After making one last attempt at overcoming the Fire Elemental that was nourished by the Fire Node, I decided to give up. Unless I had some sort of incredibly useful idea, I just didn’t have the power to overcome its regeneration, especially with the environmental effects of the Charland helping it.

My latest idea had been to conjure vast amounts of Water, store them around the node and flood the area, trying to drown it. Sadly, the idea was completely crushed by the Charland itself, the conjured Water disappeared at a greatly accelerated rate, instead of lasting for a day or more, giving me ample time to conjure large quantities and store them for my attack, Water I conjured lasted only for an hour, unless it was removed from the environment, either by being carried outside or by being consumed. Meaning, I couldn’t keep conjuring and constantly regenerating my Astral Power, leaving me with just what I could create within an hour. And that was far from the quantity needed to extinguish its flame, leaving me at a loss.

Similarly, when I tried to use Earth Magic to fill the warehouse, either using conjured dirt and rocks or by simply moving material from elsewhere, I couldn’t overcome the elemental and the node it could draw power from. It simply outlasted me, either burning away the material if it was conjured or heating it to the point that it started to count as magically aligned to Fire and thus subject to its control. Once things were at that point, it became a struggle for control, a struggle the elemental could easily win thanks to its greater affinity to Fire.

Realising that this wasn’t a productive path, I decided to try something else and fell back on familiar territory, conjuring up Mist. Only for once, I didn’t try to conjure mist that devoured Life through its innate connection to Blood, I tried to conjure mist that devoured Heat. It was quite similar to my usual cold mist, only that I put the focus on the temperature part, trying to strengthen the Devour and Cold aspects of my mist to the maximum.

That worked, but only to a point. Again, the elemental demonstrated it had deep reserves to draw from, letting it bull through my magic even when I tried to imbue the mist with the ability to Devour the power of Fire by using the appropriate runes and adding them on the other side of the Cold parts of my formation. It simply didn’t work, the elemental could withstand my attack long enough to leave me drained of my Astral Power, pushing me to the point that I couldn’t continue without drawing on resources I kept reserved for emergencies.

When I realised that my reserves simply couldn’t match the elemental, I tried to drain Blood from the creatures of the area, using their power against the elemental, something that was far harder than I had hoped. All the creatures of the Charland had their innate bias toward Fire, leaving me with horrible mileage when it came to using their blood for anything other than Fire Magic. To make matters worse, their blood rapidly lost potency in the Charland, the power imbued in it simply spreading into the environment. I tried to combat that by pushing the Blood into the Shadows but my success was, well, greatly limited.

My final attempt at overcoming the elemental was a mix of learned lessons and sheer bloody stubbornness, an unwillingness to admit defeat and continue exploring other parts of the Charland. It was, in many ways, similar to my previous attempts, trying to limit the amount of power the elemental could use while attacking with my own magic, only here, I was using a variation of the forge formation I had created for Alex. Like the forge formation, it was drawing Fire Astral Power from the environment, though I still wasn’t sure if it actually drew from the node or if the elemental was unable to contain all the power it had and was leaking, thus supplying the formation, but unlike the forge formation, this formation didn’t simply focus the drawn Astral Power, it altered the power, turning it into pure Magic using the appropriate Darkness Rune.

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My idea was that I was capable of using Blood Magic to draw power from other sources, largely irrespective of their elemental bias, so if I could draw Fire Astral Power from the node, and strip it of the Fire aspect, I would get extra Astral Power to fight with. In addition, the taken Astral Power couldn’t be used by the elemental, if the power actually came from the node, weakening it further.

At least that was the theory. Sadly, the idea was far less practical than I had hoped. The altered formation could draw power but even making one demonstrated the biggest problem. Efficiency was, as so often, its downfall, it drew Fire Astral Power without problems but altering the power caused the stone I carved it in to heat up as the elemental parts of the Astral Power were expelled. In this case, it meant that of every hundred points Astral Power the formation could draw, some eighty or ninety points blasted into the stone, eroding the formation I had carved into it. That, in turn, meant the formation could only last for a very limited time and even when I tried to use the power it generated, the amount it provided was far from sufficient to let me overcome my adversary.

The elemental, despite being a level below me, had just too big an advantage for me to overcome, unless I found something that could level the field.

So, we decided to search for other nodes, hoping that there would be better opponents to fight. Maybe one of those would give me an idea, allowing me to defeat the elemental, as its node remained a frequent destination of ours, as the forge formation was a useful tool for Alex and their updated equipment demonstrated that clearly.

One of the items they managed to create was a surprisingly complex crossbow made from metal, with a fairly advanced system of levers and pulleys allowing even the tine racoon to operate a crossbow with insane power. It was difficult to estimate just how hard the metallic bolts they had forged were going but given that one of their test shots managed to penetrate a concrete wall, I wasn’t about to question the crossbow's power.

Another item they, this time with a lot of help from Luna, made was specifically for me. Interestingly, I had a feeling that the creation was just as complicated as the crossbow, only where the crossbow was a marvel of engineering and technology, the knife they made for me was just that, a knife. But a highly ornate knife, with small runes engraved into the blade and handle, subtly different from the way I was enchanting items. When I Identify’ed the knife, it was labelled as a Blessed Athame, with bonuses to rituals it was used in and to Blood Magic. I didn’t need to see the lunar motive of the knife to know it was made with Hecate’s power, a gift I felt a little conflicted over. Sure, it was an awesome tool and I could get a lot of mileage out of it, but I wasn’t too happy with it being given to me. I wanted to learn the enchantments myself, not have them bestowed upon me by a suüüpsedly benevolent goddess, even if Hecate had demonstrated that she was, in fact, benevolent. At least benevolent to Luna, Silva and me, in that order.

Still, it didn’t sit right with me but on the other hand, there was nothing I could realistically do about it. Throwing away the blessed gift made by my companions with the help of my adopted daughter would alienate all the people I cared about and for what? To spite a being far older than me that was almost certainly completely jaded and cynical? At best, Hecate simply wouldn’t care and write me off as another idiotic mortal, at worst she might withdraw Her blessing or actually do something about me. And rejecting their gift would hurt my friends for no actual gain.

No, I had to take the gift and honour it, even if that small, spiteful piece of me grumbled about receiving divine gifts. Hopefully, Hecate was different from the divinities I had heard about on Mundus, mostly from Olivia. Not as exploitative but actually interested in the actions of mortals, not just trying to gain as many devoted followers as possible. Given that Hecate didn’t have an actual church on Mundus, I didn’t think she was collecting them, especially with a few comments I still remembered from my own character creation. The closest thing to a church of Hecate had been the Mages’ Guild and the worship there had been completely voluntary and mostly private. No proselytizing, at least nowhere I had seen any during my short visits.

Not that it ultimately mattered. This was a new world and only time would tell how it would develop. Now, we had some other nodes to explore and hopefully a few bosses to find and fight.