A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

Chapter 256

“What do our remaining abilities look like, assuming we wait a day before we re-engage so that our daily Perks refresh?” asked Ethan after the group returned to the portal room and shut off the connection to the power supply.

“I lost about half of my golems, I’m down to seventy. The System’s production lines are still running, so the golems are being rebuilt, but it’ll take time and materials to replenish them. I really wish that the creator of the System had put more emphasis on golem production before they left - if the golem supply lines were as well stocked as the rest of the System, I could have fielded an extra hundred golems,” grumbled Doll. “As it is, I’m almost out of supplies, and it’ll take time to get more, even if the mining golems don’t run into any monster attacks or other issues.” Alice winced. Doll’s golems had been quite useful during the fight. Not having them in a second battle would sting a lot.

“I should have all of my abilities back by tomorrow - my build was always built to handle constant combat engagements, as long as I could get some sleep in between each one,” said Allira. “During the last war with the Sigmusi, I never knew when the next battle was coming, so my build is built around sustainability.”

“I’m basically out of monster cores, and I’m basically out of other supplies, too,” said cecilia. “We didn’t get a chance to loot corpses after the battle, so I didn’t even restock what Alice used to get us out of that mess.”

“I’m out of monster cores and enchanting supplies too,” said Doll.

“So am I,” said Ethan.

Alice tried not to look embarrassed. Her actions had been useful - they had bought the group time to flee, and her traps had also wiped out dozens of spiders during the battle. Still, she couldn’t help but feel bad at the mention of how low the group’s resources were running. She also couldn’t help but wonder if she could have done a better job at managing the cost effectiveness of her traps and her enchantments. After several months as Ethan’s apprentice, Alice had gotten a bit too used to the idea that Ethan could supply her with whatever material resources she needed, as long as she had a good reason for using those resources. As an apprentice, that had basically been true - Immortals had huge stockpiles of random supplies and materials laying around, and for a regular Mage, trying to use up those stockpiles would take more than a mortal lifetime.

However, with {Rapid Reconstruction}, the rate at which Alice chewed through materials had ramped up a lot. She needed to be more careful about what materials they used in future battles - and she also needed to get used to sourcing her own supplies, when they got through this.

If they got through this.

“So, what’s our new plan?” asked Alice, as she shuffled her feet uneasily and tried to change the subject. She turned towards Ethan. The first engagement had been built around Alice’s assumptions about how useful her death enchantments could be - and while they had certainly proved useful, they had done nowhere near as much damage to the enemy as she had been hoping for. It was yet another reminder that Immortals weren’t invincible - even if Alice could now play with the underlying concepts that governed reality, there were still limits on what she could accomplish. There were always limits on what a single individual could accomplish, and that wasn’t a problem Alice could innovate her way out of in any reasonable timeframe.

Since that was the case, Alice decided to throw the problem at Ethan. After all, he was one of Illvaria’s military leaders, and a combat-oriented Mage. If anyone was suitable for coming up with a way to handle the monsters infesting the power supply, it was clearly him.

Ethan stroked his chin in thought.

“There are a few ways we could try to tackle the spider infestation. First of all, we could try to harass them to death. Constant raids and ambushes from expendable troops, such as Allira’s shadows, might be a viable way to handle the enemy. After all, even if they seem to function like a hive mind, there is still no plausible way for them to defend every corner of their swarm. There will always be at least a few mistakes and gaps in their defenses. We could use those to try to whittle the horde down faster than they reproduce. We’ve seen their egg sacs multiple times, so we could always target those and hope to gradually kill them all. But that also assumes the spiders don’t respond intelligently or chase us once we leave. That’s not a terrible assumption, since higher power monsters still need a certain mana density to survive, and the fourth evolution might not be able to hit that if it moves too far away from the power supply. If that spider really is restricted to the power supply room, we could actually attack it if it’s dumb enough to send most of its troops away - I’m pretty confident we could wipe it out in a fight where all of us fought it without any of its allies. But I don’t want to risk our lives on an assumption that may or may not be true.” Then, Ethan shook his head. “On further reflection, this also means that we’re essentially condemning millions more people to die from the chaos caused by the collapse of the System first. This method is slow, and it’s hard to say whether it would work at all, even given a large amount of time.”

Alice nodded. The time constraint was, in many ways, a bigger problem than the monster swarm itself. Given enough time, Doll could just build a big enough golem swarm to wipe out the spiders. The spider population probably couldn’t expand much beyond this point - there was only so much mana the power supply produced per second, and Alice suspected the monsters were rapidly going to overstress their food supply. Doll’s golem army had no such limitations, and the System was custom-built to feed a [Blacksmith] like Doll every supply she needed, removing the biggest limitation crafting classes such as [Blacksmiths] usually faced when building an army.

“My second plan is to try to make a really, really big explosion,” said Ethan. Alice blinked in surprise. Wasn’t this plan a bit too basic?

“If we scrape together every single monster core we can find in the rest of the System by wiping out smaller nests, we might be able to make a really big blast of light and heat to wipe out the spiders. That would also take a while, but it does offer some hope, at least.”

“That would also inflict a lot of damage on the power supply room, though,” said Myra. “It might even outright destroy it.”

Alice shuddered. If the System’s power supply was destroyed, she could probably eventually rebuild it - but the raw mana and materials needed for it might be beyond her, at least within any reasonable timeframe. Setting up the seeds for a restored world would be better than nothing, but realistically, she would prefer to minimize the deaths happening across the world right now.

