CC5 ~ 46!

~ 46 ~

The first issue that Joe ran into was reworking the ritual itself. Just because he had an idea, didn’t mean that he could flawlessly put it into practice. The ritual he finally came up with was only at the Beginner rank, because it had to be. After being robbed blind, Joe was down to a single Synthetic Common Core, and he had only found that after desperately searching through his ring.

Only being able to use a two-ring ritual limited his options greatly, and it also forced him to tear out anything that wasn’t going to be producing the effect he needed. That meant limiters, variables that kept Joe safe, and most of all… control. This ritual had been boiled down to two effects: drain heat, and condense heat in a specified direction. If something went wrong, there was a good chance that Joe was going to either freeze or flash-boil just after activation.

Those risks meant that he needed to eliminate all of the physical impediments to success as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The place where he drew the ritual needed to be perfectly flat, and as similar of a substance as possible. First, he cast Acid Spray onto the obsidian, but that did nothing except make that area dangerous to sit on. The obsidian didn’t react at all… which made sense. Kind of. It was magical acid, and it worked on armor and metals… so why not this?

Instead, he set up a Field Array and reduced the glass-like stone in a set pattern, making a perfect square with the sharpest edges he had ever seen on anything. Joe took out a paper and set it lightly on the edge of the square; half of it lay flat, the other half slid down the small incline and burst into flame. “That’ll work.”

Next up was inscribing the actual ritual circle, and here, Joe finally hesitated. There were only two functions, but he did have some special aspects. He decided to prepare the circles with the aspects, both to test them and hopefully give the ritual the oomph that it needed. Placing his hand back into the Field Array after adding the ‘Molten’ aspects—no jar yet—he created a pure white Common inscription tool, which swirled a reddish brown as the new aspect was added.

Then he made a dark grey Damaged tool, which only became darker as he poured in ‘Zombified’ aspects. Gear prepared and ready, Joe began the process of actually forming the ritual circle; starting with the inner circle, the ‘drain heat’ portion. On this one, he used the Zombified inscriber and rapidly drew out the circle. Luckily, he was drawing with aspects, not ink, as ink would have spread across the perfectly smooth surface no matter what he did to prevent it.

The outer ring, designed to send the heat directionally away as a cylinder, was composed with the Molten aspects. Joe set the Synthetic Core in the center of the ritual and started inputting mana. It didn’t take much; one person was more than enough to power such a ‘weak’ ritual. His part done, the Reductionist stood back and watched as the strangely glowing ritual began performing its function. The room was filling faster now, much faster, and he realized that the magma must have eaten away a large chunk of the wall. If this didn’t work, there wouldn’t be a second chance.

Reductionist class experience gained: 50

Joe barely noticed the grey shadow expanding from the central ritual circle out of the corner of his eye, and he only dodged away from it out of base instinct. It wasn’t attacking him, per se, but everywhere it touched took on a ‘preserved’ look. The stone itself lost its shine, and Joe started running out of room on the small island that his hill had become. There was another not too far away, so he jumped across the open space and quickly turned to watch what was happening.

Grey light reached ruddy heat, and a *hiss* sounded loud enough through the cavern that Joe was worried a cave-in might occur. Where the light touched, hardened stone was left behind. Still, it was up against magma on one side. The flash-frozen composite shattered, sending shards of super-sharp obsidian and hardened metals scattering through the area. Joe twirled in place, dropping to the ground and trying to shelter in the lee of the hill he was on. Constant elemental effects had created a deathtrap that he was uncertain he could withstand; flying flechettes and deep freeze in one spot, bubbling magma in the other.

At least he knew that he could survive in the magma for a few minutes, but the ritual? Joe wasn’t sure, and it was still expanding. Though… slower? There was only so much heat it could take in at any given time, Joe supposed. Another interesting phenomena was happening as well: a cool breeze was being generated from the ritual area, but the superheated air in the rest of the cavern was naturally trying to rectify the balance. He was nearly blown off his small hill as wind started surging in the cavern in the form of small tornados.

Then the second portion of the ritual seemed to reach a threshold. Joe had expected the heat to be distributed in a nice, constant stream. Instead, it rose to critical mass and sent a beam of heat against the far wall as what could only be described as a barrel-width cylinder of plasma. Thunder rang through the enclosed space, so loud that his Exquisite Shell took damage, and his Neutrality Aura had to work on repairing his ears.

Joe’s head was rocked against the hill, dazing him. He thought it was over, but instead, the cold zone began expanding faster so that it could provide enough heat for the second stage of the ritual to activate again. More shards of stone, metal, and quartz flew into the air, hissing as they cut into the magma or pinging as they ricocheted off the solid surfaces. The wind began to pick up again, and he covered his ears when he realized that this was exactly what had happened just before the plasma beam had last fired.

*Zzzap-Booom*!

The concentrated heat of thousands of gallons of magma struck the wall after racing along the molten tunnel it had carved previously. Joe settled in to wait for the next repetition, but was instead yanked off his hill as the pressurized contents of the room were blasted into the new tunnel that had breached into open air.

His body slammed into the sides of the tunnel as he was dragged along. He, gasses, and magma were whipping along the hole, and the human was sent careening into the open air at hundreds of miles per hour. Joe broke the sound barrier, which was the only thing allowing him to survive the small volcanic eruption he’d just caused. He leveled out into an arc, managing to look back to watch the volcano. The inane thought of ‘it really does look like a shoe’ crossed his mind.

He wasn’t entirely certain how fast he was moving, but his eyes locked on a disturbance just in time to see a line of plasma tear through the debris. His parabolic descent dropped him below it, yet even so, the heat dispersed into the area would have cooked him if his shield hadn’t been resistant to elemental effects. After all the commotion, his Exquisite Shell was dangerously close to breaking yet again.

The ground was coming up fast, and Joe’s enhanced perception allowed him to see the shocked looks from all the Dwarves he was sailing over. He only had one thought before he hit the ground and was sent to respawn.

“Made it.”

Luck +2. You’ve made some wild choices. I love it.

You have died! Calculating… you have lost 31,200 experience!

Joe opened his eyes and was met with a clean white room and a beanbag chair. “Never thought I’d be happy just to get sent to my respawn room. Now… let’s take a look at the damage. Status.”

Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Reductionist

Profession I: Arcanologist (Max)

Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist (1/20)

Profession III: None

Character Level: 18 Exp: 188,179 Exp to next level: 1,821

Rituarchitect Level: 10 Exp: 45,000 Exp debt: 9,600

Reductionist Level: 0 Exp: 876 Exp to next level: 124

Hit Points: 0/1,642

Mana: 0/3,173

Mana regen: 45.37/sec

Stamina: 0/1,381

Stamina regen: 6.39/sec

Characteristic: Raw score

Strength: 133

Dexterity: 133

Constitution: 129

Intelligence: 138

Wisdom: 119

Dark Charisma: 80

Perception: 123

Luck: 62

Karmic Luck: -4

Joe almost gagged as he saw that he had been tossed down to level eighteen. “That hurts, Eterium. I feel like I should get a break? That was a pretty wild escapade… wait, I got a luck boost there at the end. Fair enough.”

At that point, the only thing he wanted to do was take a nap. He had been awake for… he didn’t rightly know how long, actually. Did his tiny deaths count as sleep? Did it help his mental state at all? Certainly didn’t feel like it. He hit the bean bag chair and was unconscious in moments.

He awoke to a portal humming cheerfully right next to him, and Joe scrambled to his feet. There was an invasion coming, and he needed to warn the Dwarves that the enemy was basically hiding behind the curtains in their living room.