My original plan was to leave the next morning, but a hailstorm ruined it. For the rest of the day, I stayed in the library, searching for information about mind magic with little success. The only book I found with any connection to the subject was about illusions that were based on mind magic, not like my bard illusions.

By late afternoon, I came up with a better way to spend my time and went to the spell room. If I could find an appropriate spell, it would be expensive. To offset the cost, I set out to make a Harvest Mana Crystal marble. Two hundred mithril would definitely help make the spell more affordable.

The hailstorm went on for three days, and during that time, I created five spell marbles. Unfortunately, they were still the size of a tennis ball and lacked any progression aspect. The only good thing was that the last one took me less than four hours to complete.

The morning of day four greeted me with blue sky without a cloud in sight. A thick layer of ice balls covered the ground, so the gang stayed home, but it didn't hamper my personal travel plans. I dressed in the flowing clothes of the desert and headed out.

The actual Gate to Tatob was only two minutes away from our clearing, but the flight through the dense forest, with its scary, enormous bears, and then the flight through the desert took a while. When I flew out of the forest, it was late afternoon, so I reached Sand Plains Outpost #7 only after dark.

I spent the night in the same fancy hotel we initially stayed in, in a much more modest room that cost only 10 mithril a night instead of 60!

I'll kill Al when I get back. Who pays 60 mithril for a room?!

In the morning, after a complimentary breakfast of cheeses, fruits, and pastries, I headed to the mall. Naturally, it dropped me in the food court. I still hadn't figured out how the locals controlled which entrance they used. Shaking my head, I made my way toward the magic section. On the way, I passed the metal section and Payan's shop. She stood in the doorway, talking with a woman, and spotted me as I went by. For a moment, her eyes widened, then she looked down and shifted from foot to foot. I ignored her. Treat me like a sperm donor—get the cold shoulder.

In the magic section, my first stop was the spell marbles shop. The moment I stepped inside, the seller's face lit up in a wide smile. "Hello, dear wizard. I hoped you would visit me."

I dipped my head in greeting, remembering that they didn't shake hands in this world.

He leaned forward across the counter, eyes gleaming. "Did you, by any chance, come to sell me more of the harvesting spell?"

"Yes?"

"Excellent. Excellent. I have a long list of orders for it. I can even give you 250 for it, instead of 200. You won't believe the excitement it created. How many do you have?" he said without taking a breath, rubbing his hands together.

"Five, but I also came to buy and hope you could help me."

"Of course, of course. For such an important supplier, I'll do everything in my power to make your every desire materialize." His grin widened, shoulders straightening.

I chuckled internally. He was laying it on thick.

"I'm looking for protection from mind magic."

He blinked at me, brows pulling together. "Why?"

Now it was my turn to frown. "To protect myself from mind control?" Wasn't it obvious?

"You're planning to run the Lord of Lightning dungeon?" He scratched at his jaw, lips twitching as if suppressing a laugh. "Don't worry, the mind control is not bad. It's unpleasant, I won't argue. Or that's what I heard, but it's not that bad to pay thousands of mithril for."

"Thousands?!" The word burst out before I could stop it. My fingers tightened against the counter.

He nodded firmly, spreading his hands. "I don't have anything for mind control. The only thing I'm familiar with is a skill scroll called Mind Fortress. I don't know all the specifications, but it's a skill that protects the mind, and usually costs thousands."

"You think the spell shop might have it?" I asked, tilting my head toward the neighboring store.

He shook his head at once, waving a dismissive hand. "No. It's not the kind of thing a shop would stock. It only drops occasionally in the Tower of Ice dungeon." He leaned closer, lowering his voice as if sharing a trade secret. "When that happens, and the adventurer doesn't want it, they put it up for auction. That way, it fetches a far better price than what a shop could ever offer."

Bummer.

"Do you have any other information about the skill?" I asked, hoping he might know something else.

He spread his hands and gave a helpless shrug. "No, only what I told you."

I sold him the harvesting spell marbles, then made my way to the spell shop. My conversation with the seller unfolded almost the same way; my questions ran into the same dead ends. The only extra detail he offered was that the skill was passive, working quietly in the background. It required almost no mana under normal circumstances, but if a mental attack struck, the consumption spiked sharply, draining power in an instant.

Disappointed, I flew back home. Three days had passed in Zindor compared to just a day and a half in Tatob. That explained the ice balls. We should have had more time before winter.

