CC 11: Thunderplump ~ Twenty-Three!

With his new ritual diagram well-practiced, at least in terms of popping it open, Joe found himself itching for an opportunity to put it into play. Its battery was placed, and he’d tested it lightly by running a few strands of mana along it. Not enough to actually activate the ritual or begin its activation sequence, but just enough to test the integrity of its design. “Should work perfectly.”

Still, the steep cost of keeping the ritual active precluded him from testing it casually. Besides the standard activation cost of the spell, there was a cost per second for keeping the Planar Shift active, as there wasn’t an entity he was pulling over that could bargain on its own behalf. Joe had plenty of tasks remaining, dozens of things he wanted to do, but as much as he worried about losing himself, he truly wanted to figure out if the star cluster he had noticed recently was the one that would coincide with his Ritual of Slaughter.

“It was slightly different, so I might be wrong.” He mused to himself as he strolled back to the celestial observatory at a cozy seventy miles per hour. “Either way, I need to see if it’s something I can boost. That’d give us a great deal more firepower as a final trump card if it works.”

Before walking into the building, he cast Message and sent his thoughts to Jaxon. “Hi buddy! Are you doing anything I should come and be a part of? I remember that your rendition of a tree frozen in time is absolutely masterful, and I want to get to another matinee if they’re still going!”

The slithery, jubilant thoughts echoed in his mind as Jaxon replied near instantly. “No worries, no worries! We've put that on hiatus for the moment, as half of the cast are jockeying for position at the leading edge of the battle. I can't wait to show you what it’ll look like, especially since I know at least a dozen of them have grown tremendously in flexibility under my personal care!”

Exchanging a few more pleasantries, just to make sure that his friendships were maintained, Joe swiftly ended the conversation and reached out to each of his other party members, as well as Daniella. Each of them was fully engrossed in what they were doing but pleased that he was making an effort to be present in their lives. Feeling like he had made a great stride forward, Joe paid a messenger to come and get his attention— pull him out of the building, in other words—after a few hours.

Then he walked inside, plopped himself down, and pulled out his notebook. “Right. Knowledge, Alchemical Lore twice.”

Congratulations! Alchemical Lore has broken into the Journeyman rank!

Alchemical Lore (Journeyman 0). As a bonus for breaking into the Journeyman rank, you have gained a Tonic-rank recipe for Alchemical Solvent! Do you have a cauldron coated in leftover gunk that can't even be called a potion? Just add a spritz of solvent to have the cauldron sparkling like new! Remember, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re a precipitate!

“I guess I can sell that recipe or something?”Joe didn't even bother looking it over further. He already had a cauldron with a perfect self-cleaning function, as well as the ability to reduce any waste products to aspects, thanks to his Field Array. “Wait, no, I can use it to help boost my skill levels. Or maybe not, since it might not have any relation to Ritualistic Alchemy.”

Shaking off the annoyance of getting a not-exactly-useful reward, the Ritualist turned his eyes to the false sky above him. Holding his notes, he compared the sigil placement of the Ritual of Slaughter with the stars, finding that they simply didn't match up. “Abyss, I really thought I had it that time. It just makes sense; they emanate a subtle feeling of death and bloodlust, and there are matches, but just not enough of them.”

Scratching his head, or at least attempting to and having his fingertips bounce off of his Exquisite Shell, Joe tried to figure out what else this star cluster might represent. His quill flew across the page as he attempted to calculate the connection between the stars and the various rituals—or even just components of ritual diagrams—that he knew. As he studied the stars and worked on extrapolating data from them, his skill levels began to rapidly increase.

Celestial-Arcane Interaction Lore (Beginner VI → Beginner VII)

Celestial-Arcane Interaction Lore (Beginner VII → Beginner VIII)

Calculus and Number Theory (Student IV → Student V)

Celestial-Arcane Interaction Lore (Beginner VIII → Beginner IX)

Even though all the skill did was make itself gain skill levels faster each time it leveled up, it was still fun to see the numbers practically spin. Yet, no matter how he adjusted for what he knew about rituals, Joe couldn't figure out what else this star cluster could possibly be in alignment with. “For celestial’s sake! This has to be aligned with the Ritual of Slaughter!”

Celestial-Arcane Interaction Lore (Beginner IX → Apprentice 0)

Joe's eyes, which he hadn't even realized were squeezed shut, shot open and allowed the alternating green and purple twinkling lights of the star cluster to fill them with inspiration. “That's it! I've got it! They would align perfectly, but only if the ritual was a rank higher than it is currently! This means, if I use the other stars as reference points, I'll be able to skip nearly a quarter of the work in determining where to position them on the next circle out. Celestial Feces… I've never done a direct upgrade of a ritual before. This has to be worth some skill levels.”

His quill began twitching as he fiercely scribbled down his insights and began arranging the next layer of the ritual starting with the symbol positioning. “Now, going from Journeyman to Expert rank, what are the changes that I need to focus on? What is it that an Expert-ranked ritual has that the lower ranks don’t?”

Far too slowly, he began writing out his insights, turning the page slightly to the side when it just felt correct to do so. As his Ritual Lore skill was still in the Journeyman ranks, Joe was pushing into unknown territory by attempting to craft something he didn’t have a solid intellectual foundation on already. “Novice simply tells us what to do, then we add complexity in the form of targeting in new ways, additional effects, esoteric functionality, and all sorts of exceptions or specifics. Oh, maybe I could add that affinity of exceptions to this and see what happens? No, don't think about that right now!”

