Untapped ~ Chapter Eleven!

“I found it, but it's…” Joe looked up from where he’d settled in to wait, blinking rapidly as he pulled himself out of the depths of studying the Ritual Combat Manual. Master Darling was walking toward him with an enormous tome, a pensive expression writ large on her face. “It's even more difficult than I remembered. The first page outlines what needs to happen, and… it's considered an ‘extreme’ difficulty profession.”

Joe immediately felt his mouth watering at the idea of getting access to the book. Swallowing hard, he licked his lips and made a small inquiry, unable to peel his eyes from the leather-bound cover. “If it's so difficult… the rewards must be pretty great on the other side?”

“Yes, in theory.” Without further ado, she dropped the heavy book into his hands and stepped back, already able to see he wasn't about to give up on it. “Just read the synopsis, it'll explain better than my fumbling attempts. Look, I need to go gather a crew to break a curse; I'll talk to you another time?”

“Sure, sure…” Joe distractedly agreed, already pulling open the cover and letting his eyes rove across the page.

To the aspiring Enchanter, the inquisitive mind, but truly and explicitly for the worthy Scholar.

It is with the deepest reverence for the profession of Enchanting that this tome has been compiled. This work is not for the common Enchanter, those out in the world creating trivial trinkets and shaming the good name of real Enchanters, but for those who seek to be true Masters of the art of enchantment.

If you have found this profession guide in hopes of gaining a simple, foolproof method to inscribe magic on bands of metal to create the magical equivalent of mood rings, using all the elegance of a hammer on glass, I suggest you close this book immediately and walk away. This path is not one of convenience, nor should it be defiled by those who seek efficiency over understanding.

No, the Arcane Enchanting Theorist’s profession is for those who wish to question the intricate why behind every unit of mana, every rune, every shimmering sigil sunk into the fabric of reality. Those who throw themselves into the craft expecting results without knowledge, power without wisdom, are doomed to create nothing but baubles bound to turn on their user at the worst possible moment.

“I bet whoever wrote this was just a joy to be around at parties,” Joe murmured as he skimmed over the rest of the forward. “Let's see, strip away comforting crutches… see enchantments as they truly are…. sacred pursuit… transcend the need for mere technique? That sounds promising, at least. Ah, finally the end. ‘Written by the Sage of Theoretical Enchantment, the Bane of Mediocrity’. Well, I suppose he, at least, had the credentials to act like this.”

Flipping to the next page, Joe finally found both the requirements and rewards of taking and completing the profession.

The Arcane Enchanting Theorist’s profession is a unique upgradable foundational profession focusing on deep, theoretical understanding of enchantments rather than their direct application. Unlike traditional enchanting, which relies on refining craft through trial and error, the Arcane Enchanting Theorist seeks to unravel the fundamental principles behind enchantment before ever touching an inscription tool. So strict is this requirement that the profession itself will not bind to anyone who has first gone out and created an enchantment without applying their knowledge to indirectly do so before accepting this profession.

Once this profession is taken, any attempts to directly enchant items will be severely hindered. Until this profession is level capped, the speed of enchanting any objects will be decreased by 99.9%. However, those who can endure the grueling process and complete the profession are rewarded with profound insights, generating a uniquely tailored enchanting skill forming at the Expert rank upon using this profession as a prerequisite to accept another profession. 

Effects: This profession doubles the gain of levels for the Enchanting Lore skill. Each level of the profession will grant bonuses to identifying flaws, instabilities, and inefficiencies in enchantments.

Requirements to complete the profession: 1) Achieve the Expert rank in Enchanting Lore without directly inscribing any enchanted items. 2) Indirectly create an enchanted item using your theoretical understanding of enchanting.

Once the requirements have been completed, this profession will automatically reach the maximum level and be upgradable. 

Would you like to attempt to bind to this profession? Yes / No. 

“Abyss, it made the system egotistic by proximity.” Joe tried not to laugh as he accepted the prompt, hoping the plan he was thinking of would pay off. 

Congratulations! You are now an Arcane Enchanting Theorist (Level 0).

