Egon Astrum POV

"Phoenix blood......check, Cursed vessel.......check, Mandrake extract........check, mana stabilizers....... check, and now the final and the most important ingredient for the ritual, a dead dungeon core......... all check" I checked each ingredient that I had memorized for its quality and freshness.

As I kept checking all the ingredients for the ritual my sight went towards the dungeon core I spent all my savings on. If this ritual fails there will be nothing for me to go back to. Success is not only required but it is also my only way out apart from giving up. Only success will give me the chance to achieve my goals. And so I must succeed.

“The ingredients are fresh and ready, the magic circle has been drawn and the room has been isolated with wards so no one is going to interfere with the ritual.”

“As if anyone is going to look for me anyway.” I chuckled in depreciation as I remembered my current infamy as the disgraced and crippled mage.

Well it is better to be cautious anyway as the stakes are too high, it is good that I cashed in my final favor and got this dead dungeon core as they are extremely rare and even having the money to buy one is insufficient. You need to have good connections to get one.

If people come to know that I have one they will send people after me so it's good that I am in this extremely isolated and barren place where I can conduct my ritual without any interference, especially from the authorities. It already took all my past contributions and merits to not sentence me to the death penalty so I don’t want to be caught performing a forbidden ritual as I fear it would cause my death.

This was a place that only I and my late friend Baron Robert Dawnglow knew about. It was quite far from any settlement and was also barren of any mana beasts. It was also hidden as the room was built underground in a cave system so even in the unlikely event anyone passes by this place they would not find the room.

We came across this place on our travels during our youth and made this secret hideout in case one of us needed to lay low. After all, we were quite a rebellious duo. I never would've guessed that I would be using this place alone so long after his passing. 

If he was alive then I would not have to do this alone. I would have never been driven so far in desperation. He always had my back even in stupid acts like these. That cheery bastard would always find ways to solve any problems that came our way. If only he was here I would not have been kicked out of the Tower of Arcana. Damn, I miss him so much.

Those nobles know that I have no significant backing so they keep pushing me around and now that I have slipped up a little they came after like a pack of Goblins. Just because one of my experiments went awry doesn't justify declaring me a threat to security and punished by execution. Experiments mess up all the time and yet all the people get is some fines and monitoring for some time. 

They just used this as an excuse to frame me for other things too otherwise the punishment wouldn't have been so harsh. Even then I could only watch helplessly as they shattered my mana core. They don't even bother with me now that I have barely any magic.  Just wait till I succeed in this ritual and then they'll see the consequences of their actions. I will have my revenge for the harm that they have caused me.

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My sight swept across the room and stopped at my desk. I walked up to my desk and picked up an old and tattered book. It was a book that one of the local adventurers found in a hidden laboratory of an ancient mage. Even though he was a powerful warrior leading a veteran team of adventurers he found the already failing security measures of the laboratory quite challenging. 

Since their gains included many artifacts and other treasures and they did not have a knowledgeable mage or a scholar they didn’t pay much attention to the old and tattered book. So I got it cheaply when they were selling their loot.

However, it can’t be blamed on the adventurers as the language used in the book was already so ancient and niche that even the very old and knowledgeable archmages and scholars would find it difficult to decipher unless they specifically looked for it and that too would require some sort of clue to even begin the search process as otherwise they would not know where to look for.

If not for some obscure scrolls I referenced during my previous experiments then even I would not know the value of this book much less decipher it. The book was about the forbidden experiments of the ancient mage in which there was a way to become a Lich using the dungeon core as a phylactery.

Dungeon cores could be used in many different ways most of them relating to artifacts and wards as they are the absolute best material in all of Acen regarding mana conductivity which makes it probable that it could be also used to create a phylactery for a lich. That lich would be a far greater threat than normal liches with worse phylacteries as their phylacteries define their mana quality.

Dungeon cores were special existences, powerful but often not so intelligent so they rarely lived for long. Most of them ended up dying in their first few years leading to a monster wave as all its inhabitants charged out in bloodlust as the dungeon’s death made its mana dissipate. 

Only the ones who manage to live a bit longer will be able to properly command their creations and plan around their progress to make the most out of their potential and deal with their small initial lifespans.

Once dungeon cores gain basic intelligence they could start building multiple floors full of monsters to protect them and also start cultivating their mana and increasing their lifespans.

I quickly flipped the pages and stopped where the ritual was described and started preparing the spell mentioned in the book. I arranged all the ingredients in their respective positions according to the book.

For me to perform the ritual I would need to use mana which is impossible as I am crippled but that is only because we keep the safety of the ritualist in mind, as this is the last act before my transformation I can use riskier methods such as using a potent mana potion and instead of letting it fill my mana core I will directly channel it for the ritual. This would fry my whole body but it will do what needs to be done. Hopefully, my transformation will repair all the damage. 

I open the cork of the potion tube and drink it all in a go. A tremendous amount of mana starts filling me up so I control it to emit all of it without cycling through my core.

"Ahhhhhh!" I keep shouting as the pain of burning alive courses through my body.

As I start chanting the mana it starts to accumulate, increasingly growing denser tinting the whole room blue. But I have barely a presence of mind to admire its beauty as I am writhing in pain. 

The mana splits into multiple streams and enters the ingredients apart from the core. The ritual circle starts shining brighter and the mana stabilizers keep the mana locked up in the ingredients. The ingredients transform into different types of mana and flow into the dungeon core making it shine brighter.

After the ingredients have been transformed and absorbed by the core the chant reaches its final stage as my body starts to transform and I lose my consciousness.