches were together in casting some kind of group spell that was protecting the undead army. To not allow them to attack him, he kept casting Meteor on them.
He flew nearer and began casting Frozen Orb in front of the undead army and the devastatingly beautiful and deadly orbs of ice that exploded with sharp Ice Bolts arrived in front of the monsters causing untold destruction.
One advantage of Ice Spells towards the undead was, that if it were powerful enough, the frozen monsters would shatter and disappear, not allowing the liches to resurrect them. When the liches saw their minions being destroyed without the possibility of them being resurrected, Anton assumed that they commanded the vampires to attack him.
The vampires flew up and began attacking him by casting spells of their own. Red bolts and balls of gray and red light reached him.
Anton couldn't really dodge the spells since the vampires were fast but he wasn't surprised that when the spells reached him, the damage that penetrated his Energy Shield didn't cause much damage since he was protected by powerful items from the world of Sanctuary.
He then attacked the vampires by teleporting in the middle of three of them and casting Frozen Nova. The three vampires froze and he attacked them immediately using Frozen Orb causing the three vampires to freeze and shatter.
When the other vampires saw what happened to their constituents, the rest immediately flew back down and entered the shield that the three liches made.
So far, Anton killed three vampires and around fifty undead minions but before he could do more damage, all of the undead entered the magic barrier that the three liches made.
Anton's attack did stall the undead army since when he attacked them, they couldn't move anymore. They were hunkering inside the magic barrier but Anton attacked the barrier with Meteor and Frozen Orb relentlessly. He didn't stop since he was supported by the Meditation Aura.
After thirty minutes of endless casting of Meteors and Frozen that made the sky light up like it was morning, he heard a very loud crack coming from the barrier. One of the liches suddenly exploded so only two liches were remaining. The seven vampires who were surrounding the three liches were looking at Anton in horror.
Anton knew that he could defeat the undead army on his own if he fought long enough but suddenly a spell reached him that caused massive damage to him. Almost seventy percent of his mana and fifty percent of his HP disappeared. He then saw one of the liches pointing its two bony hands at him. That meant that the lich cast a fatal spell at him but his Energy Shield and powerful defenses saved him. The lich that attacked him did look like it weakened tremendously after casting that powerful curse.
He flew back and his auras immediately filled his mana and HP after a few minutes. While flying back, Anton didn't stop casting Meteor and Frozen Orb but the undead army magic barrier remained. Fortunately, it appeared that the fatal magic that one of the liches used to cause massive damage to him didn't appear again and Anton thought that he might be outside of the lich's range or it was a one-time use spell.
That spell did frighten Anton since two more attacks of that powerful spell and it would kill him. He noticed that the army of the undead started moving backward away from him which meant that liches decided to retreat so he stopped his spell casting and observed what the undead would do.
Chapter 154
Anton stopped casting spells and observed what the army of the undead led by the liches and the vampires would do. Suddenly he saw something unbelievable. Something was forming in the middle of the two liches that made him a bit wary. He thought that it was some sort of attack spell but when the phenomenon ended, he saw that the third lich who burst earlier had formed again.
He remembered that in games and books, liches had some sort of phylactery and that they would revive using that item. Liches were not supposed to get destroyed unless you destroy their phylactery as well so something like that could be the case with them as well.
Once the third lich was fully formed, some sort of magical message was transmitted to Anton.
"We admit that you are very powerful, archmage, but so is the Undead Coalition. Since you made yourself our enemy, we will make sure that you, your family, your friends, and your countrymen will become the lowest undead minion that will destroy the city where you spawned. Allow us to pass and will turn you into a lich and if you survive, you can become a member of our grand council."
The voice was creepy, like something coming out of a grave and it would have had a much greater significant impact on Anton if he weren't bombarded by the entertainment media from Earth. The voice actors on Earth were very talented and could rival and even exceed the creepiness factor of that voice.
It did one thing to Anton though, the threat it conveyed regarding the destruction of his family and friends made his blood boil. He opened his inventory and made sure that Full Rejuvenation potions were ready then he teleported near the army but still outside their magic barrier. He then used his maxed Telekinesis to hold one of the vampires that were near the three liches and made sure that the vampire would not be able to move even the tiniest amount. He lifted the vampire and brought it to him.
Anton then flew backward bringing the vampire with him and when he thought that he was far enough, he began casting Meteor and Frozen Orb again.
Suddenly one of the liches burst again but this time, Anton prepared himself since he got an inkling that the lich bursting was a prelude to a powerful spell attack. He brought the vampire that he was holding and hid it behind him so he was shielding it then he received the attack from the liches.
