Nate walked across the grass of the University calmly. Luc and Deverell were close by on his left with Kiri and Aisling to his right. Frick was waiting patiently inside of his Runic Gallery. Two runic arrays hovered around him and were taking up most of his focus. The Illusion rune hid them from sight and included the Sound Sigil to hide any noise they made. Though they were still making an effort to be stealthy. Obfuscation was the second rune and it incorporated a few different Sigils, including Smell and Sound, but was primarily focused on Mana to hide his first rune.

  The buildings of the University loomed before them like towering giants, casting deeper shadows across the grounds in the cloudy night. They marched unerringly towards the dorms that had been granted to the Guild members and now functioned as their friends' prison. Nate was just happy they were finally acting to free them, especially Britt. The thought made him feel somewhat bad about himself for a moment, but he couldn’t help caring more about how Britt was doing than Null or the others.

  So far, Nate had held back his farsight sphere of awareness, concerned that its use might get detected. Others, such as Avery—which meant either Morgane or Hildi—had been able to sense its usage. His suspicion was that one of them had some sort of mana detection Skill, which would make sense given his own sensory Skill. Either way, he didn’t want to risk their discovery before they had even reached the building where the Guildies were being held. It would be even better if they could free them without detection, but on that he had his doubts. Luc and Deverell had gotten close enough one night ago to do an assessment and, while Deverell’s information was mostly about the few patrols and guards, it was what Luc found that gave Nate pause. Getting within twenty metres of the building he could finally sense the problem through Farsight of the Runic Artist.

  As Nate’s eyebrows went up Luc hissed quietly at him, “Told you.”

  “I believed you,” muttered Nate, still keeping his voice down despite the Illusion and Obfuscation runes. “I just didn’t expect it to feel so…solid.”

  “Yeah, he’s a right bastard but he knows what he’s about,” grumped Luc as the party waited to hear what Nate and Luc proposed to do.

  “You’re sure you can break it?” asked Nate as he paused to take in the full scope of the Spell.

  After seeing the layered Spatial Spells around the building, Luc had informed them all that he knew who had placed them there. The explanation had been quick, as Luc clearly didn’t want to go into details, but Luc was confident his half-brother, Thierry Crozier, was the source. Luc had thought his half-brother had fled Etrua ten years ago after killing their father, Baron Crozier. None of the group had pressed Luc on the topic as clearly it was still a sore spot for the man even though a decade had passed.

  “I can definitely break it,” Luc stated confidently. “But it won’t be quick. The spell feels like it has been up for a few days so he’s definitely anchored it to a power source inside. Likely a few mana gems he’s encased in a similar spatial box. Thierry was always good at spatial constructs.”

  “How are they getting food in there?” asked Kiri quietly.

  “He probably comes back once a week to refresh the spell, swap out the mana gems and give them some food for the week,” Luc commented, eyes roving the spatial structure.

  “Couldn’t Null, I don’t know, just nullify it, given enough time?” pressed Kiri.

  “Probably drained him of his mana then drew the ambient mana out. This spell is likely not letting any mana in,” commented Nate absently.

  Nate was only partly paying attention to the discussion, and though he knew he should be focusing on getting Britt out, his curiosity was getting the better of him as he assessed the nature of the spells. The two spells overlapped like a lattice and, without his sensory Skill, he doubted he would’ve been able to separate them. The first spell was simple enough in purpose, if not structure. In its most basic form, it was like a physical wall, an area of space that separated what was outside from inside. He doubted the Guildies could’ve broken out, unless their Mana Reserves were far greater than he estimated. It also would’ve given their guards plenty of time to react. The second spell was something Nate recognised, albeit more complex: a Spatial Lock. It was preventing anyone or anything from teleporting across the barrier. Together, it was a perfect cage to prevent someone like Nate or Luc from mounting a quick rescue operation.

  “The plan remains the same,” stated Aisling, eyes on the cloudy sky. “Luc will disrupt the Spatial Spells. Deverell, Kiri and Nate will deal with any guards that respond. I will handle any Platinums, if any come.”

