CC 11: Thunderplump ~ Fourteen!

Two hops across the planet later, the Ritualist appeared on the ground next to the shrine in the center of Novusheim, panting for breath and pushing against his chest to physically tamp down the nausea of mana deprivation. Even with the maelstrom of sensations flooding him at the moment, he couldn't hold back the grin splitting his face. “Now that's what I call a successful expedition. Got powerful magical items, barely had to work for them, and didn't die. Power fantasy complete.”

After a few moments to allow his mana to build up, he pushed himself to his feet with a groan and started walking toward the ritual tower staging yard. Joe had been gone long enough that he knew something must’ve cracked, fallen apart, or been outright destroyed. “Make some extra towers, hook up the rituals, then I’ll go and figure out if I should use these seeds. Maybe I should pop over to the greenhouse and see if Herbie Thymebeard can figure out if they’re a trap.”

Before all else, he knew that the Town needed boosted defenses. From the moment he returned to Novusheim, the sounds of combat had been drifting through the air. Even with his recent misgivings, Joe had every intention of personally creating and deploying each tower… but that train of thought was derailed as he walked into the staging yard.

His eyes widened in disbelief as masons, enchanters, and what was clearly an engineering corps bustling around, constructing multiple towers at the same time. Some were halfway done, some were already nearing completion. As far as Joe could see, stone spires were punching through the skyline—literally through it, as the false sky was an illusion—and each was built with the exacting precision that Dwarves brought to their crafts. Bauen, the lead engineer and clearly the person in charge of this project, waved Joe over while wiping sweat off his brow.

“Ah, excellent! You’re back!” The Dwarf waved at the dozens of towers that had gone up in Joe's absence. “Congratulations, we can't expand the walls out any further at the moment, so everyone working on a project out there was re-tasked with making your life easier. All we need from you is rituals up at the top of these monster blasters, and they’ll be good to go.”

Joe nearly started dancing with glee as he realized one of his tedious tasks had been taken off his plate. “I see you've been busy! Kind of weird, but I never even considered having someone else build the towers. I… this is going to give me back so much of my day.”

“Yeah, and why should you have all the fun?” Bauen chortled as he wrapped an arm as thick as an oak tree around the Ritualist’s shoulders and pulled him along to showcase what they were doing. “These front ones are all at the Rare rank; the higher tier are at the back, behind the bunkers. Abyss, those are a beast and a half to put together.”

“Pretty resource intensive, I know. On that note, how do we have the building slots for all of these? Also, where are you getting the materials?” Joe had a pretty good idea of how many open building slots there’d been before he went on his little trip, and this… was way past what should’ve been possible.

The engineer smirked at Joe and raised an eyebrow. “I just told you. They take about a beast and a half to put together. Since these towers up front are roughly eighteen feet tall, and Penguins are twelve feet tall, you can do the math yourself. Converting the bones to a framework for stone and other material to be put in place works just fine.”

Chuckling to himself at some joke Joe didn't quite understand, Bauen continued, “As to the building slots…? Well, we’re approaching ten thousand monsters put down in the last couple of waves. Not a single one of them got to the center of Town. I tell you what, the morale bonuses have been stacking. We're going to have to be careful not to use everything that’s available to us, or we’ll be pushing into a Metropolis as soon as we finish upgrading to a City!”

The Dwarf was so proud of himself for that line of thinking that Joe didn't want to bring the mood down by articulating how terrifying that would actually be. They just didn't have the resource centers that such a large settlement would require. Their mines were shallow, food was gathered by hunters—or various people delving into the greenhouse—and all in all, their foundation was simply nowhere near sturdy enough. Frankly, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself, Joe was concerned that they may not even survive the current upgrade they were fighting for.

Still, the Ritualist felt like it was Christmas morning and someone had just handed him a bag full of time. As he walked along the towers, looking for any issues, he noticed a few glaring ones immediately. “Hey, right there, these towers are supposed to have a topper, but… did you leave it that way on purpose?”

Bauen winked at him and put a finger to his lips. “Shh, you're spoiling my surprises! Yes, we’re completing those sections separately so that we can have a bunch of buildings that are almost complete and not counting against our total building slots. That way, if you need to throw something together really fast, you can. Or, we can slap the top on and send it out right away if we need a replacement. We’re trying to maintain a consistent amount of them, just in case additional buildings draw in additional monsters.”

“Good call. I'm thinking that perhaps now isn’t the time to test that.” Joe's words pulled a rueful chuckle from the duo, and they split up. The Dwarf had to get back to supervising, and Joe could start working on his to-do list! The thought put a smile on his face, and he started toward the observatory with a spring in his step to check on his Coven.

Walking into the specialized facility was always an interesting experience. It was a combination of the liminal space of a library, and the bustling activity of a new tech startup. People were keeping their voices down but nearly constantly murmuring to each other as they tried to understand the projects they were working on. Joe's eyes roved over the area, watching as the hopefuls pointed out certain stars to people working on similar rituals to them or laid on their backs with their hands folded behind their heads, quietly searching for the patterns they needed to pick out.

