It seems that with his earth magic, Frederick could feel the vibrations in the ground. That was why he could tell when enemies were coming when there was no sign of them in the distance.
"We should keep advancing, we have a long way ahead, and until now, we are dealing with monsters," Milena said. "If we take our time, we will only give the enemy more chances to prepare."
Everyone agreed with that. Once again, they were reminded that a long war of attrition would be terrible for them… so once Jake finished the trolls, they began to move, and the other groups soon did the same.
"I can feel the presence of many enemies approaching from the sides, more than five hundred in each group," Louise said.
"They have too many allies on their side… I knew that they had been working with some dungeon masters, but…" Julian said while frowning.
"Jake, defending from the sides will be a lot tougher, we need to do something about this," Lana said.
"Thank you for telling the obvious, Lana Wagon," Jake said. "Just keep moving and use your long-ranged attacks once they show themselves. Don't waste time-fighting them up close."
It didn't take them long to find those weird liquid golems on one side and ordinary ice golems on the other. Fortunately, they had some specialists in long-ranged attacks on all groups, so they stopped the enemies from attacking… moreover, Jake still was melting the snow ahead with his dark flames, while the monsters had a hard time moving thanks to that.
Although the path ahead was relatively free of obstacles, Jake and the others were failing at leaving the monsters behind. They just had to jump into the path he created, after all.
"We have to decrease their numbers and leave some of them for the guys behind…" Jake muttered. "Lana, buff Frederick and Helena's magic. That will help them save some mana as well as take out some of the enemies."
Lana nodded and then did that. Truth be told, those two were itching to ask Lana to buff them. While they had the same skills, their effectiveness compared to Lana's was insane… in any case, even without turning to face them, Frederick impaled some of the monsters with earth spears. Meanwhile, Helena fired Fireballs that exploded and made the enemies fly in all directions.
"That should buy us some extra time," Jake said while watching those two prevent more monsters from approaching. "I guess this will give us the extra time that we need, Virgilius. Tell me the results of your research."
"Until now, I have noticed two characteristics that Louise possesses, the first is her high intelligence that increases her magic power, and the second thing is that her body got used to handling large amounts of mana every day and adapted," Virgilius said.
"The other me used some mana, but it wasn't anywhere near the level of a true mage. As for my magic power back then… It should have been five times higher than the current me," Jake said. "Still, I was able to use that technique well."
"I am still working on an alternative, but those are the results that I got," Virgilius said.
Jake sighed. He didn't have time to make his magic increase that much. Nor did he have the time to make his body more used to handling mana… so he wondered if he would have to give up on that technique… at least on the complete form…
Trying to learn it before the end of that fight seemed like pushing his luck, but Jake couldn't help it. If he could get just a bit stronger without hurting his pride too much by overusing the sin skills, he usually would be satisfied with that. In any case, he had to put those thoughts aside when Frederick opened his mouth again.
"More enemies ahead in coming," Frederick said.
It didn't take long for Jake to find another army of monsters, and this time, they were armored giants… they were slow if compared to the ones he faced before, but their objective wasn't to be fast. It was to be durable and stop Jake and the others from progressing.
Jake looked behind and could see that Louise had recovered all of her mana, so her power would be useful against them, but the number of enemies was too big. While he was clenching his teeth and wondering what he should do, Virgilius offered Jake an alternative.
"I can teleport the spaceship and attack them from above," Virgilius said.
"You shouldn't expose yourself too much, and we shouldn't show such a card so soon…" Jake said. "I will handle this…"
Jake filled his sword with his mana again, and the weapon conducted the energy well that he used almost all of his mana instantly… thanks to that, he had an idea.
"Virgilius, analyze the degradation speed of the energy," Jake said.
"Energy can't be degraded, mana as well follow that principle, but it can disperse after being continuously used," Virgilius replied.
"I thought so… then I guess I need to use more than I can make it disperse," Jake thought while smirking and then dashed toward the armored giants.
Jake used his strength buffs in the last moments, and then when he got close enough, he swung his sword at the first enemy's neck. The creature raised both arms to block the attack, but thanks to the mana strengthening the weapon, the blade cut iron, arms, and neck without any problems.
"What about now?" Jake asked while he jumped backward and dodged when two armored giants tried to crush him with body slams.
"Around two hundred points of mana were dispersed," Virgilius replied.
That wasn't so bad, but it wasn't good enough, either. Jake recovered around two-thirds of that thanks to Motivation, and his natural recovery boosted by the sword could make him recover one-tenth of that per second… he needed to make things more efficient to make the power of his weapon keep growing…
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