After Nick declared his intention to be the strongest Magician, both Keller and Veera went silent and stared at him blankly. The two never quite understood how crazy that statement sounded until it came out of an unrelated person's mouth.
Veera soon smiled and took out something from her space band, handing it to Nick.
"Here, this is milk chocolate made in Sidon. It's a delicacy."
Nick took hold of a small piece of chocolate wrapped in foil and ate it in one mouthful. Keller decided that he and Veera had rested enough and said to Nick:
"We were out here mostly to hunt and for Veera's training but now it's time to return to Sidon. I have many duties to attend to, after all. Do you want to travel with us? Sidon has many traders that sell items obtained from all over Forgotten Peril."
Nick thought for a bit:
(Sidon is at the edge of the current major region and I need to cross a wide river very close to it in order to get to the next major region. I might as well head there now. Traveling with these two might not be a bad idea considering that they are probably more familiar with the route to Sidon from here than I am.)
Nick answered in the affirmative:
"Sure. I'll travel with you guys."
Keller nodded his head and summoned a new dress shirt from his space band in order to replace the ruined one that he had on now. After putting on his new shirt, he got up from the picnic table and so did Veera. Nick also got up and stored the table into his space band. Nick then cast Absolute Pull and Absolute Push in order to rise a few feet above the ground, following which he spoke to Keller and Veera:
"Lead the way."
Keller already knew that Nick could fly which is why he suggested that Nick come along with them anyway. Keller quickly generated a gust of jade-green wind that lifted himself and Veera into the air and rose to about fifty meters above ground before flying off in the direction of Sidon.
Nick followed closely behind at the speed of a train with a steam engine. While in midair, Nick thought about his battle with Keller Oxar:
(That old man is very strong and experienced in combat. If it wasn't for the defensive strength of Battle Armor, he would have broken my bones several times. If it was not for the healing capability of Involuntary Sacrifice, his last attack would have probably left me unable to battle any longer because of the damage to my face. A Magician's strength is clearly not based just on how hard they can hit but also on how well they can bounce back after being hit, that means defensive and healing methods are absolutely indispensable tools to have.)
Nick realized that before when his only strong defensive methods were Soul Capturing Coat, which was unreliable when hit with a strong offensive method, and Reinforced With Soul, which had relatively low defensive power, he was really walking on a tight rope. It was even more so before he developed Involuntary Sacrifice, which had a potent healing effect.
(Keller's methods are exceptional, especially his healing spell that was able to mend his injuries after I disemboweled him and after I practically decapitated him. He is not normal. His last attack sent me flying and I could barely respond in time to even counter. Keller definitely has more battle experience than me. If we were to fight, giving everything we had, I might not necessarily win. That is not me putting myself down, its just speaking the truth. A healthy appreciation for your opponent's power is a good thing; it keeps you from becoming arrogant. I think I read that in a book one time.)
Nick then thought about the last physical exchange that he and Keller had:
(Keller is clearly faster than he initially revealed but my spells are deadlier than I revealed to him so we both had much more to give. I summoned the six blades after thinking that they would probably be useful standby weapons that I could manipulate with Space and that was probably a good idea because I actually managed to deter the old man with my skillful control of them.)
After having that thought, Nick cast Space and spread his special space around himself at a one meter radius in all directions. He then summoned twelve of the double-edged grey blades that he made and rotated them around himself as he flew, thinking:
(This should work as a fairly good standby offensive or defensive measure that I can immediately employ based on images that I receive from my Spacial Awareness talent.)
Nick used his time in flight to train his use of his special space to manipulate the blades around him which was actually fairly difficult while moving at high speed like he was. Keller noticed Nick's actions and was impressed by the young man's passion.
(He's even practising in mid-flight. Is he obsessed with his cultivation? Good. That kind of obsession is how you develop real potential in this world. I hope Veera has noticed Nick's standard.)
Veera observed Nick by turning her head slightly and felt that he was a little strange.
(I saw him use soul magic, space magic and I think...blade magic. How does he use so many types of magic in battle so well? I can't even see myself doing that now. I should ask him later. Hmmm...those blades, is he trying to work out a new combat style? When he pressed six of them against pops before, although their aim at vital spots were accurate, their overall movements seemed a little naive.)
