My Wife and I Became Sages in Another World
Chapter 231: The Illusive Road

Chapter 231: The Illusive Road

After Melina and I left Nessa and Rika at End Town, we returned to the academy, where I told her about my plans for the next three days.

I wanted to build a road that crossed the Illusive Forest and connect the Sephyr Kingdom and the Droman Empire by land.

Reinar and Jen had slightly improved the effects of the red vine that gave individuals immunity to the illusions. However, it still only lasted for six hours and couldn’t be ingested again for 24 hours.

Nonetheless, I thought that we had plenty of time to build a big chunk of it.

Vespera was also going to help, so I devised a plan where the three of us drink the potions at different intervals of time. That way, there was always someone working on the road.

Seeing that we still had a few hours of daytime left, we made our way to the border to begin the construction.

When we got there, we met the knights of the 7th order, as it was their guarding spot, and told them about our plans to build the road.

They expressed their concerns about us going into the Illusive Forest, but when I showed them our new potions, they relaxed a bit.

Commander Valentina, ever worried, said she would come with us to protect our surroundings, and while I wanted to decline since it wasn’t really needed, I went with her wishes.

It was a knight’s job to protect the royal family, and she seemed resolved, so telling her to stay at that point would have just been rude.

The strategy was simple:

I would drink the potion first and start the construction of the road while the rest flew up high in the air and watched me from above.

They needed to travel far to ensure the illusions could not reach them, and after a few hours, someone else would drink the potion and join me.

Eventually, once the potion effect ran out, it would be my turn to fly up and watch until everyone had their turn.

Surprisingly, we built a pretty big chunk on our first day and decided to spend the night at the border with the knights.

After three days had passed of us diligently working on the road, we managed to complete it and connect it to the dirt road that led to the city of Vivint, the town on the border of the empire.

However, it still wasn’t safe to use since illusions could still trap people who traveled on the stone road, but we had completed an important step.

My plan was to use the same red vines that had the effect of illusion immunity to create some sort of artifact that we could place along the road.

That way, as long as travelers didn’t stray from the stone path, they wouldn’t suffer from the forest’s antics.

Now that our three days of break from the academy were over, I decided that the creation of the artifact would be a night-time project for me.

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At the academy, all of the students who competed in the tournament had become quite the celebrities, getting approached by people from all classes asking them for advice in their magic casting.

Lessons resumed as usual, and my schedule got filled up for the rest of the year. Still, I kept working on the anti-illusion artifact during the nights and meeting with Devon from time to time to make sure that everything was flowing smoothly.

One night, I broke through my research and ended up creating the first prototype that I thought would keep the road in the forest safe from intrusion.

I made it using earth magic to create a knee-height stone and sturdy column with a hole at the tip, where I placed the red vines with different enchantments.

One enchantment was to hold it in place using gravity magic. That way, the vines wouldn’t get swayed by the wind or something.

The other one was a protection spell to make the column even sturdier so that it wouldn’t get knocked down by a carriage or a beast.

The last one was a new enchantment I developed during the creation of the artifact, and I called it an "enhancer" since it widened the radius of the vine’s effects.

Basically, its immunity effect would cover a larger area than the small spots they protected in their natural state.

Of course, I had to test it out, so I teleported to the Illusive Forest one night with the artifact in hand and walked along the road for a bit until I was somewhat deep inside.

There, I placed the artifact on the ground next to the road and sat beside it, waiting for a few minutes as I prepared to leave the area if needed.

However, after twenty minutes of sitting in the dark next to the artifact with absolutely nothing happening, I concluded that it was working and returned to the academy with a smile on my face.

Seeing that having a bit of light to illuminate the road would come in handy, I added a fourth enchantment to the artifact.

’Now, all I have to do is make a thousand of them and place them all along the road...’ I thought, realizing the arduous task it would be.

Melina would’ve definitely helped me if I asked her, but she was in her last semester at the academy, and I didn’t want to add another task on top of her workload.

Vespera, on the other hand, started helping me the very next night in making more of the artifacts, which I ended up naming "anti-illusion totems."

As time went by, the academy year drew closer to its end, and I crafted around 500 anti-illusion totems with Vespera.

One night, however, our work was interrupted by Gina, who came to my room to ask if I had anything planned for Melina’s birthday.

At first, I didn’t know what she meant since we could do pretty much anything she wanted during her birthday, and it was still months away.

"Ichiro, it’s her 18th birthday. That means she will be making her official debut into noble society..." Gina explained.

"I suppose you are planning on being her partner for the ball, correct?" the battle-maid continued.

Then, I realized what she was trying to tell me as a debut in a noble society meant that she would start receiving marriage proposals from all over the world, which annoyed me quite a bit.