A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

Chapter 257

Creating an item to blow up one of the power sources within the System was actually simpler than Alice had expected, at least in some ways. Cecilia already had a bunch of Perks related to her specialization in consumable enchantments, since Cecilia had definitively been going for a focused [Enchanter]/[Merchant] build. The entire process of converting an artificial magic seed into an explosive was basically the process of turning it into a consumable enchantment, plus or minus a few details. There was significant overlap between a few of Cecilia’s Perks and their goal, which helped a lot.

Alice also had at least a reasonable understanding of how artificial magic seeds worked, thanks to their visit to Demor, the Immortal of Morendia. There were also other Mages, especially Ethan, capable of doing some of the grunt work for setting up the enchantment, which was also a huge help.

Even so, it still took several hours of work to create even a basic model of the enchantment they wanted. The biggest problem was the fact that Artificial magic seeds were very stable. After all, they were explicitly meant to constantly produce and fuel enchantments while creating mana out of thin air, and keep operating for all eternity if nothing went wrong. Trying to blow one up from internal forces was kind of like trying to steal a nationally guarded treasure - there were a lot of internal safeguards that Alice could find just by scanning through a memory of what an artificial magic seed looked like.

Fortunately, they had the mana reserves of Ethan, who, at this point, was more like a power-supply oriented Immortal, rather than a combat-oriented Immortal. Eventually, Alice and Cecilia managed to create a lightweight piece of enchanted metal that held a huge reserve of mana, and a strong affiliation with the concept of ‘instability’ - which Alice and Ethan generated together by creating a chaotic soup of mana, then having other mages constantly fire more random blasts of mana into the cloud, and then using the concepts within that cloud to help manufacture the sheet of metal. After that, they used the last of their monster cores, as well as a few new ones they ‘borrowed’ from nearby spider colonies, to give it as large of a mana reserve as possible. After that, they attached the concept of ‘absorption’ to the sheet of metal by teleporting back to one of the water pumps the System used to drain floods, then manufacturing a small-scale breach into the System. Sure enough, the System immediately contained the flood, then pumped out all of the water that had gotten into the System. Alice had a pretty easy time gathering a concept related to absorption from the scene. Finally, they attached a concept of ‘explosion of light’ to the sheet of metal, by using Ethan's electromagnetic magic to create a large series of lightning explosions, then using lightning as a substitute for actual light. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough that Alice could get the enchantment running, albeit at a significant loss in energy. If things went well, the sheet of metal should destabilize an artificial magic seed, drain its mana, and then release it all in one big explosion afterwards.

Of course, Ethan, Myra, and Alice did a fair amount of math to figure out how big the resulting explosion should be, and Alice tossed a bunch of questions at {Safety Analysis} to try to make sure they wouldn’t get caught up in the blast. It would be tragic if they succeeded in blowing up an artificial magic seed, only to end up vaporizing themselves along with the monsters.

Even in the best case scenario, where one hundred percent of the Artificial magic seed’s mana was converted into an explosion, they estimated that Ethan’s magic, combined with a fair amount of distance and the System’s internal materials should keep them safe, although it would destroy a large portion of the room they needed to take over. Of course, both Alice and Cecilia were pretty sure that the enchantment would ‘waste’ a whole lot of mana in the process. Cecilia estimated that they would be lucky to get a thirty percent conversion between the artificial seed’s mana and the mana converted into an actual explosion. That meant that the explosion would do far less damage than the best-case scenario, but it would also hopefully avoid destroying the power supply room.

While Alice and Cecilia worked on their own consumable enchantment, Doll had the much more difficult task of creating the other items and enchantments they needed to make this whole mess of operations work, while trying to replenish her golems in case of a problem mid-operation. According to Ethan, something going wrong was practically a certainty, which Alice could understand. On Earth, there was a famous saying about war - no plan survives first contact with the enemy. If anything, that might be more true of the fourth evolution spider and its horde. Even so, Alice hoped that things would go smoothly during their final battle against the spider horde.

After Doll finished making a few more golems, an item that let Allira control her sound to stealthily detonate the magic seed without alerting the spider horde, and a wall that gave Allira a little bit more soundproofing, the group was ready for its second attempt at retaking the System power supply.

Alice set up the portal to the closest room to the power supply again, and then the group strode back into the same corridor they had fled from last time. The moment Alice stepped through the portal, she froze.