Veera had trained with her father since she was nine so although she was still a rank 1 Magician, she had a good amount of experience in analyzing magical combat.
The three Magicians moved rapidly and eventually approached an old fort that was about thirty five meters in height and that stuck out above the woodland below, where the trees were now more spaced apart than they had been before.
At the top of the fort, on its flat, stone roof, a man dressed in a light-blue Magician's robe quickly warned them, his voice clearly amplified by magic:
"This fort is now under the control of the Blood Knights. Please descend to the ground while you move past this fort and pay a tax to get past this area. Your refusal to follow my instructions will result in your immediate execution."
Nick, Keller and Veera heard the warning and Keller immediately frowned, shouting:
"What tax? You Blood Knights are just a bunch of bandits! If you want to try to rob me, you will only be seeking your death!"
Nick thought what Keller said was funny since Keller himself pretended to be a robber as a pretense to fight with him. The man on the fort roof snorted and replied:
"Have it your way!"
The man on the fort roof summoned an object from his space band that looked like a wireless microphone with a black padded receiver and a plain black shaft. The man whispered something into the microphone but Keller, Veera and Nick heard him clearly:
"Ground."
Suddenly, the space around the three warped and within a few moments, they appeared on the ground below. Nick still had Space active with his blades hovering around him and Keller and Veera were still enveloped in a gust of wind but they were grounded anyway.
Nick realized:
(That microphone was clearly some kind of magic tool with a space path effect. It teleported us to the ground. My spells, Absolute Pull and Absolute Push, were cancelled because I momentarily lost the focus that they had on myself. What a powerful magic tool.)
Keller grew angry and removed the jade-green wind from around Veera before instructing Nick:
"Protect my daughter."
The old man then flew up towards the top of the fort but less than ten seconds later, Keller returned, grounded near to the position where he was initially. He cursed:
"That damn magic tool. I'll kill the bastard that keeps using it."
Nick thought that the situation was not that bad. To continue flying, they only had to deal with the Blood Knights or at least the man on the roof. He decided that he might as well go after the former for now, assuming that they were within the fort.
The fort was made of large, grey bricks that had open, pentagon shaped windows at a few places on its walls. Its closed double-doors were made from hard wood that hung in place on metal hinges.The fort was about thirty meters from the three but to Nick, that was far from enough to protect it from him.
Nick immediately expanded his special space in order for it to envelop the fort and then cast his methods:
(Absolute Pull.)
(Absolute Push.)
The ground rumbled for several seconds before signs of the fort being torn out of the ground appeared. The fort rose up by about one foot as it was ripped from its foundation. Keller watched with satisfaction and encouraged Nick:
"Just destroy the damn thing."
Nick was about to do just that when the wooden double doors flew open and over thirty men dressed in light-blue Magician's robes jumped out from it. Nick noticed not just them but through Spacial Awareness, he also noticed five men dressed in similar clothes that were riding on horses that approached the fort from different directions.
One of the robed Magicians spoke sternly to Nick, Keller and Veera:
"So, you are the people that Maxis grounded. Stop what you are doing to the fort. So long as you pay the tax, you can leave this area safely."
Nick snorted and gave them a response with pure action.
(Battle Armor.)
Nick's right arm rapidly oozed silver soul miasma which just as quickly condensed and became infused with his right arm, giving it a metallic-silver color and a steel like texture. Nick then reached out his right arm in front of himself and cast another spell:
(Direct Dominion.)
Nick's lower-arm suddenly seemed to disappear and reappear at the front most section of the fort walls, above the door. Nick stuck his steel like fingers into the stone brick and poured his magic power into the fort. Internally, Nick's glowing silver soul radiated an intense magic power that coursed throughout his right arm and that magic power then moved throughout the fort like a shock wave.
The fort's brick walls shook and its foundation fractured like glass. In less than two seconds, spider cracks appeared all over the fort's surface and by four seconds had passed, the fort's bricks and internal structure shattered with no more resistance, turning the once mighty fort into rubble. Nick then quickly withdrew his right hand and observed the aftermath of his work.
