Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Chapter 273 273 Stabbing Tool

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"What do you mean by 'how the Covens have treated some of them'? Are some of the witches in your compound renegades?" One of the witches in the room asked.

"No, nothing like that. But during the last invasion, the ugly side of the Coven became really obvious to the witches who were drafted to serve on the front lines.

Many of the Morgana draftees were sent to the front lines with their Familiars and immediately sent on solo kamikaze missions into the Monster Tide without backup. Others were sent to abandoned positions and simply dropped off without any sort of supplies, and things only got worse after the Nerve Gas attacks.

The witches lost their power, and the leadership started to view them as not just expendable but as an expendable liability. The Treatment Camps were overcrowded and underserved nightmares from what I have heard, and we haven't had a single witch who was in them who requested to return home."

The news was horrifying for the witches here, who hadn't seen the mundane army attack, as they were on domestic defence duty and well behind the lines of the Monster Tide defence and hundreds of kilometres northwest of Sylvan City, which the Mundane armies attacked from the North and East.

They knew from talking to the witches in the patrol which had visited the Fae Forest that there were a number of former Myrrh Coven officers in the Den, all of which were now recovered to at least the status they had before the attack.

If someone made a fuss about it, there was a chance that the Coven would attempt to recall them to duty and reject their application for retirement due to injuries, but that would only lead to animosity, and they likely wouldn't come back anyhow.

"I heard that it was bad, but it sounds like they downplayed it." The grandmother of the family sighed.

"The attack by the humans was worse than words could explain for most of the witches. The effects of the Nerve Gas are also permanent if they don't have someone like me to intervene, so nobody will expect them to ever be fit for duty again, and you know how it is for someone who can't use magic at all in Myrrh Coven.

Sylvan is a bit more technological in their ways, so there are more jobs for them, but still not the good ones that they enjoyed as competent witches." Wolfe shrugged.

"So that's why Colonel Ming is with you?" One of the witches who had been with the patrol asked, holding a spell book in front of her for whatever trade she wanted to make.

"No, she was assigned to scout detail in our region, so she moved into our position and worked with us to give better reports, then she chose to retire officially as the war wound down.

She served long enough, in her estimation, and she decided to retire to the Den to enjoy a bit of luxury instead of a bunker on the front lines."

The witch smiled at Wolfe. That was a sentiment that she could understand. She had served beside the Colonel a few years earlier, and the woman had been getting sick of combat even then. After seeing the city that the witches had built in the forest, it wasn't shocking that the Colonel had chosen to stay at the Den once she had helped build it.

The man with the sword took advantage of the lull in conversation to step forward with the blade and placed both it and a bulging cloth bag on the table.

"And what might this be?" Wolfe asked, pointing to the cloth bag, which seemed quite mundane.

"Five hundred assorted packs of seeds. There are a few seeds for each of the five hundred different edible or medicinal plants in the bag. If your witches are making a whole new village, they will need a variety of plants, and they won't have them all with them.

  I think you should take a look at

This should be enough to take care of creating even the most impressive Witch Garden."

"Impressive." Wolfe commended him. It wasn't the most expensive or rare offering that anyone had come up with, but as utility went, it was definitely up among the top ranks.

Wolfe assumed that almost any Witch in the room could have arranged the same thing, as they all had gardens at their homes and presumably had a store of seeds for planting next year's crops. But they hadn't thought of it. Not even the witch who had made the actual request for Wolfe to enchant a blade had thought of it.

Wolfe picked up the sword and looked it over. It was a partially complete item, freshly made and clearly pulled from production so that Wolfe could enchant the blade without having to clear the inscription that would be put on it for the merchants to whom it was marketed.

"Who is this going to? A child, an amateur, a family guardian, or a professional soldier?" Wolfe asked.

The witch ushered forward her son, a muscular young blonde with a collection of small scars on his arms from hunting monsters and thick callouses on his hands.

"So a hunter. Alright, I can make something that will be just right for him." Wolfe smiled, then began to plan out the inscription.

A [Flame Blade] wasn't a great choice for a Hunter. They brought back the meat of the monsters they hunted for resale or their own consumption, so searing paths in it wasted a lot of the animal's flesh.

Instead, Wolfe would give it a [Wind Blades] enchantment with a secondary [Agility] buff, which was also from the Air Magic school. Then he searched through the spells that his Inheritance had for just the right final enchantment.

[Impact] would work well. It would make the blade hit harder without making it weigh more in the hands of the wielder.

A light blade that hits like a heavy axe, using [Wind Blades] to easily cut through the target, and with a more agile user, should be perfect for hunting monsters and avoiding injury.

Since the one who would be using it couldn't manipulate the spell, he wouldn't be able to make the best use of the blade, as he couldn't make it throw the [Wind Blades], but just having them envelop the blade was enough since he also couldn't recharge the mana stone in the hilt and would be better served by a lower mana use weapon.

Wolfe took out a knife from his bag to use as a pencil and cast the [White Board] spell so that he could tweak the Array for mana efficiency, making the best of the limited storage of the small Mana Crystal.

After a few minutes and a reduction in the power of the [Wind Blades] to roughly what Wolfe would have been able to cast at the Second Rank, he determined that the stone should keep the blade active for four hours at a time. That was as good as it was going to get without really skimping on the attack power.

He inscribed the Array onto the blade, and lifted it in one hand, then activated it to make sure it was working properly and not restricting any of the spells.

The rush of energy from [Agility] raced through his body, and the swirling winds surrounded the blade in an instant while gasps of shock filled the room.

"There we go, not the most powerful weapon ever, but it should cut through anything that you're not insane to be facing, and it will grant some agility to the user as well. I think it will serve you well." Wolfe informed the young man, then deactivated the inscription and recharged the mana crystal.