He was just shooting the breeze with Caleb about what's going on in the wizard world outside of the tower.
He found out that most freelancing wizards were getting their gear from these shady "black markets" spread out across the empire. These weren't your run-of-the-mill black markets, though. They were the kind of places where you could score all sorts of magical goodies.
They had everything from materials from magical creatures to ancient artifacts and even spell books! The only ticket to ride into these markets was knowing where they were and being a certified wizard.
Caleb hooked Zack up with info on a few black markets around Ikokha's Barony. Zack gave him a nod of gratitude and headed back to his tent.
The next day, the convoy was back on the move. Zack hopped into one of the carriages with the backup crew. He kept his mana senses sharp with one part of his mind while the rest mulled over his spells.
During their chat yesterday, Caleb mentioned running into a bunch of apprentice wizards who were also dabbling in body enhancement spells. But none of them even came close to his speed.
That got him thinking. Maybe the combo of a spell and a mana circulation method he was using wasn't all that common. Either nobody else had tried it or those who did couldn't hit his top speed.
The first option seemed unlikely. I mean, come on, surely someone else had thought of it before. So that left option two. But why couldn't they match his speed?
He speculated that maybe their lightning wasn't as pure as his or they were playing it safe with their mana circulation, sticking to the basics. It made sense. Pushing too much mana through the circulation method could be seriously risky.
It demanded some serious finesse in mana manipulation and a keen sense of minute mana changes, both of which Zack had in spades.
Even if someone managed to handle the mana circulation method alongside the body enhancement spell, they'd still need to split their focus between them. That made it darn near impossible for just anyone to pull off this technique.
And even if there was someone out there, Zack seriously doubted they had the same pure lightning mana he did.
"Sweet," he muttered, nodding to himself. But he couldn't afford to let his guard down. Who knew when someone might come along and counter his double enhancement?
To stay ahead of the game, he decided to tweak the mana circulation method. Right now, the durability boost it provided wasn't cutting it when he cranked the enhancement up to the max. It left him sore every time he used it.
So, for the next couple of days, he tinkered away at improving the method. Finally, he figured it out. By making the mana circulate in his body even finer during the enhancement, he could amp up the effect.
Instead of broad streams of mana, he turned them into strands, each one controlling tens of muscle fibers for a more precise enhancement. He hadn't quite hit the mark of one strand per muscle fiber yet, as the strands were still a bit thicker than hair, but hey, progress in 2 days ain't bad.
This new setup seriously beefed up his body's durability during mana circulation. When he gave it a whirl, the level of soreness dropped big time, down to about a third of what it used to be. Now he could pop off the body enhancement three times in a row, maxed out for a solid 15 seconds.
With that sorted, he turned his attention to fine-tuning the body enhancement spell itself. He'd mentioned before that he wasn't exactly a spell creation whiz, right? But he could definitely tweak an existing spell like a boss.
He'd already shown his chops when he tweaked the duration of [Body Enhancement - Lightning] from 5 seconds to a whopping 30, though it did take a hit on its oomph.
Now, he aimed to stretch out the duration while keeping that same punch. His goal? 15 seconds. That'd save him from having to recast the spell three times in the heat of battle.
Luckily, the next couple of days rolled by without a hitch, letting him bring his idea to life. Now, he could cast [Body Enhancement - Lightning] for 15 seconds without sacrificing its potency, just like the 5-second version.
Of course, this upgrade came at a price. Casting the 15-second version sucked up 5 mana points, five times more than the 5-second one. But he wasn't sweating it since most of his mana drain came from the circulation method, chowing down at 5 points per second.
In plain speak, if he went all out with [Double Enhancement] at max output for 15 seconds, he'd drain his whole mana pool.
A tear slipped from his eye as he faced the harsh reality of his puny mana pool. But if any of his fellow apprentices heard him whining about it, they'd probably keel over in disbelief.
Anyway, he was pretty chuffed with the results. Just 5 seconds of [Double Enhancement] at full blast could take down a peak level 2 apprentice wizard without breaking a sweat. And with the same timeframe, he reckoned he could hold his own against a peak level 3.
