Even while blood was accumulating in his mouth and the mana cores in his ring were drying up by the dozens, Ethan stuck to his performance. He was 100% sure there was an audience watching him closely.

After the phantasms appeared, his 4 pursuers huddled together while preparing various spells. Then, a rumbling sound was heard as large earth spikes appeared in each of the 12 phantasms’ hands.

“Any last wish, peasants?” Ethan persisted through the pain. He even made his ‘soldiers’ raise their hands at different times and in slightly different ways. Only after all of them had taken a throwing stance did they somewhat look alike.

“Surrender or face the consequences of pursuing our Lord.” said one of the phantasms in a female voice.

“This is your last chance.” said another that sounded like an old man.

The poor guards were terrified to their cores. Finally, the one that was trembling the most began to slightly open his lips. “Wa…”

Before he could finish the first word, he and his comrades were reduced to ashes.

“Burst… Nova.” Ethan was so exhausted he couldn’t even shout the attack’s name. He quickly made the phantasms cancel their spears and retreat by digging into the earth. Of course, this was all fake and their movements looked suspiciously in sync.

However, the boy was too tired to care. After his ‘reinforcements’ had finally disappeared, he spent several minutes waiting for his brain to recover. To anyone watching, it seemed like he was staring at his victims’ corpses like a psychopath admiring his work. Instead, Ethan was struggling to even stand.

‘Almost empty.’ He concluded after taking a look at his dimensional ring. Though he gathered mostly rank one mana cores for this venture, Burst Nova ate through them like a starving dog.

‘Should I continue?’ Besides his trump cards, he could pull off one more decently sized Burst Nova before running dry of both cores and his own energy. Of course, he could recover his mana rather quickly, but in a battle, five minutes always felt like centuries.

‘It’s now or never.’ he decided. After tonight, the Wilson family would be on high alert and he’d have to stay low. Starting with small steps, Ethan made his way towards the second target.

Since they lacked a territory of their own, the Wilson family’s farms were dispersed throughout the city. The one he was going to was in the west. Luckily, it wasn’t guarded quite as strictly.

Though it was slightly larger than the previous one, there were only six rank two and three rank one guards watching the perimeter. Within the barrier, more than 20 ranked 0 mages were tending to the crops. And, instead of two houses, there was just one to the yard’s left side.

‘Something’s fishy…’ Ethan concluded after inspecting the site. The house was empty and the number of guards was low, yet the farm was 20% larger than the previous one. ‘Either they’re short staffed, the barrier is super strong, or there’s a trap somewhere.’

Not willing to take any chances, Ethan created three phantasms. He filled them to the brim with mana and made them run in different directions.

About a minute later, three large explosions were heard in the vicinity. All the rank one and a couple of rank two guards went to inspect the situation. This left a sufficiently large hole in their perimeter for Ethan to break trough.

At the fastest speed he could manage, the youth sneaked behind the house and placed his hand on the fence. Fortunately, at both farms, the barrier encompassed the yard’s fence as if they were parts of the same structure. In fact, the formation which created the force field was so large that the fence was covered in it.

‘Faster…’ Using his experience from the previous farm, Ethan worked at breakneck speed. In less than 2 minutes, he was done.

“Yes…” he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are you sure?” a cold voice was heard from behind.

Ethan turned to see an old guard standing with her hands on her hips and a mocking smile.

“I see you’ve messed up my farm. Now, how did you do that?”

“That’s none of your concern.” said Ethan while gathering flames in his left hand. Though his opponent saw this development, it did not seem to faze her.

“How do you know Burst Nova?” she asked.

“Take a guess.”

“You’re not part of the Wilson family, child. You can’t fool me.”

For a brief moment, Ethan was silent. He felt a terrible foreboding from this woman. Since the moment she appeared, he tried several times to verify her strength. But for some reason, Ethan couldn’t even see her mana, let alone her rank.

“What makes you say that?” he asked trying to buy time. While the old woman answered, a cheeky smile appeared on her lips.

“Because there isn’t a Wilson who’d know the first thing about formations, my boy. That is my line of work.”