All that was left of the fort was rubble that piled up for as much as twenty meters above ground.. The robed Magicians looked behind them at their fort and after being shocked, they were enraged. Keller laughed heartily and gave Nick a thumbs up, saying:
"Nicely done."
Veera did a little victory dance on the spot in celebration of the destruction of the fort. At that time, the five robed Magicians riding on horse back approached their similarly dressed comrades and one burly man who was about a head taller than the rest questioned angrily:
"Who did this?"
Every man present in their group looked over at Nick and pointed at him. The man who had spoken before made it clear:
"Boss, it was that bastard with the white hair. We have to kill these people or the Blood Knights will be shamed."
The burly man was white and had low, neatly trimmed black hair; his face was persistently stern and he had a scar on his left cheek. He looked over at Nick, Keller and Veera and faced them with clear disdain in his gaze. His body erupted with magic energy and a silver metal spear quickly rose from the ground at the man's immediate right side with its tip pointing towards the sky. The burly man grabbed the spear and plucked it out of the ground, holding it firmly towards his three opponents and said:
"It was you three who orchestrated your deaths."
Keller cracked his knuckles and replied:
"You shouldn't tax whole areas morons unless you have someone who is rank 3. That should be common sense."
Nick wasn't going to banter with these people and since the number of opponents were so many, he was going to be ruthless in his actions. Nick summoned one hundred of his grey metal blades from his space band and used his special space to instantly place then above the group of bandits, pointing their sharp tips downward.
The Blood Knights panicked when seeing the numerous blades hovering over them like metaphorical guillotines. Nick did not hesitate as he sent every blade downward at the speed of cannon fire. Within moments, 80% of the Blood Knights were impaled by at least one blade and their corpses fell to the ground with the blood flowing from their wounds dying the ground below red. The burly man skillfully used his spear to deflect all the blades that tried to impale him.
The other Blood Knights that dodged or defended against Nick's blades quickly scattered away from the site of the attack but that hardly mattered. Nick manipulated his special space and picked up each blade from the ground and dislodged the rest from the corpses that they impaled. They all pointed at one of the remaining Blood Knights and shot out to strike at them. Some Blood Knights defended themselves faithfully with earth walls, ice strongholds, tree shields and other defensive methods while others used offense as their savior by beating back the blades with fire balls, acid, sound waves, and lighting shocks but within a few minutes, they all found themselves impaled by multiple grey blades; even the horses were not spared from being impaled at multiple spots on their body.
At that point, the only Blood Knight that was left standing was their burly leader who fought with ferocity by swinging his metal spear at the fast attacking grey blades; some blades were broken up in the exchanges. He even brought up ten more spears from the ground and took up one in his left hand and then used his magic to aim and propel the rest towards Nick, Keller and Veera but Nick's special space stopped the spears' movements in midair and flipped them around. Nick gave each a little spin and then propelled them right back at the burly man.
The burly man was able to block the spears by swinging around his own two spears but just barely since he was currently suffering from injuries, having been impaled by two grey blades, one at his right side and one at his lower left back. After one more minute of fighting it out with Nick's blades, the burly man use his magic power to erect three wide, silver metal walls and tried to flee in the the opposite direction of his opponents.
Keller was about to give chase when Nick said:
"Hold on."
Nick immediately lined up his over ninety remaining grey blades and had them hover up right with their tips pointing towards the sky. Nick cancelled Battle Armor and then clasped both his hands together, following which a cloud of magic energy was exuded from him and using his connection to the blades via his special space, he poured into each one of them his magic power.
A large portion of the special space was intermediately dyed dull-red as the magic energy leaving Nick's body was converted to magic power. Nick cast one of his spells successfully:
(Big Sever.)
All of the over ninety blades then swung down in the direction of the burly man simultaneously, wide formless arcs of magic power shooting out with each swing. The burly man who was basically waddling away felt the aura of death approach him and before he was bombarded with Nick's attacks, he muttered:
"I just wanted to be somebody."
Within the next moment, many arcs of magic power shot through the man in series, each of the over ninety attacks hitting the mark. Without delay, the man's body that had already lost all traces of life fell apart into a pile of thinly minced and bloody skin, flesh and bones. The Blood Knights were no more.
