Three days. It took three days to smelt enough iron for Bev to be satisfied. Kennon was just glad it was over. Bev unlocked fire magic 3 midway through the second day. But even that didn’t mean a break. It just meant that Bev kept working while he napped his headache away.

  Bev insisted that he wait till she had made them proper tools. But he was itching to explore. And he had things to test! He couldn’t bear to sit still for another minute.

  His primary goal from this trip was to figure out how far they were from the realm wall. He had gone nice and slow on his previous excursions. This time he planned to be either running or walking upstream until the sun was high in the sky. Then he could rush his way back to camp before night fell.

  Setting off with a heavy jog through the areas he had already explored he watched as the golden trees passed him by. Each foot step covering more ground than it would have a week ago. Flowers and herbs of purple and green falling behind him.

  He really should get into alchemy again. More than a few of the plants he harvested had useful properties. But there were two problems. First of all, most of the things he knew how to make they didn’t need. Sure he could make a healing salve. But they had better stuff in their first aid kits. There was no point wasting time making a salve, or a potion he never intended to use.

  The second problem was equipment. Oh he had his pestle. With that and a little spell work he could do most of the work. It was the little things that were missing. Like vials to hold potions. Or proper bonding agents to make things truly usable.

  Sure, ground golden aloe mixed with a little water could heal most skin deep wounds. But without a binder, some tree sap at the minimum it would have to be held perfectly still. And it wouldn’t penetrate as deep and as quickly meaning it would heal slower.

  Without a proper way to measure ingredients a mana potion would be far less effective. And without a vial, cup of some sort he had no way to store it other than the palm of his hand or in the pestle itself. And the more complicated recipes. He didn’t think he would be able to improvise milliliter precise distillation set ups with molded stone.

  That was a problem for another day. For now he wanted to test combat magic.

  He had read the manuals. He knew what a combat mage was expected to do. One of them was casting in motion, and hitting the target. Fortunately he was focusing quite a lot on motion at the moment. And trees made great targets.

  Running along he began to cast wind blade. It was shockingly similar to fire bolt. So weaving it was simple. Though doing it without tripping was significantly harder. It took almost twice as long as his first test of the spell but he got it well enough. Aiming at a wrist thick branch he let loose.

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  A crescent of razor sharp air about a third a meter long, invisible to all but mana sight, rushed at the branch at break neck speeds. Grazing it the base of the branch was cut all the way through on one side. A hit. But not a clean one.

  It was impressive though. A single unempowered wind blade could lop a branch off a tree. While a fire bolt merely burrowed a hole through it. Frankly if he got into trouble wind blade was his best offensive spell. It cost far more than a base fire bolt. But it didn’t need to be empowered or modified in any way.

  He still preferred fire magic though. And historically wind magic was best for crowd control. That and flying. While fire was about as offensively leaning as the base elements got. Although the moment the system showed him lighting bolt he may never touch either again.

  No matter what was best in combat, the best for training targeting was fire bolt. You either hit or you missed. No grazing shots. And he had it inscribed so he could cast rapidly. Though not having wind blade inscribed meant it was best for practicing free casting in motion.

  He chuckled at a thought. He knew the system helped you cast. He had very recently experienced his sloppy weaving of a spell be corrected into a perfect spell array. But what were the limits?

  With a little laugh and a mental apology to the system for what he was about to do he began to weave wind blade. Badly. Oh he wasn’t stupid enough to think it would reverse the course of his mana as he weaved. But could it turn a circle into a triangle?

  Shockingly yes. And that was how Kennon managed to weave a wind blade in ten seconds. Technically. The moment he stopped he knew something was wrong. As the spell started to activate the weave started to snap. The threads not having the power needed to hold together. It was one thread at first. Then two then four. In moments the spell lost all semblance of form and blasted raw arcane from the spell array.

  Thankfully it was in front of Kennon’s hand not his face as the backlash gave him an instant arcane burn.

  “Oww!”

  He stopped and grabbed his wrist. Looking at the wound. It was minor. No worse than a slight sun burn. It would be mostly healed by the time he got back to camp. But it was a good reminder of the dangers of experimentation. Sure, a wind blade with most of the mana wasted wasn’t a big deal. But if it had been a fully charged fire ball.

  Well, best to learn the lesson early he supposed. He was surprised how bad it stung. Raw arcane was not to be messed with. He had heard of acids with less corrosive power.

  In any case he still needed to explore upstream. And he needed more practice moving and casting. So he got to it. By midday he could reliably hit a tree limb with fire bolt. And he could cast wind blade in thirty seconds while moving. Faster than the first time he cast torch. He was feeling pretty good about it.

  Then he saw it. The realm wall. One moment there was nothing but trees, then he passed through them and there it was. In all its glory. And its horror.