Implode ~ 30!

It took some doing, but Joe believed that he had managed a working version on only the second attempt. The first one wouldn't even start up—for some reason, any mana he put into it was continually removed—until he located a set of variables that would have probably fried his brain if he had managed to get it working. As soon as he had caught the error, he called over a large mass of the ritual goo, formed it into a teddy bear, and gave it a giant hug. “Thanks for not letting me short circuit my brain, Grand Ritual Hall.”

Benefit discovered!

Grand Ritual Hall (Legendary) accessible benefits.

1) Ritual stability increased by 100% per tier under Legendary.

2) All rituals Legendary tier or below may be created using materials one rank lower than required. The resulting ritual will be considered one rank lower than its design suggests.

3) NEW! When a ritual under Legendary tier is activated, the structure will be checked by the Grand Ritual Hall. If the resulting ritual would kill the activator, the ritual will be forcefully de-energized.

4) Access not granted.

5) Access not granted.

It made perfect sense to him that a Legendary building designed for Ritualists would set multiple safety features in place to keep them alive. Most likely, it had been a center of training for low-level Ritualists—or at least, that’s what Joe would have used it for. Either that, or it would have been reserved for elite Ritualists that were working to perfect their craft. “If I am reading that list correctly, the benefits are rank-dependent. If I can become a Master of Ritual Magic, I bet I’ll be able to access whatever the fourth one is.”

Tearing his loving gaze away from the incredible building, he studied the prototype and tried to decide if he should test it out, or if he should just put it away and hope for the best. The only downside to using it within the building was the loss of resources, and of course the time that he had put into creating it. If it worked, it would be much easier to replicate, cheaper in terms of time sunk into it, and he would have more confidence in the final product. There was also the hidden benefit of just grinding out as many rituals as he could manage.

Quest update: Apprentice Reductionist. 8,216/10,000 Rare aspects used! 10,000/10,000 gathered.

“If I can finish this class quest off, that’s a direct addition of five levels to any of my crafting skills. That could be huge…” Checking over his skill list revealed that most of his Ritual Magic sub-skills counted as crafting-based. “I could even bring Ritual Magic directly into the Master ranks, if I'm willing to throw away a couple of the bonus skill levels. Just getting access to the next set of benefits from this place would be worth it.”

He decided to go ahead and activate the ritual, and when it was up and running… he felt no change whatsoever. “Perfect. That means that it is not impacting me at all; now let's try it out and see what would happen if a dog were running at me.”

Quest update: Student Ritualist. 13/20.

The only problem was, quite obviously, the small truth that there was no dog here. There was only one thing to be done: he had to get down on all fours and run at the center of the ritual while barking. He waited until he was pretty sure no Dwarves would be coming into the room, and he was immediately glad that he did. The ritual registered him as a dangerous animal, due to running on at least four limbs and displaying hostile intent, the first two triggers for activating the effect. As soon as it initiated, Joe knew that it was highly unlikely that any animal would be able to function within its range.

All of his senses were enhanced to a massive degree, likely two or three thresholds above his current stats. In other words, it caused a sensory overload that his mind could barely withstand without taking damage. His nose, well… it wasn't as exactly that something in the area smelled bad, he could just distinguish every molecule of scent in the air. His eyes, while nothing had changed around him, allowed in light and colors that he couldn't see naturally. His ears registered exactly where every person was located in the building, as well as where they had been, based on the swirling air. Luckily, his sense of taste was unaffected, thanks to his Neutrality Aura keeping his mouth perfectly clean.

His sense of touch was by far the most devastating. Every inch of his skin felt like it had been exposed to third degree burns, then dipped in lemon salt. His silk clothing felt like sandpaper, but thankfully, his Codpiece of Holding did its job and protected his valuables. He forced himself to stand upright and utter a few words, which canceled the ritual's impact on his senses by letting it know he wasn’t a beast. Immediately afterward, he fell to the ground, sweating bullets and panting as though he had just run a marathon. “That sucked so bad that I am absolutely going to need six of them. No, ten.”

“What are you doing on the floor?” a Dwarf called from the doorway as he carried a large box out.

“Science!” Joe pointed at the ceiling and shouted. His arm involuntarily went limp, and he forced himself to his feet. “Magic, actually. Right; no idea how long I get to be here, so I need to use as much as I can.”

He replicated the prototype sensory overload ritual, crafting a few copies and storing them away before he was interrupted once more. This time it was Master Stu, who for some reason seemed to be the Master of the Council that had been put in charge of conversing with the human. Joe didn't really get it, because he felt that literally any other Master would have been a better fit than this grumpy representative with a penchant for sneering at humans. “We found something that requires your expertise.”

“As a Ritualist,” Joe blatantly sized up the Dwarf with his eyes, “or as a Master jumper that can reach high shelves?”

“Listen here, you little-”

Joe chuckled, holding up a hand to mark where Stu measured up to his own chest. “Clearly ‘little’ is the issue here.”

“Just get down here and get these swirling circles out of their faces.” Stu’s grumble came from deep within as he tugged on his beard in consternation. Joe followed the Dwarf at a leisurely pace down the ramp and into what appeared to be a hastily cleared storage facility. The only indication of recent use was the dust that clearly demarcated the spaces where boxes and various bits and bobs had been. Even that was whisked away as he passed by, his aura cleaning the place thoroughly.

“What are we looking at?” Joe wondered as he was led to a closed door with at least a dozen Dwarves gathered around it. They parted and motioned him toward the entryway.

