Ruthless ~ 44!

~ 44 ~

Joe had started getting into a good routine again, and there had been no signs of an incoming attack. He and his team had managed a few more quests and test dungeon runs, and now that the curse on Alexis had been broken, team cohesion was moving slowly but surely higher. Three days had already passed, and Joe had managed to pull in another eight thousand experience, reaching level eighteen. During this time, the guild had been working to gather building materials and everything else that was needed to create a shop, and the public opinion of the Wanderer’s Guild had continued to drop steadily.

This made it harder to make purchases, of course, and slowed down many other aspects of their plan to rapidly base build. For Joe though, it had been a golden time for skill progression. He had been able to meet with the Master Enchanter early, and pushed his understanding of enchanting to Novice nine, and was just shy of being able to push into a new tier. Joe’s teacher had informed him that bottlenecks were common, and the best way to push through them was to succeed at making something at the tier you were striving for.

Joe sighed deeply as he forced himself off the floor. His last attempt had destroyed half of his Exquisite Shell, and embedded him in the wall of the salt mine where he did his practicing. There was a good chance that if he made these in the Grand Ritual Hall, he would succeed. There was an equal chance that he would damage a lot of other research that was happening, and he didn’t want to take that chance. Not when the results had continued to be so interesting.

Big_Mo was certainly running down the path of a Blood Ritualist, and Joe had no doubt that the class existed. The man seemed to be fascinated by the myriad uses of blood he found, and had even started conducting research into Ritualistic Alchemy on his own. His ritual designs were secret, to anyone except Joe, who helped him to refine them. Joe also guided them away from anything truly dark, and so the rituals tended to be more in line with buffs and healing effects.

Hannah seemed to be following the path of a Macro Ritualist, with her focus being on terrain shaping and terraforming. Joe wasn't able to offer much in the way of designing the rituals, but he was able to smooth out some errors. Taka was going the opposite route, attempting to find the smallest of things that could be changed. He had been fascinated by the ritual that made water into fire, and he seemed to be following his original plan of being a magical gunslinger. He had shared that he was planning to use rituals to densely enchant projectiles, which was the main reason that firearms were useless currently. There simply wasn't enough space on them to make enchantments that could pass through magical defense.

As for Kirby… she still wanted to be an evil overlord. Joe shook his head as he remembered her ritual design, which was supposed to be a defensive ritual that blinded people with constant light. His head was swimming right now, so he sat on the floor and remembered their conversation. “Kirby, you realize that you incorporated sections of the water conversion ritual here, right?”

“Yes!” Kirby had excitedly exclaimed. “With the refractive quality, no matter where people look, the light will be right in their face!”

“Oh, Kirby.” Joe had chuckled at her falling expression. “This is an effective, well-made ritual… which makes rainbows. Just rainbows. If it helps, they would be rainbows that you could see at night, or use to light up an area. If there are things like sporting events or concerts, this is something they would love to have. But, this is a lifestyle ritual, a tool of beautification. It is certainly not going to be effective in battle.”

“There’s no way to… I don’t know, make it into a laser?” Kirby pleaded even as Joe shook his head ‘no’, and she sighed deeply. “Next time for sure.”

That memory brought a smile to his face, and made him remember that sometimes his own failures would achieve unexpected results: like with the Ritual Draught. He hadn't been trying to make it, but he was glad he did. Joe even had a term for this sort of success: ‘Failing Upward’. Joe pulled himself out of his thoughts and stood up, salt running off of his Exquisite Shell as he did so. “Time to be like Kirby! I have a goal, and I didn't get there. Next time… I will!”

After saying his words out loud and only getting an echo in reply, Joe moved over to the smoking crater that was his previous attempt and looked at the mess as well as his notifications.

Accessing ritual ‘Featherfall’… accessed. Attempting to implement combined enchantment ‘Proximity Activation’ and ‘isFalling’… variables are outside safe parameters.

Caution! Spell instability at 127.69 percent, mitigated by 58% personal spell stability to 69.69%. Heh. Spell instability has taken hold. System recommendation: run.

Joe groaned as he looked over the notifications. From the time the first appeared to the time it had exploded was under a single second. “How the abyss am I supposed to fix a non-stable ritual if I don’t get a chance to move? I-”

He stopped and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Joe pulled up his skill sheet and read a line out loud that he had forgotten about. “However, with Ritualistic Forging, you are able to create helpful items, totems, and eventually pylons that will aid in creating a stable environment for your rituals. Of course I am able to do that. Oh look, the skill is at Novice one.”

If he had been near a chair, and not in the bottom of a salt mine, he would have given up and flopped into bed. Instead, Joe pulled out his ritual design and went over it once again. His eyes flew back and forth, and after a few minutes, he still found not a single mistake with the design. “If the design is correct, then the problem must be with the execution. It looks like I only have a thirty percent chance of making this ritual work right now… so. What can I do? Why am I talking to myself? Mate, come here please.”

His coffee elemental bubbled up and roiled around on Joe’s arm for a moment, then seemed to focus on Joe. It was hard to tell for sure, since Mate’s eyes were coffee beans, but it seemed to be starting at Joe and waiting. “Alright, Mate. I have two choices. Figure out how to increase spell stability, or get to a higher level in enchanting.”

Mate didn't speak, though Joe swore that he had heard it speak before. Still, his beans seemed to be full of admiration; not only for Joe, but also for the idea that Joe should look into forging if he were going to go after his current pursuit. Joe smiled at Mate in reply, and soon the elemental vanished once more. Joe shook his head and felt like he was waking up. “Did I figure out how to read the emotions of coffee? Is that a thing?”

He didn't set out right away, instead recreating his ritual as well as spending a half hour carving out the necessary Runes and geometric patterns necessary for the two Novice-ranked enchantments that he was trying to use in the ritual. Those were interesting to see, as they went between the ritual circles. Standard ritual circles had everything contained on the lines of the circles themselves, and in comparison… Joe thought that ritual circles combined with the enchantments just looked cooler. He was glad that he was learning and gaining new abilities, even if the time and resource cost was high.

After everything was perfect except for the spell stability, Joe started skipping out of the cave system. If anyone came across the ritual, they would likely leave it alone. If not, it would likely explode and kill them. If it didn't explode… Joe would thank them profusely. All in all, a safe bet. For him.

Joe had high hopes for his Ritualistic Forging skill, for multiple reasons. One, there were many more people that he could get to teach him. There were Expert-ranked smiths practically all over the place, especially in comparison to alchemists and enchanters. Two, he knew that there were going to be smiths that could train him within the area-of-effect of the Pathfinder’s Hall. This meant that he would be able to benefit from the increased skill gain in the area, so this should be one of his fastest-growing Ritualist skills, at least at the start.

Third and finally, Joe was highly motivated and focused. If he were able to use his subskill of Ritualistic Forging and ignore having to work on something like nails or horseshoes; all the better. Since he didn't need to focus broadly, he could aim for deep and narrow skill growth. His eyes glowed as he thought about the ritual that he had just left on the ground behind him. Joe finally had a short-term, achievable goal: he was going to stabilize that ritual to at least fifty percent within a day.