  Nods followed Aisling’s statement and they all prepared for what was to come. Nate kept part of his focus on Luc as the man began his own Spell. It only took Nate a second to figure out what his mentor was doing. Luc specialised in creating small rifts, which were the entire basis of his fighting style. Using those same spatial rifts, Luc was attempting to disrupt the spell structure enough that it would collapse. The problem was the Spatial Lock Spell, which was contesting Luc’s ability to even manifest his rifts. Nate had something to assist with that and activated his Runecrafted Trinket of Spatial Release. On previous activations, anything like a Spatial Lock had crumbled instantly, as it should when set against the Grandmaster-tier Sigil of Space within the trinket. The Spatial Lock in place, however, held up for an entire ten seconds before the spatial barrier even showed signs of destabilisation.

  Luc began pressing his advantage but Nate's use of mana had blown through his Obfuscation rune like a gale through a forest. Cries went up from nearby and Nate turned with the others, dropping his Illusion rune as they prepared to buy Luc time.

  Two patrols of guards were rushing towards them, each with at least five members. Nate judged them to be Silvers and promptly ignored them as Kiri and Deverell split up, each taking one of the teams. They wouldn’t need his help against such opponents. Instead he focused on the two individuals remaining. He sighed as he recognised both. Two of the combat trainers, Golds he was certain, were approaching him. One was the mage who had tested him when he first came to the University, a multi-element user if Nate remembered correctly. The second was one of the melee combat instructors. Nate had never worked with them, but the long thin sword on her hip and small buckler strapped to their wrist gave him a rough idea of what he was in for. Not that it mattered much to him.

  The mage spoke as Nate searched the grounds for any more responders, “Your friends at the Adventurer’s Guild warned us you might come. Sooner than they thought, but not entirely unexpected. Submit to us and you will not be harmed, by orders of the King.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Nate raised his eyebrows at that. Why would Bordain order such? Something to consider later, as he was on the clock and had already detected two more teams of guards running from the gates. They’d be a couple of minutes, which was a tight window.

  “Want me to take care of em, Boss?” Frick asked from inside Nate’s Runic Gallery.

  “Go on then,” Nate acquiesced, sensing as Frick appeared for an instant before vanishing as the Spirit made liberal use of Nate’s Skills.

  “Where did his Familiar go?” demanded the female duelist, her question clearly directed at her partner rather than Nate.

  “Doesn’t matter,” grunted the mage, all too casual and confident. “He’s resisting. Kill him.”

  The pair launched into action, the mage spinning up three spells at once. Nate was impressed at the level of Magic Control as sand and wind began to spin around the Mage in some sort of defensive barrier while the ground around Nate began to shift, moving to enclose him even as the air itself tried to press against him and hold him in place. The duelist had flashed forward, a blur to the eye as she tried to pierce his chest, a tunnel of wind drawing her blade along its path.

  Ever since returning to the Capital, Nate had been hard at work crafting. Crafting the spatial escape talismans, creating information gathering tools for Kiri, and helping Frick produce new mana gems to meet the needs of their extensive mana stealing operation. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been working on anything for himself. Once upon a time, he possessed multiple offensive runecrafted items, including his acid wand and his shadow prison. Since losing them he had gone on the defensive, focusing his personal crafting on creating protections with his barrier bracer and spatial release and mana release trinkets. Almost all of his offensive capabilities had been based on dynamic rune creation and his Conceptual Automated Existence Skill, which had the benefits of making him incredibly adaptable on the fly. The cost, however, was high, both in terms of time and mana. Every construct he created through his Skill needed to have the materials replaced, and every rune he crafted on the fly was mana intensive. That was just the nature of not having highly efficient materials to supplement the required mana. However, in almost every battle, there was one rune he always seemed to return to. Gravity Control had become a staple of his battle tactics. With that in mind, Nate had invested the stored mana in Conceptual Insight to unlock the Master-tier Sigil for Gravity, using it as the basis for a second bracer.

  He looked into the eyes of the duelist launching at him, her face calm and eyes focused as she bore down on him. Then, without raising his arms, he channelled mana from his own reserve into his Legendary Gravity Control Bracer and changed behind her and the mage to down before multiplying it four times. The mana cost was only slightly noticeable as he altered the fundamental law and he watched as the two flew backwards. They recovered quickly, the mage using his control of wind to fly while the duelist used her boots to jump on plates of air.

