Chapter 20: The Killer of Dreams

As that time of night creeps closer and closer, my head begins to swim in a pool I thought was closed a long time ago.

Doubt.

Sure, there are no magical beasts, but what about normal beasts? Can I beat a normal beast with magic? Can I beat a beast that has magic at all? I know I'll be able to be at least somewhat safe since I can make a barrier around myself or between myself and the supposed beast, but can I beat it? As Jin's been asleep for about thirty minutes already, I only have a few more minutes to worry before I miss my golden window. 

Let's go over what I can do. I can make barriers, strong ones. 

I can make nearly invisible barriers, less strong but probably a lot more useful against something with eyes. 

I have my little shards of sharp barriers I've been practicing with, my lightning that takes about a second to charge and fire, and a spell that allows me to hover a few inches off the ground for a few minutes at a time.

Great, I can protect myself, damage things, and most importantly, move silently. However, what's my kit lacking?

Passive defense. I have to clap and summon a barrier around myself, or around the enemy, or between the two of us, so if something gets the drop on me I have to bet my hands are faster than its body.

A cheap, quick attack. Sure, I have my lighting, but not only is that one of the most expensive spells in my kit, but it's also flashy, bright, and takes a full second before it even begins to fire, let alone the time it takes me to aim the thing. 

The first problem could probably be mitigated pretty easily, sitting up and stretching, I bring my arms to my side and focus, covering my entire body with a barrier about an inch off my skin.

Okay, no, this feels really weird. Also, taking even one step takes a ridiculous amount of effort and mana. Maybe there's no real way to do this.

Is what I would think if I was an idiot.

Taking inspiration from video games back on earth, instead of rendering a whole model, why not just make some blocky polygons? Like a hitbox. It takes about two percent of my mana to summon a barrier of any size below about two square feet. With about six barriers I can basically completely surround myself with barriers and moving these smaller barriers is much less draining.

Man, I really am a genius huh? 

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Summoning a barrier shard outside of my Hitbox and launching it forward, my second problem arises. The barrier shard is fast, deploys nearly instantly, and can stick a good few inches into my training dummy, but summoning and launching that shit is expensive. 

Hmm, instead of making something like an arrowhead, why not a needle? 

Summoning a small barrier outside of my protections, thinning it out to a point, it's about two inches long and looks like a tiny cone. Instead of launching it with pure mana, let's actually use a condition. That way it'll come out instantly still, but is gonna cost way less since it'll be conditional casting. 

Dispelling and resummoning the needle, I resummon it with the condition that when I "throw" it, the speed at which my hands, arms, etc move are not taken as the speed in which they move, but at the speed in which the power behind the throwing motion would give it. So, to make it simpler, if I was to summon it outside of my barrier protections, and then perform a baseball pitch, it would follow the movement of my hands until the pitch is made, and then it would fly in a straight line at the velocity the pitch would have been.

Tying a spell to a physical phenomenon is the recommended strategy after all. 

Swiping my arm forward causes the needle to pierce about an inch into the reinforced dummy, the stronger the pitch, the more damage it'll deal. Best of all, I could summon like, a thousand of these before I had to worry about my mana! With this plus my Hitbox, I should be just about ready.

Speaking of my self-barrier, I need to de-summon and resummon it with a condition set on the barriers. That condition being the barriers are fully invisible, cause currently, I see everything in a dark tint of teal, and at night, it makes seeing anything nearly impossible.

Unsurprisingly, this only came with a drawback of a mana cost increase. Realistically, it could double the cost for all I care, since as my mana pool expands, the trickle of the mana it costs me to maintain this barrier will become inconsequential. But honestly, with the very low cost of the barrier needles, I don't think I mind spending so much mana on defense.

However, this does raise the question, why hasn't this been done before?

Oh yeah, affinities. Based on the conversation Jin and the mages at the temple had after my evaluation, it seems like a person's affinities are determining factors in how much a spell costs to cast. I couldn't really understand most of it since I was only half paying attention, but I'm betting my insanely high affinity with barriers is the catalyst that makes this so seemingly easy.

After practicing and waiting about another ten minutes, the time has finally come to make my escape.

Escaping is very simple, it could barely be called an escape at this point. Floating myself out of my bed, and hovering myself down the hall silently is the simplest thing I could imagine doing.  Moving to the kitchen, I simply float myself up and open the window to float out. Now, I guess I need to meditate for a few minutes to go back to full capacity. Afterward, it'll be time to get going finally!

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