It took all night and most of the next day to get through everyone, but in the end, all of the younger Witches showed potential, and some of the most talented could already activate their swords.
Like amulets, the power of the spell was determined by the inscriptions, not the activation, so it was just as good as having their trained Witches perform the service.
They couldn’t keep it active long due to low reserves, but that would come with practice or storage amulets.
Storage amulets they could make easily enough if someone had amulet blanks to carve or tools to etch metal precisely.
Hundreds of them would be a pain, but they would be as good or better than any mainline defence unit if they managed it.
With that in mind, Wolfe went looking for Priya. They had reinforcements only a few hours away, so they might have materials or an idea for making materials to create a load of storage amulets.
“Lieutenant, how was today’s patrol?” He asked when he finally found the slender, dark-skinned commander.
“Quiet, but not too quiet, if you know what I mean. The next scout team will be back soon, and they ran into a group of monstrous beasts, but nothing major.
What did you need today?”
“If we had amulet blanks, I could make mana storage amulets for a lot of the soldiers who can channel spells already so that they could keep up their own weapon enchantments.
Even if we start with the archers, it would help a lot, I think. But I don’t have nearly enough tokens. I only planned for my group.”
Priya laughed and took a coin from her pocket. It was a small copper coin, flat on one side, with a Coven symbol and five credits on the other side.
“We still use coins for this reason. If you make a stamp, you can transfer the circle in an instant. What reagents do you need?”
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“Demon blood and silver metallic paint, assuming I am the one making them. Kindly keep that to yourself, though. I’m not a blood bank.” Wolfe explained.
“No problem. Nobody wants to anger a Demon enough that they break their restrictions. I’ll see if one of the others has the stamp made. It’s a fairly common one.”
Wolfe smiled at the leader of the Sylvan Witches. “Then I’ll be in the bunker. The others from my group will come out to heal the squad when they return, if necessary. They’re getting good with the healing wands.”
Priya returned a few minutes later with a bag full of coins and a small jar of paint, plus a clean stamp that could be filled from the top, letting the paint coat the rubber between every use.
“We had to take up a collection since nobody had a thousand credits on them, but we’ve got enough for everyone. Can you fill them this much? It should be enough to keep their weapons active for an hour.” Priya asked, holding out a nearly empty token.
“Yeah, that is easy.” Wolfe agreed. It was a single percent of his mana, so it would take him longer to stamp the coins than to refill the loss.
Priya sat down across from Wolfe and began setting the coins out, blank side up, on the table while Wolfe infused the paint with his own blood, then shook the jar to mix it.
Priya looked at him strangely, then at the jar, and Wolfe realized his mistake.
“We didn’t need nearly that much paint, did we?”
“No, but we can use it again for other amulets since you’ve mixed it. It would be good for makeshift magical weapons as well, and weapons get broken all the time.”
“It can do armour amulets without extra reagents as well.” Wolfe agreed.
“You’re like the perfect support force for a Witch army. No wonder the old military tactics books refer to ‘bringing along a demon’ so often.”
Wolfe decided not to answer and began stamping coins, then filling them with two percent of his mana pool, a buffer in case of a drawn-out battle.
“Will you be alright? You’re still a student, and there are a lot of coins.” She asked when she saw how much he was adding.
“I’ll take a short break halfway through, but this much will make a much better reserve and create less of a time constraint on their attacks.” Wolfe shrugged, then poked Stephanie to wake her up so she would pull mana for him to use.
The duo worked in silence while the bag of coins slowly emptied. They kept it up right up until the leader of the returning patrol came in to make her report.
“Conspiring with demons, leader?” She asked with a smile as she entered.
“Better believe it. Grab coins from the pile over there for your unit. They’re properly dried and coated so that you can give one to each team member.” The Lieutenant replied, painting another amulet with clear nail polish to protect the circle, a trick she learned in military Witch training.
“You’re too good to us. I’ll get the girls working on their aura again as soon as they’re healed. We didn’t lose anyone, but the beasts didn’t go down easily. Only one group this patrol.”
With her report finished and the storage amulet coins in hand, she left the room and sent in another team leader to gather coins.
Wolfe’s Witches came back in exhausted and collapsed on the bed in the corner together, not even bothering to remove their armour spells.
“The damage was pretty bad, but everyone will be ready to go again for their next shift. Those four are young but talented.” A Witch from Priya’s patrol whispered through the door, then returned to her duties.
“That’s your doing, isn’t it? I can feel their aura grow every time you meditate. It’s a crazy growth rate like nothing I’ve seen.” Priya commented.
“The benefit of the power-sharing bond is that I can feed them all power at the same time, even if they’re asleep. So they grow constantly, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to make them strong enough to defend themselves if we survive the winter.”
Priya chuckled. They were stronger than anyone on her team. What they needed was knowledge, not power.
She had given them a military spell book to learn from, but nothing had gotten close to the camp in the last few days to see how they were doing with the new spells.
Ideally, they could all learn at least a spell every other day, but there were dozens of essential spells to learn, as well as the combat skills that they hadn’t begun training since they were sent out of the Academy so early.
Priya had already sent messages back to her Coven to find out what was going on in Morgana, but so far, there hadn’t been any response, only that they were ‘looking into it.’
That wasn’t the answer she wanted, but a mere Lieutenant had no authority to force an answer out of anyone in the intelligence department, and if there weren’t a Monster Tide going on right now, they likely wouldn’t even pry into another Coven’s business.