Reincarnated As A Plant Life
chapter-243

"Hmm? That isn't a spell, I just directed solar energy towards its core. Pagan could've done that if he wanted to," Lucius replied, to which Hannibal turned back to look at Pagan with a slightly annoyed expression.

"Perhaps the Lighted One is overestimating how well I can use the powers he gave me," Pagan replied, a thoughtful expression on his face.

Just then Lucius realized that this was a skill he had only recently mastered. In fact, the only reason he could move solar energy so accurately was because of the nature of the kumulipo, something that Pagan had yet to gain.

~That's if I'm even going to reveal it to everyone,~ he thought to himself.

As much as he loved them, Lucius understood that Pagan wasn't the sanest leaf on the tree. If he gained access to a power like this, there was no telling what he might do in the name of 'The Lighted One'.

Besides that, the kumulipo clearly had an effect on one's psyche, which could risk the user developing strange tendencies. Lucius himself was aware that his mental state was worsening every time he used it too much. Though, in these hard times, it was hard to keep from using such a powerful weapon.

"You've gotten stronger, haven't you?" Ghost asked, breaking the silence that had descended on the room.

"And so have the rest of you," Lucius replied thoughtfully. Just now remembering that back at the altar room, Ghost had appeared seemingly out of the shadows.

"Perhaps a bit of sparring is in order," he added afterwards. Though with his advanced earth sense, he had a good enough read on just how powerful everyone was.

Pagan was still in the lead, by a good margin. If Lucius had to say, Pagan was probably around the same level as Avankor with his mystic mantle on.

Ghost was second, though her readings were a bit odd. Although the energy signals he was getting from her were lower than even Hannibal's, she was emitting a higher 'threat' level. No doubt due to the arachnid augmentations she had gained from her previous evolution.

Hannibal was the weakest amongst the three, with a threat level lower than even Alpha's -despite his missing limb and blindness. However, his energy readings were quite high, so his weakness was not due to a lack of effort.

"I've been wanting to test my new skills on someone who won't just run away and use magic the entire time," Ghost replied with a slightly annoyed tone, staring daggers at Pagan.

"A spar is supposed to be a test battle, you use the gifts given to you, and I use mine," Pagan replied, completely unphased.

However, Ghost had a point. Lucius had seen just how fatal relying solely on magic could be. And without any spells to counter the necromancer's anti-magic skills, he would have to retrain Pagan from the start, as he was the weakest in terms of hand-to-hand combat.

That, or he would have to find a spell that negates negative effects... which would be even more difficult.

"But perhaps we can do that later. Right now let's focus on finishing up the magic weapons. If we get this right, then we might increase our chances of defeating the necromancer, and even the council by several folds," Lucius explained.

Things were going to be easier than back when they were at their first base, since they had a lot more subordinates.

Hannibal called on a few of the Furtong and Beaver-people who were currently on standby to go out and collect stone, wood and other materials for the creation of weapons.

A few of the prairie dogs were also called in to search for any odd-looking gems they might find around the mana lake. As Hannibal had reported noticing the formation of a few, very tiny ones around the area.

Ghost left with the rest of the First Watch somewhere during the work since they had a duty to watch the surface entrances. Though, honestly, only Hannibal could understand what Lucius was attempting to do, so they would've just been in the way if they stayed.

Pagan of course did not leave, as the Lighted One's right-hand man, he had a duty to always be at his side. Though the extra solar energy reserves were a welcome addition.

As the materials were brought in, Lucius and Hannibal began trying to study the runes on both the obsidian chair and the various other rune slabs that Asclepius had 'collected'.

*

Initially, progress seemed to be moving well, as they noticed a few similarities among all the runes.

For one, every rune had a hexagonal border surrounding the main inscriptions. It seemed to be a sort of foundation, that was required for its activation.

They had even stronger reason to believe this after Lucius began running energy through some of the runes, to see how it flowed. And indeed, before any effects took place, the entire hexagonal border had to be filled.

They also managed to extract the definitions of a few of the simpler runes.

For instance whenever a certain symbol that looked like 3 concentric circles appeared, a light emission occurred. And when a symbol with three lines was seen, it had a sort of heating effect.

Quickly, Lucius and Hannibal attempted to test their hypothesis and etched the runes they had extracted onto stone slabs.

Some of their hypothesis proved to be true, whilst a good number of them were false.

For instance, they had assumed that simply putting two different runes together could combine their effects.

However, the flow of energy didn't seem to act so linearly, as two runes completely changed the rules by which energy within the runic circuits flowed.

And just like that, several hours of intense studying went by.

More and more materials filled the room, and more and more failed runic circuits were discarded.

* A few hours later

"Well that's not fair, you guys started without me?" a voice called out, snapping Lucius and Hannibal out of their studious daze.