Chương 133: Underground Shaking

Those wind blasts worked, but they remained crude. They pushed his entire body from inconsistent angles, wasted force, and occasionally turned landings into arguments between his joints and gravity. Sieghart considered developing another attack, perhaps compressed air bullets or a sustained cutting current, yet movement had saved him more often during the Orc King battle.

He needed something repeatable, predictable, and fast enough to activate between enemy attacks without calculating several separate gusts around his body. The solution began by concentrating wind beneath one foot, wrapping additional currents around his hips and shoulders, then releasing everything along one chosen direction. His first attempt launched him forward nearly eight meters and ended with both feet leaving the ground at different angles.

Sieghart struck the quarry floor shoulder-first, rolled twice, and stopped beside Ronan, who had arrived at exactly the wrong moment to witness the failure.

"That looked painful."

"No shit, Sherlock." First Aid repaired the strained shoulder and irritated knee, but Sieghart understood immediately that healing magic could not become an excuse for repeating bad technique indefinitely. Repeatedly damaging young joints and repairing them afterward might still interfere with development, especially when Sieghart barely understood how magical healing reconstructed growth tissue.

He reduced the output and focused upon keeping his knees aligned, spine balanced, and feet positioned for a controlled landing rather than maximum distance. The next attempt carried him five meters almost exactly. His trailing foot touched down first, absorbed momentum, and allowed him to continue running. Sieghart repeated the movement in several directions, gradually shortening the preparation until the burst activated whenever his leading foot completed a normal step.

Unlike freeform wind blasts, the technique used a predetermined line and distributed acceleration across his entire body, reducing the strain concentrated upon individual joints. The spell's limitation was equally clear. Once activated, changing direction before completing the movement required another spell or enough physical strength to resist his own momentum.

After Sieghart crossed the quarry repeatedly without falling, the System finally recognized the movement as a stable technique rather than improvised Wind Magic. New Wind Magic spell acquired: Impulse — Level 1. Propels the caster five meters per spell level along a chosen direction, with acceleration, balance, activation speed, and landing stability improving through practice. + 2 magic per level. Sieghart tested the description immediately.

Level One carried him five meters, no matter whether he moved forward, backward, sideways, or diagonally upward. The distance represented a maximum rather than a requirement. He could end the movement early, but doing so demanded additional wind and placed greater strain upon his body. At higher levels, Impulse would provide increasingly absurd mobility. Ten levels meant fifty meters from one activation, assuming Sieghart learned to survive the acceleration and landing.

The spell did not replace flying, since it created one powerful directional movement instead of continuous lift, but it was faster and considerably harder to interrupt. Ronan watched Sieghart cross the quarry several times, then held up the mission notice again when the newest experiment stopped looking immediately suicidal.

"Done training?"

"No."

"You learned several spells."

"I have more elements." Ronan stared at him for several seconds, folded the notice, and left without another word, apparently deciding that arguing with elemental completionism exceeded his responsibilities. Earth Magic presented a different problem because Sieghart did not want another projectile, wall, trap, or variation of Sand Control. Earth Bullet already provided dependable ranged attacks, while mud, sand, and terrain manipulation gave him enough options whenever useful material surrounded him.

The limitation appeared whenever earth was absent. Stone floors, elevated positions, ships, metal structures, and aerial combat could leave him without accessible material. Stolen novel; please report. Sieghart could manipulate earth from a distance, but pulling it toward himself took time, consumed concentration, announced his intentions, and became increasingly inefficient across longer ranges. Water Creation had solved the same problem for Water Magic.

Sieghart wanted to convert mana directly into soil, sand, clay, stone, or something close enough to support Earth spells. The concept sounded simple until he attempted it. Water possessed a uniform structure, while earth could describe countless mixtures of minerals, particles, moisture, density, and cohesion. Sieghart began with loose soil inside a shallow metal tray, studying its texture while feeding mana through every grain without attempting to move it.

He memorized the soil's weight, roughness, resistance, and the way individual particles shifted against one another whenever he tilted the container slowly. Then he removed the tray and attempted to reproduce those properties using mana alone. The first result became a brown cloud that vanished immediately. The second attempt produced several grains of something resembling sand, but they dissolved before reaching the floor and left no physical residue. Infinite Mana did nothing to solve the missing structure.

Sieghart could supply endless energy, yet the spell required information precise enough to become stable matter. He spent days refining density, creating individual particles, then forcing those particles to remain separate without allowing the entire mass to collapse into magical dust. Mira found him carrying trays of soil through Lunar Arc and raised the same eyebrow that had already become associated with his indoor experiments.

"No fire."

"This is dirt."

"Don't dirt the guild either." Sieghart relocated most experiments outside anyway, partly because failed attempts covered his room with brown residue that looked physical until someone tried cleaning it. By the fourth day, he could create a spoonful of sand that remained stable for several seconds before losing cohesion and returning to mana. By the sixth, the sand persisted permanently, although producing that tiny amount required enough concentration to make the result impractical during combat.

Sieghart changed his approach by treating Earth Creation like layered construction. Mana first became mineral particles, then arranged itself into a stable mass with chosen density. The breakthrough came when he stopped trying to create generic earth and selected one specific composition resembling the quarry's compact gray stone. A rough pebble formed above his palm, gained weight, and dropped into his hand without flickering, dissolving, or behaving like condensed mana.

Sieghart turned it between his fingers, scratched its surface with a knife, then struck it against natural stone and confirmed both reacted almost identically. He created another pebble, then a handful of gravel, followed by enough loose earth to fill the metal tray without touching the ground. The System responded only after Sieghart changed the created material from soil into sand and finally into a denser stone without losing stability. New Earth Magic spell acquired: Earth Creation — Level 1.

Converts mana into stable mineral matter, granting +2 Magic per level while improving volume, density, composition, durability, formation speed, and material complexity. Sieghart allowed the created stone to fall onto his desk, producing a heavy impact that sounded considerably more satisfying than another pile of disappearing magical dust. The spell removed Earth Magic's dependence upon surrounding terrain, although creating useful quantities remained slower than controlling material already available nearby.

With enough levels, Sieghart could generate ammunition in midair, create footholds while flying, supply Sand Control anywhere, or produce stone for runic construction. Two weeks of training had given him Water Jet, Impulse, and Earth Creation, while Flamethrower remained another recent addition waiting for safe practice. None of them matched Giant Fireball's immediate spectacle, yet each provided control, repeatability, and combinations better suited to opponents who refused to die conveniently.

Someone knocked upon the door as Sieghart added the new spells to his notes. Ronan entered only after waiting, proving that at least one repeated argument had produced progress. He held another mission notice between two fingers, displaying it like evidence that Sieghart's peaceful isolation had finally reached its official expiration date. Sieghart looked at the paper, then toward the stone, water channels, and movement diagrams covering nearly every available surface inside his room.

"I'm still training." Ronan unfolded the notice without reacting, apparently prepared to deliver its contents regardless of whether Sieghart intended to cooperate voluntarily.

"Why I am not surprised?" Sieghart narrowed his eyes at the folded document, recognizing Mira's involvement before Ronan explained exactly how thoroughly she had predicted his refusal.

"She also said your room smells like wet stone, burned dust, and isolation."

"That last one doesn't have a smell."

"Somehow, yours does." Ronan placed the mission notice upon the desk and left before Sieghart could reject it directly, suggesting Mira had finally abandoned voluntary recruitment. Sieghart stared at the folded paper while considering the three new spells, his improved arsenal, and the increasingly weak argument that he needed uninterrupted training. Apparently, becoming a better hermit only encouraged Lunar Arc to assign someone responsible for dragging him back into the world.