Once everyone had had a turn with the Blazeball Bat, they moved on to more pertinent matters: how to get out of Watford safely.

John's Mana Sense was constantly running just in case, keeping track of monster movements around them as best he could. Every heartbeat sent out an omnidirectional pulse of magical energy that travelled for miles at this point, and each minute blip it returned helped him form a mental map of where monsters were in relation to his current position.

They were active right now. Just in his range alone, he felt a dozen waves rushing over the town, and he was sure there were more out there, beyond his Spell's radius.

He fancied his chances against any of them at this point. With Draconic Wings giving him manoeuvrability and Draconic Inferno granting him devastating power, a full wave of monsters had already proved unable to meet his match.

Problem was, it wasn't just him. He could fly over them no problem, and he could take them on without breaking a sweat.

But the others couldn't. Not yet, anyway.

It wasn't an insurmountable problem by any means, but there was some minor contention over how to approach it.

"Can't we find a way to avoid them entirely?" Chester put forth, wide eyes flicking to John with a twinkle of hope in them. They were all back in the shed, sitting in a circle of green camping chairs Chester had found stashed among the rubbish.

"We could," John said with a shallow nod, somewhat reluctantly. He laced his fingers beneath his chin and surveyed the group from behind his round sunglasses.

Doug was lounging in his chair, his height making it look like a child's, even though it was part of an identical set. "If we time it right, we can sneak past. They'll chase us, of course, like you saw before when I was with Alissa and Sam and the two kiddos. But if we could escape that then, we could easily do it now."

Lily was leaning forward, elbows resting on her knees, fingers steepled in front of her lips. Her gaze strayed to Jade, and she spoke tentatively, "Seems a bit risky."

If Jade noticed Lily's concern, she didn't show it. Instead, her attention was on John, giving him a small smirk. "That's alright. I'm sure John can match anything they throw at us."

+1000 Aura

He had to hold back a sigh, telling himself she was just trying to help. Couldn't turn his nose up at 1000 Aura.

Unfortunately, an escape of that nature didn't exactly suit his purposes. The group was set on the idea of getting out of Watford, and they were currently placating him with the idea that they weren't going to completely abandon the place to get him to go along with it.

He wasn't stupid. He knew how these kinds of things went. It was easy to put off something you didn't want to do until later, telling yourself you were definitely going to get around to it once you'd built up the necessary physical or mental energy to handle the task, only for another excuse to pop up when later came. Repeat ad nauseam.

He'd done it a million times himself, if admittedly in situations with much lower stakes.

The point was this: the desire to put a task off until later grew in proportion to how hard the task was. If they had to go through some tense, nervy escape to get themselves out of Watford, returning would only look like a more daunting prospect in their minds.

Hell, it didn't even have to be a tense escape. Just the bullshit they'd been through already in this forsaken place would be enough to send their reluctance through the roof. Grim memories would still hang over them, even if their sneak escape went off without a hitch. There was even an obvious way to do it: use Shadow Stream to cover them all, then lead them out.

But John was determined to come back, and he found that he didn't want to split from these people, this team. Not completely. They were… Too useful. Being around them brought too much benefit to give up now.

So he had to change their minds on Watford. Show them that what they'd been through here wasn't anything to worry about anymore.

For that, the sneaky approach just wasn't going to cut it.

"I have a better idea," he said slowly, slowly panning his gaze across them. Even though they were sitting in a circle, he kind of felt like he was on one side, and the rest of them were on the other.

Doug arched an eyebrow. "Yeah? What's that, kid?"

"We bypass the monsters entirely." He nodded to himself, resolute with his plan. "We fly over."

There was a moment of silence. It was Jade who broke it, saying slowly, "John. The rest of us aren't as awesome as you. We can't fly."

+1000 Aura

John winced slightly before he could catch it, then activated Biomancy to ensure there were no further mishaps. He thought that directly calling him awesome and puttiing the rest of them down like that was laying it on a little thick, but evidently the Aura system disagreed.

He summoned the Blazeball Bat and held it up. "You can't fly yet."

The silence stretched longer this time. They were all staring at him, showing a range of expressions. Doug was rubbing his chin, eyes narrowed. Lily was staring at him with wide eyes. Jade had leaned back in her chair, and her wry smile had turned into one that looked a little more genuine, if brittle.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"How is a bat that shoots fireballs gonna make us fly?" Chester muttered.

"Not the bat itself," John said. "It's… symbolic. Remember when we first met, and I threw Fireballs around a lot?"

Lily's eyes went even wider. "Is it the same Spell in the bat?"

John nodded.

Doug's eyes narrowed even further. "You can insert any Spell in your repertoire into any object?"

John nodded again. "As far as I can tell, yeah. All the Spells that have ever been available on my lists can be imbued into weapons, clothes, objects, you name it. None of the combined ones, but I dunno if that's a good or bad thing."

"And I could use your bat, even though I don't have a System anymore. Which means we can use some of your Spells," Jade mused. "Aye. We won't be as incredible as you, like, but it'll definitely be useful."

+1000 Aura

Chester was faintly trembling. "So… Like those wings of yours…"

"That's the general idea," John confirmed. "We've already confirmed that you can just fly over the monster waves, and they won't come after you. I can make some gear for you that'll let us bypass the monsters without having to fuck around with sneaking."