Nick returned all his undamaged blades to his side storing most and keeping twelve floating around him while he retracted his special space to one meter beyond his body in all directions. Keller who had watched the massacre from start to finish stood in his spot and turned to face Nick, thinking:
(Nick dealt with those men savagely and did not spare a single one. I cannot say anything about his intentions or his morals but one thing is certain, this young man is a monster in the making.)
Keller had served in the magic military and had fought wars in other realms so he witnessed fighting involving many Magicians with similar talents as Nick's, some even promoting to greater ranks. When Keller looked at Nick, he felt the same uneasiness that those men and women gave him on the battlefield.
Keller spoke to Nick while nudging Veera, who was currently in a stupor while staring at all the blood on the ground:
"Are you planning to join the military? Your methods seem very...lethal."
Nick shrugged his shoulders and replied:
"I was only testing out the viability of these blades for battle. I did not think that they would be so effective."
Keller and Veera remained silent for a long time and Veera broke the silence by saying:
"That was a really bloody scene."
Nick nodded his head in agreement but it's not like he felt bad about it.
"Those men tried to extort me, so thy got what they deserved."
When Nick spoke such reasoning, the father and daughter could not argue, so they all went back to flying towards Sidon. Eventually, Veera asked if she could fly with Nick and after pondering for some time, Keller asked Nick:
"Can my daughter fly with you?"
Nick wasn't opposed to it since it would be decent training for him and since Veera had been pleasant so far. Nick consented and used Absolute Pull and Absolute Push to maintain Veera's flight during the gradual removal of her father's wind magic.
Veera flew close to Nick and watched while he swung around and rotated the twelve grey blades within his special space. Being enveloped within Nick's magic power made Veera uncomfortable at first but eventually she began to feel safe.
She did not bother interrupting Nick's training with talk; since she herself hated that, she assumed that Nick was probably the same, being an obvious cultivation maniac.
As the sun went down, Keller indicated with hand signals that they should land and so Nick brought Veera and himself to the ground below. Nick observed the rocky terrain of the Valley that they were now in and asked:
"Are you planning to make camp here out in the open."
Keller affirmed:
"That's right, it's too troublesome to travel at night time for rank 2 Magicians. You could unluckily encounter a rank 3 or rank 4 magic beast that way."
Nick thought of the large magic beast that generated dense fog as it passed him on his first day within Forgotten Peril and knew that Keller was right so he simply summoned his picnic table from his space band as well as an entire platter of whole roast chicken, a few loaves of french bread and a carving knife; he also stored his grey blades into his space band. Nick sat down without saying anything to the other two and used the carving knife to cut off pieces of the roast chicken in order to make sandwiches with the french bread.
Nick then started to eat voraciously. Veera who had started building a camp fire with her father smelt the roast chicken and became enticed. Although she usually ate magic beast meat, normal animal meat was also very delicious to her. When Keller wasn't looking, she went over to Nick and asked him to make her a sandwich. Nick complied without much thought and Veera sat beside him while eating her sandwich.
Keller soon frowned at seeing this but then rolled his eyes at the two young people and continued building the large fire place. By the time he was done, Nick had eaten the entire roast chicken and was ready to do some night time training. He quickly stored the picnic table back into his space band.
Nick then summoned one of his armored trucks from his space band and got into the driver's seat, following which he started reading a book after turning on the ceiling light. Keller observed Nick and a bitter expression appeared on his face.
(This young man is clearly wealthy. Even normal armored trucks cost quite alot on Grand Earth, not to mention this one which is clearly magically reinforced.)
Keller spoke to Veera:
"We should leave Nick alone, he seems to be studying."
Veera understood and so she and her father sat on the ground by their large camp fire and Keller went over some magical topics with her; she had her own learning to do. Hours later, she fell asleep by the fire and Keller stayed wake to keep watch. he looked over at Nick and realized that he was still studying, not looking like he planned to go to sleep.
(Both of us being awake is a good thing.)
Nick summoned a bag of butter bread to eat while he studied but then noticed that Keller was also awake so he summoned another bag of the delicious bread and took it out to him. Keller received the bread and asked:
"What's this?"