Requirements to reach level 5 (max). Reach level Expert zero in ‘Enchanting Lore’, 0/1. Create an Enchanted item using theory instead of directly enchanting it. 1/1.

Hey… wait-

Joe protocol activated. Elevating issue.

Dude. Why? Fine, checking to see why this profession works for you when it should have absolutely bounced off. You think I don’t see that shirt you enchanted on Jotunheim? How did that not count against you? Checking… oh. I found why the profession accepted you even without having to make an exception. Well, have a good day. 

“Hey!” Now it was Joe's turn to shout at the system, and luckily, it seemed whoever was messaging him was only having fun with him.

Fine, fine. First, you're lucky it did work, or there would have been a nasty backlash as the profession rejected you. Secondly, it only cares about the first enchantment you make. Read ‘without applying their knowledge to indirectly do so before accepting this profession’. Well, the first enchantment you ever made was a Mana Battery all the way back in the salt mines on Midgard, where you inscribed an enchantment in a Mana Core using a ritual and theoretical knowledge of enchanting. Wasn't even your own theoretical knowledge, but that wasn't part of the requirements. Happy now? The Sage of Theoretical Enchantment isn’t rolling in his grave, he's actively spinning.

“Well, if that was enough to reanimate his dusty corpse, just wait until the next part.” Joe flexed his mana, trying to lock down the ambient mana in the area around him. “Knowledge: Enchanting Lore, Calculus and Number Theory!”

Two thousand mana flooded into his mind, swirling and condensing along different parts of his brain and creating knowledge out of nothing but sheer power and skill usage. 

Skill increase: Enchanting Lore (Journeyman V → Journeyman VII).

Skill increase: Calculus and Number Theory (Journeyman IV → Journeyman VI).

Skill increase: Knowledge (Journeyman V → Journeyman VI).

Profession level up! Ritualistic Numerologist Novitiate (0 → 1). Your understanding of numbers begins to override your flawed mortal perception. When viewing a ritual circle, you are able to innately understand where its mathematical structure deviates from its idealized form. Effect: 1) Minor automatic correction of mathematics to account for ambient mana fluctuations. 2) The world is no longer people and places, it is an ever-changing equation. You are no longer able to look at a poorly drawn ritual circle without feeling physical discomfort. 

“Perfect.” Joe all but purred, ignoring the flashing notification of some administrator somewhere reminding him ‘this is how people earn curses’, and focusing on the one telling him he had gained one point in Luck. “Going to get both of these professions maxed out in no time flat.”

It could’ve been his imagination, but the bald man could have sworn he heard a dusty groan from somewhere in the distance. Another groan echoed the first, though this one was far more present and immediate.

*Wamble.* His stomach whined at him piteously, making Joe realize he hadn’t eaten in… far longer than he expected, especially if there was some sort of time mishap while he was crossing on the bifrost. Having accomplished his short-term goals of filling his professions, he hopped off the balcony and bounced off the stairwells until he reached the base of the tower. 

“Pardon me, where can I get breakfast?” 

Joe offered a bright smile to the young man he landed in front of, getting a long, shocked stare, until he finally sputtered out a reply, “Down the hall, third door on the left. Basic breakfast is a small round of cheddar, but if you are at the fifth threshold or higher, I recommend spending a large wedge, else the meal won't supply you with enough energy.”

“Right. Cheese.” Joe blinked while shaking his head in continued disbelief at the world's currency. “Thanks, kid! I've got a pretty solid sponsorship going, so-”

“Sponsors don't cover basic food items.” The young man's words caused Joe to freeze mid-turn, then he glanced back at the Ritualist wearing gloves with Student circles etched in them. “It covers a bunch of things, even the room you live in, but not food.”

“Mine is supposed to cover meals, though?” Joe took a step closer to the cafeteria.

The look of confusion on the youth’s face didn’t inspire hope. “Oh. Never heard of that before; I’m sure you have a signed waiver.”

“I’ll… work on that. I guess I need some way to earn some cheddar?”

“Hah! Don't we all.”