“Can't get this open, and all attempts to smash through it have resulted in us getting blasted down the hallway.” Wisps of smoke were still rising from the answering Dwarf’s beard, which had clearly been recently shortened. “Figured we should ask you about it.”

The human couldn't believe what he was hearing, so gave the Dwarf a hard stare. “Are you seriously telling me that you tried to break down a door in a Legendary building? A place so magical and so intelligent that it likely held back instead of just outright killing you for the affront? Do you know you’re impossibly lucky that it chose to show such restraint, likely only because of how lonely it has been over the last few hundred years?”

“Yeah, couldn't get it open.” The Dwarf nodded along with Joe’s questions. “Anyway, tried to bust it down by hitting here, and we think the hinges-”

“Someone please tell me this guy is not in charge of cleaning this place out. Half of you are going to die otherwise.” Joe scanned the group, only getting a few shrugs in response.

“No one else wanted the job of having to touch things first.” the gradually less smoky Dwarf told Joe proudly. “That means I get to choose how we go about doing things!”

“You're a canary? No wonder people are letting you go wild in here.” The Dwarf didn't understand Joe’s reference, but he did understand when Joe simply motioned to him out of the way with a chest-deep sigh. “Let's take a look.”

He reached out to the door, and a thin bolt of static electricity zapped at his fingertips. It could easily have been misconstrued as a buildup of friction, but Joe knew that it was a warning. Pitching his voice to a comforting tone, the Ritualist began speaking to the door itself. “Hey there, little guy. I'm not going to try to smash you open. Sorry about that mean old Dwarf.”

“Hey!”

“Silence from the peanut gallery, please,” Joe called over his shoulder without looking. “Anyway, can you tell me what conditions are needed so you can be opened?”

He waited out a momentary pause, until eventually he felt something looking at him. There were no eyes carved into the door, so he wasn't sure how it was doing that. It had to be something to do with the mana stored within the door itself. A moment later, a Ritual Circle appeared on the surface of the door, and Joe stumbled back and away, falling to his rear and crab-walking as rapidly as possible to get distance between himself and the iron-banded barrier. “Feces!”

“See, I told you he wouldn't be able to help.” The canary, as Joe had taken to thinking of him, grabbed a door-breaching iron and held it back as though he were about to attack the barrier again. Joe Omnivaulted from his half-standing position, tackling the man and sending them both tumbling. “Oy! Are you out of your mind, bro?”

“Are you out of yours? Where are the Masters? Stu! Get over here!” Joe bellowed into the open air. “You need to get some people in here that are trained to handle dangerous artifacts, or your team is going to kill us all!”

“Listen, just because you are the teacher's pet right now, you don't get to talk to us like that.” Stu stalked into the room, his posture indicating that he was ready to go on the attack. “If you think I'm going to be allowing myself to be talked to like a child, you have another thing coming.”

“Oh, I guess that's fine then.” Joe stood upright, brushed himself off and pretended like he was going to leave the room. “Before I go, just for kicks and giggles, how about you take a look at what's on that door over there. The one that they are trying to smash open?”

Out of fury more than any intent to do what he had been asked, the Master Dwarf barreled over and took a look at the door he had asked Joe to open for them. He hadn't inspected it himself previously and had only been assigned to get the human because he was passing through to the main area. The blood drained from his face at the sight of the seven-circle ritual that was etched on the otherwise plain door, parts of it fading in and out of reality as he watched. “Black-hearted abyssal Elven trogladonkeys! You were trying to smash this door open?”

“Well, yeah. That human was no help at all.” The Dwarf that Joe had tackled brushed himself off—obviously offended that no one had come to his aid—and picked up his personal battering ram. “So anyway, I'm going to go ahead and-”

“Get out of here.” Stu’s eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets, and even as Joe watched, one of the capillaries burst and created a pool of blood in the sclera. “Using such a crude method in a place like this? Do you think this is some kind of Trash-ranked slum?”

As the entire team left the building, grumbling amongst themselves, Stu eventually shook off his angst and turned to Joe. “What do you think this is?”

“I literally can't even tell what that circle, or that circle, does.” Joe shook his head and waved his hands in a surrendering motion. “All I know is that the first two circles check your identity, the third circle attempts to warn off anyone who does not pass the check, the fourth circle I believe just outright kills anyone who tries to get in without the proper credentials, and I can make a very good guess about the fifth Expert-rank circle… but I couldn't tell you for certain.”

“I'm betting it has something to do with killing them even harder than the last one?”

A grin flashed across Joe's face. “Took the words right out of my mouth. I think the difference is in the scale of the event it would create. If the first person was killed off and someone else was still trying to breach it, I'm pretty sure it’s programmed to fill the entire area with Expert-ranked death of some kind. Could be poison, could just cause brain aneurysms for anyone in range. Either way, it’s not something I want to test out for myself.”

“This is most likely just a protected area,” Stu muttered to himself as he used his hands to try and gauge the antechamber. “It couldn't be the Master of the building’s seat of power; it's too close to the entrance. That has to be behind at least a few more layers of security.”

Joe didn't have any comment on that, knowing that he wouldn't be much help in finding the most secret areas of this structure until he was at least a Grandmaster. Now knowing that there were rooms that would hold on to their secrets until he was strong enough to find them for himself, the human decided to go back to his experiments.

“Someday, I'm going to be able to walk through that door like it isn't even there,” He promised himself before getting down on all fours and running at a new version of his sensory overload ritual to see if it was more effective than the last.

To his great excitement and pain: it was.