by John Gold
One day, I have a terrifying idea that will take a lot of work. I’d do even more, however, for the kind of incredible experiment I have in mind.
My new method of boosting magic skills by leveraging ritual magic pays off handsomely.
Mind Magic +1
Your Mind Magic skill reached the maximum value
New spell: Materializer
Any mind mage devoted to Mind Magic knows that its pinnacle is the ability to raise the spirits of the dead.
Effect: Lets you create a spirit’s material body if it used to exist, resurrecting the spirit in the process
Cost: 100000 mana
Recharge time: 24 hours
If my family is here in spirit form, I have the chance of resurrecting them and finding a way to the outside world. Just a little more, and I’ll be able to touch them, hear mama’s voice, and listen to father’s praise. How is Rosie doing? Oh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts… I put the pain aside and resolve to find them and get them out of this place.
The mage at the academy was right, the tenth layer in the astral is blocked. But I can feel that the thing is there, with the kind of power that makes the spirits in the ninth layer stay away from the border.
I’m able to get my Mind Magic up in just three weeks using ritual magic. I start by strengthening and scaling a spell, and I finish by amplifying it still further with a ritual. Obviously, everything is at the maximum level, so the spirits I summon are all raid bosses between Level 3500 and Level 4000. But I have a big advantage in the ritual magic that makes all my spells even more powerful. As soon as they appear and are highlighted as hostile, I hit them with my strongest spells. Light spears expanded to the size of huge pipes can kill anyone with just one or two hits. The base damage jumps up by a factor of seventy, easily reaching the 50 million maximum. Occasionally, however, I come across raid bosses with ten-figure health pools, and they can be awfully tricky to kill. I run out of victims, my mana dries up, and I dash over to my tree, fighting off spells as I go. The fun ends when I reach the eleven-figure oceans of health and mana that I have access to under the tree.
There are twenty altars smelling of blood and emanating the magic of death down at the bottom of the mine. Crying and voices can always be heard coming from the dark mouth, and once, I even hear my parents’ voices. Thankfully, they die out after I bury them twenty meters deep. That’s apparently what can happen when you spend too much time communing with death.
That was a kind of warning, but I’ve ignored it and don’t regret it in the least.
For days on end, I practice ritual magic, summoning and killing spirits. Most of them are killed with lightning or other Air Magic spells, and so it hits the maximum a day before my ritual magic does.
Air Magic +1
Your Air Magic skill reached the maximum value
New spell: Tornado personified
Air mages who spend a long time alone know that the wind has its own mind and modest will. Storms, cyclone, tornadoes, and hurricanes, all have their own personal embodiment. Those who know this are just beginning their journey along the path of the true air mage.
Effect: Lets you summon a tornado and embody its spirit for one minute. The personification will attack all the opponents of the mage who summoned it.
Cost: 100000 mana
Recharge time: 24 hours
Of course, I give my new spell a try the minute I get it. The fog is swept away into the funnel, and the whole thing starts to thicken. Lightning flashes, creating something that looks like an electric cocoon with two rage-filled eyes peeping out. I find myself so mesmerized and afraid that I relax and let four of my opponents surround me. But then, the tornado takes on the form of an enormous giant, hurling bolts of lightning at them with a war whoop so loud I get a deafening debuff, and the remains of the maximum charges land very close to me. Ripples run up and down my body with every roar coming from the living tornado. But the lightning bolts keep coming, and I catch charge after charge, curled up on the ground, as my enemies keep respawning. Finally, a minute later, the nightmare ends, leaving me grinning like an idiot. That was incredible! And I’m just at Level 2677. I can’t imagine what it will be like when I’m at the apex of my strength.
The next day, ritual magic hits the ceiling.
Ritual magic +1
Your ritual magic skill reached the maximum value
The point of ritual magic is to intensify effects and spells. The pinnacle of its mastery is the ability to pick one of several end results for the ritual depending on how you want to use it, a ritual designed to summon a demon, for example, modified to create a mass blessing or light up a given area.
Gift received: Destroyer
This gift lets you change the ultimate result you get from ritual magic. Every seal, every ritual has several possible effects, and the end result is determined by minor details normal people don’t even notice. The destroyer gift lets you both deliberately choose the result you want and destroy rituals being conducted by other people.
I try the gift out immediately on the ritual seal I have already created. It turns out that my seal, which is for amplifying spells, can also be used to give myself huge buffs or self-destruct. Fascinating! On the other hand, the effect for the alternative versions are 20% less than the base value. Strengthening myself with the buffs would only give me 80%, in other words, and it wouldn’t last more than a minute. Still, it’s interesting food for thought.
Eight months have gone by since I left the outside world. Femida can’t get enough of the monthly payments from Leon and the union of gods, as she’s the only one capable of keeping the world safe from evil Sagie. And just to make sure she stays interested, 16 million credits find their way to her account every week, half of which are automatically deposited into my anonymous account. I’ve earned more than 200 million credits from our con, and the money continues to pour in. Femida collects unique flowers in the heart of the desert, tree bark from the mouth of the volcano, and one-of-a-kind needles from the pine tree at the North Pole.