Frowning slightly, Joe watched the man wander off even as he started contemplating his options. Looking at his status sheet, with his two shiny new professions, he made his decision. “Not really all that much to learn until I can bump both of these skills up to the Expert rank… that's a few days at least, so I suppose I might as well go and get some practice with ritual combat.”

Preparing himself for mental discomfort, Joe pulled some mana together as a packet. “Message, Heartpiercer McShootypants. Hi, Heartpiercer! I'm heading back to Midgard for a while to practice what they’re teaching me here. Want to come with, or are you all set here for a while?”

Nearly half a minute later, the return spell delivered her answer. ←<< I appreciate the invitation, but I'm staying put. My Tower Master is giving me direct instruction, and it's too good to pass up. Gained a quest to bring in as many Mythic cores as possible; they’re doing what they can to make that happen. >>→

Joe held shaking fingers to his ears, expecting them to come away dripping with blood as the message finally ended. “Abyss, every word felt like an arrow directly into my eardrums. She must have gotten a whole lot stronger since the last time we talked like this. From now on, she's getting messages on paper.”

Another message, this time to Socar, gave him a similar response. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Joe began the process of channeling his ‘Beam to Bifrost’ spell. “A good start to this new world… made some friends, got some benefits. At this point, it just makes more sense to leave the world entirely than it does to scrub the excitement of a new recruit out of their eyes by going around begging for food.”

The ten seconds of channeling completed, and Joe found himself enveloped in a thin sheen of crackling energy which perfectly matched the movement pattern of the bifrost itself. An instant later, the wall of the Tower of Rituals was in front of him—then he was through it, and zipping along the surface of the world nearly as fast as thought. The bifrost loomed large in his vision, then he hit it and shifted from moving parallel to the world to blasting up and away from it before he even recognized what was happening. 

Part of his distraction was due to how he was trying to process the enormous cadre of warriors that surrounded the bifrost, facing outward in an attempt to stop anyone from Vanaheim from getting on the rainbow bridge between worlds without permission. He took a few moments to move past the discomfort he felt at their actions then simply shrugged and relaxed into the embrace of the energetic field he was flowing through.

The world of Vanaheim rapidly shrank into the distance behind him, its cloud-piercing towers quickly becoming tiny needles poking from a deflating ball. From his current vantage point, he could see a handful of worlds spread out through the star system. Each of the realms connected to the bifrost had clear continents, weather patterns, and an energy about them which just seemed to scream life. Yet, each time he managed a glimpse at one of the worlds not yet linked, they simply hung in the void, covered in shadows, unreadable, their nature kept hidden even to his secret-sniffing senses.

Seconds sped past, and minutes turned into hours before his destination finally came into focus. Joe let out a soft breath as he approached the world he’d been exiled from so long ago. “Midgard… I’m finally coming back.”

He hit the outer atmo-flat of the planet—as only round worlds had atmo-spheres—and had an exceedingly strange experience. In an instant, he moved from moving as fast as thought to having the wind blowing at him with manageable force. Halfway to the ground, he passed through another zone in the air that slowed him down, but this time, he was moving slow enough to see a spinning field of energy along the outer edge of the bifrost. As soon as he moved through it, his speed cut in half again, until he was merely falling as if he had hopped off a set of stairs.

A few dozen feet from the ground, a third slowing effect washed over him, and the remainder of the fall happened at a crawl. Joe glanced around with great interest as the bottom of his feet finally touched down. “Where’d this drop me? I would’ve thought it would exit in Ardania.”

All around him was forest: old growth trees with boulders left behind in a manner that suggested glaciers had once carved through the area and left them there, ripped out of the ground and scattered out of place. 

“Hello? Anyone around?” The words echoed back to him, accompanied by a soft breeze that ruffled his robes. “No one here, either? This is so bizarre. Why wouldn't they at least have someone here to keep an eye on new arrivals?”

Joe took a single step and immediately had his answer as he hurtled along the plane.

