The forest was green and lush, as it should be in the middle of summer. Alistair Woods walked slowly with his team, looking out for predators.

“Nothing big.” Adina, team’s water mage, said.

“Good. Opal, check with your fire spells as well.” Alistair commanded. He was the leader of the team.

“Sure.” The woman replied and cast the spell.

“You know, I think this is the most ridiculous mission we have ever received.” The last member of the group said. Their group had only four members.

“Andy, we have talked about it. This could be an opportunity for us.” Alistair tried to convince his teammate.

“I think that guy is just insane or a psycho.” Andy said.

“We will find out.” Their current mission was to fetch their supposed to be last member, someone named Jack. “I heard he is young, and quite talented. I’m 33, and I still need a couple of levels to reach 4th tier. We aren’t bad, but we lack an edge. There are stronger 3rd tier teams.” Alistair said.

“But Andy is right.” Adina interjected. “I have heard that guy went to the forest four months ago, and he hasn’t returned since even once. You know how isolation works on humans. He could be half mad and dangerous.”

“I doubt it. I have done some research on him. He initially bullied a few 2nd tier teams into transporting parts of monsters he hunted. He let the poor team have some margin, and after a few days other teams fought for the right of transporting goods to the frontier. He is smart, and he wasn’t completely isolated.”

“But why?” Adina asked.

“He is an earth mage. You know… fortifications, earth wall and so on. His style is about traps, I have heard. He isn’t much suited for an active hunt, and he could have earned a way more this way. He hasn’t had to share with a team.” Alistair explained.

“Well, he is gambling with his life for money.” Adina said.

“And levels, but everyone do that.” Opal added. Adina rolled her eyes.

“There is a difference between a relatively safe gamble and a recklessness.”

“This is the reason you are level 32, while 22 years old. That guy is 15.” Opal jabbed.

“And I’m still alive. You should know how many died.” Adina replied irritated. Everyone here lost their original team, while for Adina, this was her fourth team.

The group wasn’t much afraid of the monsters, they could take on even a strong 4th tier monster together. A 5th tier was too much for them, but they had a few potions and tool, which should allow them to escape. They were unwilling to use them, though. All of it cost money, therefor, the group used detection spells like crazy. Everyone in their group could use detection spells, so they took turns, preserving clarity.

The group travelled for a few hours.

“We should be close.” Alistair said.

“I found something.” Opal said. “It’s… a rock? But it’s magical or something. “ Everyone in the group looked at Opal, waiting for more information. Opal was both fire and air mage, she could find out rock’s shape. “Its shape is relatively normal. I only found it because I found out fire mana inside.” Opal explained.

“Let’s take a look.” Alistair said, and led the team to the anomaly.

The rock was big and looked rather ordinary.

“Let me take a look.” Alistair took out an earth wand. The team had Andy as an earth mage, but he wasn’t good with precise control. Alistair cast earth detection spell, and sent earth mana into the rock.

“There a lot of enchantments inside. I can spot some light magic, fire magic, and a few other areas are inaccessible. I suppose some conflicting mana is there. Most of the spells looks like… detection spells.” Alistair told his team about his discoveries.

“So, someone is using this rock as a lookout. Anyone want to bet who?” Andy said.

“It’s obvious Andy.” Adina said.

“Can you find out where feedback leads to?” Opal asked.

“Probably.” Alistair said and continued with his investigation.

“Shit.” Alistair swore.

“What?” Adina asked. She immediately prepared for combat.

“No, it’s just… I think there is a large spell formation under the ground. I just found stones shaped into something that looks like spell’s lines. “

“Aren’t large spell formations illegal?” Opal asked.

“Yes, in the interior. Nobody cares much about the exterior.” Andy explained.

“It seems our little friend Jack is quite daring.” Opal said with a smile. That guy was going to be interesting.

“Frankly, it’s a lot of work, and you should remember we are in the exterior. Laws were probably the least of his worries, when he was building this.” Andy said impressed.

“I think I found a lead. There is a pipe for light. I think it’s used to transfer information, or at least visual.”

“So, our little friend Jack can see us now?” Opal asked.

“It seems so.” Alistair said with a bitter smile. They came here to take him back, but they just lost the initiative. “Let’s follow the pipe. We should find Jack at the end of it.”

The team crossed two kilometers before they found their destination.

“Shit.” They cursed.

“Is it real? That guy should be also proficient in illusions, right?”

A big fortress was before their eyes. It had two layers of walls, each 20 meters high. At the center, there was an even higher tower.

“Are all earth mages like that?” Opal asked.

“Well, it’s impressive work for one mage. Wasters cities are a way more impressive, though. You haven’t seen much.” Alistair said. He was a son of a baron, he was raised up in a city. “Give me a month or two and I will create something similar.” Andy added, a bit hurt about his teammates underestimating him.

“How are we going to get inside? Do we knock?” Opal asked. Her teammates looked at her in a wonder.

“I don’t think he will hear us.” Adina said the obvious.

“I propose an alpha strike. We can check his defenses simultaneously.” Andy proposed.

“Don’t forget we are in the exterior.” Adina scolded.