There were a lot more spiders in the area than she remembered. It was like every single surface of the walls, ceilings, and floors were covered in a squirming, hairy mass of spider limbs. That had previously been true for the power supply room, but now, it was true right outside of where the portal had opened.

Several nearby spiders had been wiped out by Ethan and Myra, the first two through the portal, and other spiders were already swarming the area.

“What happened?” asked Alice.

Ethan grimaced.

“The fourth evolution spider is ready for us this time,” he said. “We’ll need to fight our way forward. Allira, get your shadows moving. Let’s hope this works. Mom, can you wipe out the spiders on the floor? Alice, handle anything that manages to blend inside of the walls or floor, and turn it into paste the way you did with that other spider last fight. Cecilia, Mages of Illvaria, act as a reserve force and fill in any gaps in the defensive line as you see fit. Apart from Cecilia, all of you are combat-hardened Mages already. I trust your judgement.”

Then, Ethan continued shredding the horde of spiders with blasts of lightning and kinetically powered bits of metal. The spiders outside of the portal quickly fell in droves, and Alice realized that the situation wasn’t quite as dire as she had first imagined. The spiders located just outside of the portal weren’t particularly powerful. They were exclusively regular spiders, first evolution spiders, and the occasional second evolution spider. While they might have been a threat for a regular group of [Soldiers], they were no match for a group of five Immortals prepared for war.

Their presence still got Alice thinking. It only took her a few moments to realize why the spiders were here. They weren’t meant to harm the group, or even significantly slow them down - they were probably here to act as sentries. The fourth evolution spider could likely sense its subordinates dying - so the group’s presence was now known to the enemy.

There wasn’t much Alice could do about that fact, and Ethan and the others probably already knew the enemy was aware of their presence, so Alice simply kept quiet and shot down the occasional spider that tried to ambush an Illvarian combatant. The group moved forward as quickly as they could.

Allira started humming, and the shadows around the group started to bend and shift. A group of shadows started to swirl and drift around the group, participating in the battle. However, Alice noticed that the group of shadows was smaller than Allira’s maximum number of summoned monsters. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a brief glint of metal, as another group of shadows shifted away from the battlefield and started to sneak behind the spider’s defensive lines. She hoped that the spiders wouldn’t notice.

All they could do was kill more spiders and attract as much attention as possible, then hope for the best. The spiders continued to rush at them, as if the horde had no concept of casualties or deaths. That made it much easier for the group to kill them, but it also set Alice’s nerves on edge.

Last fight, the spider horde only had about a thousand spiders. Why were they ignoring deaths this time? Was the fourth evolution spider now confident that it could finish them off this time? Had it sensed that something was wrong with their tactics? How many spiders were left in the horde? Alice estimated that if the fourth evolution spider kept throwing away its lower level minions like this, they might actually wipe out the horde before it could offer assistance. There was a huge difference between a fourth evolution spider backed by an army and a single fourth evolution spider… so why was it doing this? The enemy wasn’t dumb, so its actions had to have some kind of purpose. What were they missing?

As Alice stewed in unease, spider corpses began to pile up in the corridor, like trash discarded by the roadside. Still, the spider horde continued to rush at them. Spider after spider fell to in a nearly suicidal charge to the death, and still they came in droves. The rate at which Ethan needed to use Perks to bail out a Illvarian mages started to spike, from the initial nearly-safe tactics the group had employed to the occasional near-death. Still, the spiders came.

Soon, Alice noticed something even more strange. They must have killed a few hundred spiders already, but they hadn’t seen a single third or fourth evolution spider so far. The number of spiders in the enemy horde didn’t seem to be going down at all, either. If anything, the density of spiders in the corridor was increasing as time passed, despite the fact that the spiders were dying like flies.

Where had all of these spiders come from? Where was the mana keeping this horde from asphyxiating? The amount of mana present in the power supply room certainly hadn’t been high enough to support this level of spider activity a few days ago, and the enemy hadn’t installed any extra mana production lines in this hallway. The horde shouldn’t have had enough time to replenish their lost troops, either. Spiders hatched quickly, but they still needed several days to grow.

Something was seriously wrong here.

Alice found herself pondering these questions, before she realized the answer was surprisingly simple.

The group of spiders occupying the power supply wasn’t the only swarm in the System - not by a long shot. Alice and the others had attacked several smaller groups of spiders in order to harvest materials from them, which had been the very foundation for several of Alice’s tactics used during the last battle.