When he had completed writing out his thoughts, Joe found that he’d written them in a perfect circle. Unfortunately, a large chunk of the text remained dull and lifeless, Tatum's gift to understand written knowledge showing him that his line of reasoning was simply not correct. The Ritualist growled and started over, testing out a new line of thinking. The stars above shifted ever so slightly as he worked, and the enormous planet he was on rotated.

“It's not a force multiplier or conditional trigger. Those are simply components of the greater spell circle.” Joe tapped his quill on his chin, not noticing as a large droplet of ink ran down the outside of his Exquisite Shell and off him, spilling onto the floor with dozens of others. “It couldn't be as simple as a mana sink that’s far too low level. But… here's a thought.”

Pulling out a couple of his Expert-ranked rituals as a comparison, Joe tried to get a sense for what they were actually supposed to be doing, in terms of the ritual's functionality. Pieces started fitting together in his mind, and he slowly nodded as an idea came to him in a rush. “It's not a perfect explanation, but these circles almost seem like they’re created to pull data from the rituals current effects, analyze them, then channel it back into the ritual overall. An optimizer? Is this optimizing the performance of the ritual in real time?”

He knew he was getting close, even if that wasn’t going to be the answer for every single iteration of rituals that existed. Likely, there were many who did not care about optimization or efficiency and would instead simply use the outer ring to create even more specific effects. But, for the moment, the system seemed to think he had put together a good working knowledge during his time studying.

Ritual Lore (Journeyman 0 → Journeyman II). Pretty good! Being able to use something with ease is much different than understanding it! Impressive deduction!

“Thanks, moderator.” Joe muttered as he studied his ritual diagram, and tried to think of how he could interface his new knowledge with his spell work. “Now that I know what I'm looking for, I can start considering spell components that are specific for optimization and use the sigil placement to figure out which one would work for this specific instance.”

For the second time during his work, Joe felt a hand lightly touching his shoulder and brushed it off. “Five more minutes; I'm nearly done.”

Some quiet murmuring was ignored, and soon the presence trying to get his attention moved away. Joe continued attempting to brute force the circle generation, setting up dozens, perhaps hundreds of iterations before finding a set that seemed to come together into a cohesive whole. As he put the last line in place and began going over the new circle, he was pleased with what he saw. “I'm going to have to adjust the actual symbology there, shift the intent a bit so that it matches up with this particular ritual, but… I think I've got it?”

As he stared at the newly crafted Expert-rank ritual—which seemed to glow in the light of the stars he had positioned himself under—Joe realized he was holding a far more potent War Ritual than its predecessor could ever hope to be. If it worked.

Congratulations! You have upgraded a ritual from Journeyman to Expert rank without outside assistance! That's right, we saw you go to Grandmaster Havoc and have him boost the reward you earned back then. The Ritual of Slaughter (Student) wasn’t enough for you, huh? Well, that’s fine. In my mind, you've redeemed yourself by doing the next upgrade by yourself, and this one was a whole lot harder. In the future, you should be able to intuit what you need in order to do things like this. I look forward to seeing you figure it out without just making new, failed versions, over and over!

Ritual of Slaughter (Expert). In addition to the previous effects, the expert version allows you to add additional mana to the ritual after it has been set off. Each Additional point of mana will increase the effects of the Ritual of Slaughter by .001m, where m = a single point of mana. Each point of mana added will also extend the duration of the ritual by .25 seconds! Up to six additional power plates can be used as inputs. This ritual must be set up in conjunction with constellation clusters, or it will fail to activate properly—generating immense backlash as it flounders and lashes out in pain.

We hope you have a lot of friends with deep mana pools!

Intelligence +5!

You know what? That shouldn't have worked the way that it did. Luck +3.

“Yeah… yes, I can think of plenty of ways to make this work for me.” Joe traced one of the circles with his finger, shaking his head in wonder at the newly enhanced ritual.

There were a few other notifications that didn't make their presence known until this moment, and Joe felt his stomach sink as he read over them.

Luck is two thresholds below Strength! 1% chance to do absolutely nothing when an action should have been taken has activated! Twice!

Luck is two thresholds below Dexterity! 1% chance to fail a dexterous action has activated.

Luck is two thresholds below Perception! 1% chance to notice a truth that nobody will believe has activated! Twice! Three times!

Luck is two thresholds below Wisdom! 1% chance to make a foolish decision has activated.

Before he could take any time to do some self-reflection on what he may have missed, or what truth he’d found that would be so hard to believe, Joe found out where he had failed to do something important—a foolish decision. A Legionnaire burst into the celestial observatory, shouting for him.

Joe was on his feet at the same moment, storing away his bean bag and notes. “I'm here, I'm here! What's the issue?”

“Master Joe!” The Legionnaire sprinted toward him, shouting the entire time. “A new type of monster, a Boss Monster, arrived five waves early, along with a pack of elites of its own type. It was put down, but the damage to the walls is extensive. We need you out there repairing walls or at least providing the means to repair them.”

“Abyss!” Joe was already sprinting for the door, and the Legionnaire twisted around and matched his speed. “Five waves early? We're only thirty-five waves in, and the walls have taken enough damage that I need to get involved personally? This is going to be a long siege.”

“Uhh… what?” The confusion in the Dwarf’s voice shifted to immense annoyance as he snapped out his next words. “The walls were struck during wave forty-five, and wave forty-six just started. Have you been hiding under a rock?”