Apparently even water elementals don’t like lightning. The first bolt had reduced its size somewhat, but the second, combined with the two stronger Fire Bolts, evaporated the entire thing. The air elemental was still alive, but severely weakened. For the first time ever, Flamethrower was up when he wanted it to be, so he channeled that until the air elemental was entirely consumed. His summons finished off the earth elemental around the same time, so they all stood around waiting for Dix to catch his breath.

This fight had, in some ways, been even more exhausting than the fight against the troll. The troll was a much more difficult opponent, but this was still the first fight where he had actually gotten hit. There were a lot of problems in how he was fighting. He had ignored his Battle Sense, never even bothered to bring up Mana Sense, and gotten so focused on downing one enemy he had simply stood there while two others tried to kill him. During the fight against the troll he had forgotten his movement skill, and ended up in an extremely dangerous situation because of it. Dix wasn’t sure where the root of the issue lay. Was he so distracted by using magic that he neglected everything, or was he really such a bad combatant? He was really hoping to find a good combat trainer on Mantra.

Looking at the weapons he was carrying with him, he wondered why he still focused on using them instead of doing without. He was quite capable of casting spells without the mage weapons, and their benefits weren’t really that high right now with the artificial skill boosts. Even with the boost helping with funneling mana into the weapons, it was still only slightly faster than doing it by hand, and the damage increase was negligible. Considering the likely cost of the implements, he really needed to stop relying on them before he had to try to buy one with his huge weapon buying fund of zero.

Tugging the rod off his back, he adjusted the straps that held it to also carry the staff as well. Putting both weapons on his back, he conjured up a Shield. This time he went with a kite shield. Being a conjured item it had no weight, making it easy to maneuver into position, and the right size to block most things that would be thrown at him. Except trolls. Going to need something bigger to deal with those.

Heading towards the next cave he tried to be a little smarter this time. Activating Mana Sight he was able to spy three large cat-like beings clustered near the entrance, silhouetted in a white glow. With a frown he turned it off again, and they disappeared. Invisibility? It seemed unlikely that just when he decided to use Mana Sight to scout the test would throw in an invisible enemy. Perhaps the enemies it created were based on what skills and spells he showed he had. The troll was a pretty good counter to Discharge, but still beatable. The elementals, being smaller and faster moving, would be a decent counter to a couple of heavy shields. Invisible cats would theoretically be fast moving, requiring him to keep Mana Sight on the entire time, as well as actually use his movement skill. They would also be harder to hit with all the bolts he’d thrown out recently.

Dix decided to at least try and think things through this time. Mana Sight and Sense would be a requirement for this fight. He wasn’t sure that Mana Sense could detect the cats, and it would be mostly useless if he kept it close to his body. With the size of the cats he didn’t need to keep the cloud very dense, so spreading it out could give him a pretty good early warning system. He would try not to rely on it, until it was verified that it worked. Just to make sure nothing ran out he also went ahead and resummoned all three of his pets, the two elementals and the healer. He would pop a Rejuvenation right before he started.

For attacking, he thought he’d need to get a little messier this time. With three fast moving, mostly invisible targets, he was going to need to keep things closer than he would like. Longer shots could be easily dodged. The kite shield would probably be just right for this fight, balanced between coverage and speed. Just a shield and spells wouldn’t be enough, he was going to need a melee weapon. His glaive would be too big and unwieldy for this round. He was going to need speed, precision, and just enough length to make a killing strike. A gladius, or a big knife would be perfect. Dix being Dix, he took the big knife, going with the bowie knife from the first test. The trench knife design would be some help with keeping his hands in fighting condition if he had to ram a blade down something's throat. With the Shield spell, the kite shield was actually anchored to his forearm and didn’t need him to hold anything, which allowed him to still cast with that hand. Come to think of it, that was probably the only real difference in the two spells, other than the variety. He’d think more on it later.

The last thing he could plan was spells. The randomized set up would complicate things, as it had all the way through this test, but he could plan certain sections. Bolts would only be useful at short ranges, other than Lightning which moved too fast to reliably dodge. Area spells fell into a couple different styles. Earth and Ice Spikes were area denial style spells, so if he had either of those he could block off a section of the battlefield if the cats couldn’t jump that far. He had Ice Spikes right now, and it would be his first spell cast as he was going in. Flamethrower, Discharge, and Water Slicer needed a little aiming, but could be waved around to possibly hit something or force it to move somewhere he wanted. Force Pulse would be great if he had it to knock everything off him. He would have to be on the lookout for it during any situation that looked like it could lead to an emergency.

