Chapter 663: Passive side
Sam immediately went back to testing. This time, he started experimenting with the metals he got from Andhera.
He noticed that the stone has an affinity to all kinds of dark elements and their variations and its greatest affinity is with the death energy.
Even though there are no metals with him that are compatible with death energy, he can still use the metals that have an affinity with dark elements and use his knowledge on formations and inscriptions to see if he can create something that could help him use this stone properly.
But before that, he has to reduce the size of the stone without affecting its properties and performance. So, Sam started using the observation technique as he started analyzing the structure of the stone.
Meanwhile, the newly made armors are distributed among the dwarves. Sam used the same principle he used with the giant crossbows and created several grooves on the armor so that it would create a basic formation and the spirit stones inside those grooves will act as nodes.
The dwarves are not good with inscriptions. They might be able to operate them, but if damaged they couldn't repair them, in this way, they would be able to repair them even after Sam was gone.
After experimenting with the stone a bit, Sam suddenly remembered something as he went to check the walls.
He clearly remembered that the wall was hit with several of those grey flame boulders and even though, they didn't penetrate through and the grey flame burned only for a short period of time on the walls, he remembered the effects of the grey flame on the rocks.
He placed his hand on the wall and started using his observation ability, he might not be able to cover the entire wall, but he only wanted to check it out partially.
The region he covered made his heart shudder though. From the other side of the wall it only looked like some cracks appeared on it, but when he checked the structure itself, he noticed that the insides of the wall are not looking good.
There are several small cracks and there is a lot of stone that turned loose sand in between. If this continued, this night will be the last night the wall stood.
He immediately ran towards the commander and asked,
"How many earth element users do we have in here?"
"Why?"
Sam explained the situation of the wall and the commander shuddered.
"We do have some, but we wouldn't be able to cover the whole wall. And even then, we would have to go outside, which is clearly disadvantageous for us."
"But we need to find a way to repair the wall now."
Sam said once again. Even though the enemies retreated, they only retreated the catapults to the extreme so that they wouldn't be in the range of the Crossbows, but the rest of the soldiers are there.
The catapults are difficult to move, but now the people. They can escape the crossbow attacks if they tried.
Even if they did a surprise attack, they wouldn't have much effect as they would become alert after the initial chaos.
If they really want to overwhelm the other party, then they have to man the walls with at least a hundred crossbows, currently, they have barely around thirty and it would take another two days to make the crossbows, but they don't even have that many materials.
Sam couldn't just give away all his materials, he has to keep some for his own purposes.
He only took out the common metals until now and he is reaching the end of his reserves, there are no reinforcements from the headquarters, no resources left at all.
All of a sudden, Sam remembered something and thought of the pile of broken armor and weapons in the forging street. When he asked the commander about them, he simply said.
"They are all the armors and weapons that are damaged severely. Most of the damage was caused by elemental energies which changed the properties of metals, they are not worth repairing, so we just dump them there.
When any artisan wants some scrap metal or shortage of metal, they will go there and try to find it."
"Just bring all the scrap metal to the walls, call for all the earth element users, metal and fire element users too. I don't care what level they are, everyone will be useful.
Ask them to come fast."
Commander immediately assembled the people, and Sam went on to check various spots on the wall. He didn't expect the plan to be like this, if not for the fact that he tested the stone, he would have ignored this problem completely.
When the users are coming one by one, Sam swiftly gave orders.
He showed various spots of the wall, where they should use their earth elemental energy and fuse the stone back and he only did that for the smaller cracks, as for the larger cracks, it would be difficult to deal with them.
Sam placed his two hands on a spot where a large crack is present and extended the crack a bit so that it would be visible to this side of the wall. After that, he picked up a broken armor piece and used his metal elemental manipulation and fire element to melt and soften the metal before making it flow inside the crack with perfect control.
He used several pieces of metal and just sent it in until the crack was completely fused.
He turned to the cultivators and said.
"I will mark larger cracks with a circle and smaller ones with a cross. All smaller cracks can be dealt with by fusing the stone in the region.
But the larger cracks should be dealt with with three elemental users. Earth, metal, and fire. Just like how I did it.
Do it fast and do it cleanly. By night, I want the whole wall to be filled. But make sure that the metal wouldn't flow out to the other side of the crack and also don't increase the crack too much. Once the wall collapses or the other side has an inkling of what you are doing, we would be done for."
Sam gave these instructions and went to the other sides of the wall to do the same.
But he felt like this wouldn't be enough, this is a temporary measure and he knew that the rest of the catapults would also be in process of unsealing tonight and the damage will increase.
He definitely needs to find a way out of this. The crossbow production has reached its limit and it would be hard for him to speed it up.
If he really wants to speed it up, all he could do was manufacture them inside the divine dimension. But he couldn't do so, because he wouldn't be able to be in time if a battle occurs and he needs to be on the spot for every twist that might happen.
He went to the fields and even the entrance of the stream in the town to see the formation and noticed that the formation is working on its limit and the death energy is so high that it is accumulating in the formation like dark smoke.
Sam shook his head and laid down another formation around it and another one around that.
Now the strain on the first formation is reduced.
While he is checking the field, Watt came to him and said.
"The work on walls is the extremely slow pace. They are trying their best, but they couldn't finish it. Most of the people there are humans and they don't have much experience, I think you would be needed there."
Sam held his forehead in frustration. He couldn't believe that he is working so hard to save someone else's home all because of the deal he made with a person he just met once.
"Just ask Philip to come over. We will try our best."
Then he went to the wall to assist and Philip also joined in.
Only half of the wall is done before the night.
"We couldn't do anything, try to block the boulders from hitting the wall. We have to work hard."
Sam said and after some thought, he continued.
"Ask the earth element users to create an earthen wall made of the soil on the outer side.
It is the basic thing. Just as them to keep the layers active as soon as they collapsed.
From the repairs we had done, it would last this night if we are careful."
Sam was exhausted from all the work he had done. After the sunset, the enemies are already moving.
Sam couldn't help but sigh. If only they had greater numbers, he would have made an attack the whole morning. They are currently weak and didn't have any proper advantage.
Even the crossbows with increased amount would only be useful as a defensive measure as the catapults will also increase.
It really is new for Sam to be on the passive side. All he would need is one good opening and he would make the whole situation turn and the war would be over before they knew it.