After signing their agreement with Femida and confirming that I had gone missing, the union canceled their contracts with the headhunters’ guild. She was left with just local guards out looking for her.
I have my suspicions as to who I’m going to find at the center of the House of Rage, so I keep working on my Light Magic. With ritual magic, amplification, and spell scaling, it skyrockets. I’ve moved on to battles with opponents between Level 4000 and Level 4500. None of the battles last longer than a minute, and I have to replenish my supply of victims every time. I’m in complete control of my rage, feeling nothing but calm and an endless supply of patience. Carrying victims around constantly is good exercise, too. Working on my body amplification is yet another check mark in my favor.
I’d almost forgotten how beautifully light hammers explode when they smash your enemies into the ground. Raid bosses can make awfully nice-looking pancakes.
Light Magic +1
Your Light Magic skill reached the maximum value
New spell: Punisher
The highest form of control over Light Magic is the creation of stable, material objects from a distance. When they come into contact with other hard objects, they release their pent-up power.
Effect: Lets you create an enormous sword made out of light over your enemy, bringing it down on them in a mighty slicing blow that detonates on impact.
Cost: 100000 mana
Recharge time: 24 hours
After the fire and tornado personified spells, I decide to throw the sword as far away from myself as I can. A ten-meter sword instantly appears in the sky above the spot I designate for the attack, coming crashing down to earth and furiously exploding. The shock wave is so strong even at seventy meters away that I’m almost thrown off the altar. The effect is very similar to hammers and light spears, though it’s more penetrating and impressive.
Two weeks later, my Dark Magic is up to the limit.
Dark Magic +1
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br /> Your Dark Magic skill reached the maximum value
New spell: True dark
Our world has only ever once been visited by representatives of true darkness. Their essence wields negative magic potential, and so they gobbled up everything around them, including light. The only mage to survive created a spell that works similarly.
Effect: Lets you create a ten-meter area that swallows all living things, spells, and matter. The base charge is 1 million, and it is active for 1 minute. The spell disappears as soon as it swallows up more than its charge allows for.
Cost: 100000 mana
Recharge time: 24 hours
Adding stable antimatter to my arsenal is incredible. When I test the spell out, it absorbs an entire mountain of victims before continuing to eat through the ash and destroying the seal. And that’s just the base damage!
Earth and Water Magic are practically useless to me. The most powerful of my physical shields, my diamond shield, can wait to be leveled-up. It’s already been nine months, and I’m almost out of time. If I don’t get back into the outside world in the next three months, I’ll lose my demigod class.
The last magic skill that has saved my skin hundreds of times is Space Magic. It takes me ten days to max it out, as I can boost the mana I spend on spells a hundred times over now. That means I can boost my magic skills much faster.
Space Magic +1
Your Space Magic skill reached the maximum value
New spell: Gravitational well
Space mages dream of two things: creating intercontinental portals and making gravitational wells capable of altering local gravity.
Effect: Lets you create a vertical tunnel in which gravity is either intensified or weakened. The direction and gravitational force are up to you.
Cost: 10000/minute
Recharge time: 2 hours
It’s a semi-battle spell that I’m not exactly sure how to use. Could you really send someone shooting off into space? Do the Gray Lands even have space? I’m afraid to try it out on myself, especially since I’m just one small step away from my goal.
Once again, I hear voices coming from the mine. Father’s calling me to come down for dinner; mama is soothing little Rosie. I pile even more ash on top of them the second time, knowing full well that I won’t be able to take hearing them a third. It’s time to get going. First, however, I’m going to do what I’ve been preparing for this whole time.
I build a chain of ten ritual altars in Crazyman’s Forest. The first and last are each designed for ten maximum-strength skills, while the ones in between are all for single use. Why so many? Why spend so much precious time? It’s simple. I want to summon a Level 10000 raid boss.
From my spot seated at the altar, I dive into the astral. A minute later, I find myself in the ninth layer, right at the border where the strongest astral creatures live. It’s even hard to tell how far away and how big objects are here. The snake I pick looks like the most harmless of the bunch, as everything else around here is simply gargantuan. The mistake I make, however, is in thinking that it’s fairly small. Actually, it’s enormous, just incredibly far away. My second mistake is the strength of the spell. I pour as much strength as I can into it, and the result turns out to be mortally dangerous.
Monster, Aarokh the Pale, King of the Ice Terrors, Level 9998, raid boss
The semitransparent snake with the single eye immediately wraps itself in ten layers of shields and activates an aura of terror. The plants around me start to wither away; leaves fall from the trees; the soil dies, and the seal with the bodies of my victims is destroyed. The powerful, seventy-meter-long body slides smoothly through the air, making its way right around the trees. I’m able to fire off just one spell before the seal is destroyed and the ritual is broken.
“Punisher! Maximum!”
