Inscribing the design was relatively easy. Using a steady drip of mana, she could mark the ground with glowing runes and geometric designs. Despite being bad at art, she was able to draw a perfect circle and straight lines without the use of rulers or protractors.

If Mel needed any further proof that this was a magical world, that was enough on its own. It would take nothing short of supernatural forces to grant her the ability to draw a straight line .

Once the ritual was outlined, all she needed to do was to assemble the ritual components. For the [Armament Scrap Ritual], that meant five [Copper Rune Coins] per piece of equipment scrapped.

She intrinsically knew, thanks to the scroll’s imparted knowledge, that the amount required scaled linearly. If she wanted to scrap two swords, she would need to expend 10 [Copper Rune Coins].

It did mean, however, that she didn’t need to perform the ritual multiple times if she had enough ritual components.

Mel found herself curious as to some of the intricacies of the magic and decided that she would use her time wisely. With her friends still out cold, Mel gathered up some blood using an old Bloodtide cloak.

While she could have used a vial of blood (not that she had a vial, nor would she want to taint such a rarity), the receptacle didn’t matter. Which meant a cloak turned into a blood-soaked rag would be just as good as an ornate sacrificial bowl.

Something that she found in a disturbing quantity littered around the chapel.

Mel took out her own [Simple Dagger] that she had used to kill the Priest. It was still stained with his blood and chipped from the man’s supernaturally toughened skin.

She had no more use for it. Especially not when there were so many sick looking ritual daggers. Where the hell did they get them all? Magical Hot Topic?

Shaking her head, Mel knelt in front of the ritual circle and took out five copper coins from her inventory. She set the stack gently in its prescribed location and pressed her hands in the right spot. A thread of guiding mana was all it took to get the process started.

The [Simple Dagger] glowed like a supernova, forcing Mel to shut her eyes. She heard a sound like cracking glass from the circle. Unwilling to stop the effect, she ducked her head and angled her shoulder to protect her vital organs in case something blew up.

Eyes shut tight, Mel heard a sound like crystal shattering just as the brilliant light behind her eyelids faded. When she looked again, the dagger was gone. In its place were two piles of faintly glowing metal scraps. Irregular chunks of pale silvery metal, like thick shavings, all neatly stacked where the dagger had been.

The blood-soaked rag was gone as well.

There goes my idea about using ritual magic to clean blood out of clothes. It nukes the entire thing.

Mel reached out, gingerly touching the scraps at first, then scooping them up into her inventory once she realized they were cool to the touch.

[Weapon Scraps]

(Catalyst, Scrap)

(Common)

The most basic form of a weapon, broken down into easily usable pieces for the enhancement or reforging of other weapons.

Imprint: Enhances rarity of an adjoining weapon when placed in the [Soul Kiln]. Amount required varies based on rarity.

She pulled out the [Soul Kiln] next and set it down beside the comforting campfire. It wasn’t exactly cold in the room, but it wasn’t anywhere near as hot and humid as the earlier sections where they broke into the complex.

Besides, there was something uniquely comforting about a fire, and the chamber was clearly designed to accommodate it with small slits and vents in the blackened corners of the ceiling.

Taking out her [Exile Twinblade], Mel placed it within the kiln and added the two scraps she gained from the ritual.

When she infused a pulse of mana into the kiln, it warmed and brightened, but then fizzled out soon after.

“Well, I guess it did say that it varied based on the rarity.”

That meant it took more than two Common [Weapon Scraps] to enhance the rarity of her [Exile Twinblade].

“Easy enough to remedy,” she said, setting up another ritual. The design persisted for a while after its use, allowing her to reuse it by adding the necessary components again.

Mel still only used a single item, this time a [Sacrificial Knife], also Common rarity. Out of morbid curiosity, she dragged a severed leg over to the ritual circle and placed it appropriately in accordance with [Blood Tax’s] power.

Another five [Copper Rune Coins] poorer, Mel learned that the ritual was more than capable of extracting the required blood from not just soaked cloth, but flesh and bone as well.

What remained reminded her of the gruesome room they had walked past with piles of red-stained bones and nothing else.

“Why do the bones remain and not the skin or fat?” Mel asked herself, knowing how dark and insane that sounded.

Thinning her lips, Mel glanced over the prone forms of her friends, making sure nobody was awake to hear how creepy that sounded.

Good.

Over the next hour, Mel experimented to her heart’s content. She found out a lot of valuable information she wouldn’t have otherwise learned if she had been “normal” or “well-adjusted” in her experimentation.

[Blood Tax] took a varying amount of blood based on what she was doing. As far as she could tell without accurate measurements, it also scaled linearly like the other ritual components.

That meant if it took a cup of blood for one use, it would take two for a ritual to scrap two weapons at once and going up from there.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

[Blood Tax] gave her a straight doubling of materials out of [Armament Scrap Ritual]. Nothing she could do would lower the cost of the other components.

She still had to pay five [Copper Rune Coins] each time, which quickly dwindled her supply even with [Blood Tax] giving her a “free” extra [Weapon Scrap].

Even more interesting, though fairly gross, was how she could extract blood with [Blood Tax]. She didn’t need to use a bowl or vial. The vessel didn’t matter so long as there was an opening for the magic to extract the blood.

Mel quickly converted the room of corpses into piles of red-stained bones, with a few bodies to spare. In fact, the title was so beautifully efficient that she thought the Priest must have been an idiot or at least needlessly wasteful.