“She is right. Let’s get a bit closer.” Alistair led them. He only took a few steps when light appeared on the ground.

‘What’s that?” Adina asked.

“Looks like a path. Now when I think about it, if I were in his place, I would place traps everywhere.” Andy said casually.

Adina groaned. “Maybe we should bombard this fortress from the distance.” She said a bit scared. Opal rolled her eyes, though nobody saw that.

“This should be a path without traps, right? This means he already knows we are here and he is receiving us, isn’t he? Let’s go.” Opal confidently walked ahead.

Andy and Alistair bitterly smiled when looking at each other, sighed, and followed Opal. Adina helplessly shrugged. When they reached the wall, a passage opened before them.

“Earth magic. Quite powerful for a 3rd tier.” Andy said. The group went through, observing the wall two meters thick. There was another trap area before the second wall.

“There are numerous enchantments on the walls and on the ground. Actually, I think that passage was opened by an inscribed spell, not cast in mind.” Alistair said.

“So, this fortress is controlled by inscribed spells?” Opal asked.

“It seems so.” Alistair replied. They went into another passage, which led them through the second wall. They could see a boy there, fighting against giant bison with a huge stone hammer in his hands.

“The bison is 4th tier.” Adina said something they all knew. The bison charged at Jack, but he swung his huge hammer from a side and hit the bison in the head. He stepped lightly to the side, letting a bit stunned beast avoid him.

“He is using the earth kinetic spell to move that hammer.” Andy said.

“Can it be called hammer? It’s just a few meters stone handle ended with a huge rock.” Adina said dismissively.

“That’s not my point. That… hammer should weigh a ton, literally.” Andy said.

“Wait. One point of strength is enough to hold 5 kilograms, right?” Opal asked.

“Well, assuming he has 50 base strength, 6% boost per level and he already sits at level 50, that’s exactly 200 strength.” Andy made a quick calculations. The team made surprised faces.

“That’s why I’m telling you he has to use magic. I doubt he is level 50. Even if, he should be only able to hold that weapon, not to swing it like that. Normally, it’s hard to coordinate someone’s physical strength and magic without very high agility, but I suppose it’s a way easier with a big and crude weapon.” Andy explained, while pointing how Jack once again repeated his previous maneuver. However, this time the stone hammer crumbled on the bison’s horns. The beast tried to pursue fleeing Jack, but it suddenly changed direction, pursuing air.

“Illusion. He is baiting the monster with illusions.” Andy analyzed. In the meantime, a new gigantic stone hammer flew to Jack.

“He has created an inscribed spell to deliver new hammers.” Andy said, though the team could say he was in another world already, analyzing other applications of Jack’s magic.

Jack dashed after the bison, hitting its head from behind. Spell Slinging skill was now his class skill, manipulating hammer with magic was relatively easy. It was harder to synchronize his muscle force with magical force.

Ding… Your Mace Handling skill has reached lv. 21

‘Good.’ Jack had been recently only training his skills. He had natural understanding of spell vectors now, and he could easily manipulate earth, or light. His illusions were much better than before. He still had to train, though. Instinct was one thing, but his understanding and skill levels were another. He had to learn from what his instincts were telling him, as may lose the skill after the next evolution.

He wasn’t going to leave his fortress, and no powerful monster had come in the last two weeks, so Jack concentrated on grinding his skills.

His fortress was giving him 5th tier strength. A month ago, he killed a 5th tier beast. Normally, he could at best kill 3rd tier monsters or fight evenly with weak 4th tier ones, like the bison before him. This fortress was his strength he acquired with patience and hard work.

Jack still remembered how it had been after the evolution.

His physical strength was impressive back then, but his other stats lagged behind. His intelligence was even lower than before the evolution due to the loss of the Battle Mage profession. Jack went to the forest and dug a deep burrow.

He knew an encounter with a 4th or a 5th tier was only a matter of time. After that, Jack slowly raised defenses around the burrow. He was killing 3rd tier monsters, and escaping into the burrow before 4th tiers.

Jack was anxious every time a 4th tier monster tried to kill him, some monsters were even trying to dig. There was a possibility of encountering a strong burrowing monster, or a monster with strong magic capable of attacking from a distance. Some monsters were persistent, they waited before the burrow entrance for days. Jack was analyzing his inscriptions at that time, trying to upgrade them. After a month, Jack created a small fortress. He no longer escaped from 4th tier, but either killed them or repelled them back.

Around that time, a 2nd tier team found Jack, and he made them an offer to deliver monsters’ corpses to the frontier for a part of the money. Jack was able to trade with the frontier this way, he bought a good quality water wand first. Jack had not been able to acquire the quasi-artifact Aleena offered him, and he still had the problem with detection spells. The water wand wasn’t a quasi-artifact, but was a switchable magic tool of excellent quality, it was as good as the 2nd tier spell for producing water mana. Jack could easily cast water detection spell thanks to the wand, though there wasn’t enough water mana for stronger water spells.

Jack also used 2nd tier teams to deliver live monsters to Rowan. Jack still had that debt, and he was reluctantly and slowly repaying it.

