Onaia sneered at Alaric’s remarks “Those Holies always carry themselves, but I have yet to meet someone that is more ‘just’ than us demons.” Even though the Seer Tribe was neutral, the Holy Realm was still a pest in their eyes, they weren’t as radical as most other demons, but that didn’t mean they disliked them any less. They were just smart enough to not act upon their impulses.

“Alright Onaia, I need two drops of your blood essence. You can ready yourself to produce them. Kendrick, did you find a ruby?”

“Yes, lord. It was an item the past marquis obtained in hopes of using it for blood magic… he had no chance to use it unfortunately. I have also brought the mercury and a thin brush.”

Alaric took both items into his hands and then looked at the brush, which seemed to have been made to be only a few millimetres wide. He sharpened it a bit more with his fingers before he dipped it into the mercury and started inscribing some more Void Runes on the ruby. The black paper held the magic while the ruby would work as the anchor and suppliant, as Alaric also added a few inscriptions to preserve blood essence, which would be the fuel for the magic.

It didn’t take long for him to finish, he was truly fast, but these things weren’t actually time consuming, they were rather simple, and the only issue was obtaining the materials and having the knowledge. If it came to knowledge regarding rituals, then there was no mortal that could rival him. As for non-mortals… well, there are some Sages that research their whole life, how could he compete with that, when he only had a few decades!

“Onaia, you only need to drop your blood into ruby. Are you ready?”

“Yes” she said as she looked a bit grimly. Blood essence was different from normal blood, in truth it was the condensation of a bit of your origin, then it is converted to blood, and you can dispose of it. It was a normal way of marking something yours, or using magic that pulled the origin of something else to be closer to yours.

That was why Onaia could use it even though she was in the body of someone else. She put her hand above the ruby and without using any weapon, her skin opened up by herself and released a single drop that landed on the ruby. The drop of blood looked very dark, and one felt a pull towards it, if you looked at it too long, then your mind would break, and you would start hallucinating. Since it was Onaia’s blood, obviously it had mind and illusion properties.

The mercury around the ruby absorbed the blood and stretched it to be all around the ruby, then it slowly used the mercury as entrance to the ruby, where it stored itself. Alaric took the black piece of paper, and he wrapped it around the ruby. It then shined white and black till the black paper disappeared into the mercury, only runes in the void language could be seen on the surface of the ruby.

“This ruby is around 2 carats large; Kendrick, bring it to a good gold smith and let them make a ring out of it. Ensure that it doesn’t get stolen or something, that’d be troublesome. Okay, Onaia, could you go to the western circle in the ritual? We will make the ritual tomorrow, but I want to see if everything is right and ready for tomorrow.”

Onaia did as she was told, so Alaric began going all around the ritual and fixing minimal words. To others, it seemed like he added a single line or made a circle more round somehow, and in all honesty, this wasn’t needed either, but this ritual would be a longer lasting one, around a month at least, and he wouldn’t be present if any mishaps happened, so it was better to be cautious.

Once finished, he went to one of the smaller Ritual Chambers, as the central Ritual Chamber was used for a large ritual. It was better not to do two rituals in one room at the same time.

There were many Ritual Chambers of different sizes. Onaia’s ritual would need a hundred sentient sacrifices that have sowed a lot of bad karma, to loosen the connection between her body and soul, making it easier to assimilate. Bad karma worked so well for this, since it always wanted those with bad karma to leave the world.

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He went inside one of the medium sized ones and started writing with pure black ink. It was ink made from an animal with a high affinity of darkness. The ritual was short as, once again, this was more about gathering resources and having the information.

Alaric looked at Onaia and once again asked her for a drop of blood essence, which she did in the centre of the formation. It would be preserved there till the next day, where it would probably happen. It was even better if it came freshly at that moment, but Onaia had to rest after giving two drops, a day of rest was the minimum to not have any complications during the ritual.

Finally, they left and Onaia went to a room Kendrick assigned her to. The four of them stood in Alaric’s Bedchamber as he told Kendrick “Get us three full white masks. They will hide our identities for when we leave. For me, it should be a clown’s mask, the background should also be white, but it should still have the classical red round nose.”

Kendrick and Keen bowed, they were about to leave when Alaric gave them a last note “Your names will now be Wilting for Kendrick and Flowering for Keen.” Wilting referred to the restrictive ability of Kendrick, being able to put people to halt, their most vulnerable state. While Keen was Flowering since he was young and his prime, showing of his ability, and flowering refers to opening up the buds, which pulls in more sunlight and restricts the growth of other flowers, this somewhat fits Keen and is especially good since it fits the theme.

The two left and Alaric looked at Illic as he asked, “How about ‘Budding’ for you? I will be the Sapling, the foundation of the future, and you will be the bud that forms to protect the flower growing inside. I as the founder and you the protector, what do you think?”

Illic touched Alaric’s soft face as he said, “I will protect you forever, so of course I shall be the bud protecting the flowers you grow.”

Smiling Alaric pulled Illic closer to himself as he kissed him passionately. They spend some time in that position, till Alaric pulled Illic and led him to the bed. Illic seemed nervous but also very hot blooding, he let himself get pulled and was led by Alaric as his clothes left his body one piece after another. This was the first time for both of them, so they were rather slow, but this didn’t stop their breaths from becoming hot and fast.

Illic was below Alaric, sitting on his stem that entered Alaric’s moving body, creating its own version of a flower inside of him. They went through the stages of Sapling, Budding, Flowering… but Wilting didn’t seem to be part of their cycle, at least not until a few hours into the night went by. Alaric was laying in Illics embrace as he was thinking about a lot of things. Illic, in comparison, was exhausted and barely staying conscious as he was stroking Alaric’s head.

“What are you thinking about… dear?” He was still trying to find a fitting nickname for his lover.

“My Bee, I think about the shop I am creating. I will probably create several different ones over a long period of time, but I wish for them to not have too many relations regarding what they do. I plan to make one that specialises in curses, one in prayers and blessings, another in ceremonies and maybe more. What do you think? With what should we start?”

Illic was confused about the nickname, but then understood it and said “My Flower, prayers and blessings need an existing reputation, so it might be too difficult of a start.

Ceremonies have a similar problem, they are more often that not held for higher people, and even the common ones are held for masses. Without connections, it will be difficult to start anything. I think Curses would fit well, people look for smaller and more inconspicuous places when they want to hire such things, especially if they are of higher rank and don’t want to run into any problems when mishaps happen. Additionally, we won’t be able to set our prices too high, so for high people, they will think that it won’t matter if things don’t work, they don’t lose much.”

Smiling, Alaric nodded and pulled Illic closer to him as he wanted to stay in his embrace. Ahh, in bed with a hot guy talking about business and curses, I truly am in a magical world. Now, the question is, how did this body take it so well when Illic is so exhausted… yeah, I seem to have an affinity truly for everything, guess incubi also have to have their strength from somewhere…

Giggling, he snuggled some more till he fell asleep, Illic saw this and could finally rest too, he didn’t understand why the bottom had apparently had more stamina that him… he would have to work out harder, much harder, as hard as his stem, which refused to allow his hips’ tiredness.