Spending the rest of the day Learning to a small degree the art of ritual sacrifice. Krs Found himself fascinated with the mathematical precision, and the artistry of will manipulation That it took to make a successful sacrifice. He also knew he would never normally try this Sacrifice without spending days and days on the Ritual circle. But he had one massive upside Narsinia Wanted, even expected sacrifice, and the fact that the main student body had gone away from it for a time did not make it seem like any less of a good idea. The first book was easy, quite straight forward actually. But the little pamphlet that was harder to parse, it seemed one part morality play, and one part an occultists dream scenario. Nevertheless, it had many, many different rituals, Demonic, Fiendish, Angelic, neumonic, mnemonic even some orphic. All in all, things he would be pleased to research with gusto at a later date. For now, he only took away one thing From the Pamphlet. As long as you put down a good protection ward for yourself, you need very little else. Yes, if you spend 10 hours Carving and chanting you might get 10% more. But much of the deal's fairness is pretty much locked into the ritual itself. There is wiggle room, but Not to the extent that you need to spend 10 hours on it if you are simply Sacrificing bunnies.
After having checked out both books with His full name and cohort number. And having had a bracing meal at the cafeteria, Krs came at last to his own door. Steeling himself for what was assuredly pandemonium He entered and found, A pile of rabbits Frozen in mid-air. It seemed unbeknownst to him that Anything in the room before he got there would be frozen Still as he entered the room. Probably a smart way to catch the thieves without them killing you when you came home and were surprised. All this to say, he had much more time than he thought.
Having thoroughly cleaned and organised what little room he had, while time stood still for everything inside the room, but not for him. Having pushed the 17 bunnies to one side of the room they had felt like stones in his hands the entire time. Taking out his newly brought scribers tools, he tried to find the planks in the flooring with the fewest knots in the wood. Having pulled up some of the planks on the floor, he could see beneath them the same grey Uniform surface that the Sky here was made of. Knowing that he had not stopped time for anything but the small things in his room, He also knew he had approximately 24 hours Before time again entered the picture for the little rabbits. But Krs was in no hurry to do the ritual now. He had taken to heart the many, many warnings, In books and in person of the dangers of sacrifice.
Having engraved A simplistic ward Krs took the time to sleep. He knew he did not need as much sleep as others. But he needed some, and lack of sleep led to mistakes. So after having woken up He rechecked his work and found flaws. Now they were not flaws per say. Nothing that might blow up in his face, but there were small burrs, and uneven pressure on the runes as he was carving them. Scrapping the work and starting over, Krs hummed to himself. He found himself enjoying carving the high human runes especially, their uniformity gave him leave to think about the concepts therein. Second most pleasing where are the Orphic runes, this came as quite a shock because they were more amorphous. And one would need three where, other alphabets only needed one. Nevertheless, though, it took longer, to write down the specificity of what the runes told the mana to do pleased Krs when he looked them over.
Breathing out Outside mana and rotating his inner mana, Krs felt himself Complete a session of meditation on the nature of mana. As approximately half a circle of outside aspect turned into inside mana He felt better than he ever could remember feeling. Having little more than six hours before the rabbits came to and started wreaking havoc. Krs picked up one of them and carried it with him outside, as the 7-kilo animal came too, and started grunting and objecting to this whole thing. Krs broke its neck and went inside his room again. Breaking off the magical horns as close to the skull as he could He put them in a small bowl made for grinding ink. Slitting the carotid of the rabbit with the Tip of an exacting knife from the old scriber's tools, He hung the rabbit by its feet, so the blood spilt into a second, larger bowl.
Having ground down slightly magical powdered horn and collected slightly magical blood. He tried to mix them both to increase their potency, a truly terrible stench followed from this stupid experiment. However, he did seem to have more luck when he for the third time carved the warding into some floorboards lightly painted the runes with the blood of the rabbit. At the end, checking his wording for the 10th time, He placed ten rabbits into the sacrifice point on the circle. And started chanting, while cycling his magic.
“Oh, blessed Narsinia here stands your ever loyal servants. Please accept these beasts of the land, as my smallest token of devotion. Please grant my room the bounty of the earth, an half acre of good loamy black soil. That I might plant wondrous flora and raise arcane fauna in this the very centre of your power. so, I offered to you, the life of these magical beasts of the land.” As he said the last word, a strange power took from him some of his mana coiled it around the rabbits, and with a flash did something. Whatever it was, only white ash remained Floating through the air as it consumed itself barely landing before disappearing into the air. Krs stood and waited for a while. Before walking out of the room, and then, as he stepped into it again. Beheld maybe a full acre of meadow grass, with only a small section at the entrance with planks for ground.
As he planted the seven quick growth trees in a rudimentary rune of mana growth. He sat himself firmly, In the almost centre of the Meadow, right next to where he planned for the Central tree of the rune to stand. He tried to still his mind and reach out to the tree's roots with his mana. For some reason this was much harder for Krs to do than any other thing he had to do with Mana. But after a long, long time He got the hang of the stillness and the concept of quiet growth. And was able to feed some of his own mana pool into the tree. Who can say if this added to the growth of the tree? Or if it was just very blessed by the Druids who had Sold him the Saplings. But Krs felt a certain sense of Pleasure, as when the six hours where up, the tree in front of him was almost three times as big as the others. Now almost three times as big is still a very slim 3 metres, but it was still High enough that he could put the extra books into the massive bag with the rest of his delicate reagents. And hang it down from the tree so the rabbits couldn't get to it. Not wanting to sow anymore seeds until he got an enclosure for the rabbits. He decided to see how long he could hold a mana channel with the tree before he fell asleep.