Jack concentrated on surveillance next. He created dozens of surveillance spells on rocks or under the ground in the two kilometers proximity from his fort. It was the most dangerous part, as he was in the open. Jack wanted to risk it, though. His burrow wasn’t that far. He knew it was hard to acquire great gains without risks.

People naturally wanted benefits and money. Everyone would try to take an opportunity to make great gains with low risk, but not everyone was courageous to risk their life or possessions, which was the reason most people remained completely ordinary and average in the society, like soldiers, or field workers. Only by acknowledging risks a person could achieve more. However, he or she could also lose everything in the process.

Jack had a problem with information transmission. His rocks were detecting life forms, but he wanted to have that information in his fortress. In the end, he created underground pipes, which transmitted images. A spell in the fortress was unpacking that image and sending it to Jack’s brain with a light spell. That included information gathered with water and fire detection spells.

Jack wanted some better method of transmitting information, like the light kinetic spell. The spell didn’t require much essence, and could be used from a very large distance. The spell was used to maintain communication between the capital and frontier’s headquarters. The problem was that it was very hard to be precise over large distances without gigantic spells. The military just created a spell, checked where the receiving end was placed and build the receiver there. Jack couldn’t do the same, and his magic wasn’t good enough to avoid the problem.

Jack thought about using some kind of encoding to use with the light kinetic spell, but he also wasn’t able to recreate complicated encoding and decoding logic. In the end, he gave up and created the pipes. Even with that, he earned a level in Words of Power skill for creating fancy spells.

A 5th tier bear found Jack one day, he managed to escape to his burrow, though. The bear had some innate spell related to sound, his roars damaged Jack’s body. Jack really thought it may be the end. The bear left after a day, leaving the destroyed fortress. Jack had to repair everything, though it was easier this time, since he already knew what to do.

With surveillance, Jack was always prepared for an enemy. He started constructing better defenses, and permanent walls. He got a new crafting skill, Architecture, which measured his knowledge of creating permanent buildings. Jack inscribed many spells on the walls, and started creating traps outside the fortress.

After defenses, Jack inscribed offensive spells, like a magical cannon, though it was a combination of earth sculpting and enchanting. The spell had a strength of 5th tier, but it was crude, since Jack just added more spell vectors to make it stronger. The spell used a high amount of essence as the result, and wasn’t good for a long fight. Jack managed to kill a 5th tier wolf around that time, and he commissioned a better armor from the wolf’s fur.

Jack knew his fortress main shortcoming was lack of complicated spells and high usage of essence as the result. He decided to create a large scale essence concentrating spell. Over the next month, he created an underground spell meant to deliver essence to the fortress area. At this point, Jack could fight with 5th tier monsters using the fortress. The fortress usually ended partially destroyed because of that, but since Jack already knew what to do, rebuilding was faster.

Unfortunately, high tier monsters weren’t stupid, and learned the fortress was dangerous. Jack wanted to bait monsters with illusions, but his spells weren’t powerful enough. He had an idea, though. Jack inscribed a large illusion spell in his fortress, which he could freely control. Naturally, the illusions weren’t very flexible this way, as the main spell was literally set in stone. Jack had also a problem with light mana, as average lifespan of mana was a minute. It was impossible to make mana travel for long distance. Jack created dozens of remote controlled light mana producing spells all over his controlled territory.

Jack could this way use illusions in the proximity of two kilometers. This increased his gains, but monsters naturally learned that this whole area was dangerous. Fortunately, there were always travelling 3rd and 4th tiers, which didn’t know about it.

Jack had nothing to do while waiting for more monsters to come over, so he practiced his skills. Jack changed a few inscribed spells in the fortress and created a prison for monsters. He was able to regularly fight with 4th tiers in a controlled environment. Jack could only fight weak 4th tier monsters that didn’t have many levels, though.

One day, a 6th tier lizard attacked him. Jack tried to fight it, but he was only able to inflict some minor wounds with his fortress. He had no choice, but to burrow down. His fortress was nearly destroyed afterward, but he quickly rebuilt it. 5th tiers were his limit, he had to acknowledge the facts. His magical cannons were 5th tier only by virtue of the ridiculous amount of spell vectors and used essence. Jack needed better basic spells.

That led him to the present situation. He was mostly training his fighting skills now. Jack also hoped to catch more 4th tier monsters to use them as a fuel for the evolution assisting spell. The military shouldn’t refuse would he provide corpses.

He had to address four people who came here. The military had sent messages from time to time. They wanted Jack to return to the frontier, bur he replied with an excuse each time. As a 3rd tier Jack had to participate in obligatory missions, but didn’t want to. He was the strongest here, and he had leveled fast.

“Are you Jack?” One of the four people asked. The rest warily looked around, maintaining a formation. They were prepared to fight.

“Yep. How can I help you?”

“I’m Alistair.” The man introduced himself and the rest of the group.

“Nice to meet you.” Jack replied politely, though he was a bit impatient.

“We have orders to take you back to the frontier.” Alistair said slowly.

Jack was irritated. He didn’t want to and they wouldn’t be able to take him by force.

“What if I don’t want to go?” He asked a bit drunk on his power.

“You will be declared a deserter, and hunted down everywhere in the interior.” Alistair informed.