Seventy percent of his mana and fifty percent of his HP disappeared so he drank the Full Rejuvenation immediately and everything became full again. A second lich burst so he prepared himself again then he received the massive attack again so he drank a second Full Rejuvenation potion.
The vampires surrounding the lone lich remaining had looked of horror and worry on their faces when they saw that Anton wasn't affected by the powerful spells that the lich cast that they even needed to sacrifice themselves to be able to cast it.
Anton then heard a crack again and saw the actual cracks on the magic barrier that the liches made. He then suddenly saw that the army of the undead began moving backward. They were retreating and soon, they were out of his casting range.
The army of the undead kept retreating and soon the magic barrier disappeared or was brought down by the lich. Anton thought of teleporting and attacking the undead again but then he didn't want to really provoke them that would cause the undead coalition to actually focus on him.
At this time, he only destroyed a few undead minions and captured one vampire since he knew that the two liches who burst were not actually destroyed and would soon coalesce from their phylactery or something.
Soon the undead army was out of sight so he brought the vampire near him and released the telekinetic force that was keeping the vampire from speaking.
He first cast Ice Blast on one of the vampire's arms and destroyed it causing the vampire to shout in agony. He waited for a bit to check if the vampire would be able to regrow his arm and it actually started doing so he cast Fire Bolt on the growing arm and Ice Bolt to freeze the part that was regenerating and that kept the arm from regrowing.
All the while, the vampire kept screaming in agony but Anton wasn't feeling any sort of guilt in torturing the monster. It may even be acting.
"Now talk or I will destroy all of your limbs one by one," Anton told the vampire and he made sure that he was very calm since based on the movies and books that he had seen and read, it was more effective if he behaved calmly instead of showing anger and frustration.
It worked since soon the vampire asked what he wanted to know so Anton asked it to tell what happened to the cities behind them.
"We already destroyed and converted all of the citizens of the cities before Tiande to undead minions. We're still at war with Tiande and Leminthor and we are now attacking Ruandelle. We sent an army towards Zalnothel but we planned to destroy the surrounding villages and towns before the wizard city since we knew that the wizard city was very powerful and would be able to destroy a single undead army without any problem. We just want to send a threat to make sure that the Zalnothel wouldn't take part in our bid to conquer the surrounding territories of the Undead Coalition."
"Did you know that there's a wizard in the caravan that arrived in this village?"
"We knew that caravans that came out of Ruandelle had wizards but knew that those mages would be weak. We didn't expect that this caravan had an archmage."
"Do you know that spell that the liches cast that needed one of them to burst?"
"Yes. That was supposed to be a sure kill spell that a lich can cast but they would need a second lich to sacrifice half of the life remaining in their phylactery. It was supposed to be able to kill an archmage but the fact that you were able to survive three casting of that spell made the liches aware that you are a mighty archmage indeed."
"Does that mean that the three liches wouldn't be able to cast those spells again?"
"Yes, but I recommend that you don't attack the army because even though you can destroy the army, the liches would survive since their phylacteries are with the Undead Coalition and they can leave a curse to you that you might not be able to dispel that would cause all of the undead to focus on you until you and everyone that surrounds you are destroyed."
Anton then asked the vampire if he had any sort of treasure with him.
"I have my storage ring with me and as an elder vampire, it contains all of the treasure that I collected in my lifetime and they are considerable. If you allow me to leave with my life, I will give you my ring and will remove the spell that would destroy it if I die."
Anton simply nodded and the vampire indicated that the ring was in a golden chain that it was wearing.
When Anton held the ring, the vampire made some movement and some sort of red smoke disappeared from the ring. Although based on the reaction of his auras, there was still a curse remaining on the ring but it was dispelled by his Prayer Aura. He was so glad that his Prayer Aura was able to dispel curses but he got an inkling that a more powerful aura would be needed to dispel powerful curses.
The vampire looked very surprised when another smoke appeared from the ring. It was a dark purple smoke and it confirmed the fact that the vampire was expecting the remaining curse on the storage ring to damage Anton.
Chapter 155
Based on the vampire's expression, Anton knew that the vampire wasn't expecting the curse to actually kill who it considered as an archmage but Anton was guessing that the monster was hoping that the curse would damage him enough for the vampire to escape.
When Anton entered his consciousness in the vampire's storage ring, he was surprised at the huge space and the amount of wealth he found. The space was as huge as a house and it was filled with gold coins, magical items like wands, other magical artifacts, and a considerable number of spellbooks.
"Are you really an elder vampire?" Anton suddenly asked the captured vampire after he looked inside the ring.
"Yes and if you let me go, I will make sure that me and any of my progeny will not go after you or yours and I will use a blood oath to do so," the vampire said.
Based on what the vampire had said about the blood oath, it assumed that Anton would know what it was so he asked directly what the blood oath was.