His only hiccup? His attack power was still a tad lacking. Last time, he had to rely on beefing up his fist with [Body Enhancement - Mana] to smash through a wizard's barrier. And since he couldn't exactly flaunt his other spells, he had to keep that under wraps, y'know?
He had a hunch that even if he slapped on those [Lightning Clad Gloves], they'd only be marginally better than his enhanced fist. Sure, using the lightning gloves had its perks, like not having to risk breaking his bare knuckles on stuff, but their offensive capabilities needed a boost.
Now, some folks might wonder why he didn't just kick back and wait until he got back to the tower to learn spells with more kick to 'em. Well, he'd read in the spell book introductions that most level 0 spells packed the same punch. The tower only dished out the basic versions, see?
To get his hands on the juiced-up or fancier versions, he'd have to ink a deal with the tower that was pretty much a mix of employment and slavery. Same deal if he wanted to level up to a grade 1 wizard, but with even tougher conditions.
He... decided to skip that rigmarole since he could tweak the spells himself, thank you very much. He smirked, nose up in the air. "I'm a freakin' genius," he muttered to himself.
But enough patting himself on the back. Back to those lightning gloves. Before he could dive into tinkering with the spell, his mana senses perked up. There was a surge of mana coming from the left side of the convoy.
Oh boy, looks like it's showtime. And judging by the mana levels of the opponents, this wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
Carefully sensing the mana, he pinpointed his main foes: a peak level 3 apprentice wizard and two level 6 magic knights. "Sigh," he breathed out, shaking his head. "This is gonna be a headache." Each of those enemies packed a punch equivalent to a level 3 apprentice wizard, while their side only had two of that caliber.
Sure, he could probably take down one or both of the knights in a flash with his full arsenal of spells and then help mop up the rest. But that'd blow his cover on his spell mastery. Tough call.
Call him a hypocrite, but he wasn't about to take any chances of getting noticed by outside forces. He'd rather slip away using his [Stealth] when things got hairy.
But before he made his grand exit, he figured he'd give it his all, using every trick up his sleeve. With his speed, he should be able to keep the two knights busy while Alden and the Ikokha's wizard handled the enemy wizard.
Since they had more lower-level forces, they could handle the higher-level foes while their peeps quickly dealt with the enemy's side. Then, with the extra manpower, they could boot out the enemy's higher-level forces.
After briefing Alden and Caleb on the plan, he kicked it into high gear. He activated [Double Enhancement] with [Body Enhancement - Lightning] - 30 seconds version, plus [Body Enhancement - Mana] - base enhancement. Oh, and he threw in some [Stealth] for good measure before charging at the knights.
As he closed in on them, the knight on the left lit up his broadsword with an earthy brown glow and swung it up, conjuring a wall of earth that blocked Zack's view.
Before he could leap over it, the other knight finished charging up and swung his sword, glowing green, right at him.
With a quick step onto the wall, he somersaulted into the air, flipping again just as the first knight swung at him. His feet aimed skyward, he charged out lightning from his feet, propelling himself to dodge the sword and land safely.
Even though the knights were a tad slower than him individually, their teamwork was on point, pushing him to his limits. And that long sword knight? He was only a tad slower than him.
Luckily, he was able to use his [Stealth] to his advantage, throwing the knights off their game. Whether it was slashing at the air or stomping extra hard to kick up dust, he'd create just enough confusion to catch them off guard before launching his counterattack.
During those brief moments when they lost sight of him, they'd scramble to keep track, throwing them off their rhythm.
Clang! Swish! Thud! Grunt! Roar! Swoosh! Swoosh! Crack! Boom!
From the outside, their battlefield was a chaotic dance of flickering blue light tangling with brown and green flashes. It was a blur, too fast for the naked eye to follow.
He managed to hold them off for a solid two minutes, but every 30 seconds, he had to create an even bigger distraction to recast [Body Enhancement - Lightning]. The knights caught onto this pattern and started counterattacking like mad every time he refreshed his spell.
Now, he knew he couldn't keep this up much longer.