Part 1

I am pretty happy. I finally got the last ingredients necessary for the ritual. The soul stone. A rare and precious material with the soul attribute. In my case, it is going to used for cleansing. The ritual I am planning is the soul clean ritual. It is used for various porpuses, with a lot of possible variation. It is like a lego for soul related rituals. I have to say, the person who made this ritual is a genius. It is usable only on the level of apprentice, but it is still impressive. Imagine that you have one toolbox for every of your evil soul needs. Want to wipe the short term memory? The long term one? Or clean away soul spell? This toolbox has everything you need for that. The needed materials differ, for most, it uses common material, for my purpose, I had to get a soul stone from somewhere. My purpose will be to wipe away any kind of consciousness from subject#001. Until now, this wasn’t very important, he had been very obedient for most. I didn’t notice it, but it did affect me. In minor ways. It makes cultivation harder, damps my senses and making thinking a bit harder. Not in an obvious way, like in the ruin, I wouldn’t have walked so close to the ledge without rechecking whether anyone was nearby. This has to stop before it evolves into something I won’t be able to deal with, so without further ado, I make my way to the administrative tower to rent a ritual room for the first time. Having everything prepared, I set off.

Outside, it was still sunny, warm and everything. Something strange, because it is, in fact, true, but I wouldn’t care normally for it, as long the weather is not hideous, it doesn’t bother me. They walk was uneventful. Inside the tower, I make my way to the reception desk.

“What can I help you with?” Asks the bored receptionist, maintaining a nice attitude.

“I want a ritual room, do you have any free?” I ask him.

“let me have a look, one second” he sais and goes to the back room for a bit. After coming back, she informs me. “There are two low-level, zero mid-level and one high-level apprentice ritual room available at the moment, which would you want? The price is charged by the hour. Low-level costs 10, middle level 15 and high level costs 20 per hour”

Not wanting anyone to notice, I hesitated a bit. Maybe doing it inside the tower is not a good idea, why did I think of that?

“Never mind,” I say and leave the tower. The receptionist is a bit puzzled by my abrupt loss of interest, but shrugs it off as a normal eccentric of an apprentice, he has seen a lot worse in his career.

My next possible destination is the mountains, being hesitant at making it either in the dorms or close to the tower. I prepare for a week-long excursion into the mountains. Wanting a good excuse, I take on a mission in the tower. It is about killing some monsters and bringing back their purified blood. Nothing major, The equipment I need is some wood and a pot for the purification. A normal alchemical process, so it shouldn’t make anyone suspicious, next I prepare food. Gritting my teeth, I pack away some jerky meat. Not what I really want to eat, but better than nothing. Next, I make sure that I have salt and pepper with me.

Now that I think of it, there was a stall selling spices close to the waffle station. I also could stock up some waffles for the journey. Having made my mind, I pack the rest of my stuff and make my way to the commerce zone.

++++++++++++++

Some stalls were gone, some stayed. The bigger ones didn’t move. This also meant that the two of my targets today stayed at the same place, first I made my way to the waffle station, and asked for a buck load of waffles, which I asked to be sent at the fastest speed to my dorm room, I paid upfront. Then I am going to stash them away in my storage equipment.

“Good morning, what can Rukit do for you?” A small built vendor asked me. In front of me is his stall, packed full of spices and whatnot, he also had some salt with very strange colours. I am not that interested in that right now. What didn't much surprise me was the price, the weighing scale was measured in grams and sold in gold. Very expensive.

“I am searching for spices, mainly for meat, what can you recommend for me?” I ask.

The vendor immediately becomes very motivated and lists of two dozens of spices.

“Do you have anything spicier?” I ask. Coming from a country, which loves spicy food, I was more interested in those. That doesn’t mean that I need everything sharp, it simply meant that I like some food spicier than others.

“Yes, yes we have here goln Chilly, it comes from the mainland of the Order of element, highly favoured by the masters of flame, Also here some figure pepper, very tasty indeed.” He said

“If I can take liberties, I would recommend these two spice mixes,” he said

“An what is so special about them?” I ask

“They are called the epitome of flavour in their home country. It is in another continent you must know.” He boasts about it.

“I wish to have a taste test of them” I demand.

Looking a bit hesitant, I release some of the pressure from my path. Being scared a bit, the vendor of course agrees.