Nick replied:
"The best tasting bread within Forgotten Peril."
Keller felt that Nick's claim was ridiculous but took a bite of the bread anyway and he was forced to smile when he did. Keller had spent a several years, in Grand Earth's time, within Forgotten Peril and even Veera was born here. Although Forgotten Peril had its advantages, tasty snacks like this loaf of internally buttered bread was not one of them. He thanked Nick and asked for a loaf that he could give to Veera when she woke up.
Nick handed another bag of the bread to Keller and then went back to his armored truck to study. No magic beasts approached them during the night and when the sun rose, Keller immediately woke Veera so that they could carry on with their journey.
Keller shouted at Nick who was still reading in the armored vehicle:
"Ready Nick!"
Nick heard Keller's question and then lowered his window to speak:
"Since this valley is mostly flat land, do you mind if we drive through it in this truck in order to get a good look at the terrain?"
Nick clearly wanted to sight see but Keller did not really have a problem with that so long as he could drive the truck and so he said:
"Let me drive the truck and you got a deal."
Nick agreed and then moved into the front passenger seat. The armored truck had two sections: one section where four seats were made available, one for the driver and three for passengers and then you had its sealed off cargo hold.
Keller and Veera entered the truck, Keller in the driver's seat and Veera sitting in the passenger seat behind her father. Keller then began to drive the truck across the valley floor and a wide smile developed on his face. He muttered:
"I forgot how fun it was driving one of these."
Veera curiously asked Nick:
"How much does one of these vehicles cost?"
Keller was going to admonish Veera for asking such a question but then decided to see if Nick would answer her, after all, his daughter needed to learn all sorts of things and not just from him.
Nick tried to remember, then quoted a price:
"About £200,000,000 on Grand Earth."
Keller's eyes opened wide when he heard the price. He instinctively said:
"Nick, tell me whose decadent family you belong to."
Keller was a career military man so his salary was only about £95,000 per month. Spending £200,000,000 on a truck was never within his reach. He wanted to know how someone as young as Nick could do it.
Nick looked out the passenger side window at the landscape and replied:
"I don't have a family, I just work hard."
Keller went quiet and sighed, knowing that he should not pry any further. Veera, however, felt bad that Nick did not have a family since she could not imagine a life without her father. She asked in response to Nick's answer:
"Do you want to be a part of our family, Nick."
Keller almost vomited blood when he heard that. Although he knew that his daughter asked that question innocently, it was still a very inappropriate thing to ask since it meant that Nick and Veera would have to get very close.
Nick was not bothered by the question and smiled, replying:
"No thanks, I don't mind being alone."
Nick continued to observe the terrain, the truck became quiet and Keller just drove along until two magic beasts began chasing the armored truck. One magic beast seemed like a large bird covered with dirt colored feathers that had two long, strong legs, a long neck and a menacing beak but no wings.
The other magic beast resembled a large, lion sized iguana that had rainbow colored feathers attached to its back and that crawled along the valley floor effortlessly. Keller quickly parked the armored truck and Keller, Nick and Veera exited it.
Keller acted first by enveloping his right arm in a gust of pale-yellow wind and punched forward at the large bird. The pale-yellow wind immediately condensed and shot off like a bullet. Within moments, the large bird's head was blown clean off, completely destroyed by the pale-yellow wind that dissipated after destroying the magic beast's head.
Keller then used the same spell to also decapitate the large iguana and that was that. For all rank 2 Magicians, at a certain point, rank 2 magic beasts stopped being a threat unless the magic beast was of the mutant variety.
While Keller killed the to magic beasts Nick was using his spell, Warp Sense, to study the subterranean levels below them. He had actually been doing this while also in the truck but Keller and Veera did not notice.
(If a space math master wants to hide his actions, what could they do about it?)
Nick had realized since moving along the valley while having Warp Sense feed him accurate details of what was below the ground's surface that there was an ocean of strange liquid material below this valley.
(The material is definitely magical in nature but is difficult to sense because of the hard rock below that also has many magic beast carcasses buried within it. The material seems stagnant but large in volume. Should I try to dig up some of it?)
