A day later, Zephyr strolled into the lighthouse. For some reason, the dark fog was avoiding it entirely. So, he had an easy time getting into it.
Once he was on top, Zephyr gazed out of the lighthouse.
As far as his eyes could see, there were thunder clouds spewing lightning and rain. Below it, the dense fog was creeping over the land.
The majority of the fog had transformed into a thick, dark color. But for some reason, they were not intruding into the village.
'Why?'
Zephyr was confused.
If the necromancer wanted everyone asleep, he could have easily done so. But he didn't.
'It is as if he wants us trapped here, not dead.'
'Anyways, I can worry about that later, first I should find a way to destroy the lighthouse.'
Zephyr turned around and sat on a chair.
From underneath his robe, he took out a carefully drawn runic paper. This time again, he had used his own blood as a medium to draw the spell.
'I hope this works.'
He silently said and turned to look at the weather prediction artifact.
The lighthouse had three components to it. First was the weather prediction artifact. The second one was the giant rotary disc on top that spun a high-power crystal light. Third was something Zephyr knew existed but had no idea about its function.
'My job is to break all three.'
Most magical constructs have failsafe mechanisms and redundancy built into them. After all, the mages of this world were not stupid.
So, if he could break it, he might trigger something that would inform the storm tower of its destruction.
Zephyr was kind of optimistic about that.
Thus, he took out the runic paper and gazed at the weather forecasting magical tool.
After hesitating for a while, he channeled mana into the runic paper before slapping it onto the artifact.
The tool suddenly caught on fire. The metal slab at its base, which connected to the pipes leading up to the top of the lighthouse, glowed in a warm red color.
It was heating up.
Zephyr watched with a curious glint in his eyes.
This was the first time he had actually cast a fire elemental spell. And not just any fire elemental spell, but something made specifically to melt metal.
'When the runes activated, it first released a wave of mana that softened the metal, changing its fundamental property. Then the heat from the secondary fire spell melted it. The magic is fantastic.'
Zephyr had learned this magic randomly from a biography of a well known blacksmith and, fortunately, remembered it in enough detail to use it. Then he patiently watched everything that was happening to the metal in great excitement.
'If I shift the target from metal to stone, I could, in theory, burn down and melt the entire lighthouse. But it would require a preposterous amount of mana.'
Though the idea of melting the lighthouse felt awesome, Zephyr knew he couldn't do that yet.
Even after an entire day of training, he could only create 36 cores. To cast a spell of that level, he would have to be at least a master mage, the same rank as the person who most likely crafted the lighthouse in the first place.
'Masters have a core 60 to 90 cm wide. And considering the two quality upgrades their cores would go through as they leveled up from beginner to intermediate and intermediate to master, the total amount of mana they could use would be preposterous.' Zephyr thought as he observed the metal slab melt.
The metal turned bright orange, melting onto the wooden table below, burning everything nearby.
'36 cores worth of mana were needed to activate the spell. Considering the relationship between volume of core and the mana it held, a normal beginner mage would have a thousand times my core's mana stored in it. For them, 36 cores worth of mana might not be such a big deal. But for me…it is.'
A sense of powerlessness once again crept into his mind as the mana left a vacuum in his body.
So, Zephyr commanded his core to activate mana-gathering runes.
While his cores were fundamentally flawed, they still had an advantage that other cores didn't have. That was the surface area it had.
Because of the larger surface area, Zephyr could draw more runes on it, thus rapidly increasing the rate at which he absorbed mana. So, the mana he lost was refilled within a few seconds.
While absorbing the mana, Zephyr had an inkling that he was nearing the upper limit of mana gathering speed. After all, there was only so much mana in the environment. He couldn't absorb something that doesn't exist.
By the time he recovered the mana, the entire weather forecasting artifact melted into a pool of bright red metal. The table placed near the wall beside it was also turned into charcoal.
Fortunately, the top area of the tower had great ventilation. The smoke disappeared out through the window as Zephyr silently watched everything.
'Done. One destroyed.' He said before turning around to leave.
Zephyr had expected some kind of high-powered mana wave to emerge when he destroyed the artifact. But it seems like the weather forecasting artifact was not that important.
'I should move into destroying the light and rotary mechanism. Perhaps it will send a signal to the storm tower.' He thought before climbing up the stairs.
The top of the lighthouse was an open space with a large crystal lamp, a light focusing mirror, and a rotating base.
The moment he came out, he braced for the wind. As expected, the top of the tower was windy. The rainstorm was raging out of control.
Zephyr could see sparks of lightning pepper the sky.
Suddenly, he felt his heart thump.
The lightning and the sound of thunder scared him a little. While inside the tower, he didn't have to fear lightning since it was built to withstand it.
But now, standing on top of it, Zephyr felt a chill crawl up his spine. The lightning snakes crawling up the firmament once again reminded him of his mortality.
'I have to be quick.'
He said and dashed to the crystal light source.
During the daytime, the crystal light and the rotating base auto-magically powers down, staying in a phase of gathering mana. So, there were no loud sounds or intense light up there.
Zephyr walked up to the concave mirror beside the crystal light source to observe the mechanism.
He was trying to find a weak point he could exploit to destroy it.