CH 43

「Did you think such a selfish—」 「Hold, Cystia. Hmm… We have a deal, then. Regardless of the outcome, I only wish for the two of you to leave this town as soon as possible. We will destroy the 『Levitation Magic Formation』, but it will be a problem if you two were to intervene.」

Black Mask commanded Cystia before he gave his answer.

「…Understood. Although, it is regretful that I couldn’t continue my fight with you.」 「Hum… You’ll have to excuse me for that as well. I rather fight alongside you as comrades rather than enemies. Off you go, then. Cystia! Draw its attention without harming it!」 「Yes!」

It appeared that Cystia took Black Mask’s words as absolute, easily obeying him and carrying out Inglis’ plan. With this, Cyrene would be fine for the time being.

「Glis! What are you going to do…!? Is there something I can help with?」 「It’s alright. You’ve helped a lot already.」 「What do you mean?」 「You’ll understand soon enough. I’ll do something to stop Lady Cyrene, okay?」 「Yeah…! Please, Glis!」 「Here I go then!」

Inglis closed her eyes and controlled her breathing. After which, she began to convert Ether into mana, which she had occasionally done as a show of strength.

However, the difference was, unlike before, she was now using everything she had. Every last drop of Ether she had, she converted them into Mana!

「HAAAAAAA!!!」

If she unleashed the mana in its current raw state, it would only dissipate into thin air, a huge waste, which she obviously wouldn’t be doing so. Inglis immediately felt the intense strain of fatigue, but she continued on to the next phase, mana manipulation.

Runes were an auxiliary system to help people that couldn’t perceive mana by redirecting the flow of mana into their hand. Artifacts would then receive the mana and could execute various battle prowess similar to the sorcery of the past era. If one could reproduce the same mana flow that happened during that process, the same phenomenon would be produced.

At the age of 12, Inglis had managed to convert Ether into Mana. For the past three years, Inglis had been practicing to see if she could efficiently utilize the converted mana.

Manipulating Ether was a herculean task, and trying to control two instances of Ether at once was nearly impossible for Inglis. In short, she couldn’t launch Ether Strike while cladding herself in Ether Armor.

On the other hand, while Mana was weaker compared to Ether, manipulating it was easier. Perhaps manipulating converted Mana alongside Ether techniques was feasible. And if it was, then one could theoretically increase their maximum strength for a short time, this was only in theory though.

Inglis had been watching closely whenever Rafinha used her Artifact, memorizing the arrangements of Mana and its flow pattern. And, until she could reproduce it by herself, she practiced just that, time and again. It took her almost two years until her practice took shape for the first time.

As the mana flow within Low-Grade Artifacts was simpler compared to the rest, Inglis took it upon herself to operate Low-Grade Artifacts and learned the mana flow from there. Now, she could reproduce up to a Middle-Grade Artifact’s functionality on her own. Middle-Grade Artifacts didn’t have supernatural phenomena such as the Gifts, but they could shoot fire, produce ice, and other kinds of Elemental Sorcery.

When Inglis opened her eyes, she had finished molding the Mana into shape. All she had to do now was convert all the Ether she had into Mana!

「FREEEZZZEEEE!!!」

SHRRRRKKK!

Ice, radiating a blast of cold wind, began to materialize around Cyrene’s feet. Within just a moment, it completely encased her, containing her within the cold prison. Its appearance was like an iceberg that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

「Phew… I guess it went well.」

Inglis exhaled at her fatigue. Mana was weaker compared to Ether, and it was far more inefficient. Almost all of her vitality was drained in order to produce a pillar of ice at such an amount.

「A-, awesome…! Such an enormous pillar of ice…!」 「…What a tremendous scale.」

Rafinha and Cystia voiced their astonishments.

「Very well done of you to pull this off with something as weak as Mana.」

Black Mask also seemed to be impressed, judging by his word choices.

「H-, hey Glis, it’s true that she’s calm now, but… is Lady Cyrene okay like that?」 「She has the life force of a Magic Stone beast, after all. She’ll be fine once it melts. Let’s bring Lady Cyrene away like this. Anywhere but here. We have to get her away first.」 「C-, can we really bring her with us? She’s huge!」 「We have to. Give me a moment to rest, I’ll carry her on my back after—」 「But you won’t be able to move freely if so, will you? We wish to have you leave the town as soon as possible.」 「There is no helping it. Bear with me, will you?」 「Pardon me. I didn’t mean to berate you. I’m merely suggesting that I can make it easier to be transported.」 「? What do you mean?」 「Just you watch.」

Black Mask said and then drew closer to the Ice Pillar Inglis created, touching it with his hand.