Nick was not sure that doing so would be beneficial but considering the benefits that he had already gained from mining the earth within Forgotten Peril, he thought that he might as well take a look at what kind of material was underneath this valley. Nick asked Keller:
"Hey, what are the laws on materials found within these areas?"
Keller replied:
"Laws? No, no. It's purely you find it, you keep it out here, that is, if you can protect it."
Nick then informed Keller:
"In that case, I plan to mine some materials right here. If you guys want to go ahead to Sidon, I would understand."
Keller was confused at first since this valley was ordinary at best and Nick did not have any mining equipment nor did he do a geological survey in order to find possible minerals hidden within the ground.
(What is he planning to mine and how is he planning to do it by himself? This valley is along a common route leading to Sidon. If there were any valuable minerals here, a mining company would have definitely picked up on it already. I shouldn't leave him here since we've gotten along so well so far. I should do some training with Veera for a couple of days and see what he picks up. If it's nothing, then we'll leave with or without him.)
Keller announced:
"Do what you need to do. Veera and I will stay here for two days and do some training before we leave."
Nick replied:
"Oh, okay but I'm not sharing anything I find with you."
Keller snorted and cursed at Nick:
"I wouldn't want any of the shit that you find out here."
Nick chuckled and began his preparation by altering his mining formation that he used to mine ores in order to accommodate liquid materials and he did so within his mindscape since that was the fastest way for a master to think about his path. To Keller and Veera, Nick just seemed to stand in one place and stare blankly but it was not the first time that they saw a Magician do strange thing so they left him alone and ran off to find magic beasts to fight.
After about three hours of thinking, a large magic beast that looked like an owl tried to swoop down on Nick but since he had received a warning via Spacial Awareness, he simply used Mars once to kill the magic beast without much effort. He then continued his thinking while also observing the terrain. Nick was attacked by magic beasts fifteen times during the next four hours but he killed them all using Mars and got back to work.
Nick's use of the spell was good training, but it made him realize that rank 2 magic beasts had a problem dealing with spells of a certain standard and that didn't refer to grade but it had to do more with how the spell was resolved. Mars did not leak magic power that could be sensed before it resolved and by that time it was usually too late to counter for any magic beast who would not have registered Mars as harmful until then. Without a certain level of intelligence, a rank 2 magic beast could not properly compete with a skilled Magician, all other things being equal.
Mutant magic beasts and rank 3 magic beasts are different, however, since they have human like levels of intelligence. Although Nick was not too worried about the mutant shifter, he knew that he was bound to fight tooth and nail with it if he found it.
By the time sun down arrived, Nick was finished with adjusting his mining magic formation for his new task. By the time Keller and Veera came back to Nick's position, he was using paint, painting equipment and his special space to draw a space path formation on the ground several dozen meters from the armored truck.
Since they didn't want to interrupt his work, Keller and Veera simply started to build another camp fire using logs and tinder that they summoned from their space bands.
Nick's altered mining formation was significantly smaller that his previous version, having a radius of less than one meter but it was just as complex as any rank 1 magic formation should be. Nick summoned four tall self-standing lamps to provide light as darkness approached. After about two hours of additional preparation, Nick was finally ready to activate the formation.
Seeing that Nick had put away his painting materials, Veera came over, asking:
"Hey Nick, can I have more of that tasty bread that you gave my pops?"
Nick summoned a bag of butter bread from his space band and handed it to Veera without thinking. Veera happily took the bread out of the bag and took bites of it while looking at the magic formation on the ground, soon thinking:
(What is that...a magic formation? Those laws are written in Valteese and those materials placed on its surface are probably related to space path. I can't tell what this magic formation does though.)
Veera didn't have to wait too long to see the magic formation activated because Nick activated it after another minute had passed with a trigger phrase spoken in Valteese:
"Begin."
The magic formation immediately glowed silver and emitted a soft buzzing sound. Veera was intrigued but after standing there for twenty minutes and seeing no result, she grew impatient and asked Nick, who remained standing and watching the magic formation without allowing his eyes to stray from it:
"What does this magic formation do?"
Nick answered simply:
"It retrieves magic materials."