Waking as miss clock struck 11 With that friendly voice of hers. Krs Looked up at a 7-metre tree, it did look a bit crooked, but other than that, it was a fine centrepiece in his room for now. Checking up on the rabbits and seeing that, the five female and one male rabbit left, were gorging themselves on grass and wildflowers. Krs Decided that he'd soon need to get a book on animal husbandry, but if this crop failed, then, well, it was only, a day's work. Gathering the things, he would need on a normal day. The old set of scribers tools, notebook, the flask of slightly magic Blood, the ghost food and ending it all by sitting down. And trying to perform the spell he learned almost two days ago, the spell that would temporarily transform a body into a much smaller cube likes substance. Though he had already cast it once, it still took him two hours to cast it safely. He really needed to train, and he needed do it now.
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After an early supper in the cafeteria Krs return to the training hall where he looked over the current classes he could take. And he did find an interesting one.
Elementary Transmutation: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of transmutation 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish.
It was a subject that Interested him immensely, but he was worried that He was skipping the easier classes. Then he heard a familiar voice, Turning and looking, he saw Azeal Waving him over from a group. Walking over Azeal Introduced him to the small group “This is Chris, He's a good dude. I'm just going to ask him something in private over here, ok Group.” Walking over to another table Azeal Gestured for them to sit and said. “Hey, good to see you again. I'm sorry, but this might not be a good thing to hear. I have it on reasonably good authority that we really shouldn't have sold that body yesterday. Now, I'm not going to rat you out, but I think you should watch your back.” Azeal Tried to look cool about it, but on his face, you can see he was failing. Trying to look gregarious but coming off as wet slightly desperate rat instead Azeal asked “You haven't, like, told anyone about what we did, right?” Smiling, Krs said “Well, approximately two days ago. We were in class together, then we went to the Portal Plaza And me and Harper went off and did some courier work. Was there anything more you needed to know?” Clearly trying to write whatever this thing he thought was, off as a joke. Azeal Said While trying to smile “Hey man, don't be so serious. We're all a little lost here right now. It’s a Strange and dangerous place.” Krs got off the chair dusted himself off and said. “Azeal I am late for class if there is nothing else Have a good day.” He then entered a classroom that said, Elementary transmutation.
Six hours in and almost the entire notebook he had with him was filled. Transmutation wasn't just challenging; it was downright impossible. First, you had to know what substance you had in front of you, and then you had to know the substance you wanted it to change into. And when the teacher said know, he meant know. Luckily for him, this was simply elementary. But even the basic Version of transmutation, that class was even harder to get your mind around. In elementary Transmutation, you would change stone into a different stone. In the basic class You would change stone into the exact same stone, down to the smallest speck of dirt. But in beginner, well, in the beginner class You would change stone into metal. These changes weren't random things that just stopped when the spell ran out of mana. These changes were permanent. But it was an entirely different school from what he thought he'd Signed up for. In his mind Transmutation would Change for example stone into sand, but stone and sand are basically the same thing, only they change over time, and that school is named transfiguration. If you want to turn sand into glass that's transfiguration. But if you want to shrink, add to or Take from a substance, that's Transmutation. Was there any wonder there was a course that was just named Elementary Change material and it needed you to qualify by having taken and passed both Elementary Transmutation and Elementary transfiguration to take it.
The teacher would take a break after six hours and tell all the students that if they were smart, they would go home, look at their notes and come back fresh tomorrow. Now there was nothing wrong with barrelling right true to the end of the course but since he had such a small Pool of spellcasting experience to draw from. Krs truly did not feel like he was up to the task of completing the exam where he had to turn basalt into granite and then back again. So not feeling quite tired enough to go to his room, Krs went to try out Elementary mana channelling again.
The teacher this time was a truly Abysmal managram Krs could only hear it for 3/4 of the time, since it was flickering on and off. He learned very little in the class, but at least he completed the exam. And as he went up to the registry of what classes he might take Tomorrow after some well-deserved sleep. He saw that his list had changed it now listed.
Elementary Restoration: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of Restoration 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary illusion: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of illusion 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary Invocation: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of Invocation 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary enchantment: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of enchantment 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary abjuration: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of abjuration 11 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. Elementary Transmutation: short course on the Philosophy, Strength and weaknesses of the way of transmutation 11 (5) hours. 0.1 N-points at finish 1try
And at the end of the list. With a finished short course suffix attached to it
Finished short course: Elementary mana channelling 7 hours. 0.1 N-points at finish. 1try
Turning to the man in the booth, Krs asked. “I am sorry why is there a line through one of my Classes?” Looking down, the man said with a board voice probably having to have said this line thousands of times. “This is the only time you get to get N-points for almost nothing. Don't you think I would rather take classes I already took rather than working here.” The man looked up at Krs and said.
“Just to be nice to the kiddies I'll tell you. You really should specialise very, very soon. You get extra N-points If you complete all the way up to a beginner line course. You could also try to go for a generalised approach, but you have to take every elementary class. And some like elementary holy symbols, are very, very hard to do depending upon your bloodline, Soul, mind etc. When you complete a class, you get a little badge, and those badges can be gathered into like a multibadge.... thing that gives you points. But only for the first semester, then it becomes much more difficult to get points. But you still need to do things that doesn't get you points. Every year there are students who just go after every class, and they almost always die in the dungeons. Just do what you want, kid. Good luck.”