The chilly and the pepper were good, but I would call them average, still I will buy some. Now the spice mixes were surprising. One was like curry and the other one was similar to the ones I did at home. For creamy dishes. All in all, I was very satisfied, not with the prize of course, but in the end, I did pay the ten gold,

PART 2

Having everything already ready for my small excursion, I made my way towards the nearby forest, going to the right of the whole mountain, I heard that in that direction are some smaller caves, the perfect location for my not evil ritual.

The forest is called dragonback forest. It’s close proximity to the dragonback mountain made it an ideal hunting spot for humans and animals alike. The death toll it asks is high, the amount of money you can forage from this place is also big. High risk, high reward, but that is not my objective today. A cave 20-30 kilometres away from the tower, the hike should take 5-6 hours normally, but with the thick vegetation and the abundance of predators, I made my goal to reach the distance in two days maximum.

My main mode of transportation was walking close to the mountainside and constantly keeping up shadow concealment while looking out for any animals that might pose a threat to me.

The woods around me is silent, so am I, not making anything to disturb the forest, but I know that there are predators around. Once I was nearly spotted by a big, grey wolf. Reminding me of the wolves which I met in the black beetle forest, but twice the size and with a meaner look. Nothing I want to have a date with on the short term. Oher predators also roamed the woods. The wolves were the most abundant. Than come foxes, big cats and other small predators. I call them small, but in reality, most of them were the size of a big dog. Facing a cat which looks cute when half in size might not be so cute anymore when it has claws sharp and long enough to skin your face.

My journey of the first day was uneventful. I made camp in a very small cave, one of the many I saw until now, a couple were big enough for my purposes, but by far not far enough from the tower. There I slept. Made some arrays at the entrance of the cave. Mostly camouflage, no formation that were in my capability were potent enough to protect against an angry mob of grey wolves, so I went with camouflaging the cave.

The next day was also rather uneventful, the only problem was that the further I came from the tower, the are suitable caves became. After finally reaching my goal for the distance, I barely managed to find one.

This one had a small entrance, and a big cave inside, first, I closed off the smaller cracks, in fear of anything making their way towards me while doing the ritual, melting the stones with fire and then manipulating it top to close the crack. The whole crack crackdown cost me half a day. Satisfied with still being in my time plan I began to set up the ritual.

Now, this part is somewhat tricky. In the original ritual, there are two different parts for the ritualist and for the volunteer. Now I am the same person for both cases, so I had to change it a bit. The ritualist place, I left as it is. The second ritual, I overlaid of the first and made the triggering and targeting a bit different. First I changed it to only accept, not forcefully invade the person and cleanse it all together. The targeting I changed to be made by the ritualist, so I can connect the second set of souls inside me with the ritual, before the cleansing would begin. This I already made in the dorms before I even received the stone. I was already prepared for this. After this ritual, I would eliminate the only uncontrollable thing inside me. It either gets destroyed in the process, or I get another soul in the process to play around with. I stopped controlling the healing of the soul for a couple of days already. If the soul is too damaged, some unforeseen circumstances could arise. Something I don’t need,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In another part of the mountains, inside a small conference room, a couple of people are meeting with their leader. This leader being Isaac.

“What happened to Joe? How did he die?” Isaac asks. Clearly angered by the fact that one of his most valuable underlings got killed. He placed a lot of importance on Joe, hoping to one day help him ascend to the ranks of an official mage. What the other didn’t know that he received an ancient ritual. The only problem was the he was unable to accomplish it alone, he needed an expert alchemist and ritualist for the procedure. The thing he placed big hopes on Joe. Now his death angered him more than anything else.

“Our spies confirmed his death ..” One reported

Cutting into his word, Isaac shouted “I know that he is dead, I want to know why and who did it” indignation clear on his face.

The figure shrank back, not wanting to face the angered Isaac anymore. One of his colleagues come to his rescue, however.

“We received a report from one of ou spiel under Allister. The person who got the reward for the kill is an apprentice called Osric Thale 13 years old, had been inside the tower for a little over 1 year. He's rumoured to be a great artificer and competent at fighting with his gadgets.”

“And how did someone like him got recruited by that dimwit Allister?” he raged on

“Sir, it was you who pushed him there, do you remember sending some people after a newbie a year ago?” he asks

“Yeah what of it?” He said. Having already forgotten the incident

“He is the same person, he later got recruited by Nelson,” He said.

“And where is he now?” Isaac said

“he left the tower for a mission a couple of days ago into the woods, his whereabouts are unknown,” He said

“Then I want him dead, ambush him when he returns, shouldn’t be too hard,” he said and stormed out of the room. Seeking peace in the embrace of a woman.