“My final thought is assassination,” said Ethan, after a few more moments of thought. “The biggest issue we have right now is the fourth evolution spider. We managed to injure it in the last fight - we just failed to finish it off before it hid behind the other members of its minion swarm. If we can kill it, the rest of the horde will lose its coordination abilities and its strongest threat. From there, I think a second round of something like Alice’s death enchantments might be able to mop up a few large portions of the horde and set us on a path to victory. The problem is finding a way to kill their leader.”

“If we want to resort to assassination, my Perks are probably best suited for it. I can churn out minions that can move through solid objects and are hard to notice, and can even ‘reform’ themselves into new and dangerous forms based on my needs and my songs,” said Allira. “The problem is that my Perks are all built around music - which is not particularly stealthy.”

“Perhaps I could set something up?” said Doll, after a few more moments. “I could try to create some kind of object that blocks sound. If we could keep your songs close enough for your shadows to be maintained, but keep the horde from hearing your singing, we could get your shadows into position. But are they strong enough to kill the fourth evolution spider on their own? Even if they have the advantage of surprise, I don’t think you have enough power to finish it off with just your spiders, do you?.”

Allira looked thoughtful. “Hold on, I have another idea - but first I need to know how your sound blocking item would work. What restrictions would it have?”

“I’m thinking I can just create a sheet of heavy metal to muffle sounds. Then, I could make a second item with a System enchantment. I can whip up some kind of enchantment-based Perk that grants you the ability to control sound waves, I think - I have a somewhat similar Perk already, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get what I want. Those two objects together should allow you to perform stealthy singing.”

Allira nodded thoughtfully. “That might work. I worry that it wouldn’t be enough for my idea, though. Does anyone else have good ways to help me prevent the spiders from hearing my singing, without cutting off my shadows?”

“I could also create some kind of concept-based enchantment to muffle sounds, and then a second enchantment to hide the mana,” said Alice, thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t last very long, since we’re about out of mana cores, but we could at least ‘borrow’ some mana cores from a nearby spider nest and keep it running for a few minutes. That would be enough for assassination, I imagine.”

Allira nodded. “That would be enough. Are there any complications in this plan?”

“Well, I’m not sure how long an attempt to disguise mana from the eyes of the monsters would work,” said Alice. “Once the spiders realize something is wrong, they could probably track the patch of ‘weird mana’ in the room, and then you would basically have a giant beacon - erm… giant signal fire on top of your head, showing the monsters where you are. Normally, monsters might not be bright enough to pick up on details like that, but with a fourth evolution spider leading them, it’s hard to say.”

“What’s your plan to actually kill the fourth evolution spider? If you tell us, we might have ideas to help refine your plan,” said Cecilia.

“Well, first of all, how important are the individual magic seeds for the System? If you lost a few of the artificial magic seeds powering all of this, could you manage?”

“I… don’t see why that would be a problem,” said Alice, hesitantly. “There are thousands of them in the room, and most of them are duplicates of each other. They don’t do anything too special besides provide energy for the rest of the System. As long as most of them are fine, I can probably make do?”

Allira grinned. “Then my idea is simple. What if you and Cecilia make some kind of enchantment that just… flat-out detonates a few of the artificial magic seeds? Convert it all into the concept of light and heat, or just make a giant explosion - just like Ethan’s earlier idea. If we detonate a few of the artificial magic seeds right next to the fourth evolution spider, that should kill it, I figure. Artificial magic seeds have a bunch of mana inside of them, based on what I’ve heard you say. If all of that energy turned into a bunch of light and heat, the results should be terrifying.”

Alice blinked in surprise, before she started to think.

Could she turn an artificial magic seed into a knockoff bomb? The difference in design philosophy between an artificial magic seed and a consumable enchantment was substantial - but at the end of the day, both of them were enchantments, powered by mana. Alice had also become aware of how malleable reality was in this dimension. It certainly seemed like a viable plan to try, at least.

“I’ve never tried it before, but it should be possible with some trial and error,” said Alice. “Cecilia, I might need your help designing parts of it. What do you need it to look like?”

“I just need it to be light and hard to notice,” said Allira. “I can’t get solid objects to ‘phase’ through the floor the way my shadows can, so I need to have one of them carry it in a way that’s sneaky enough the spiders won’t notice. I’m thinking my shadows could carry it close to the ceiling. The spiders might notice it, but hopefully by then it’ll be too late.”

“I could add some kind of optical camouflage to it,’ said Doll. “Make it harder to spot with the naked eye.”

Alice grinned. “I like the idea. I’ll need more trial and error, but I think this plan could work with some testing and fine-tuning.”

“We can set up a distraction during the attempt too,” said Myra. “That could be a matter for me, Doll’s golems, and the Mages. We’ll set up another little set of traps that lets us retreat easily as the spiders overwhelm us. Ethan and I could definitely plow through a few groups of spiders, then retreat and keep their eyes off of you and your shadows.”

“Don’t count on that working too well. The spiders are too smart to fall for the same trick a second time,” said Ethan. “It would probably still work to some extent - but this plan still hinges on a few variables that we can’t test in advance. Alice doesn’t have any artificial magic seeds to test her new enchantment on, the spiders could still notice the enchantment before it reaches its destination, and about a dozen other things could go wrong. If we fail, we risk getting trapped by the spiders this time and getting ripped apart by the swarm - or wasting a lot more time.”

“Do we have a better plan?” asked Alice.

Ethan rubbed his forehead, before he sighed.

“I can’t think of one, I suppose. Allira’s plan still has more risk than I wish it did, but it has at least a good chance of succeeding.”

“Let’s give it a try,” said Alice. “We can’t waste any more time. We need to get going before we really condemn the rest of the world to destruction.”

Ethan sighed, and then nodded. It was time for plan B.