He remained quiet for a few minutes, and just before he was going to call everyone over, the stars above faded as someone activated a Ritual of Glimmering in conjunction with the star pattern, filling the enclosed area with light twice as bright as the sun. Dozens of people shouted in frustration, but only one was screaming in pain.

“I know that sound.” Moving at full speed, Joe Omnivaulted over the various groups covering their eyes, aiming directly at the person screaming. He landed directly atop the Ritual of Glimmering that had dropped from their hands, feeling his Exquisite Shell resist the minor heat damage that such a bright light generated at this proximity. Realizing that he was already standing on the ritual tile, Joe simply directed his will at it and cut off the flow of mana.

The room was instantly back to its dusky state, the scream cut off, and dozens of people looked around blinking owlishly as they tried to clear the spots from their vision. Joe stared down at princess Dawnesha, his lips pursed as he tried to decide if he was angry or impressed that she’d activated the ritual. Angry, because he’d told them all not to activate any of these without permission. Impressed that she had managed to do it at all.

Then he remembered that she was a high-level cleric, along with whatever class she had been before that, and Joe settled on anger.

“I seem to recall telling everyone exactly what they should be doing. Specifically, I gave you all homework and tasks to complete, while making it clear that no one was supposed to activate these rituals. As you can see,” here he paused and waved a hand at the Dwarf, who had blood weeping from her nose, ears, and eyes, “There’s a good reason for this. Luckily for our friend here, all of the rituals I gave you were my design, and I included a kill switch in case of a situation just like this.”

He paused and took a breath, staring the princess down as he spoke. “But as you all may have noticed, I only just arrived. If I’d been even a few minutes later, the ritual would’ve completely drained her health pool, as she had invested all of her mana in it already. I’d be shocked if Luck wasn’t one of her peak characteristics.”

Feeling that he’d made his point and that she had suffered enough to learn the lesson, Joe turned away from Dawnesha and began pacing through the room. “My intent with this stargazing lesson was to get all of you Lore skills that will be heavily beneficial for your growth. Getting the Lore early allows you to grow it at a similar pace as the main skill itself, and they’ll work together to let you reach higher heights, faster. Skipping steps will kill you. Some of you humans are able to go to respawn and get back up in a few days. Others—you know who you are—will just stay dead… or become an Elf.”

At least half of the class shivered at that. “Our next lesson is going to be on controlling your mana as you invest it in the ritual, how to cut that flow of mana, and how not to blow up an incredibly rare structure if you lose control of your ritual. Lesson number one: you should not try to throw the ritual tile away from you after investing your entire mana pool and a good chunk of your health. That only makes it harder for me to intercede.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the princess wilt further. Joe decided to move on and started a lecture on the Ritualist class; attempting to get the Lore skills of everyone in the room up to an acceptable level. Over roughly half an hour, he had the aspirants show him the star patterns they’d figured out—secretly copying down their positioning while nodding along as if they were merely doing themselves a favor—and tried to answer any questions they brought to him.

Then, someone came to him with an inquiry he didn't have a ready answer for. A serious-faced Dwarf was pulling on her mustache, staring at the sky above them, and her voice came out with a near dreamy quality. “Master Joe, what’s the difference between Novice-rank star clusters and Beginner rank or higher tier? I mean, do they correspond to higher-tier rituals, and how?”

Joe went silent for a moment as he considered her words, hoping that he appeared as a wise teacher instead of a low-level tutor frantically scrambling for an answer. His eyes lit up as he realized he had a way to figure out the answer. Covering his mouth, he subvocalized, “Knowledge. Ritual Lore-”

Ritual Lore is at Journeyman zero! The spell knowledge is still in the Student ranks and cannot be used to increase it further.

“Abyss.” He could feel the mana draining out of him, so he quickly named two of his other skills so as not to waste the benefit. “Enchanting Lore. Alchemical Lore.”

Enchanting Lore has reached Student IX!

Alchemical Lore has reached Student VI!

Congratulations! Skill ‘Knowledge’ has reached Journeyman 0! As a bonus for having this skill reach the Journeyman ranks, the same skill may be selected twice for a level increase if it is under the Journeyman rank. Note: doing so replaces selecting two separate skills during that usage.

“Gah, missed it by that much.” Joe muttered to himself. Looking up slightly, he met the expectant eyes of his students and coughed into his hand. “Excellent question. Would anyone like to hazard a guess? I'm sure we all know that finding the answer on our own, without outside assistance, helps us grow slightly faster. Anyone?”

The stares turned into pondering, unfocused glances as everyone raced to think of the answer first. Though he wouldn't admit it, Joe was doing the exact same thing alongside them. This early in their interactions, he didn't want these people losing confidence in his abilities—he was a Master of Ritual Magic and the only class trainer who existed.

Finding himself able to wander without drawing eyes, Joe wiped his forehead, an unnecessary but calming gesture. “Whew. Barely dodged that bullet.”