“What did you do?” I turned back to Astria and pointed at the large chute of mana. “Is that a mana spring?”
When a mana spring was finished, they would shoot out mana into the air like that. How did that differ from a fairy spring? Well, fairy springs were in fairy groves and managed by fairies. This didn’t seem important, but it was. A mana spring would continually lose mana.
Originally, I had believed that the fairy grove Astria and Celeste had built in my mansion’s backyard had been to hide the grove. I was right, but the hiding was more than just from physical sight. The plants around the grove absorbed excess mana and then injected it into the land. It’s why fairy springs made the land fertile and rich.
However, this spring had no such mechanism, so the mana exploded into the air and then rained back down. In a way, it distributed the mana across the land quicker and led to much faster fertility and a much wider distance. However, it was also a beacon that let everyone know where it was. It was also temporary and unsustainable. It was more like a temporary mana geyser.
These were extremely rare, as the mana of this continent slowly decreased, the gushes of mana also decreased. Thus, it was so odd seeing one here, so close to Chalm. Furthermore, it wasn’t shooting straight up, but out to the side like it had been aimed away from the direction of Chalm proper. This was the other reason I hadn’t noticed it before, because it was quite low to the landscape. It was something done at great expense, and I could only guess it was Astria’s doing. This was because the fairies had fled that way and Astria had come from that direction.
I should also point out that I couldn’t even see mana until quite recently. It was my experience in the soul damage, and training with Alysia to be able to cut the mana feed from spells, that had allowed me the sensitivity to be able to recognize mana. The people in this village almost certainly saw nothing. However, to the creatures of the wilderness in the west, they almost certainly could see it and might even be attracted to it.
After yelling at Astria, she stopped creating another bolt of dark magic, seeming surprised by me suddenly addressing her in battle. She glanced where I was pointing and then laughed.
“Oh? That? That’s the start of my new kingdom. In time, I will possess enough power. You’ve already met my fairies. I’m building an army of evolved fairies.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why? Hmph… you’ll have to defeat me to find out, and since all you’re good at is running, I guess you’ll never know!”
“To take over the world?” I guessed.
“Heh, to start!” She shot back.
I looked away, feeling a bit conflicted. “I thought… you may have changed over time. I thought, maybe… as a slave…”
“Deek…” Alysia comforted me in my head.
“Slave?” Her expression turned fiery again. “You dare speak of those times? I don’t know what you’ve heard but forget it. I’m the one who is in charge here, do you understand? Now, stop moving and just die!”
She created a dark ball that had red cracks over the surface about the size of a small house and then threw it in my direction. I dodged the attack, then started running. This time I moved using phase shift to increase my speed. My direction was the mana spring. I had to see what was happening.