I dump ten times the normal amount of mana into the spell, bloating the sword in the sky to the size of a small mountain. The ritual amplification gives it so much power that you can feel it in the air, even from half a kilometer away.
The sword falls a second after I use a leap spell—they’re available again. There’s an explosion and a wild roar that’s soon swallowed up by the shock wave. Part of the forest dies, though the king of the ice terrors just loses its shields and a mere 10% of its health. How much does it have?
Its guards materialize in the air, and the whole group tears after me. In response, I cast a canopy of invisibility over myself and hide behind the altar. Twenty guards go flying, and then the raid boss’s entire body comes and hangs over my head. He can’t see me, though he definitely knows I’m around here somewhere. I sense its power—like I’m standing next to a nuclear reactor. Every cell in my body revels in his strength.
“Tornado personified! Maximum!”
It wouldn’t be fair to just call me an idiot. No, that would be too simple and imprecise. When you use borrowed health and turn it into mana, it’s incredibly painful. I used to think that it was like having strings yanked out of me. Now, it’s more like leaving the nerves in place and tearing the meat and bones off them, it hurts so much.
The tornado takes on incredible power and starts sucking in everything nearby, pieces of tree, soil, other vegetation, and even a couple of curious bodyguards. In what is probably a stroke of luck for me, I’m pulled into the funnel and spat out half a turn later. The personification takes on the form of a giant wrapped in stormy armor, and the aura of lightning instantly attracts the snake’s attention.
When I pull myself out of the undergrowth which the force of nature hurled me into, I dash over to my next altar. The raid boss is locked in a desperate struggle with the cloud giant, physical attacks having no effect. It doesn’t look like the tornado does mental damage. Time for me to jump in.
“True dark! Maximum!”
The body of the snake is enveloped in a thick covering of wiggling darkness. Its head disappears completely, its health dropping precipitously, and the raging giant continues to go at it with lightning bolts and wind blades. But I wasn’t expecting what happened next. The snake’s jaw unhinges, cutting loose a thick stream of light that shatters the substance I summoned. His special attack!
The true dark disappears as soon as it is hit, and I take off running to the next altar. The snake activates a new ability that sends ice spears raining from the eye. My magic shield is enough to protect me from them, though it doesn’t stand a chance against the snake a couple hundred meters behind me. For a monster of that strength, we might as well be standing right next to each other.
As I run, I activate the altar with the self-destruct seal. I’m thrown forward by the explosion three seconds later, and I hear my enraged assailant roar from behind me.
I can feel with the eyes on the back of my head that there’s a powerful spell coming my way, so I cut sharply left.
The area attack freezes an entire section of the forest, killing everything it touches. But six altars, ten minutes, and kilometers worth of exhausted nerves later, our battle begins to wrap up. My last altar, the one designed for ten spells, is just twenty meters away when the snake destroys it with its ray of death. It guessed what my weakness is. Screw that thing!
I duck left, toward my tree, and let my opponent get in front of me. It flies past, snapping its enormous jaws rakishly, and turns around.
“Light spear! Maximum!”
I aim for its only eye, though it’s one step ahead of me. A second eyelid, this one armored, snaps shut, leaving the spear to hit the thick skin. All I can do is break through the outer layer of armor. The snake writhes from side to side, panicked by the flash of bright light. Just one good hit with another light spear would be enough to take off the last 15% of its health, but I can’t land a critical hit. Time for Plan B. Run!
I sprint toward the only spot my opponent can’t get into: my mine. It won’t be able to crawl in, and there’s a chance he’ll forget about me. The noise behind me disappears as I’m already in the air. He’s regained control, he’s
looking at me with his X-ray eye, and I’m a goner.
LJ panics, and I grab hold off some roots just in time, leaving me hanging right at the edge of the hole. I can physically sense the darkness moving at the bottom. Evil, happy voices are murmuring away down there — I can’t go any lower.
Suddenly, it gets dark, and the air quivers with someone’s breath. The snake hovers in the air above the mine, looking down at his cornered prey. His rage and satisfaction strangle my consciousness. The bastard is so strong! Even my mental resistance isn’t enough to fight back, and the darkness at my feet starts to move. The snake opens its mouth to cut loose a ray of death.
“Dead star! Maximum!”
A black sphere of cooled magma shoots out of my hands. Using the borrowed health wrenches my wrist backward, and I fall into the abyss as I watch the pinnacle of Fire Magic.
“Leap.”
The farthest I have the strength to send myself is to the very edge of the mine. The snake is already rearing back, ready to use its strongest attacking ability.
“Gravitational well! Maximum!”
I’d rather die from falling than from the snake or the dead sun. As I soar up into the sky, I see my spell scoring a direct hit on the gigantic monster. Its head explodes, its eye is torn out of the socket, and its health quickly falls to zero. Father taught me quite a bit. One thing was the importance of looking for the vulnerable points on your opponent’s body, and the snake’s were his eye and his mouth during attack.
Level 2877 unlocked
5 attribute points available for distribution
…
Level 2896 unlocked