The next day Damion returned to Bufort while Phil continued to explore the region. After receiving the artifacts to upgrade from Justiciar Moss, he locked himself in the artificing room and got to work. Upgrading the D Rank artifacts to C Rank was quick and easy. The rest of the day he spent studying his magic seals.

Despite having acquired several tier 4 and tier 5 spells, Damion had yet to make another breakthrough on his mastery of Nashto. The ancient magical language was difficult to learn, but the Magic System had always provided him a bit of a cheat with languages. Even for Nashto, each time he grasped the beginnings of the next step of the language, the System had been quick to propel him forward in his understanding.

However, since his last advancement, Damion seemed to have hit a roadblock. Even with studying the higher tier spells he did not feel he was making progress in understanding the final mysteries of the language. There was some aspect he was missing. Something he had overlooked. What it was, Damion had no idea. After all, if he did he would have focused on that to complete his quest and collect the 1,000,000 credit reward.

The entire week went by in this manner. After his morning exercise, Damion would head into the city and upgrade the Justiciar's artifacts and then study Nashto for the rest of the day. At the end of each day, he would provide Justiciar Moss the upgraded artifacts and receive his payment of cores.

After an entire week of this, Damion had acquired an impressive 150,500 credits. The mounting number of credits he had for the Magic System started an itch in his mind that wanted to be scratched by spending credits. He considered buying a few more increases to mana regeneration or mana capacity. Given his recent experience with tier 5 spells and having to turn off nearly all his passives to be able to maintain Spatial Domain, having higher regen or capacity would greatly increase his combat ability without increasing magic power.

Aside from when the Magic System first unlocked, he had not purchased increases to his magic power. Wanting to increase it naturally and save the boosts for when he needed a hand in reaching the next Rank.

However, with the prospect of venturing into Red Zones, he began to wonder if he should go all in on increasing his powers through the System. The strength of the Demonic Beasts would keep increasing and so was the strength of his human adversaries. Justiciar Straus had shown him it was not impossible for high Rankers to still target him.

While he may have survived the fight with Justiciar Straus unscathed, that was solely because he had multiple advantages. Damion held no illusions about doing as well against an A Rank mage, or even a different A Rank knight. He needed to be stronger and the best way to accomplish that was to push himself harder.

The next morning, Damion packed up his camp and started on his journey to the Crimson Order outpost. Despite being able to fly and moving quite fast, it still took him and Phil the entire day to reach the outpost.

Unlike a city, the outpost was not built for comfort, but for defense. The thick walls of the outpost sported a number of magic cannons. Not just ones like Saung had, large three barreled turrets that fired a different element from each barrel, but also smaller cannons mounted between them on spires of varying heights.

As Damion closed in on the outpost the magic cannons along the wall began to track their movements. The closer he approached the outpost the more paranoid he became of the cannons targeting him. Just when he was about to stop and call out to the outpost, to make sure it was safe, one of the large three barreled cannons fired at him and Phil.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

These cannons were meant to be used against A Rank Demonic Beasts. Damion knew he and Phil would never be able to survive the ball of lightning that was shot out from the middle barrel at them. Their only hope was to evade.

Both mage and Demonic Beast broke in different directions as the blast from the cannon flew past and exploded in the air where they had been. Their best option was to retreat, to get outside the range of the cannon, but Damion had no idea what their range was.

Taking out his tablet, Damion began trying to communicate with the outpost, to let them know he and Phil were friendly. He was guessing that the cannon was automatically targeted Phil as a Demonic Beast, but that guess was shattered when the next blast from the cannon was aimed at him.

The second attack being directed him was not something he had expected and by the time Damion realized it was coming his way, it was too late for him to dodge. Even if he tried to use Blink multiple times, it was unlikely he would be able to get out of the blast zone. The idea to use Portal and teleport himself to safety that way came to mind, but then Damion realized he had another spell that could be used to counter the cannon blast.

Exile.

The blast from the magic cannon was at the level of A Rank, but it had no will imbued in it. Just raw magic sent out to explode. Damion cast Exile a few meters in front of him to intercept the ball of Lightning mana and was rewarded to see the ball of destructive magic be banished from his reality just as he had done to Justiciar Straus.

Once the attack was dealt with, Damion quickly turned and started heading away from the outpost as fast as he could. Eager to get out of range before another attack came. As he was fleeing with Phil he heard someone calling out to him.

"Apologies. The artifacts that control the magic cannons detected a Demonic Beast and a mage, but it appears they fired without authorization."

Damion stopped when the man shouted to him and turning he saw a man standing on a disk artifact, flying out to meet him.

"What could make the magic cannons fire without someone controlling them?"

"I think it was likely caused by the proximity of the Demonic Beast to you. The controller artifact must have thought you were in immediate danger and sought to protect you from the Demonic Beast."

"The Blizzard King is my bond familiar, it won't hurt me," Damion told the mage who had now reached him, so he extended his hand in greeting. "Damion Wells."

"Outpost Commander Brian Wren," the man returned Damion's greeting.

"If the magic cannon only fired because it was trying to protect me, why did the second blast target me and not my familiar?"

"What?" Commander Wren's eyes went wide when he heard Damion's question.

"The second shot targeted me specifically. Phil was quite far away. There is no way I could be confused with a Blizzard King."

The Crimson Order commander eyed Phil as the Demonic Beast circled around them as he pondered the question. Was it really a malfunction?

"Do you have any enemies in this outpost?"

"I have no idea. I have never paid attention to who was stationed where. But I have ruffled the feathers of a few nobles."

"Well, there is one way to find out what happened. Let's go check the logs from the cannon and see who was on duty."

"I'm not going to get shot at again am I?"

"No. I've deactivated the magic cannons. Will your uh… familiar be coming with you?"

Damion looked to Phil as he weighed his options.

"He'll rest on the walls while I am inside. I was just coming this way to see if your outpost had any missions I could do. I was not planning on sticking around long."

"That is fine. Once we are back in the outpost, I will program… Phil's data into the control artifact and send it to the other Crimson Order outposts. This way you won't have to worry about this happening again."

"What if another Blizzard King comes along? Aren't you worried about leaving yourselves open to attack?"

"I've never heard of this kind of Demonic Beast before, so Phil is probably pretty unique. But the cannons can still be fired manually, so don't worry."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.