Aslow gestured to the clearing in the middle, where there were only a few people now, rather than the tens I had seen in the morning. “The purpose of the analysis team is invaluable. Without them, we cannot succeed. They are responsible for deciphering and unraveling the defenses of the university.” He said, and a sense of pride could be heard in his voice.

  “What kind of defenses? Automated turrets?” Brad asked curiously.

  “No. Modern technology doesn’t work very well against people like us, once we advance a couple times. Although, I’d be just as dead as a regular human if a nuke was dropped on my head. They are solving spell circles.”

  “The ones that you use to cast a spell?” Brad wondered.

  “Yes, but they’re different. For defense of a place, we set up permanent circles, which are either always active, or can detect intruders and turn on accordingly. They can do almost anything you can think of. From the mundane, like casting an illusion over a building, so uninvolved civilians don’t stumble into our business; to the more interesting ones, like sending a bolt of lightning onto a would-be attacker. Or trapping them in a force field and then releasing flames inside to incinerate them. The possibilities are endless.”

  “So, the reason why the society can’t get in yet is because we haven’t cracked these defenses yet?” I asked. Aslow nodded.

  “But there’s one thing that makes them not be completely foolproof. We have the schematics of the campus from a special source, which means we have access to their designs.”

  “Why not just destroy the flow of energy?” I asked, certainly that would be the first thing I would do.

  “That can work if the power difference is enough, but for the majority of our members, they wouldn’t be able to handle the ensuing release of energy and would die. Which is why we use counter spells to defuse them. And rather than doing that in enemy territory, we recreate them here with much less power, and devise a spell to destroy them effectively.”

  “Is there no spell that can be used as a cure-all? Instead of having to create new ones for each different circle?”

  “Ah, you’re referring to the counter spell. It exists, at least in legends and stories, but in our world today, nobody knows how to cast it. To devise it requires a level of insight far above what anyone has reached in the modern era. Maybe one of the ancient families still has it, but if they did, it would be kept a secret. I can’t see that they’d potentially reveal it to their enemies just to defuse some weak spell circles. If I had it, I would keep it reserved until using it gave me more value than keeping it secret.”

  It made sense. It was like how militaries kept their new weapons hidden until they had to use them in conflict. If your enemy doesn’t know about them, they can’t develop responses.

  —

  Aslow spent another fifteen minutes, introducing us to the team, and telling us where we would be sleeping and eating; before he left to go do some work.

  As most of them had been called away, it was pretty much a skeleton crew, but we were assured that the brightest minds had stayed behind, and only the grunts had gone. And we would be filling their unskilled shoes. That meant we had to prepare new spell circles, dismantle old ones and try and identify common patterns on each circle from a book which showed how to make them. While it wasn’t very exciting, both Brad and I put our full foot forward once we realized that this knowledge could be the difference between our success and failure in our revenge.

  When that demon came to us in a year's time, if we could prepare extremely powerful spell circles, we would already be at an advantage.

  The analysts were incredibly interested in their work, and didn’t respond to any of our probing questions, trying to learn more about our situation. It was unfortunate, but didn’t matter too much, we already had a general understanding.

  Tonford University had something inside it that was making very powerful people go crazy trying to get it. Two families had been the first to get to the university, along with the Archive Society, and they had created an alliance to join together against any newcomers, to avoid any other people coming to try and steal a piece of the pie; but in terms of getting into the university, it was every faction for themselves. They were working with us to decipher a way through the defenses, but the university was waging guerilla warfare, extremely well. Which had led to the loss that meant we had to help them, rather than focus on advancing..

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  But none of that mattered too much to us immediately, we were assured multiple times that we would be of no help even if we went. That meant we just had to focus on our soul and helping the analysts.

  —

  After a restful night’s sleep in a dorm with several others, their company hadn’t bothered us just because we were both so mentally exhausted, we returned to the middle of the warehouse to help create the circles.

  It was useful practice as we were able to figure out what each of the different quirks of design made. There were a few fundamental patterns that I learnt to recognize quickly, like energy amplifiers, switches, timers, and more. In a way it was quite similar to making an electrical circuit, that is if you could forget about the supernatural effects.

  For the more complex parts of the circle, I had to refer to a compendium to see them in detail. That was fine though, as I was even beginning to learn some from the repeated use of the book.. I hoped that I could have a full understanding of the structure and construction of spell circles by the time I advanced, so that we could use them for ourselves.

  However, whilst I had been getting on handily, Brad was not doing as well. Once he had put in the effort, he had been able to learn the simple patterns, but when I tried to get him to start learning the more difficult ones, he couldn’t follow. That didn’t mean I stopped trying, but I did accept that he probably didn’t just have the right talent for it. I supposed he had always been a more hands on guy than me.

  Despite my burgeoning skill in spell circle construction, it became quickly apparent that I was his lesser at advancing the soul. In the second half of the day, we meditated on our souls, gradually infusing them with energy. Or at least, that’s what I was doing. If Brad was to be believed, he had figured out a method to enhance large swathes of the soul at a time. Which meant that rather than going one soul cell at a time, he could process thousands. When I tried to get him to explain how he did it, he just shrugged his shoulders and said that he just did it naturally.

  Though, after a bit of questioning, I was able to understand that he had somehow gathered up a reserve of energy, and then used it all at once to achieve a greater effect. Trying to repeat his method had no results for me, but I felt like I could adapt it to better suit my technique. That was if I could get my idea to work.

  And as I sat, energy dissolving into nothing, for what must have been the 300th time already in an hour, I seriously considered that I might just have to take the long way. But, I refused to give up; I had no time for the long way. I would keep up with Brad, no matter what. So I started to reform my energy again. And again. And again.

  —

  It was a few days of tireless work later that I finally managed to achieve success in gathering the energy together. Hesitantly, I brought it into my soul’s circulatory system. However, I didn’t blast it away all at once. Instead, I just let it sit. The constant flow of blood managed to absorb it all in no time. I wasn’t bothered though, if my theory was right, then…

  Yes!

  I checked one of the cells that had passed through. Rather than being enhanced to the max, it was only about a tenth of the way there. All the others were the same. But that was what I wanted. With this method, I could enhance all my blood equally and gradually. More importantly than that, I didn’t have to focus on individual cells, all that needed to be done was place the energy, and more would be processed than could ever be done by focusing on the singular

  The last piece of the puzzle was still out of reach. To perfect this method, at least the fundamentals of it; I wanted a constant flow of energy to my dam, enough that it would replenish as fast as it was used. The issue was that my absorption of energy wasn’t quick enough for that. I was sure Brad could have done it, but it wasn’t possible for me. I either had to improve my talent, or improve my environment.

  It wasn’t known whether improving my talent was even possible, but making the environment better was certainly within reach. I had come to understand that the energy we absorbed was present within the ambient surroundings, just sitting there. I tried to meditate in our sleeping quarters, but found that the energy level was the same; and I couldn’t leave the warehouse without permission to see if it was different elsewhere.

  I couldn’t ask Aslow, because he hadn’t been in since he left a few days previously, and I didn’t even bother with asking the analysts as I knew I would just get a snort and then be ignored. They were quite a stuck up bunch I had found. Although they seemed to be quite fond of Brad. A small part of myself thought that was only because of his surname, but I had kept quiet about that. Any good will at this stage was what we needed.

  I resolved to keep thinking about it, and ask Aslow when he returned.

  My plans had to be on the backburner however, when there was a large explosion, and an alarm began to sound. The shrill wail waking me out of my meditative stupor.