Wind Blade would be his most useful attacking spell. He would be focusing on casting it horizontally during the fight. A difficult to spot spell, it was quite deadly, having the capability to sever limbs with ease in a wide area. If it was spotted, the only easy way to dodge it would be to jump over it, which would put them into a predictable trajectory easily hit by any of the bolt spells. Lightning Bolt followed by Multi Bolt would be his preference, with third being literally anything he had available.

Comfortable with his plan, and the preparation for when it inevitably went to hell, he brought up his Mana Sight and Senses, cast Rejuvenation, and marched into the lion’s den. Or whatever type of cat they were.

There were two cats to the right, and one on the left. Hoping for a quick kill, he tried to block out the two on the left with Ice Spikes. Quickly charging up Wind Blade right after, he turned to face the charging cat. It actually leapt through the air to attack him, leaving it perfectly positioned for Wind Blade to cut through it. While lining up the Blade, he realized the other two cats were going to clear the Ice Spikes. Swearing, he let the Wind Blade go, hoping it was aimed well enough to finish off the cat. Using the recoil of the spell, he swept his shield back, smashing one cat into the other.

With both cats knocked off center, and going down, he pumped mana into the Flamethrower runes in his palm, while thrusting the blade into the ribs of the closest as hard as he could. He had to bend down to do so, which saved his head when the first cat, from the right, tried to swipe it off his shoulders as it sailed by. His Wind Blade had severed the rear legs so smoothly that it didn’t affect its leaping trajectory at all. Sadly for the cat, it had leapt before his Ice Spikes had started showing, so its trajectory left it impaled on a few icy stalagmites that wouldn’t fade for another ten seconds or so.

The two cats on the ground were trying to separate themselves, while one was yowling in pain with Dix’s blade impeding its progress. His Flamethrower finally went off, aimed towards their heads. He wasn’t sure how much damage he could expect from it, but he was hoping for a loss of sensory functions. Blind cats had to be easier to fight. Suddenly Dix dove to his side, leaving behind his blade, and cancelling his Flamethrower. He’d felt another cat through his Mana Sense, and it was already attacking, as evidenced by the three slices on his shoulder.

Knowing he would need a moment to get back upright, a moment he likely didn’t have considering the speed of the cats, he had his summons start attacking the empty, to them, space right in front of the door. He thought his summons couldn’t detect the cats, but he was wrong. The Fire Summon could detect the fire burning on the two cats he had hit with his Flamethrower and so focused his own Flamethrower on them, while the Air Summon could detect the air displaced by all of the cats, and randomly chose the one he had been clawed by, sending Wind Blades towards and around it. All of which Dix saw when he rolled to his feet.

The two getting flamed were backing away, pawing at their burning faces, while the other one was trying to dodge the multitude of Wind Blades flying its direction. While all three were distracted, and the other one was dying, Dix started flinging bolts. Lightning Bolt was first, crashing into the side of the cat that had succeeded in attacking him, and knocking it into a Wind Blade it had been dodging. The Blade sliced along its side, eventually cutting through its rear hip on that side, and, more importantly, its tail. With a complete loss of balance, and inability to move one of its legs, it would eventually be diced to pieces by his vengeful summon.

Before he could throw more bolts, he realized he had better options popping up to use against the distracted cats futilely trying to extinguish the flames on their faces. Betting on their being too distracted to notice, he flung a Wind Blade vertically aimed for their necks. As soon as it left his hand he charged another and threw it horizontally, just behind where they currently were. If they noticed the first one, and jumped backwards they would lose at least one leg. Not stopping his barrage, he tossed a third diagonally up and to the side from the back end of the second. He wasn’t sure how far they could hop backwards. To finish it all off he raised a set of Overpowered Earth Spikes stretching to cover the entire area he had just covered in Wind Blades. The only way he could throw all those spells was switching hands back and forth. Not to mention getting lucky on the random spell options.