Veera understood what Nick was doing now but she spoke doubtfully of it:
"It has been activated for nearly thirty minutes now and nothing has happened. Do you think that there is something wrong with it?"
Nick said nothing and continued to wait. Veera just ate her butter bread at the side and waited since she had nothing better to do; her father was currently meditating so he not able to teach her anything.
After fifty minutes, a large space bubble was generated above the magic formation that remained connected to the magic formation via a narrow spacial shaft at the space bubble's base. Not long after the space bubble appeared, a viscous copper colored fluid came rising up from the magic formation, through the spacial shaft and then into the space bubble. The liquid began to fill the space bubble until it was full and Nick paused the magic formation's operations using a Valteesian trigger phrase:
"Pause."
The formation remained glowing but the buzzing sound that it had been emitting could no longer be heard. Nick and Veera observed the copper colored liquid within the space bubble, Nick with uncertainty and Veera with shock.
Seeing Veera's shocked expression, Nick asked her:
"Do you know what this material is?"
Veera turned to Nick and answered:
"I've seen people trade it in Sidon. It is a metal path material called stubborn oil and it is used in the manufacture of all kinds of weapons. It is a very well sought after material and one liter of it costs about half its weight in gold. Nick, your rich!"
Nick listened to Veera's explanation intently and when she finished, he grew interested in obtaining all of the material.
(There is an ocean of this material below the ground. I can obtain it all using this one formation but that will take a while because of the limited suction power and capacity of one magic formation. That means that it would be best to create more magic formations. The real problem is transport. I cant just collect liquid material with my space band, the unloading of it later would be disastrous. I'll have to improve my formation again.)
After deciding what he was going to do, Nick summoned more tall, self-standing lamps and got to work on improving his mining formation again, turning way from Veera. Veera hurried to report Nick's find to her father. Keller did not like that Veera interrupted his meditation but he turned to face her anyway, asking:
"What is it?"
Veera pointed at Nick's first magic formation and the space bubble floating over it and said:
"Look at all that stubborn oil that Nick dug up."
Keller looked over at Nick's work and after realizing that the liquid within the space bubble was indeed stubborn oil, he went over to examine the magic formation himself, muttering:
"This young man actually knows how to lay down such formations and he even dug up such a valuable material. Just this one collection of stubborn oil should be worth at least two tonnes of gold."
As the settlement administrator of Sidon appointed by the Ministry of Magic, he was privy to the value of all sorts of materials native to Forgotten Peril and so he knew this stubborn oil's worth exactly.
(Private companies export this metal path material to grand earth so that it can be used in not just weapon manufacturing, but also in building material and industrial equipment manufacturing. If I were to sell the location of this apparent oil field to anyone of those mining companies, I could retire in peace...but this is Nick's find. Could I take his right to it away from him?)
Birds die for food, humans die for wealth. Naturally, once Keller understood the value of the find, all his good will towards Nick was thrown out the window and he begun to think of how the current situation could best benefit himself.
(No, Nick is strong and unpredictable. Unless I can kill him by surprise, trying to silence him will fail. There is only one other alternative. I will wait and see what he does and then try to make some kind of deal with him. With my status, there are many ways that I can help him to maximize the value of the stubborn oil and thus the price that companies would be willing to pay for it.)
Keller patted Veera on the shoulder and looked at her dotingly before going back to his previous spot in order to continue meditating. Veera was confused by her father's silence but she then took it to mean that he had no interest in the oil so she just went to sit quietly near the fire until she fell asleep.
Nick, who was currently making improvements to his formation's design within his mindscape, of course had seen all of Keller's and Veera's actions using Spacial Awareness and could guess what was going through Keller's mind. Nick wasn't naive and knew a few things:
(There are no eternal friends, only eternal benefits. If I wasn't able to collect all the stubborn oil myself, Keller would probably become a problem but as long as I can gain possession of all the oil and store it within my space band, he has no leverage over me and if he attacks me to gain the oil, I have no problem fighting to the death for my benefits.)
So long as Nick walked on the road to becoming the strongest Magician, he was prepared to slay gods and devils. What more can be said about a mere settlement administrator.
(If Keller acts foolishly, he will die. The same goes for Veera.)