A shockwave erupted from where his ankle thundered, having split the air with a deep, guttural *boom!* Trees thrice as thick as his torso bent as if caught in a hurricane. Leaves and dirt blasted outward, followed by the enormous boulders and chunks of stone as his foot touched down and cratered the ground below him. 

Light warped around him, a chaotic shimmer of power forcing the atmosphere around him to burst into flame from the enormous friction he’d generated, only to have a massive gout of water splash over him as a storm manifested in the air above his location. Dark clouds rolled through the sky at an unnatural speed, originating directly above him and sending lightning snapping across the sky in jagged arcs. 

“Oops.”

Then came the world's retaliation, as the system took notice of his position on the planet and reversed the worst of the effects as though someone had hit rewind on an old-style movie. Joe barely had time to process what had happened before he was thrown back to where he had first arrived, and an enormous pressure clamped down on him, his eyes forced open to read the system notification blazing in his field of vision.

Warning! The world of Midgard is capped at the peak of tier 4 for anyone coming from a higher world, with only one Characteristic being allowed above this benchmark for those who have never left. Limit your Characteristics to 150—at maximum—across the board, immediately. Failure to comply will mark you as a raid boss on this zone, triggering takedown quests against you. Continued failure to comply may result in being recognized as a world-level threat, with commensurate rewards being granted for your destruction.

“Raid boss?” Joe murmured with annoyance as he reread the notification, “You've got to be kidding me.”

Above him, the storm seemed to grow angry at his lack of immediate compliance. The lightning took on a red hue, tinged with gold and *crackling* at the edges with a deep darkness. 

Moving as slowly as he could, Joe began reaching toward his codpiece, and spoke in a soft, soothing tone. “Just give me a second here. I need to equip my gear so I don't accidentally break things again. Look at me complying so hard. I love not being exiled from this planet. I certainly don't need adventurers getting emergency quests, guilds mobilizing to hunt me down, or the kingdom sending its elites after me.”

A moment later, he was holding the awful accessory and trying to think of any reason not to put on the terrifying piece of gear, anything he could do to avoid to subjecting himself to himself to the immense suppression of everything that came with allowing the needles to pierce his skin and the enchanted rituals to suppress his mind and body. He glanced upward once more to take in the furious roiling in the clouds above him, accidentally moving too fast and causing a few more trees to snap in half from the motion of his chin jerking up.

“Just an accident, I'm working on it!” Joe muttered in a panic as he slipped the accessory under his robes, pressing it against his chest and firmly pressing the back down so the main portion could rest directly against his solar plexus. He heard a sharp *click*, and thin strands of metal began spreading across his torso, looping around and linking as a harness. Then the remainder of the accessory began to *click and whir* as it unfolded at high speed. The majority of its metal components shifted along the strands and aligned themselves with his spine.

Cold metal trailed down his sides and along his legs, as though a mouse had run into his sleeve and was trying to find an exit. Though it was an uncomfortable image, a moment later, Joe wished it could’ve been the truth. The metal strands circled around his knees, then his ankles, then bands began tightening around each of his joints, pulling his hips into alignment, forcing his spine straight, gripping his shoulders, elbows, wrist, and neck. There was a hair's breadth of time where Joe thought it was all over, then the micro needles slid into his skin, hundreds of them at the same time, each injecting the tiniest amount of fluid subcutaneously.

Taking a deep breath, Joe did his best to ignore the immense discomfort, gritting his teeth as the suppressive rituals activated, enhancing the effects of the alchemical compound and forcing his stats downward. His muscles contracted, his strength drained, and his previously lightning-fast thoughts felt suddenly sluggish. Letting out a low moan, he sank to the ground as if falling through thick syrup. The only upside to all this was how the storm above him calmed, and the crimson, threatening notification flaring in his vision flickered and changed. 

You have equipped a restriction accessory. Scanning… all stats forcibly capped at 150. Adjusting world compatibility… welcome back to Midgard, Joe! 

“Okay, I take it back,” he grunted as he forced himself to his feet and began moving around to get used to his now greatly lowered stats. “That was way more of a welcoming party than I ever wanted to have.”