Nodding to myself, I ran through one last check. The ritual I had been thinking about for over a month now was as prepared as it could be and the only thing stopping me from actually going through with it was the risk to unique and priceless materials if things went wrong. Chances to get another Void Crystal were low while getting another feather from Lenore was almost impossible but if I didn’t use the resources I had, wouldn’t that be just as much of a waste? The ritual I had designed would, hopefully, use the crystal and the physically manifested shadow I had been wrapping around it since getting the crystal in conjunction with the feather to create a physical Cloak of Shadows, the feather acting as a catalyst to add Wind Magic into the object.

If things worked out as I hoped, the addition would allow me to fly, at least in a limited fashion, and boost the cloak’s innate concealment even further. Wind was excellent in concealing scent and sound while Shadow was best at concealing sight, though the general concealment aspect was strong in its own right. Not as strong as the specialised effects of Wind, but almost. Combining the two would hopefully be enough to render me as good as traceless, at least during the night. For daytime usage, I’d have to figure out some sort of invisibility. Sadly, I had a feeling that would require me to work with Light, or at least with a less extreme version of Darkness, something that accepted that the darkness would eventually pass and give way to the light.

A part of me was tempted to ask Lady Hecate for advice, or maybe try to contact the Grandmother and have her check my work but another part of me was hesitant. Would I be any better than the clerics I had mocked on Mundus if I immediately ran to Lady Hecate if I had questions or would I merely be a hypocrite unable to properly bow but willing to take any advantage I could?

Shaking my head, I dismissed my fears, pushed away the concerns and checked my notes one more time. One last time. The Zevarra Agha was already an incredibly valuable resource, to say nothing of the limited advice I had received from Luna, who had happily given me her impression of my notes, though she had admitted that she didn’t fully understand my notation. Not necessarily a problem, I had invented it after all and the lessons I had given Luna had focused on less arcane topics, but it meant I lacked that additional bit of confidence. Though, even if she could read my notations, I doubted she’d be able to pick out any mistakes without asking Lady Hecate, which would be the same as me asking Her. And make me just as much of a hypocrite, if not more of one, as I would have taken the advantage but let my daughter handle the payment. No, that wasn’t a path I was willing to go down, I would pay my own debts if I incurred them.

Taking a knee in the middle of my prepared ritual circle, I placed the two primary materials, the wrapped Void Crystal and Lenore’s feather in two circles of their own before adding multiple supporting materials into the ritual. Mundane feathers, crystals I had acquired while raiding different jeweller’s stores, selected for their affinity with Darkness and Wind and a few other essences that I had incorporated into the ritual. Getting those essences was only possible thanks to Lia and Alex, the two had greatly improved their alchemical practice to the point that they could extract the magical essence of materials, a process I considered a precursor to the creation of crystallised elemental energy, like Void Crystals or Eternal Ice.

However, getting from one step to the other would require quite a bit more training, mostly because we lacked other ways to crystallise magical essences so they didn’t have anything to compare their methods to. For the simple extraction, Blood Magic was a good enough comparison and Lia was adept enough in that skill, though I had demonstrated my own version multiple times. Not that the versions differed, Lia had learned from me after all, but she had put her own flavour to the skill by now. More data was almost always useful, as long as the additional data didn’t overwhelm the processing methods.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Standing straight, I let the air slowly flow out of my lungs, before taking another deep breath. The ritual was as prepared as it could be, lacking nothing but the Astral Power to get things started.

My eyes fluttered shut and I started to carefully channel Astral Power into the prepared lines, radiating outwards from the centre I occupied. With another deep breath, I started to quietly sing, weaving the sound into the magic I was invoking. The sounds didn’t really matter, the mindset and the conviction invoked were the important part.

Taking a half-step forward, as my voice started to surge in strength just as the Astral Power I had to channel surged upwards allowed me to cleanly channel the powers invoked, just as the twist and half-step in the other direction allowed me to regulate the flow of power. It was a dance, in a way, bringing my physical parts into alignment with the ritual around me, as the powers I invoked were growing and weaving together in an intricate web.

The various essences I had placed around the circle started to disintegrate, the Astral Power they were composed of flowing into the ritual just as planned, leaving nothing but strange, chalky dust behind, the medium used by Lia and Alex to bind the stuff to begin with.

Curiously, the physical materials didn’t get destroyed, they started to fly on an invisible wind and orbit around me, joining the intricate dance of power as things slowly started to come together.

Sweat was beading on my brow, the strain of the ritual slowly mounting but I kept pressing on, knowing that I couldn’t stop now, I wouldn’t stop now. The power I had invoked was beyond what I could contain and safely grounding it was nearly impossible, even with the prepared circle. That became doubly true when the corporeal shadow wrapped around the Void Crystal joined the dance, blanketing the entire area in darkness, blacker than the deepest night. And yet, even in that complete and perfect darkness, I could feel the ritual around me and knew how to perform the next steps. The darkness was mine, and everything it touched was as good as my own body. It was a somewhat strange sensation but not an unpleasant one. More information than I had ever held surged into my brain and without my high Intelligence and Intuition, boosted further by Titanic Ambition, I would have suffered greatly, maybe even died from the overload. As it was, I could contain it, but I had a feeling I’d suffer a headache once everything was said and done. Still, the sheer rapture of knowledge was well worth it.

That rapture doubled, almost making me miss a step when the Void Crystal disintegrated at the same time as the feather did. The density of Astral Power shot through the roof and the laws of reality took a single look at the ritual circle and decided that they didn’t want anything to do with me. I could feel myself rise into the air, as the wind was raging around me, still contained in complete and utter darkness. And yet, despite the lack of solid ground beneath me, I could still continue my dance, moving slowly as I started to weave the complex web of power around me into a single, physical structure.

Time started to lose meaning, as I slowly compressed the incredible amount of power into its smaller form. The primary medium was still shadow, but the feather had held just as much Wind and even a somewhat uncomfortable amount of Death I had to incorporate. My plans for the Death Energy inherent to Lenore’s feather were fairly simple. Death was unseen, hidden, and so, its energy could be used to hide me from magic searching out life. It was another aspect of Concealment, something I was good at and the way things came together was even better than I had planned.

Slowly, as the physical construct started to take form, the energy around me was ebbing, bound into the physical form I had been working on.

Finally, after what felt like hours of strenuous casting, my feet touched the ground again, the power around me no longer capable of holding me aloft. Still, I continued with my work, moving with determined precision until the entire ritual was drained of Astral Power to the point that my own reserves were nearly empty. I had given the ritual my all but the result, settling in my hands, looked damn well worth it.

Black as the darkest night, smooth and cool like silk and lined with feathers, I held my new Cloak.

The ritual had been successful.