Chapter 922 Attempting To Cast Creation (3) - An Orthrus Arrives

The magical solution to splitting his focus had two approached, at least Eldrian had found two. One, he could reprogram what the spell needed to do. By envisioning the start, middle, and end, he could more or less make the spell self reliant.

This envisioning would be through mageia, instead of mana. The method of forming it was similar in manner to how Eldrian talked telepathically with Ceph. It was more leaving delayed instructions than actually controlling the spell. But it worked—for simple spells.

The other method was similar, but Eldrian left it blank. Allowing himself to shift his 'focus' or mind to it to alter things, but leave balancing the spell to a sort of artificial magical mind.

Naturally, doing this didn't succeed right off the bat. Eldrian spent most of the day confirming how these methods would work. What he ended up with was sort of like having multiple screens on a PC. Each handling an individual task. They would maintain the status quo—aka, run in the background—but he needed to shift more focus to do something specific.

'That's the best I can do without giving these alternate 'minds' lifeforce.' Eldrian thought. The act of doing so would be creating a new second identity, a new Two. Besides, he wanted to master this skill, since he knew it would come in handy in the future. And thus, he did.

The next day, he went back to the city and to Tripeak to confirm everything was still fine. He also got an update about the situation in the other parts of the kingdom.

While travelling, Eldrian kept simpler spells running independently. He even tried to add some runic magic to add more rigidity to the spells. Which worked quite well. Allowing the spells to be even more independent.

'I might be able to make something like a self-defense system,' Eldrian mussed as he got back to creation. By now merging fire and water was simple enough, adding wind, however, threw the balance he had found into wack.

After a few hours of trial and error, Eldrian managed to keep things from collapsing and moved on to add earth. Naturally, this was even harder than adding wind, the third element. But with perseverance and some help to monitor the other elements with his 'magic minds', Eldrian managed.

That was when he shockingly found the next step to move smoothly. And the next, and the next. It appeared that the first four elements threw things out of balance, but the elements after fell right into place.

Eldrian didn't know if this was because light, dark, and nature were less material and more energy in nature, or simply because he had crossed the halfway mark. Regardless, he appreciated things moving smoothly after struggling for days on end.

With all the elements added, the ball of mana buzzed with energy. Its shape changing between the elements as if trying to figure out what it was supposed to be. And after a while, it settled into the form of a crystal.

Like last time, it appeared like a storm was happening within. And the more mana Eldrian added, the calmer it became. Which seemed counterintuitive. One would think more mana would make things more chaotic.

Eldrian, however, understood that the opposite happened because the mana wasn't just becoming formless energy adding to chaos. It was taking on material form, removing energy from the chaos as it did.

'This isn't like a spell. It doesn't feel like ice, or flame. And it isn't like earth shaping the ground or stones,' Eldrian noted. It felt far more concrete. Like mana was becoming actual matter, no longer simply reflecting it as was what spells did.

This was what was supposed to happen. It was where the namesake came from. According to Ziraili, it was named creation because that was just what it would do. It would create. Change mana, formless, free energy, into still and corporeal matter.

While it was still unstable, Eldrian realized that once it became stable, it would exist without needing him to support it. It would no longer be something consisting out of mana, but rather, something completely different.

'This isn't like LP either. Ziraili was right, but...' Creation, a spell that required one hundred thousand mana. Eldrian wasn't sure whether he should be happy with what it ended up creating, or disappointed.

That, however, had to wait for once he succeeded. For now, Eldrian had already thrown all the mana he could at it, and it was still hungry for more. Thus, he pulled out mana crystal after mana crystal. Finding, as he did, that he didn't even need to channel mana into the forming crystal—a blinding white in color.

It was drawing mana from everywhere and from everything nearby. Luckily, it seemed content to not drain Eldrian more than he was. By stealing some mana from the mana crystals, he prevented himself from entering into any danger.

Nervously, Eldrian surveyed his surroundings. Realizing that this torrent of mana rushing to the crystal was bound to attract monsters. Luckily, it appeared this was not attracting much attention.

'No, that isn't right. It's more that there are none to attract,' Eldrian thought, recalling the events just a few days ago.

Inadvertently, his Tier up had cleared the area from mana sensitive monsters. Still, Eldrian noted there were some 'things' moving towards him. Red dots moving quite rapidly. Though few in number, their speed did imply that they were capable.

Luckily, Evale also seemed to be on her way. Most likely also having noticed the flow of mana changing as she patrolled nearby.

Continuing to focus on keeping the blinding crystal stable, Eldrian could feel it slowly forming into what it was supposed to become. An Artificial Magic Crystal.

As the first red dot appeared, the crystal finally stopped absorbing mana. Luckily, the mana crystals Eldrian had brought helped speed things along.

Readying a spell and drawing Crystoi from his inventory, Eldrian watched the creature, wary that it might attack. The crystal, luckily, was stable enough now. While still absorbing mana, it was no longer a torrent.

"Wait, are you going to attack or not?" Eldrian asked, watching the creature with interest.

He had heard of it before. It was an Orthrus, a mythical creature in the shape of a wolf. Last time, a few had been killed by Pelaros and Evale while guarding him. Yet, this one did not appear to be raring to attack.

'I wonder, did its parents die?' Eldrian questioned. From its three tails, green, blue, and black, Eldrian knew it was Tier 3 and had nature, water, and dark elements under its control. While it Mythical creature like an Alicorn, Orthrusses are far weaker when young.

It was also rather small. It reminded Eldrian of a puppy. Its fur looked extremely fluffy, and like Ceph coat, it was as black as night.

'Hey, if you won't attack, then I won't hurt you,' Eldrian said, sending the message telepathically.

Getting the feeling that the young wolf before him didn't understand normal speech, Eldrian changed his approach. Luckily, telepathic messages shared intent, not actual words. So it could cross all language barriers—as long as the recipient could comprehend the intent sent at it, they could communicate.

'Want, crystal,' The Orthrus replied, seemingly struggling to hold on to the connection Eldrian had formed mentally.

'It is still quite young, it seems. Unable to even properly control a telepathic link.' Eldrian noted, along with the fact that the young pup was extremely wary.

And for good reason, not long ago, the area had been a massacre. Not to mention, Eldrian was far stronger than it. Its instincts were screaming at it: Do not provoke the elf!