All it would take would be a small incision – Mel arrested the dark thoughts immediately. She didn’t like where her mind went, even if it was for the sake of spell efficiency and just in her head.

Doing her best to banish the mental image of a “blood farm”, Mel turned back to her newly enhanced twinblade.

Getting her [Exile Twinblade] from Common to Uncommon required three [Weapon Scraps] of Common rarity. From there, it took four Uncommon [Weapon Scraps] to raise it to Rare. Even with [Blood Tax] improving her output, bumping the weapon up two rarities consumed most of her [Weapon Scraps].

Mel’s twinblade was better than ever and even had a new imprint. She was pretty satisfied with the result, especially since she was new to ritual magic.

[Exile Twinblade (Fire)]

(Copper Rank, Weapon)

(Rare)

A sword with blades extending from both sides of the hilt. Originally created for new prospects that survived being inducted to the multiverse, this weapon has been improved in rarity twice through ritual magic.

Imprint: Inflicts greater countering and piercing damage.

Imprint(Fire Ember): Deals Fire damage. Increased Strength scaling effectiveness.

Combat Art: [Quickstep]

Mel was curious about the countering imprint. She didn’t necessarily have a skill for countering or anything like that.

So it must be a type of damage like piercing, right?

Her best guess was that countering damage occurred when doing just that, such as parrying a blow and then counterattacking.

Even with the [Armor Scraps] she made from useless pieces of equipment, she would never have enough scrap to upgrade her [Heathen’s Cuirass] to whatever was after Epic.

The only information she had was what Common and Uncommon required. Common needed three pieces, while Uncommon needed four. If it scaled linearly like she assumed, that meant Rare would need five pieces.

With most equipment she came across being Common, that would be an incredible amount of armor to upgrade one rarity level.

Still, it was an incredibly efficient system that she adored simply for its space-saving capabilities.

Mel could turn nine Common weapons she wouldn’t have room for into nine piles of Common [Weapon Scrap]. That alone was a large improvement on space requirements, but she could go a step further.

By using her [Soul Kiln] to enhance the scrap, instead of using it to enhance a weapon, she could turn the Common scrap into Uncommon scrap. Turning those nine pieces of Common scrap into just three small piles of Uncommon [Weapon Scrap] which easily fit in her inventory.

Mel paused and stared at the pile of glorious Uncommon scrap. “I might have a bit of an obsession with this.”

Her scalebane gloves were another matter. Unlike her Rare trousers, they were only Uncommon. And while there had been less armor than weapons, she was able to create enough [Armor Scrap] to enhance her gloves from Uncommon to Rare.

Thanks in part to the two pieces of Uncommon armor she found. Neither of which appealed to her. She wasn’t about to wear a [Fanatic’s Loincloth] or a [Blessed Waistcloth].

Ain’t nothing blessed about that waistcloth. I’d sooner streak naked through a snowstorm than put those nasty things on, Mel thought with fierce conviction.

The imprint on the gloves didn’t change, which was hardly surprising. They were already fairly good, and now they were even stronger at Rare. The difference between Uncommon and Rare was staggering. Just like her twinblade, upgrading a low rarity item into a higher rarity made the enhancements obvious.

It was more than the cleaner more refined look. The extra embellishments or the improved intrinsic attributes. Her twinblade went from sharp to razor sharp even after she slammed the blade into a stone. There wasn’t the slightest nick or dent.

Her gloves, meanwhile, became something else entirely. Originally, they had a slight grippy texture on the palms and fingers to enhance her grip. When she brought them to Rare, that changed into an odd magnetic sort of effect when she grabbed something.

Mel was a pixie in more than just her face and the light dusting of freckles across her nose. She was small . Even among women, she often was the shortest around. That naturally extended to her hands. Palming a basketball was normally an impossibility, but with her gloves at Rare, she could easily pick up a brick much larger than her hand and keep a firm hold of it.

Mel felt better prepared than ever to take on the hazards of the competition. Everything fit snugly, which was just how she liked it.

She was munching on a snack of mushrooms and slightly crushed berries from their earlier foraging when the others started to come around.

Sabrina was the first to get up. Mel was glad that she was done experimenting by then, because the room looked significantly cleaner than it had originally.

There was nothing she could do about the stains, but the bodies were far more…compact.

Mel kept both the barred door and her group in her sight while she ate and recovered her health. Even with [Sacred Path] helping to keep her wound-free, Mel didn’t think she would be back to normal for at least another day.

If only I could learn some healing ritual magic, she thought to herself. Not that Maddie’s healing was bad, but it drained the poor woman so much that she hadn’t been able to participate much in the fighting in order to keep it up.

Mel was already thinking about buying another [Fallen Realm Seed] from the Emporium. Having used two of them, the recovery effects from the mushrooms and berries were more potent than before.

Just not enough to keep up with extensive fighting.

She had been so consumed with testing out the scrap ritual that she had nearly forgotten all about the Emporium. Now that Sabrina was up, she kept it on the back burner for now.

“There’s food and water here,” Mel told her.

The woman looked confused and disoriented, her wide, innocent blue eyes taking in the remains of the pitched battle as if for the first time.

Don’t scream, don’t scream, Mel thought to herself, noticing the signs of a mental break coming.

Mel didn’t know what sort of things might be lurking out in the rest of the complex and didn’t want to attract them with noise, just in case.

Sabrina didn’t scream, thankfully. What she did was much worse. Mel watched, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest as the innocent light drained from Sabrina’s eyes. She looked down at her bloodied and soot-stained hands, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

Dammit.