And when we're up there, John thought, I'll show you what else I can do now when I don't hold back, and Watford won't seem so scary anymore.

They all seemed amenable to the idea, though Doug was giving him a funny look throughout the rest of their little planning session. The tantalising prospect of flying combined with the idea of avoiding danger entirely got everyone on board pretty quickly.

There were still some logistics to work out, though. He didn't have unlimited Aura, he didn't have unlimited reagents, and not all of his abilities were equal in terms of flight.

Dragon Wings was the easiest, but the price started at 16,000 Aura, and it would double each time it was used as an Enchantment. If he outfitted all four of them with an item imbued with Dragon Wings, it would cost over 200k. He had that much Aura, but he had reason to keep some back for himself, and even if he hadn't, he would've been reluctant to spend all that when there were other options available.

In the end, after some discussion with the others where he laid out the flight possibilities, they settled on:

A hoodie imbued with Dragon Wings which went to Jade, reasoning that she had to be the priority in her current state. She'd get some other enchanted stuff too, including the Blazeball Bat, just in case. The hoodie registered in his Inventory as the Wyrm Windbreaker, and gained a scaly quality, like the fabric was meant to look like snakeskin. When she used it, the wings grew from the hoodie rather than her back, but it as just as intuitive to use as a Spell.

Chester got a second use of Dragon Wings added to his hockey armour, because it seemed prudent to give the guy who could drag enemy aggression towards him the most intuitive flight ability. It'd give him an easier time of playing keep away with himself as bait. He didn't like that framing of it much, preferring the idea that he could avoid danger easier. The System called it the Dragon Defender.

A combination of Geomancy and Levitate Object went into a ring Doug produced, giving it the name Stonelord's Ring. Geomancy's ability to lift stone platforms off the ground was a bit tricky at first, but some testing confirmed that Levitate Object made it much easier. He couldn't move fast, but it was stable.

John also unlocked Levitate Object for himself after seeing that.

Last but not least was Lily, and hers was a bit experimental. Reasoning that their Spells typically didn't harm their user directly, they picked up a clay bird decoration from the garden, and added a Spell to it that John hadn't actually tried for himself yet. He was curious how this would manifest.

The Flame Falcon erupted to life in a blaze of fire the moment he confirmed the Enchantment. It formed a remarkably accurate and stunningly beautiful rendition of a falcon in the colours of fire, darker red for its wings, with hints of yellow and orange for its body, and an iridescent white for its fiery eyes. It was big too, with a wingspan about three metres wide, which was a relief, since he hadn't known whether it would be the size of an actual falcon.

The fiery bird would listen only to the person who held the clay bird, now named the Fire Falcon Idol. It had morphed into the form of a falcon in miniature with its wings spread and beak open wide, eyes glowing like embers. By the same token, its fire was only safe for its master, making them immune to its scorching heat.

Most importantly, it was big enough and strong enough to ride on, though it was much slower than those who had access to Dragon Wings. It was still considerably faster than Doug's ring, so it didn't matter much.

He was briefly suspicious about that, despite himself. Was it paranoia to wonder whether there was a thumb on the scales, assuring that his Flame Falcon idea was viable?

Everyone loved their new abilities, to put it mildly. Quite apart from the joy of being able to fly, these were powers that were completely removed from their Systems. There was no torment to using them, no dredging up of personal demons that the users would prefer stay buried. It seemed incredibly freeing, to John.

And while they were all distracted with their new power, John delved into his menus, going straight for Spells.

A few seconds later:

-128000 Aura

They set off soon after that, deciding not to waste time. The meeting points they'd agreed with Alissa before were located to the west of Watford, and they headed that way. Their progress was slow, as Doug couldn't get his platform up to a speed much faster than a light jog without jeopardising his stability, but no one seemed to mind.

It was liberating, moving as the crow flies, unimpeded. None of the monsters far below had the ability to bother them, up here.

Even John, who knew he could often be oblivious to the emotions of others, could see how much weight that lifted off his comrades' minds. Their shoulders loosened, their expressions lost some of the tension that had constantly kept their eyes tight. For the first time since the apocalypse started, they were free of that constant worry of monster attacks hanging over them, at least ostensibly.

Of course, they weren't naive enough to completely relax. There was no telling what curveballs the monsters could throw at you in this mad new world.

That made John feel a little better about shattering the brief bit of peace a couple of minutes into their flight. He saw a wave of monsters flooding by below them, and decided this was a good opportunity to find out what a Level 9 Spell looked like.

Spells never told him what they were going to do until he used them. All he got was a name, and the instinctive knowledge of their activation sequence. Because of that, even choosing them was sometimes an ordeal.

For once, the choice had been fairly easy. Most of the names had been somewhat opaque, as usual, leaving him to speculate about what they might do.

But there had been one that he didn't need to guess. It was straightforward. A name for a concept that existed in science, pure and simple and easy.

So John lifted his hand, fingers splayed, and took aim at the wave of monsters as the new knowledge that had been injected into his brain directed him. Then he closed his hand into a fist, and the world screamed.

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