If there was one thing Griswold knew to be true, it was that not moving forward was the same as moving backwards, which at times caused him to go through strange moments of self reflection and forceful training exercises. And today was really no different. With how things had ended up in the pursuit for Aamon, and how useless he had been in spite of being the strongest of the black bulls at the time, aside from obviously the captain, he had been locked in what seemed like a constant state of anger. Where everyone had managed to make themselves useful to some degree, whether it was by protecting the group, fighting the enemy or playing along the route of subtlety, all he had really managed to do had been to take a very destructive blast of mana that leveled part of the battle tower with little more than a scratch and some singed clothes. For him, that had been a reason to go far harder on his drive towards self improvement.

For as far as he had managed to push himself in recent months, there were still some things he had not managed to pull off with his magic, though there was a very solid reason for that. This being the fact that he had simply never tried to do the kind of stuff he had seen some others do once or twice. But when he thought about it, the amount of people that actually utilized trap magic to his knowledge was exactly zero. Maybe he had never seen it be used by them, or maybe they simply never showed it, though as far as he knew, there wasn’t a single person he knew that had ever tried to pull someone or something they had been fighting into a trap of sorts. Whether it was simply not worth the time and effort to put into the actual training process because the use of traps was about as fickle as a blade of grass or because there were other reasons for it thus far remained to be seen.

Understanding the basics behind placing a trap, as it had been something he had done many times before he had even been able to use mana or magic to begin with, the idea was to find a place where the target would either move through willingly, or would be forced to go through by making clever use of the terrain. That, and forcing someone back through the use of heavy artillery and force them to move right into it while trying to back away was also a solid way to set off a trap. So as he stood in the wasteland that was once a lush green field between the diamond and clover countries, with little to nothing left to break that had not already been broken by the war, Griswold took a knee as he began to focus his mana into the ground. Making sure to pick a spot that was only barely beneath the surface, a magic circle formed flat across the soil to show that something was indeed happening.

When it came to using mana purely for the sake of destroying other things and people, Griswold knew a thing or two. With his solar magic, he always needed to be careful not to blow things up or set things on fire, as it was incredibly easy to start a wildfire while fighting in a forest, but it was not nearly as easy to put it back out after it had started. So as he formed the magic circle and let his mana flow into the soil, he could sense how the specific spot he had chosen was growing stronger and a lot more volatile, which was exactly the point. However, it needed to remain hidden too, or no one was going to ever get anywhere near it, and that much was a fact. So as soon as it had reached a point where getting within its proximity would cause a conflagration of sorts, he released his hand from the trampled soil and stood upright. For as far as he was concerned, the first stage of setting things up had been completed.

Pondering on how best to trigger it, he imagined applying some level of force would likely be enough to handle that portion. Looking around for something that might do the trick, he found plenty of small rocks and pebbles, though those would need be enough. He needed something that was at least roughly the weight of a human being or larger, or would at the very least be able to mimic such a level of impact if he threw it with enough force to trigger the trap. Coming across a fairly sizeable boulder, he bent through his knees and picked it up with both hands. For the average human being, that was not something they would ever be able to do without rigorous training or by using some kind of physical reinforcement magic. But as someone who had gone through the latter, mixed with a decent beating every once in a while, it wasn’t something he could not physically pull off without a hitch.

And so, as he held it over his head and tossed it with a bit of a curve to build additional momentum, the boulder landed, followed instantly by a loud roar as a burst of cosmic magic rose up from the soil like a pillar of solar light and fire. Towering a fair bit higher than he had initially anticipated, it proved once again how destructive this magic was, and that restraint was something that should always be practiced. After a short hail of dirt, clumps of grass and pebbles, once the dust had settled, nothing remained of the boulder he had used to trigger the magic circle. While that was by itself enough to prove that the use of traps could be very useful, the issue was in which situations it would be best utilized, seeing as how none of the enemies he usually fought would just walk into a predesignated spot and get blown to smithereens. No, that part still needed a lot of work.

[End]