By the time it was noon, I was heading home and had spent an additional 40 coppers at the general store on a few things that I thought could help me with my ritual. Opening my front door, I stepped inside and placed what I had bought on the kitchen table. I couldn't find what I needed exactly, but I guessed that with a lot of trial and error, I could figure something out.
Taking out the notebook that Servose gave me, I turned the pages and flipped through rituals. 'I don't think it would be a good idea to use an obscurity ritual in the middle of town.' I mused, picturing the commotion of a house suddenly vanishing from the surroundings. But then, I saw the perfect ritual, a shield ritual.
"A ritual that surrounds the circle in a forcefield that prevents physical and magical objects from passing through. However, each impact will greatly reduce the casters' mana reserves." So says the page.
As the notebook says, it creates a forcefield and by looking at the diagram, it had a mana reservoir, so it can hold its own mana. The only problem was, I was planning on making an array instead of a single circle, but I had no idea how to do that.
So, for a while, I needed to do some magic research and that was the reason why I bought some parchment and a pencil.
'To begin with, I need to figure out a way to connect magic circles with each other.' I began by reading through the breakdown of glyphs that were written in the notebook.
Glyphs wasn't an actual language you could use to communicate with, but it followed most of the same trends. Each glyph represents a concept and the sequence you place them in changes the outcome. So, you never want to add a glyph that contradicts the one that comes before or the spell will fail, or worse, it could blow up.
Then, each ritual circle is broken up into at least two circles. The outer ring dictates the flow, the form, and all other conditions. The inner ring is what dictates the element and power. The key part was how those two circles interact with each other.
After nearly three hours, I figured out a ring that could probably be used to communicate with another. The only problem was that most of the ring was taken up with a balance of energy distribution and sending a signal to each other. That would mean that I, either need to make a three-circle ritual or reduce the number of glyphs needed to construct the ritual.
'I'll only get so far with theory.' With that thought, I moved to the dining room turned the table on its side, pushed it to the wall and propped the chairs around it. Then, I drew three of the circles around the room. To make sure that I didn't blow up the house, I made it so that once the circle was activated, it would only glow a green colour and nothing more.
Ten minutes later, I had the circles drawn and the materials in place. As I activated it, I felt more mana being taken than normal, almost three times the amount. But as soon as it stopped, I saw the three circles start glowing and turn green.
"I did it!" I yelled out loud. But my celebration was cut short as they began to fade, one at a time.
'Hmm, the consumption must be too high.' I concluded as I walked back to the kitchen without cleaning up.
'I don't think I need as many stabilisation glyphs. But adding a transmission feature makes it inherently unstable.' I filled the kettle up with water and placed it on the fire.
Being lost in thought, I didn't notice the kettle boiling over, until the water hissed as it spilled over.
"That's it!" it hit me like lightning. Instead of trying to contain the unstable energy, I can use it to my advantage.
Taking the kettle off the fire, I hurried back to the bundles of parchment and began to write out my new design. Soon, I had the finished, two-circle diagram and took it to the dining room to put it into practice.
The new circles were drawn, and I had poured my mana in and then they started to glow green. I didn't celebrate just yet, I stood watching, trying to find any weak points, but nothing popped out.
After five minutes, I smirked as it was enough time to comfortably say that it had been a success.
'The next step would be to incorporate the shield spell into this circle. But that was the easy part.' I turned on my heels and walked back to the kitchen, with a spring in my step.
It took an hour to both incorporate the spell and to place it in five key spots around the house. It activated the primary circle, which was in the downstairs hallway, and within a few seconds, a transparent bubble appeared on the outline of the house. All I could see was a slight shimmering of magic, which looked like a reflection of water, glimmering in front of me.
*Ping*
[Ritual casting: level 5]
'Four skill level ups?' I was surprised at first but then realised that I did just do a large amount of research and development and created a new ritual. Of course, I wasn't a genius, it was a result of jury-rigging rituals together until they worked. But even if the skill didn't level up that much, I was happy with the knowledge I had gained, and it would help me quite a lot in the future in not only creating new rituals, but in deciphering any rituals, or seals I come across in the future.
Knowing the inner workings of the ritual, I could add more features to them, but for now, it only held the shield spell. So, I can sleep well at night knowing that no one will be able to break in without me knowing. Though, to leave the house I must break the seal on the door, by opening it, but as soon as it closes, the circle is activated again. Pretty ingenious if you ask me. Of course, as the owner of the barrier, I just needed to use my mana, as a key, to open it from the outside.
However, I had something on my mind. 'The ritual spells are well documented. I might be able to transform the rituals into actual spells.' That idea was tantalizing, especially having a reactive shield spell for emergencies.
The only issue was that I was running low on mana, but I was in the zone and didn't want to lose it. So, instead of trying to cover my whole body, I put my thumb and index fingers of both hands together and tried to make a rectangle shield in between.
However, I have only ever used unrefined mana and haven't tried to form it into anything before, let alone a shield. But I don't know whether it was because of my time using magic, or my path, but I was quickly able to form a membrane in-between my fingers. However, before I could celebrate, it popped like a soap bubble.
'It seems to be pretty easy to form things out of raw mana, but it's hard to give it substance.' I kept on making the rectangles, but they all popped after a second or two. Though, it was quite fun making mana bubbles, even if it was childish, I think after the mind-boiling time I've had today, I allowed myself to be a little immature.
But something strange happened as I continued to mess around. I rushed to create one bubble before the other popped, but instead of creating two bubbles, they fed into each other. And even though it deformed and swelled, it didn't pop, it just clung to the shape of my fingers.
'What if I form vertical and horizontal layers of mana strips, similar to lattices on a pie.' Before I knew it, I was sitting at the kitchen table, looking intently at the space between my fingers. It was quite hard to create the layers fast enough before the form deformed, but with every failure, I was getting better at manifesting.
With a sudden hum, a fully formed, purple lattice work appeared. It was small, but it was enough to feel satisfied with my effort. 'With enough practice, I should be able to expand the size pretty easily.'
But I reached my limit, I was starting to get a headache from the constant use of mana and my stomach was rumbling. So, it was time for an early dinner and for tonight, I was going to have an herb-roasted rabbit with veg and rabbit gravy.
Uncovering the cooled stock, I skimmed the fat from the top of it and set it to one side, as I can use that for cooking later. For now, I cleaned the portion of rabbit meat, crushed an assortment of herbs, placed it onto the meat and placed it into the cooking range to roast.
Now, for the veg, I bought a collection of root vegetables today, so I had a good collection of carrots, parsnips and onion to use for tonight. After a thorough cleaning, I peeled them, cut them up and put them in a pan. I then took out two hanal roots and did the same as the veg. seeing as Hanal roots were like potatoes, they were perfect for tonight's dinner. Plus, a little infusion of mana should activate the stamina properties.
Half an hour later, I had a complete dinner, or roasted meat, veg and gravy. I cooked too much for just me, but I was hungry and would give eating it all a go. Surprisingly, I did eat it all and felt so full that I couldn't move but did feel satisfied and was ready for bed.