The gang continued to clear dungeons, and I worked on a mind protection spell. If I couldn't buy it, the only option was to make it. For over a month, I drafted plan after plan, sketching and revising, but with little success. There were plenty of runes and signs that represented the mind, illusions, or protection, yet every version I created turned out to be insanely expensive mana-wise.

I couldn't figure out how to design something passive, something that would quietly work in the background and only activate when needed. The best version I managed to plan created a permanent shield against mind-based influence. It was like being covered in a type of invisible helmet made of mana. I didn't actually channel mana into the spell to activate it; it was supposed to be an "always active" design. By my most optimistic calculations, it would drain twelve to fifteen mana every second. Even I, with my crazy mana reserve, couldn't afford it. The numbers just didn't add up, and the thought of burning through my pool nonstop left me frustrated, staring at half-finished diagrams that looked more like expensive death traps than workable solutions.

At some point, I remembered that the description of the Creativity Trait at level 20 mentioned finding a direction for a solution, so I searched through my system notifications until I found it. It took a while.

Milestone Reached You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Creativity 20 or Above

Reaching a Creativity level of 20 or above marks a significant milestone in your journey. At this level, you can now actively engage your Creativity to find the most inspiring direction for innovative solutions. This means more than just coming up with ideas; it means sensing the direction in which your creative energy will be most fruitful, leading you to breakthroughs and inventive outcomes.

Creativity over 20 gives you an intuitive sense of where to direct your efforts for the most creative results. Whether seeking the perfect materials, discovering new techniques, or finding the ideal environment to foster your ingenuity, this heightened sense guides you through the paths of possibility, ensuring your creative projects reach their fullest potential.

Engaging your Creativity in this way transforms it from a passive trait to an active tool in your arsenal. It enhances your journey and helps you navigate challenges with innovation and originality. This directional sense ensures that you are always in the right place to draw upon your creative strengths, making your journey successful and truly extraordinary.

I activated it with my intention fixed on the half-finished plans and felt a very mild, almost imperceptible pull. Compared to the directional pull I had felt when I was on my way to meet Lis for the first time, or when I was searching for drugs for Al, it was maybe five percent of the strength. At first, I couldn't understand why the pull was so weak, but then I concluded that it probably meant the solution was in that direction, but more than one Gate away. I stood facing the pull with the Map open, and the only Gate that perfectly aligned with it was near the northern end of the continent. In other words, it was more than twenty Gates away from us based on our planned route. Even if I flew there directly, it would have taken me two weeks to reach it, and the number of consecutive Gates I would need to cross was unknown. Basically, a bust.

Annoyed, I used Mahya's method for overcoming setbacks: monster bashing. I took the second-to-last pair of dungeons on the list, and Rue joined me. Together, we headed to the first one in town number five.

It was a typical Zinroian dungeon, with dug-out tunnels and exposed roots, damp and stinky. The air reeked like something had died in there and been left in the sun for a week.

Rue looked at me with a mournful expression. "Rue and John go do another dungeon."

"It would be unfair to Mahya and Al to leave them with the stink. You sit this one out, and I'll clear it as fast as possible."

He hesitated, ears flicking back, then retreated with his tail between his legs.

A few meters into the tunnel, a sound of trilling reached me, and a minute later, a long black something with too many legs scuttled along the left wall toward me. I fried it on the spot and turned it into a crystal. The only resemblance to a centipede was the number of legs. The rest was a horror show of jagged mandibles sticking in various directions, five bulbous eyes that glowed with pus-yellow light, and patches of dark, hairless skin stretched over its segmented body.

In total, I had to barbecue another twenty or so of its siblings before facing the mother. The only difference between the runts and the big boss was the size and the fact that it spat some kind of yellow slime that chewed through my Protective Shield like crazy. The reward, as almost always, was gold—seven this time. All told, it took me less than an hour to collect the core for Mahya and feed the rest to my core.

The next dungeon was better. It was located in the industrial area and opened into a wide, open space scattered with large rocks and the occasional spindly tree. The creatures here were furry brown things, each about the size of an average dog, not Rue, that could teleport short distances. I even managed to identify one despite the speed of their teleporting.

Blinker Level 12

This dungeon I cleared with my swords and Rue's help. At first, though, it was chaos. One moment, a blinker was in front of me, the next it was gone, reappearing at my side before I could swing, trying to bite through my boot. My blade cut air too many times, and Rue snapped at empty space with a frustrated growl when another vanished out of reach. We stumbled and spun, chasing shadows. But after an undisclosed number of failed attempts, I started to notice their pattern. The distance they could cover, the pause before they blinked again, the angle they favored. Rue caught on too, his ears swiveling before each jump. The moment we put it together, the fight shifted. We anticipated their jumps and attacked them right after the teleports, and after that, it was game over for the blinkers.

