The house was decrepit, but I could fix it. Oshan followed closely behind me. The house was nothing much, and no loot was stored there.
"You'll live here now." I turned to Oshan.
"All by myself? What about the thugs that own this place?"
"Didn't you hear me. This is mine now."
Oshan paled as he understood what I'd done to obtain this.
"Come here. I have a present for you." I beckoned to Oshan.
"You used to be a seventh-ranked mage, correct?" Oshan nodded his head. "What happened?"
Oshan was a little reluctant, but he obliged. "I was once a great mage working for a noble family, but one day, at an national mage convention, I was attacked and my mana core was shattered by my attackers."
I was curious about the attackers, but even Oshan didn't know who they were. There was a story there, and I wanted to know it.
Oshan briefly explained his life story, so I had a few guesses about the attackers. It could be that the noble family was worried about Oshan's powers or that some people felt slighted by him.
Oshan couldn't even use magic due to his ruined mana circuits, so my gift would be to fix them. By getting Oshan in my favor, he would be a great asset in the future.
The process was simple. It would be a little painful, but by forcefully pushing mana through Oshan's circuits, they would fix themselves. I would occasionally cast healing mana on him to speed up the process.
This process required a great sense of mana, so not everybody could use it. That was why Oshan was left crippled for the last decade.
After I fixed his mana circuits, he could fix his core, so I didn't need to worry too much. I did, however, teach him my cultivation method as it would help with his recovery.
The process took four hours end to end, and we talked about magic and mana for another four, so it was deep into the night until I left. Oshan was very knowledgeable about the rules of mana and magic, so talking to him also helped me understand mana better.
Oshan had regained elemental magic to fend for himself in the slums. I left some of my nanomachines with him so he could contact me. Being connected to my soul, I could feel them wherever I went.
I left the house at night, gathering my pets. They were playing around with each other on the street. As seventh-level beasts, they had high intelligence. After they got to the eighth rank, they could communicate with language.
I continued around the slums, checking some of the other deeds I'd gotten. They were as good as the house I visited first, so I considered selling them. I'd been lucky to get the best house on the first look.
It'd be more beneficial if I expanded the main base of operations before spreading out forces. The mercenary group only contained me right now. Oshan would join after he recovered, and some of the townspeople from Greyhound would help, but I would need to recruit members.
I was finishing checking out the properties in the slums. There were only four. It was getting late, so I was going to head to an inn.
I felt the telepathic communication activate.
'Help!' It was Zarith.
For her to call for backup, the enemy must be strong. I was cautious, spreading out my mana sense to get her location.
I located Zarith in the industrial part of town. She was inside a warehouse, surrounded by other strong manas. I rode over immediately, cloaking my entourage as Arion rode on air, flying above all the houses.
I also notified Rex. He was already close, so he could hold on until I arrived. It was a good chance for Rex to go up against people of his rank.
Vesper and Grey also speed ahead. I needed a little time to prepare all the magic I needed: barriers, attack magic, reinforcement magic, and escape methods.
Preparing and being prepared was always good; my days in the dungeon taught me that. I still dreamed of that beast that always snuck up on me.
It was a rank-eight monster that could evade magic sense. It constantly bullied me until I killed it, anyway. Monsters had no reasoning, so there was no negotiation compared to beasts like the chimera eagles.
When I arrived, a fight was erupting. I immediately wrapped the area in a barrier to prevent any commotion. I wasn't keen on being hunted down and arrested.
Four seventh-rank warriors were fighting, so the enemy must have been of the same or higher level.
I activated [Read], my best sensory magic, to understand the enemy. I could read the enemy's soul from this length, but the physical and mental appearance would be unknown.
The enemy consisted of ten rank sixth warriors. Also, one of the warriors was holding a stone I couldn't see through.
To hide from me, the stone was either powerful or rare, which was terrible news for me if the enemy had found a way to harness its power.
The stone was emitting massive amounts of magic, comparable to the Hydra, yet didn't seem to contain
mana itself.
I got off Arion, sending him in to reinforce his teammates. I would sneak in to take out the stone.
The mana rolling off the stone made it so I couldn't interact with it. It repelled any magic near it. Using attacks to move it away was also impossible. The enemy holding it would sense the magic as the massive amount of mana acted as a shield, slowing any attacks.
The Hydra couldn't do this as it used its mana, but this stone was overwhelming.
I snuck in through the back of the warehouse to discern the situation.
The enemy wore white and black hooded robes and stood around a magic circle. I got the impression that they were cultists or extremists trying to summon a deity.
The person with the stone stood in the middle of the circle, with four others standing on the outside, protecting it. The other five were facing off against Zarith and the others. They were almost dead.
I heard a strange mumbling from the person in the middle, and the stone started giving off more mana. Without much time to lose, I sprinted toward the middle of the circle.
I also took out my sword, flinging it at the four cultists protecting the circle. The mana only restricted the inside of the circle, not the outside, giving me a clear path for my sword to follow.
Still camouflaged, I entered the circle, drawing in the dense mana. With this much mana, it wouldn't be too hard to activate even a rank ten spell, if not higher.
Fearing the worst, I circulated my magic to disrupt the magic circle. Using the enemy's mana against them, my magic was much more powerful and quicker than expected.
As the earth tore apart the circle, I lunged at the stone, knocking the person over and revealing their face. I briefly heard the incantation the person was muttering, but as I landed on them, they choked on their words.
My fall knocked the wind out of the guy, stopping the incantation. I reached out to grab the stone which had rolled on the floor.
I expected the mana to stop as the person no longer held it, but it exploded. The sheer force of mana blew me off the guy, and the magic circle glowed as it absorbed the mana.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Shouted the guy.
Still recovering from the push, I kneeled, confused. I thought the guy was unleashing the stone's mana to prepare the magic, but he was controlling and suppressing it.
If before, the guy was using the mana to operate a magic circle, the mana was now flowing uncontrollably into a circle we couldn't predict.
To stop the magic, I separated the ground where the magic circle was located, but it kept glowing and taking in mana.
I stepped forward, facing a torrential mana storm like nothing I ever faced. If the stone were no longer touching, the magic circle wouldn't absorb the magic as fast.
The mana tried pushing me back, but I endured; my natural ability to take in mana also helped lessen the force.
As the mana threatened to tear me apart, I reverted my body to a denser, mechanical form, no longer caring about my appearance. The nano-cells expanded to look like normal skin and body parts, weakening them.
Increasing the density and lowering the size made my body more challenging to push and break. My sword finished killing the other cultists and flew to the stone.
The cultists had substantial barriers, causing the sword to take some time to kill them. The increased mana had helped it break through faster as I guided it, but it was only now finished.
In what felt like an eternity but was five seconds, I reached the stone, jumping to grab it. That was the wrong move, as the mana pushed me down immediately.
'Why the fuck did I do that?'
With my dumb move slowing me down, the circle was near the point of eruption. I had no time to defuse the circle, so I created the most robust barrier possible. Reinforced by the dense mana, the barrier would hopefully contain the explosion to the circle.
As I crawled forward, my sword came in at the last moment, flipping the stone in the air. I stretched my arm forward, molding it into a thin rope that grabbed the stone.
The circle finally erupted with the stone in my hand and my arm looking like the Terminator.