The vampire looked surprised when Anton asked what the oath was.
"It's magic that beings that revolve around blood could cast. If the oath was violated even accidentally. The caster and those related to the oath, in my case my progenies, would be destroyed."
"Okay cast it now then."
The vampire hesitated at first since Anton didn't mention casting an oath himself like letting the vampire go but after a few seconds, the vampire muttered a deep incantation and he saw some sort of blood magic enveloped the vampire then the blood magic spread outward. Anton asked the vampire what was the magic that spread outward and it replied that it was the magic that would destroy any of his progenies if Anton and any of his family were attacked by the vampire or his progenies.
Anton then continued asking the vampire what the Undead Coalition's plan was and he was surprised to learn that it was very straightforward. Disregarding the minute details, the Undead wanted to conquer all of the lands and the grand liches council wanted all of the land under them. They would allow most to remain as human but they would become slaves of the undead and those who rose as elite undead would become the first class citizens.
At first, Anton thought of allowing the vampire to remain with him and the caravan but it was truly dangerous to have someone as powerful as an elder vampire to remain beside them even with its so-called blood oath. He then thought of directly destroying the vampire but then again, he didn't know what the vampire's blood oath would do to him and his family so after a few minutes of consideration, he covered the vampire's whole body including its eyes with telekinetic force and left.
Once Anton was out of range, the telekinetic hold on the vampire would be released and then the vampire could go to where it wanted to go. The vampire did say that it would not be able to return to the Undead Coalition since it knew that once he returned, it would be destroyed by the liches for sharing any of the Undead Coalition plans with him even though in reality, the vampire didn't share much, just general knowledge due to the fact that Anton was ignorant or simply didn't care about the questions that he was supposed to ask the vampire.
Anton knew that he was being shallow in becoming so happy in receiving that elder vampire's storage ring and he wasn't afraid that any of the vampire's items would be cursed since any curses on the monster's items were already dispelled by his Prayer aura.
He knew that he should have killed the vampire but Anton was truly wary of the vampire's blood oath although he didn't provide anything to the vampire, like blood or anything of himself, he still didn't know enough of the magic of this world to have the confidence to defend himself against such unknown things. Anton immediately transferred all of the spellbooks and magical items to his private stash since he would need to examine them first the he let the gold and other ordinary treasure remain in the ring.
To make sure that there were no lingering curses on the ring that may harm his father since he was planning to give the ring to Anders, Anton put the ring in his inventory so his Diablo II system could identify it and based on the identification of his Diablo II system which he didn't doubt, the ring was huge storage ring filled with gold coins and other normal treasure and nothing else.
The sun was already setting when Anton arrived at the place where the caravan set up camp. The campsite was huge since a lot of the villagers were with them. The villagers planned to join them until they arrived at the wizard city of Zalnothel even though most were still arriving late due to the fact that some villagers were traveling on foot.
Since Anton didn't turn off the special effects of his buff and auras, he was very visible when he approached the campsite. The villagers who didn't know who he was were frightened but since the caravan people were calm and somebody spread that he was the archmage guarding the caravan, the people calmed down.
Anton could see the relief on his father and sister's faces and Anna even had tears in her eyes. he flew down, turned off the special effect of his buffs and auras, and approached his father and sister, and then both of them hugged him fiercely.
Anders kept muttering that he was so glad that Anton was back and Anna just kept on crying and even her maids had tears in their eyes.
The table where dinner was served was set up by someone and Anton, his father, Anna and her maids, Nemina, Lucas, Devon, Lunelle, Frederick, the three captains of the guard, which were Genod, Budolf, Kudar, and Anton's assistant, Colin sat around it.
"I managed to make the undead army retreat but the three liches were very powerful and their spells almost killed me," Anders honestly told his father.
His father suddenly looked very angry and Anna cried harder. Anton was a bit regretful for sharing that part but he needed to make sure that everyone on the table would know how powerful the undead army was.
"When the battle started, the three liches cast some sort of magic barrier that protected the undead inside it, and after I destroyed about fifty undead minions, the undead army hunkered under the liches' magic barrier. I almost cracked their magic barrier then the three liches had to sacrifice half of their life force in their phylactery that caused massive damage to me but since my healing spells are very powerful, I was able to heal myself immediately and since I kept casting massive magical damage to their barrier, the liches and their army started retreating. I managed to capture an Elder Vampire though and after a round of torture, the vampire informed me that they had conquered and turned the citizens of Mendi and Vondi into undead," Anton said.
This statement caused Anna to cry harder and even Nemina and Lunelle started crying since they had relatives from those places. Lucas and Devon had red eyes and they were suddenly emitting fierce auras. Even Anders was truly angry.