The big boss was interesting. It was about 50% larger than the regular blinkers, with longer teeth, especially the front pair, which looked a lot like rabbit teeth. What really made it stand out was its ability to create copies of itself.

The copies were strange. When I hit them, they felt and dissipated like smoke, fading into nothing, yet they still managed to bite. Hard. I learned that the painful way when one of them sank its teeth into my shoulder, leaving me hissing through clenched teeth before it vanished.

This fight was far more hectic. The boss filled the battlefield with copies that swarmed around me in a blur of fur and teeth. My sword cut through smoke again and again, the fakes dissolving before I could even finish the swing, while the real one darted among them, impossible to track. Rue snapped at everything that moved, his jaws closing with sharp clacks on empty air. Both of us pushed our speed to the limit, trying to fend off the biting threats and cut through all the illusions.

The copies came faster as the fight dragged on, or perhaps we got slower from exhaustion. They kept blinking in and out of my field of vision. One lunged for my leg, and I barely twisted in time, sword cleaving through it before it could sink those phantom teeth. Another blinked behind me, biting into the air where my neck had been a second earlier.

Rue barreled through the chaos, jaws snapping shut on the real one's flank. The beast shrieked, body flickering, and some copies vanished. That was the key.

"Hold it!" I shouted, swinging in hard. My blade cut deep into the creature's side, and its illusions faltered again, some more of them disappearing. The real one managed to get out of Rue's mouth and blinked away, reappearing on a rock to my right with its oversized teeth bared in challenge.

I charged, and Rue leapt with me, his weight slamming into its chest as I drove my sword into its shoulder. It screamed, the last of the copies vanishing, and thrashed violently enough to hurl Rue aside. Pain jolted up my arm as its teeth snapped at me, grazing close enough to rip fabric and leave shallow lines across my skin.

I gritted my teeth, twisted the blade, and pushed harder. The creature gave one last shudder before collapsing in a heap.

I stood bent over with my hands on my knees, heaving for breath. Still, I kept my fingers crossed, hoping we might get a spell to teleport like the creatures. I even planned to leave the dungeon for Mahya and Al to run, so they could get the spell as well.

Alas, no such luck—just gold again, the standard ten coins. I sighed deeply, fed all the processed mana into my core, stored the new core, and we left the dungeon.

Outside, Mahya and Al were waiting for us, having finished the last dungeon. The moment we stepped out, there was a loud pop, and a thick cloud of glitter confetti exploded into my face and mouth.

I spat out the offending particles and waved my hands to clear my vision. "What the hell?" I shouted at Mahya.

"Oops! Sorry," she said, pulling an embarrassed face. "This was the last dungeon, and we can move on, so I… wanted to celebrate?" Her voice trailed off, getting quieter with every word.

I rubbed my face again and again, trying to get rid of the menace. I had no idea where she got the stuff, but it was extra clingy. Even Clean didn't help. For some reason, the spell didn't register the confetti as dirt. Finally, I gave up, sighed, and took off toward home.

Mahya wore the guiltiest expression I had seen to date, while Al tried not to laugh and failed miserably. He kept snorting under his breath, his whole body shaking, and for a moment, I was afraid he might actually fall off the sword.

It took me three rounds of scrubbing with soap before the glitter finally came off my face and hair. When I went downstairs, Mahya was bent over Rue, comb in hand, trying to work the stubborn particles out of his fur. Rue sat stiff as a statue, ears pinned back and eyes narrowed, radiating pure betrayal. Every few strokes, he huffed loudly, then sneezed, sending another puff of glitter into the air.

Mahya glanced up at me, still looking guilty, only now it was dialed up to eleven. "Sorry."

I waved her off and let out a tired breath. "It's fine, happens. Where did you get the stuff?"

"China," she admitted, wincing as Rue sneezed again. "It was meant for one of our birthdays, if we ever figure out how to know when it is. But since it never happened, I used it."

"You have more?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"Yes, two more."

"You are not using it on us."

"Of course not! I swear!" She raised her hands quickly, almost dropping the comb. "I didn't know it's that sticky."

Rue gave another sneeze, sending a shimmer of glitter across the floor, and I led him off to the shower, hoping water and soap would finally do the trick.

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