There was no reason why the spider swarm couldn’t do the same. Perhaps under normal circumstances, the spiders wouldn’t think of this kind of tactic - after all, absorbing smaller hordes of spiders meant splitting up food afterwards. However, with a fourth evolution spider leading the swarm, they were essentially facing an enemy commander on par with a human one in raw intelligence. Any tactic they could think of, the spider commander could reasonably also think of. A spider horde might not normally be willing to trade food for troops, but the fourth evolution spider knew

they were out to kill it. It was only natural for it to prepare for the next battle, and recruiting swarms of cheap cannon fodder was easy for a fourth evolution spider.“The fourth evolution spider has probably recruited some of the nearby hordes,” said Alice. “Be ready for them to have way higher numbers than before!”

“Got it!” yelled Ethan.

Her heart clenched as they continued to punch through swarms of weaker spiders, continuing towards the power supply room. Things had already gone a bit off-track from their plan, but they were running out of time, and Alice didn’t see a good way to counter the enemy’s actions yet. All they could do was grit their teeth and bear with it.

The group finally pushed their way to one of the corners. They were only one hallway and one more turn away from the power supply room, and they still hadn’t encountered any third evolution spiders or the fourth evolution spider. The density of monsters was still increasing, but Alice felt a brief flicker of hope. perhaps they really had caught the enemy off-guard? If Allira managed to get the enchantment in place, there was still a distinct chance they could catch the enemy off-guard. Alice deflected a spider that tried to shadowstep behind one of the Illvarian Mages, and frowned. The first third-evolution spider had appeared - and it had died in a largely meaningless probing attack. The third evolution spiders from last battle had been far more cautious - so the fourth evolution spider had probably recruited this spider from outside. Otherwise, it wouldn’t treat its life so cheaply.

Why had it thrown away the life of its subordinate so easily? Even if it was an external recruit, the fourth evolution spider should still know that only third and fourth evolution spiders could pull off some of the more important maneuvers that would decide this battle. It was almost as if - 

“Above and behind us!” Yelled Ethan.

The group turned around - and that was when Alice felt a surge of panic.

Located just above them, within the ceiling, were eight third-evolution spiders.

The main force of the enemy had arrived. Eight third-evolution spiders represented nearly half of the enemy’s former upper level combatants. It was unknown how many more the fourth evolution spider had recruited from other groups, but at the very least, Alice doubted it had more than twenty, even now. If eight were here, Alice doubted the other upper level combatants would be far away - perhaps even the fourth evolution spider. It might be time to decide the battle. It also meant their ambush had failed - the fourth evolution spider wouldn’t be caught by their explosion enchantment at all, because it might not even be near the power supply room. On the other hand, it might still be waiting in the power supply - it was hard to guess.

Alice squinted, and began looking for the fourth evolution spider. Where was it? If it was still in the power supply, there was still a chance to pull off their previous plan, but they needed to locate it now. Worse, if it was preparing to take action and Alice failed to spot it, it might take out one of the Immortals of the group, and send the group spiraling into the abyss. If it was here, she needed to deal with this threat before it cost them everything. But she couldn’t find the monster.

Alice shook her head, to stave off the early onset of panic, and used her portals to extend her magic tendril range into the ceiling. She tried to force one of the third-evolution spiders to materialize - but even though her mana surged into the creature’s body, nothing substantial happened. It took Alice a moment to realize that the creatures weren’t in shadow form at all - they were in a completely normal, solidified state. The spiders had hollowed out part of the ceiling, and used that as an ambush point! They were ready for her tactics this time!

A moment later, the ceiling burst open. The eight third-evolution spiders dropped out of the ceiling and towards the heads of some of the Illvarian Mages in the center of the group - including Alice and Cecilia. Alice rolled out of the way, and before the spiders could hit the ground, a spray of lightning bolts and metal ripped into several of the spiders and sent them crashing into the wall. Myra painted a new ceiling into existence at speeds Alice could barely track with her eyes but the spiders dropped back into shadow form and melted through the, painting ceiling as if it were an illusion.

Before Alice could respond, two of the spiders hit their targets. Most of the Illvarian Mages had gotten out of the way in time, but a few had lagged behind - and now needed to contend with much stronger enemies. They barely put up a fight before two of them got ripped apart by the third evolution spiders, marking the first Illvarian deaths inside of the System.

A moment later, Alice felt an unfurling twitch of mana, before it felt like something unwove out of nothingness and leapt towards her face. Alice’s Perks kicked in, and she had enough time to look down and suck in a gasp.

The fourth evolution spider was right beneath her.