Chapter 525: Fire Temple.
Roland hovered mid-air on his sleek, floating glider. Before him loomed a massive barrier of flames, churning and raging with an almost sentient ferocity. His visor displayed real-time projections, highlighting weak points and areas of concentrated energy within the fiery shield. It was a complex construct - an intricate masterpiece of tier 3 magic - not something easily countered. Yet, like all magical creations, it had a flaw, a weak point, and that was where Roland would focus.
There were several approaches he could take. One was brute force: outputting an overwhelming surge of raw energy to shatter the barrier outright. However, if he concentrated his attack on the identified weak spot, he could achieve the same result with half the mana expenditure, though it would still demand a staggering amount. The shield was immensely powerful, drawing its energy from the vast dungeon itself. Clearly, it hadn’t been designed to withstand an assault from this direction. The intended approach was likely through the temple’s main entrance, where removing an elemental block would cause the shield to dissipate naturally.
The second option - and the one Roland was more inclined to choose - involved disrupting the spell and hijacking it for his own use. For experienced mages who could align themselves to a spell's frequency, this was a viable, albeit advanced, technique. It was notoriously difficult to execute in the chaos of combat, but Roland had the luxury of time to analyze the barrier. With his skill, it would be a cakewalk. Once he took over the spell’s structure, disabling it would be as simple as dismissing one of his own creations.
There was also a third option: creating a small breach in the barrier and sending a golem through. The golem could retrieve the elemental block from within the structure, which might cause the external shield to collapse entirely. However, there was no certainty that the shield would behave as expected, and Roland disliked uncertainty in critical situations. Another option was to use copious amounts of anti-magic powder but it was a limited resource. Thus, he chose the second option and began his mana-hacking attempt.
The runes on his gloves started glowing as he activated his magic. His whole armor shimmered as he altered some of its runes to fit this task. Roland’s gauntlets thrummed with energy as he attuned himself to the fiery barrier's mana frequency. Strange symbols appeared on the glowing shield, a defensive mechanism to counter most external tampering forms. However, Roland’s visor provided a constant feed of calculations, his Multiple Minds trait parsed the spell's intricate layers faster than a conventional mage could ever comprehend.
“That should do it…”
The runes on his gloves pulsed rhythmically as he injected a thread of his own mana into the barrier’s structure. It resisted at first, the fiery energy rippling outward as though trying to push him away. Roland, unfazed, intensified his focus, amplifying his mana to match the barrier’s resonating frequency. The flames began to stabilize, their chaotic movements slowing as Roland's magic seeped into the spell’s core. Agni, watching from a safe distance, growled softly, sensing the intense magical energy building in the air.
“Almost there, I’ll give you the signal if something goes wrong.”
For now, everything was proceeding as planned, but Roland couldn’t shake the uncertainty of what lay ahead. His runic magic, powerful as it was, wasn’t omnipotent. It couldn’t control every variable, a truth he had come to accept after his encounters with the Headmistress and the witch who had captured him so effortlessly. These experiences had left a mark, fueling his resolve to improve - not just in crafting and combat, but also in the art of problem-solving.