Mathew was confused why he had a Ritual as a new spell he gained, but he then remembered a part of his [Rituals] skill.

Rituals | Apprentice 6

Gain the ability to copy, create, read, and understand rituals. Copying a ritual has a tiny chance to add it to your list of known spells.

Utility: All Utility based rituals require half the mana requirement. Gain Base Knowledge on modifying rituals

Call Aid: You intransitively learn the Ritual ‘Call Aid’. Call Aid - You send out a query for help across the spirit realm. If a spirit heeds your call, it might appear to help. Spirits will adapt and appear to fit the current environment. However, it is not bound to your cause and can leave at any moment.

He had always had a chance of adding a Ritual to a skill. The odds of it being a newly created ritual of his own making were…astronomically tiny. He finished his sandwich as he selected the ‘Instant Ritual’ rank-up choice for his [Mana Text] skill.

The Spell Glyph was almost useless for him. Most of his spells were summons. He had three spells he could put on a Glyph, but what was the point of doing that? Being able to have essentially an additional magical effect he could trigger instantly was far more valuable to him.

Doubly so since he can create rituals. All he would need to do is create a ritual that fits an upcoming situation and have it prepared. The added bonus of not needing a mana core was just an extra benefit for him.

“Mathew, what is this ritual? I can barely decipher it.” Cherry commented as she continued to study the ritual.

“Here, let me point out the parts to you.” Mathew walked over and pointed at the weaving lines surrounding the ritual. “Firstly, I started to layer the mana, increasing the durability of the boundaries which allowed me to put more into the ritual to make it work. Then I had this realization that I don’t need to have everything always connect. I can just write in the connections between the different shapes.”

Mathew pointed to two different shapes, one that looked like a crescent moon, the other that looked like an eye. “These two, look at the extra bit of markings near the edges, now compare the markings.”

Cherry leaned forward to look, “They…look the same. What does that have to do with anything.”

“When you write laws, you reference other laws or amendments to the laws. So, I just did the same thing. Referenced the different parts of the ritual within the ritual. It gave me more space to add more, and it should in theory allow the ritual to flow mana better. With this, I can identify anything weird going on with me.”

Cherry blinked, “That’s fascinating. Well, let’s try it out! See if we can discover what Doozkora did to you.”

Mathew nodded and transcribed the ritual to the marble slab. An extra part of this ritual he now felt much more confident about thanks to the spell version was that he had to sit in the middle of the ritual since he was the focus of it.

Cherry activated the ritual, and The Workshop fueled the mana required for the Apprentice ranked ritual. A deep hum could be heard as mana drained from the building.

Small pinpricks were felt all over Mathew’s body. The ritual scanned over his body, identifying each part of him. The pinprick feeling elevated to a sharper feeling. Like a cat claws pressing into his body, but all over. Mathew grew slightly concerned as the Ritual kept going, but said nothing and remained still.

As the ritual kept scanning, the pain slowly increased. The first breaking point was when it felt like he was being stabbed. He grunted, and Cherry noticed it. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Mathew half grunted, focusing on not moving. He had no idea what would happen if he tried to stop the ritual. His understanding didn’t go that far. Fear of worse damage if he tried to stop the ritual now outweighs the unpleasant pain.

The pain exploded after another moment. His entire being, Body, Mind, and Soul were being targeted by the Ritual. He could feel it. It was a searing pain, and he yelled out because of it.

Cherry gasped in shock and tried to stick her hand out to grab Mathew, but her hand started to smoke as the pain was too much for her weak body. “Mathew!” She called out. Her eyes darted around looking for something to pull him out.

The entire building shook as mana continued to flow into the ritual. Cherry put her hands just outside of the ritual to try and feel something to stop the ritual. But, nothing like it existed. “Mat! Just leave the ritual! Get out of there!” Mathew’s screams drowned out her words.

Ragnork lept up the stairs and look around. Cherry looked at him, pleading with her eyes for him to try and help Mathew. The stone giant took two steps and thrust his arm into the ritual. His stone jaw clenched as he grabbed Mathew by the back of his robes and yanked him out of the ritual.

Mathew’s entire body was smoking, yet he visibly looked fine. The ritual was still going, however, and Ragnork pulled out a giant blue stone hammer from nowhere. “Look away!” he shouted and he raised the hammer above his head.

Cherry raised her arms to protect herself and Ragnork smashed the marble slab into chunks. The ritual, no longer whole, slowly fizzled out.

Heavy breathing filled the air as the room dimmed into darkness. Only two blue wisps lit the room. Both of them hover over Mathew as if looking down at him in concern.

“What the hell happened,” Ragnork asked.

“I-I don’t know. He made a new ritual, and he used it on himself. It was just supposed to identify if something was wrong with him that’s all!”

Ragnork looked over at where the ritual was. A lone blue screen hovered in the air where the ritual was. He walked over to it and look at it. The stone giant’s eyes widened, “This…” He glanced over at Mathew. “What are you.”

Cherry put her hands on Mathew, her pink healing magic working to fix him.

“He will be fine. The kid chose to not put a limiter on the ritual. It would work until it found everything that wasn’t natural with his body. It strained him as the ritual scanned every small detail about him. What was he after to risk himself that badly?”

Cherry didn’t stop healing him, “There is something someone marked him with. He wanted to figure out what it was.”

Ragnork shook his head, “There are better ways, the idiot. Granted, they are expensive and not available to him currently.” He looked up at the ceiling. He idly scratched his face in thought. “Give him an hour to recover. Tell him to be more careful next time for me. I need to do damage control for this building. All the mana was drained out, and I doubt it will be working for a day or two until it recovers.”

