13.
Over the next five minutes somehow the entire household appeared. Including Chloe and Rayleigh. Someone had thrown him a towel which was now wrapped around his waist, preserving some of his audience’s innocence.
Cam’s laughter had faded as they helped Santi scrape himself clean. The new scars from the initiation were angry red lines that covered his body. The healing potions did heal you, but they left scars. Everyone had gotten a bit quiet and morose as they saw the roadmap that Santi had built over the last several weeks.
Tank had been a lifesaver, keeping up a running commentary of what was going on while he scrubbed. He had been right, the brush was uncomfortable, but it was better than contaminating an evolution ritual. When a few bird feathers had appeared from somewhere that had gotten a few laughs. When a tooth that had been lodged in his forearm was taken out, the laughter died. Santi hadn’t even noticed the bite.
“Yesi, do you want to learn magic?” Santi asked. The quiet was killing him. He had six people staring at him while two others helped him get a mix of blood and mud out of his matted hair. Then Daniel and Hana decided to walk out the backdoor and join the crowd. Eight people were staring at him now.
“Yeah, who wouldn’t?”
Santi wanted to wince and defend his past self. He had been too worried about not dying to focus on the whole magic thing. By the time he got into being a real magic class user, he had decided on the mage route rather than Wizard or Ritualist. Both classes that focused more on the minutiae of magic rather than practical uses. Like staying alive.
“Third page is a ritual with how to do an Initiate to Acolyte evolution. Set it up, it’ll be good practice for you,” Santi told her. Her current class was good, but it could be better. A Planner could easily slide into a ritualist class with a little help. Help he could provide. With a few skilled fighters around a skilled ritualist, they were damn near unstoppable.
“This looks too easy,” Yesi said after looking at it for a minute. The guys had grabbed a big bucket filled with clean water and were coming at him for a final rinse. Everyone spun around as Santi shed his towel to let the cleansing water rinse off the suds and last of the dirt.
“It’s simple, but needs to be done precisely.”
“Mom, Bianca, Daniel, help me fill up that tub,” Yesi pointed at a tub off to the side. It was one of the many bathtubs he had procured over the last few days. The four of them started to dump buckets of water into the tub while the rest watched.
“Hana, my room is on the second story, first door on the right. There’s a plastic bag, could you get it please?” Santi asked. A first step evolution like this was easy. There was also room for variation.
If they performed poorly and did the most rudimentary evolution ritual with little to no extras, it’d net him a measly five attribute points per stat. If they did it the deluxe way, burning away natural treasures like monopoly money, then it could get interesting. He had found several low grade treasures that could be incorporated without slowing anyone else down.
It was a balancing act he was performing. If he took everything he wanted he would slow the others down. Make their own evolutions weaker or prevent them from evolving as fast as him. At the same time he needed to build the strongest base possible to try to overcome the barrier between Disciple and Champion.
He had pulled three treasures out of the goblin horde and rift that would boost him while not crippling the others' own future. He just needed someone to go get them. Hana gave a thumbs up without looking at him and ran into the house.
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It didn’t take long for the others to fill the tub with water. Large pots of water had been filled from the nearby pond last night and set to boil this morning while he was off playing with the squirrels. After his evolution the girls and Cameron would be off on their own merry way, hunting monsters for levels while Santi recovered.
He wasn’t looking forward to the evolution. The power boost would be massive and the next round of spell selections huge. He wanted Air Manipulation but his one open slot wasn’t enough. He’d gain another slot on crossing into the Acolyte tier and then would only need five levels to get the spell. The distribution center would be more than enough for that.
Hana came racing down the stairs with the bag in her hand. She blushed as she saw Santi, but didn’t say anything. She tossed the bag casually and Santi had to suppress a wince at the valuable resources being tossed around.
He snatched it out of the air and marched toward the now filled tub. His windchimes had been grabbed and placed nearby in easy reach. The constant draft they emitted was keeping the area cool and breezy. It wasn’t heating up quite yet, but the day promised to be a scorcher.
He hopped in the tub, water sloshing over the sides and leaning back to relax. The water was still warm and he could feel some of the tension leaving his body as tense muscles loosened.
“Yesi, the bag has fuel. You see where in the ritual it goes? The windchimes are an affinity booster.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Mom, grab the salt, please. Daniel, could you take out the items in the bag?” Yesi had her nose glued to the grimoires pages, barking orders like a seasoned general. Mom rolled her eyes, but still walked off to grab the big container of iodized salt. Daniel simply pulled free the ingredients and laid them out.
The first was the rift stone he had taken. It was shrunk down and had lost much of its potential, but was still a powerful source. A wilted flower was next, the green stem prickly and sticky with sap. It had the head of a sunflower, just blood red instead of golden-yellow. There was a faint sense of vitality to it, pulsing like the heart Santi had found for Tank.
The final item was a rock. A simple, plain, brown rock. If one didn’t have a high enough perception they wouldn’t have been able to tell it was a treasure at all. A faint sense of heaviness radiated from it. As if one would be unable to move if they picked it up.
The flower was linked to vitality, though it had been poorly harvested and had lost much of its potency. The rock had, somehow, gained something that resonated with durability. Two of his, and most magic users, weakest stats. He could boost his mage stats normally, but his physical stats would lag behind eventually. Once mage-killler classes started to emerge, he wanted to not die immediately in a fight.
Santi watched carefully as Yesi arranged the items. A simple triangle, each of the items roughly equidistant from each other. When Mom came with the container of salt, Yesi grabbed it and started to pour a circle. The others got closer to watch and Santi felt the need to tell them what was happening.
“The items will fuel the transformation and help me boost some critical stats. They’re not precisely necessary, but they do help. The circle is like a container, locking in all the excess energy and focusing it here. When the ritual starts the salt will burn away slowly, once it's all gone, the ritual will be over.”
“But, why?” Cam asked. He looked sincere and not being his normal smart-ass self.
“Magic is for all intents and purposes, from what I’ve read in the grimoire at least, based on symbolism. You need power obviously, mana, willpower, and intelligence are prerequisite stats to be good at it. Understanding symbology and what they mean to you and your culture is critical. Not everyone is the same and what could work for one wouldn’t work for the other. Sometimes.”
“You’re a terrible teacher,” Tank drawled. The explanation hadn’t been the best, but it wasn’t that bad. He looked around and saw everyone nodding along with Tank’s words. Except Yesi who was finishing up the salt circle.
“Ok, it’s like this. I’m a car right, perched on a ledge. Potential and everything is just teetering there. I need to go over the ledge. So I use the treasures to push me off the ledge.”
“Is it me, or are his explanations getting worse?” Hana muttered in the back of the group. Everyone nodded and Santi felt his blood pressure starting to rise.
“The water of the tub is symbolically transformative. Water of the womb, water changes shape, you get me? The salt is a boundary line. The treasures are energy. The potential I acquired burns up and I evolve.”
“Kinda makes more sense that time,” Cam said. He got a few shrug and disappointed head shakes.
“Santi is like raw chicken. The treasures are spices. The tub and water is the hot pan, the salt is the stove,” Yesi said.
“Ohhhhh,” everyone sounded like they had just received divine insights. Santi sunk into the tub, letting the water reach his neck. His explanations hadn’t been that bad, had they?