Earth Escape Art

Having come up with the idea of merging into the earth, Arnold began testing it.

For the initial trials, he naturally chose soft ground. After all, if he used rock, the density of Earth Elements would be far greater than in ordinary soil, which would greatly affect the experiment.

He experimented for an entire week, yet it was utterly useless. Arnold was on the verge of tears. For that whole week, he stood on soft ground, creating magic incantations and using his spiritual power to attune himself to the earth-element magic within the ground. It still did not work. Finally, somewhere in the Black Forest, Arnold hardened his heart. A deep pit nearly two meters deep and less than half a meter wide suddenly appeared in the ground.

Arnold actually jumped straight into the pit, then used his improved Earthshaking Art to loosen the soil and gather the earth-element magic between the layers of earth into the pit. Before long, he looked as though he had been buried alive, with only his head left outside.

Was Arnold not afraid that Magical Beasts from elsewhere in the Black Forest might wander over and bite his head off? Of course not. Before digging the pit, Arnold had cast a self-created third-level wind spell over the area—Wind Force Field.

Normally, even while sleeping, a mage could sense the tremors of the earth and the rhythm of the wind. But merging with earth-element magic required focused spiritual power. This was different from the relaxed state of sleep, and that was precisely what the Wind Force Field was for. The Wind Force Field was essentially a fixed version of the third-level spell Wind of Detection. Within its range, it formed a unique force field, somewhat like a Gravity Spell, though it had little effect on the substances within the casting range. Its sole purpose was to let Arnold immediately sense the moment a Magical Beast or anything similar entered the Wind Force Field.

For three days straight, Arnold even slept as if he had been buried alive. Still, though he made some progress, he always fell just short. Gritting his teeth again, Arnold buried even his head beneath the ground. The top of his head was a full meter below the surface.

His entire body was submerged in the soil. Naturally, Arnold also cast a small spell on himself—Earth Shield—covering himself within the earth and forming a sphere. From the outside, the ground where Arnold was looked perfectly flat. Only Arnold knew that the soil above his head had been specially treated, leaving tiny gaps for him to draw in air so that he would not suffocate to death.

At first, inspiration did not immediately strike Arnold, but he was patient enough to wait.

At night, with his heart completely at peace, Arnold closed his eyes and began meditating one meter beneath the ground.

With his entire body inside the earth, even the normally clear flow of wind-element magic became extremely obscure. Yet the flow of earth-element magic within the soil made Arnold feel as if he had returned to his parents' embrace.

After a long while, it became deep night, and the surface was pitch-black.

At that moment, a Silverfang Wolf with luminous fur quietly moved through the forest in the distance. Having entered the hundred-meter range of the Wind Force Field, it was immediately detected by Arnold. But when he saw that it was only a Silverfang Wolf, he ignored it.

Silverfang Wolves were third-level, earth-element Magical Beasts. They were wolves that gleamed silver under the moonlight. Their appearance was quite beautiful, but their temperament was exceptionally savage.

Arnold continued sensing the flow of Earth Elements, immersed in that atmosphere. He seemed to forget time, yet also seemed to have fallen asleep. When Arnold awoke again, he thought to himself, Earth Law is truly wondrous. Whenever I come up with a new idea, it seems I can always make it happen somehow. This time, I've gained inspiration for merging into the ground as well.

Thus, he began researching magic incantations directly within the earth, intending to achieve the effect of moving through the soil.

Inside the Earth Shield one meter beneath the ground, Arnold first cast an ordinary fifth-level Earth Guardian Sacred Armor on himself, then silently recited an incantation. Arnold seemed to become a gust of wind as he vanished directly from within the Earth Shield. In the next instant, he appeared ten meters ahead of it.

The Earth Shield required an earth-element mage to continuously supply it with magical power. The moment Arnold left, the shield glowing with an earthy yellow light immediately collapsed. The pile of soil above it had originally been pressing down on the shield, so once it vanished, the soil naturally fell.

Arnold had succeeded in moving while merged with the earth. However, the effect was not as impressive as he had imagined, so he kept refining it. That was how the strange incident encountered by that herb-gathering villager came about.

Arnold named this method of merging with the earth to move quickly the Earth Escape Art. Since its purpose was movement, it counted as a support-type spell. Arnold could not even be bothered to assign it a level, because the Earth Escape Art consumed very little magical power.

After another full week of research, Arnold found that when he used the Earth Escape Art at full power, it was far faster than buffing himself with the wind-element support spell, Extreme.

Arnold could now walk with half his body exposed aboveground and the other half remaining within the earth. Or he could travel with his entire body underground, though he still could not directly merge into Earth Elements themselves.

However, with his experience of merging into the earth, the process of merging into Earth Elements became much faster as well. After another week, Arnold could use the Earth Escape Art to move directly through the ground, and it was faster than the support spell Extreme. Still, the Earth Escape Art and Extreme each had their own strengths. At this stage, the Earth Escape Art still required a magic incantation, while Extreme, as a support spell, did not. In that respect, Extreme was superior to the Earth Escape Art.

However, the Earth Escape Art had another major benefit. When Arnold used it to travel, he merged with Earth Elements and constantly sensed the flow of the earth. His heart drew closer to nature than ever before, and the increase in spiritual power was far greater than what he gained through meditation.

Since this method of merging one's body with earth-element magic was so convenient for travel, could it also be used for attack?

This was Arnold's bad habit. Having absorbed all the memories of a young man from Earth, his breadth of knowledge was simply too vast, and wild ideas constantly popped into his mind.

However, before Arnold had even had a week to research this new idea, he was interrupted by a team sent by the Radiant Church to investigate the undead.

Arnold could not be bothered to interact with them, so he simply avoided them and left the Black Forest. He casually found a small mountain range and went straight inside to continue his research. Such small mountain ranges generally did not contain any high-level Magical Beasts, and researching magic there would not be disturbed.

The key to the Earth Escape Art was merging with Earth Elements, making one seem like a part of the earth-element magic itself. That made walking or running incredibly fast. If he wanted to use merging with Earth Elements for attack, then he needed to incorporate that speed into his attacks.

Arnold now felt that mages had one drawback. Every time he came up with an idea and wanted to put it into practice, he had to create a magic incantation. Warriors were different. Assuming a warrior had great comprehension and devised some ultimate move, they only needed to use battle qi to execute its core principle directly or apply it to their weapon.