I took a deep breath and pictured the mansion in my mind.

The detection spell was like a relatively simple one.

It stretched across the airspace of the estate like a net of sorts.

It would detect if something of a certain size had entered.

Mostly definitely there wasn’t someone maintaining the spell all the time.

Duke Marren probably had something artificial that powered it.

I wanted to overload the spell, which meant sending in a short burst of mana that was more than what the source could

handle.

This would distract everyone while I searched for the prisoner.

[Air Shot]

I accumulated a mass of air above the mansion and hurled it at the spell.

!?

I dropped on one knee with my right hand covering my mouth.

What was that?

Impossible, I couldn’t shatter the spell?

Even worse, it had the opposite effect and harmed me instead.

But I felt something in the split-second I clashed with the spell.

The thing that was powering it was underneath the mansion.

Outside the bathroom, I could hear the guards clamoring about something.

My initial plan failed so I could only look for an opportunity now.

The guard and I quickly returned to the reception room.

“Leon what’s happening?”

I asked as I saw a lot of people running around.

“Looks like something tried to mess with our detection barrier, maybe you guys are on to something. Hurry now”

Allan cut Leon off before he could speak and started to lead us out of the room.

“Hey are you alright? You look a little pale”

Leon noticed my face as we were walking out.

“I’m a little tired that’s all”

“Here, let me”

He placed my arm over his neck and let me use him as support.

The reason why I was so tired now was because I just used a very mana consuming spell.

Summoning magic was very useful but if you were weaker than the thing summoned than it was probably going to kill you.

Or in the very least it was going to go out of control.

I used a temporary summoning spell [Cloud Dragon].

It was a part of the lower tier of summoning spells that were more accept in practice.

Since the higher tier ones involved complex rituals that summoned demons from another world or something.

This type just gave shape to an element and allowed one to control it.

“DANGER”

“LOOK OUTSIDE, WHAT IS THAT”

“Of all the. . . it appears to be some kind of air serpent”

Well put.

The clouds had come together to form a dragon shape that had a head, two arms and a

really long serpent like body.

DUUUUUUNNNNNNN

DUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNN

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNN

The entire place shook as I made the dragon hit the spell.

Tch, it turns out Allan was right.

This wasn’t just a detection spell but also a barrier.

This was strange, how could I have missed the second part of the spell?

“HURRY, to the duke”

Allan shouted to us as the ground kept shaking.

“Hey are you sure you’re fine?”

I nodded and we started to move rapidly to the duke.

BOOM

“AGH”

BOOM

“GAH”

BOOM

“Ugh”

As we were running, a mini version of the gigantic dragon above the estate had come crashing through the windows.

Every time a guard got close to a window, it would slam into them and went back out the way it came.

I was picking off the guards one by one this was.

Nobody really was hurt aside from being slammed in to a wall hard enough to knock them out.

I sped up the rate the second one moved at and pretty soon it was only Allan, Leon and me.

“How much farther?”

Leon said between several deep breaths.

“Not much longer, his office is on the second floor”

Allan stated as we reached the stairs on the first floor.

Hmm, if I went with them any further I might not be able to find the basement.

And the guards outside were starting to rush in.

I finally realized I couldn’t break the barrier with the large cloud dragon at my current state.

I prepared the two dragons to move in sync as we about to go up the stairs.

DDDDDDDUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNN

I made the large dragon slam in to the barrier hard enough to dispel its form.

It didn’t break the barrier still, oh well it was only a small hope anyways.

But it did do what I needed it to, the slam had knocked us all on out feet.

The second dragon then rushed in and grabbed me.

“SHERA!” Leon shouted as he frantically tried to grab my hand.

Too bad I was already outside in the air as my dragon raced away.

I entered the mansion on the other end and started to make my way towards a door.

What the?

The seal on this door was very powerful.

This keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Only Arthur should pose any challenge to me.

I was starting to run out of mana for this form.

And I could only use ancient magic in my true form.

Damn it, I dispelled the second dragon and started to think of another way past the door.

“OVER HERE, THE INTRUDER IS HERE”

The guards were starting to close in on me.

Damn

Wait, it couldn’t be?

Huh? There may be a way for me past the door.

My greatest affinity was still earth so this might work.

I placed both of my hands on the door.

[Strengthen]

I used an extremely basic reinforcing spell but it should be fine.

Now with the spell active on myself, I pushed the door extremely hard.

It wasn’t budging at first but I gave it another try.

Finally, the areas around the door started to crack.

Turns out I was right; the door was stronger than the foundation it was built on.

I forced it down just as guards from both sides of the hall started to arrive.

Good thing I put my hood on.

[Mend]

I threw as little mana as possible to fix the door.

Hmm, the finished result looked really ugly, but they already knew I was here.

Turns out the door was sound proof too, I couldn’t hear them on the other side.

I looked in front of me and saw a bunch of stairs leading down in to the depths of the estate.

What could possibly be down here?

This must be the source of the barrier, this suddenly became more important than the prisoner.

How were they able to achieve this level of power?

When I got to the bottom, I found my answer.

I was genuinely not expecting this.

At the foot of the stairs was a room.

In the middle of that was a clear rectangular coffin like box.

It was filled with water and suspended in the middle of it was a woman.