“The ritual used that much mana?” Cherry asked. “It was Apprentice ranked he said. There is no way it could have been used that much.

“You are still young, even for a child of a God. There is more to rituals than ranks and power. If you leave a machine turned on, it will still drain power. A novice ritual, if not properly created, can drain the mana out of a God tiered mana core. It will probably never happen in the lives of any being, but it can happen.”

The stone giant walked downstairs. Cherry just held Mathew’s head and idly thought things over. “You can’t push yourself this much. You are going to get yourself killed. You are too important to do this.” She said to no one.

Cherry looked up, “Mother, please. Don’t let Mathew die. Don’t let me let him die. He’s the only person to treat me as an equal. He lets me be who I want to be, not who you wanted me to be. He taught me Rituals! He asks for my opinion on things. He lets me do what I want to do so, nothing else. He pushes for everyone to be their best. Even that annoying Imp is treated equally. I can’t let someone like this leave my life. He’s a good friend. Please, Gaia, don’t let me fail him.”

Her prayer ended in silence, as she waited for Mathew to wake up. The blue screen in the middle of the room flickered with nobody noticing, from blue to red, back to blue. The text changed ever so slightly.

Ritual of Know Thy Self Results

Body Anonomlies:

Mana Drained - Mana from the body is fully depleted (Temporary)

Bloodline Chains of Dawn - B---d---- Lim--e- -y An---to-

Mind Anonomlies:

Fate Marked - Your fate is outside of your control

Soul Anonomlies:

Shattered Soul - Soul is shattered into dozens of pieces. (Permanent)

Ritual of The Whole - A ritual to fuse linked beings together into one whole. Gain power greater than the sum of two wholes.

T-t-e--- -o-- - W---y & ---s

Linked Soul - Agnox

Tethered Soul - Cherry

Linked Soul - I-----

A few days travel on foot away from Blue Oaks sat the large renamed city of Clarks Kingdom. The unity of three safe zones all ruled by a single man. He tapped the arm of his throne as he waited for a report to finish.

“Lastly, your excellency, it’s safe to assume Blue Oaks is still looking for us. Out own scouts were discovered, but not followed.”

The man on the throne grumbled in annoyance, “Blasted niece couldn’t get that Dungeon for us. When do you think they will find us? I want us prepared for a possible attack. We must protect those who live in my Kingdom.”

“It’s assumed in two or three days we will be found. At most two weeks after that we will be found. Blue Oaks was a military base. Several ex-military hope to just talk to them and resolve any possible conflict before it happens”

“Nonsense!” He slammed a fist down on the arm of his throne. “I want them eliminated and their zones taken for the Kingdom! The System granted me this power, and we need to utilize it! Prepare for war.”

“But, your excellency, people don’t want to fight. They just want to go back to the old ways.”

The man rolled his eyes, “Leave that to me. They killed my niece, they are barbaric monsters.”

“Actually, our own scouts who infiltrated Blue Oaks say they want to put you on trial. How do you plan to spin that into barbaric acts?”

The man on the throne leaned forward, and his eyes glowed, “As I said. Leave that to me.”

The reporter slowly nodded, “Of course….your excellency.” He bowed deeply and turned around to walk out of the faux throneroom.

“If they want to put me on trial. They will have to fight through not only humans but my new friends as well.” The man snapped his fingers, and three figures clad in black clothing materialized in a kneeling position. “Your Highness, what are your demands.”

“I seek council with your leader. Let him know we must prepare for battle.”

The figures saluted, their clawed hands resting over their shoulders as if hugging themselves, “Of course, we will inform him at once.” All three figures disappeared.

Far away from Blue Oaks, on top of a mountain sat a food-starved woman. Her hair was matted and filled with dirt. Her body was covered in sweat, blood, and other bodily fluids. Her eyes were closed as she sat in a lotus position.

Day and night continued to cycle around her. She does not move. An internal struggle between two sides rages on. The moon’s phases slowly shift until the moon ends where it first began.

Her eyes open, both silver in color like the moon. They close once more until the sun was at its highest peak. Her eyes opened once more, golden like the sun. She smiles, for the first time in a month aware of her body, and slowly moves it. A month's worth of fatigue slowly went away as her body moved. Joints popped and cracked as tendons stretched. “About time.”

The woman stood and stretched. She winced as her eyes flickered between silver, gold, and her normal brown eye color. “Alright alright. Shut up, I hear you both fine. I’m going. God, can’t let me take a moment to stretch can you?”

She picked up the large sword that was laying on the ground next to her and started to hike down the mountain. She was halfway down when her eyes flashed gold and she lept off the mountain toward the ground.

The golden eyes flickered back to brown, “Fuck! Hey, no! None of that. I’m only Level 25, My endurance is only…” She opened up her menu and paused. “Okay, I take that back. Maybe I can jump off mountains now…”

Name: Susan Henderson

Race: Human (Sun) [Apprentice]

Class: Dual Edge (Sun)

Profession: Commander

Level: 25

Universal Currency: 87,411

Titles: Battle Hardened - Phase 1, Big 100, Classy, Dungeoneer VI, Forerunner, Solo Delver I, Soloist, Survivor II, Twinned Class, World Quest Group - 7th Place

Axioms:

Glint of Heaviness [Beginner], Glint of Luminescence [Novice], Glint of Shimmer [Novice], Glint of Speed [Apprentice]

Strength:

525

Vitality:

156

Dexterity:

220

Endurance:

492

Intelligence:

450

Wisdom:

189

Unallotted Stat Points: 0

Her eyes flashed to silver, and she took off at a sprint toward Blue Oaks. Her body looked different, from its muscular large shape to a slender form, the sword changing as well from the giant blade to a slender rapier.