Just in case the whole attempt failed to kill the cats, he was already thinking up a big crescent bladed axe and charging back into the fray. He was immediately glad he had over done it so much. The first blade had been noticed by both cats, but they had jumped backwards at different distances. The closest had only hopped backwards a small amount, but enough to lose both rear paws about halfway up the leg. Upon landing it yowled, and immediately fell to its side. Falling as it did meant that it missed the Earth Spikes that raised up along where it had just been standing.

The second cat was not nearly that lucky. It had jumped farther back than the first cat, and taken the diagonal Wind Blade to the hip. The Blade must have hit a particularly tough bunch of bone, because it actually threw off the cat's trajectory badly. So badly that it started tumbling in mid air, losing its tail to the Blade in the process, before crashing to the ground that was now covered in very long Earth Spikes. None of the Spikes hit anything immediately fatal, leaving the cat wheezing as it tried to bring in enough air to scream out its pain. Dix quickly put both cats out of their misery with two quick swings of his oversized axe. By the time he checked on the last cat, both summons had turned it into an indescribable mess, so he had them stop attacking. He also dismissed his axe and shield. Having them active didn’t bother his bottomless mana, but there was a slight pressure on his mind while they were on.

With a last look at the carnage, Dix headed towards the entrance to the next cave. He wasn’t going in yet though, he just wanted to take a break away from all the blood and body parts. It wasn’t that his resources were depleted, just that his brain hurt. All the planning, adjusting to new circumstances mid fight, and trying to parse what spells he had access to as fast as possible was mentaly exhausting. Not to mention the healing. He was really beginning to regret the Summoned Healer. It mostly focused on direct healing spells, which were extremely draining on someone. Even having infinite resources of stamina and mana didn’t help in this case. And he’d been through several fights by now, without any real breaks.

To help him recover faster, Dix decided to meditate for a little while. In his previous life, it hadn’t been something he was big on, other than at his martial arts and yoga classes where it was required. On his own he never bothered. He didn’t think it was useless, just unnecessary for his day to day life. In his day to day death, it was proving more and more needed to recover. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much meditation he would be doing once he needed it to recover resources too. And seriously. What do you call life after death? Afterlife seems a little too religious for me, and unlife makes me feel like a zombie without the need to eat brains. There’s got to be a word for this. Gotta ask Crossroads next time I see him.

After a while he stood back up and stretched. Looking ahead into the next cave he could only see a giant rock filling the middle of the room. Nervously, he brought up Mana Sight, hoping he was wrong. What he saw actually confused him even more. The entire rock was filled with mana, but it didn’t look like earth mana, or at least not just earth mana. There was a lot of fire in there too. At least that meant it likely wasn’t a giant earth elemental, that would have been a bit difficult with his current abilities. Not that whatever this thing was looked much easier to fight. It was still a giant pile of rocks. Nothing else in the room stood out as being an enemy.

There were two things about this next fight that were really bothering him. One was of course the fact that it looked like a giant pile of rocks. None of his spells were designed to deal with this kind of mess. The best he could do would be Conjure Weapon up a big mining pick. It would take forever to get through to whatever kept that thing going, but for the moment it was the best he could come up with. He didn’t think his two summons could get a flame hot enough to melt this thing like they had the elemental earlier.

The second thing bothering him was the fire. In any sort of story ever written, large sources of fire mana usually meant one thing. Dragons. He didn’t think this was a dragon, but it would still probably have some sort of fire breath. Finding a solution for that would be slightly trickier. Obviously, he couldn’t just conjure up one of those fireproof suits that could handle up to a thousand degrees centigrade. His best bet was going to be his Shield spell. Thankfully, it was a spell construct so it would be lightweight no matter how big he made it.

It took a few tries, some odd instructions to his Fire Summon, and a couple of heals, but he finally had a working shield. He ended up with another tower shield, this time transparent. It was taller than him by about a foot, and wider by the same on both sides. The sides and top were also back swept and flared. It helped to guide the fire around him, rather than just tucking back in around the back of the shield. It wasn’t perfect, but Rejuvenation combined with having his Summoned Healer behind it with him made it survivable.

Between the upcoming fight, and being stuck wherever he was instead of Mantra, Dix was starting to get a little frustrated. The good side to that was he had a giant fiery rock to take it all out on. Suddenly, things didn’t seem quite so bad. They were probably much worse.