  Nate suspected he could outlast the pair in terms of mana, but the goal wasn’t to drag the fight out. The goal was to be decisive. With the pair off-balance, he changed the direction of gravity a second time, making up become down. The Golds were fighting against his control, but there was an obvious flaw in their methods. Mainly, they both made use of wind to fight against gravity, be it via Spells or enchanted boots. In this case they were using the physical Concept of Wind to keep themselves afloat, so Nate changed that. A quick and simple rune combining the Sigils for Wind and Flow was enough to fight against their control. At the same time, he expended more mana on his Gravity Control, multiplying its strength again. The swapping back and forth was enough to finally disorient the pair and they both crashed into the ground with bone-breaking force.

  Nate recognised that he could have left it there, but the pair had been involved in imprisoning Britt. So, with a short glare, he pulled out a material that he had been testing. The small block of metal containing the affinity Drain was only Rare-tier, but using Conceptual Automated Existence on it seemed more than enough to finish off the pair. He noted that the construct looked very much like a black hole as it floated in the air and went to work. Ignoring the screams, he looked around to see how everyone else was doing.

  Kiri and Deverell were already returning, both teams of guards down and Nate didn’t bother to check if they were alive. The flow of processed mana into his Class Core told him that they were definitely not. Similar flows began a moment later from behind him as his construct finished its work. Aisling’s hair was flowing in the breeze as she watched a ball of fire crossing the sky towards them. The tenseness of the situation was broken as Frick reappeared at Nate’s side.

  “More coming?” asked Deverell of the little blue goblin.

  “Nah. Copied the Boss. Buried em. Don’t think they’re dead but it’ll take them a bit to dig themselves out.”

  Deverell nodded, the stoic man unperturbed as Kiri moved up next to Nate, a smile on her face.

  “Feeling better?” he whispered.

  “After a fight? Always. By the Gods, I missed it, even if this lot weren’t much of a challenge.”

  Any further talk was cut-off as Luc whooped in victory and Nate felt the spatial walls that had sealed off the building collapse. It was Ameera whose head peeked out first.

  “It’s the Guild!” the dark-skinned girl called back into the room. Within a moment the four imprisoned Guildies came running out. None wore anything beyond some rumpled and dirty clothes and Nate frowned as he realised their captors had likely stolen their equipment. That frown vanished as Britt threw herself into his arms.

  “I knew you’d come,” she sobbed into his chest as he expanded his barrier to cover them both, relishing the feeling of her touch.

  “You were right,” was all he said as he leaned his head down and kissed her blonde hair.

  “What’s the escape plan?” asked Null, the swordsman's eyes darting around at the corpses littering the area.

  That was the moment that the ball of fire in the sky arched down to land before them. As it did so, Nate realised the shape was not a ball, but wings. The figure landed before them, the flaming wings vanishing as a tall woman with a rapier looked over their gathered group.

  “We meet again, Stormspear,” said the woman through gritted teeth.

  Britt shifted and Nate was surprised as his girlfriend took up a defensive stance between him and the flaming woman. Even after being imprisoned, without her armour or her hammer, Britt still moved to protect him and he swallowed the lump in his throat. Instead, he focused on the Platinum, for that was all he could think of, and released a veil shattering burst of mana through his Farsight of the Runic Artist. He read her classes in an instant.

  Eternal Flame Mage (E) (60) / Fierce Inner-Fire Mage (R) (33) / Eternal Renewer (U) (20)

  The Platinums eyes swivelled to him even as Nate’s own widened in surprise. The Classes were interesting, but the surprise had been the two Legendary items he had sensed on the woman. A ring she wore was one and the second was the red-leather armour she wore.

  The heat in the area started to rise and Nate was preparing for battle when he felt space shift and a portal opened before them. Two men strode out of the portal. One of them bore some similarities to Luc, with a whip-thin build, pale skin, tousled brown hair and piercing blue eyes. The other was someone that would be hard for Nate to ever forget. Bordain towered over all present, as wide as two Aislings and notably taller. The man’s blonde hair was at stark odds with what Nate remembered of Morgane’s black, but they had the same facial structures. Bordain looked over the arrayed Guildies, his green eyes stabbing the area around them as though he owned it.

  The portal snapped shut and Bordain smiled, “I hoped you would come, Nathaniel and Kiri. I think it is time we talked.”

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