The next day, I started flying toward the Necropolis. I hated leaving the city since we still weren’t self-sufficient. However, if I wanted to help Einvaldskonungr, I needed to act.
The dragonberries I created everyday with my spell points were the main reason we had been able to make so much progress. However, dragonberries only lasted for twenty-four hours, which meant that after that time, the kobolds in the city would have to start eating our food reserves.
Despite this worry, I knew that the Necropolis was the best place to go when I infused faith into the divine focus. Luckily, I was much faster after becoming a demigod. My speed had almost doubled when I gained a Divine Spark. Because of this, I was able to fly through the darkness extremely quickly. Even with my increased speed, though, it still took over half a day’s travel to get there.
The Necropolis was located in a valley between mountain ranges. On one side was the Penningr Republic while the Konungdómr Kingdom was on the other. While the mountain ranges were not particularly large, they were impressive nonetheless.
There was one strange thing about the area though. Nothing grew within a few miles of the Necropolis. It was as if the land itself was cursed. I was actually a little surprised that humans were able to live in the area. Then again, it was completely possible that the lifespan of its inhabitants would decrease the longer they stayed in the city. While I might have become a demigod, I still had a lot to learn.
The ancient city was both beautiful and ugly. I didn’t even know how that was possible. It was built entirely from the bones of forgotten creatures from long-dead civilizations. From a distance, its towering spires and sprawling cathedrals seemed to cast eerie shadows on the barren landscape.
The city’s architecture was strange. Intricately carved bone spires reached skyward like the skeletal fingers of some primordial giant. These towering structures looked like they had been formed from the fused bones of colossal beasts and ancient leviathans. The spires were adorned with delicate, bone-carved filigree. They depicted scenes of battles, rituals, and celestial conflicts. It was also filled with ancient writings that were carved into the larger bones.
As I was flying closer, I could see that it was separated into three areas. There was a central area, the area I was flying toward. There was also a middle and an outer area. It appeared that the outer area was mostly abandoned. As for the middle area, it seemed to be much more lively.
Then again, maybe that wasn’t the word to use. I could actually see a lot of living people walking around even at night. However, there were also a lot of undead wandering around. If I had to guess, they appeared to be working to repair or guard the area.
As for the inner area, that was obviously the place of power. I could sense several powerful magical auras which felt threatening coming from various places around the inner city. That was quite intimidating since I was a minor god and didn’t want to make the owners of those auras mad. Luckily, they didn’t seem to care about my approach at all.
Since everywhere visitors looked, they would find bones, the Necropolis had gained another name, the City of Bones. I had expected to see black robed necromancers or black robed clerics of the death god. While they were definitely present, I actually saw more soldiers, merchants, and regular people that I would ever have imagined. Despite its grim appearance, the Necropolis was a city teeming with life, albeit not the life I had expected.
Unsurprisingly, there were numerous undead creatures in the city. They included liches, revenants, skeletons, and just about every other type of undead. All of them moved unmolested through the streets. They didn’t seem interested in attacking the living inhabitants of the city. If I had to guess, I would say they were all kept under strict control. Despite the abundance of undead creatures, the city was alive with a sense of purpose and ancient power.
At the heart of the Necropolis stood a single great spire. It was an immense tower of bone that rose above all other structures in the city. This tower was both a symbol of the city’s power and a functional center of necromantic magic. Its walls were covered in dark, arcane runes that glowed faintly with a malevolent light. The very air around it thrummed with the energy of dark rituals and ancient incantations.
I landed in an area just under the peak of this spire in an area that reminded me of a lighthouse. I then gazed down at the entire city. It was laid out like a skeletal map, a reminder of the Necropolis’s dominance over the surrounding land. I was glad that I had chosen this spot.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go to the deepest part of the Necropolis or somewhere else, such as the Cathedral of Death. This church was where many of the followers of Banasár congregated. There were also other places of worship, but none as grand.
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However, I had decided that I wanted to go to the highest point of the city, a place where I could look down upon everyone and everything, like a god. Because of this, I chose to create the divine focus there. Since I was in place, I pulled the necrotic spellbook out of my dimensional space.
Before I had left, I had already asked the kobold craftsman to attach the altered dragonscale feather to the spellbook with a silver. I then held the book and started concentrating, trying to use my willpower to force the Faith Points into the divine focus I had made. A window popped up with a ding. I hurriedly looked at it, my heart beating with excitement and anticipation. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.
AN ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO CREATE A DIVINE FOCUS. This attempt has failed because the spellbook was not anointed and was of low quality.
I frowned after reading the notification, annoyed that I had wasted so much time and energy in creating the book. I had to resist the impulse to throw the spellbook to the ground far below. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I could understand failing because of the spellbook’s quality, but I had no idea on how to anoint the spellbook. Did I need holy or unholy water to sprinkle onto it? Not really sure what else to do, I tried again, but this time only using my feather instead. Hopefully, I would get more information about how to anoint the feather.
AN ATTEMPT HAS BEEN MADE TO CREATE A DIVINE FOCUS. This attempt has failed because the writing quill was not anointed and was designed to work with a spellbook.
I had to close my eyes after that. From what I could gather from that notification, I might have been able to use one of my entropic quills if I hadn’t made alterations to the dragonscale feather. While I was tempted to remove another feather, I decided against that idea since I was pretty sure I would just get another rejection. Deciding I might as well try using the Aegis Libram, I pulled it out of my personal dimensional space.
Setting it on top of the necromantic spellbook, I started to get ready to remove the chain from the necromantic spellbook and attach it to the Aegis Libram instead. That was when I noticed two things. The first was the fact that there was nowhere to attach the chain to on the Aegis Libram. The second was that the two spellbooks seemed to be merging together.
I almost dropped both spellbooks as the Aegis Libram seemed to be sliding into the necromantic spellbook, as if it were seeking a hiding place. Either that, or the Aegis Libram considered the necromantic book a new piece of clothing it could wear. After a few seconds, only one book remained. While it had the black scaled appearance of the necromantic spellbook, as soon as I opened the book, I noticed that the interior was the Aegis Libram. There was another difference. More pages had been added and one of the spells that had been indecipherable before was slowly becoming legible as the ink squirmed and wiggled on the page.
After a few seconds, I realized that it was a ritual, a high-level ritual. In fact, it was similar to the Dungeon Core spell that could only be used once. If it weren’t for the Aegis Libram helping me cast the ritual, I wouldn’t have been able to even dream of successfully completing the ritual.
Just trying to figure out the major steps I needed to follow took over an hour. Finally, though, I managed to narrow down the purpose of the ritual and everything I needed to do to complete the ritual. It was a ritual of deification. I also broke the ritual down into steps to make it easier to understand.
Ritual of Apotheosis: Elevating mortals to the divine
* Step 1: Locate an environment suitable for the deity’s domain.
* Step 2: Anoint the Divine Focus with the blood of a deity.
* Step 3: Imbue the Divine Focus with Faith.
* Step 4: Survive the psychic damage.
* Step 5: Inscribe the Magic Sigils with the blood of a deity.
* Step 6: Use the Divine Focus as a Quintessential Component.
* Step 7: Conduct the Ritual of Apotheosis.
* Step 8: Survive the physical damage of the transformation.
* Step 9: Resist being driven insane by the new deific senses.
* Step 10: Resist the Call of Oblivion.
* Step 11: Divine Baptism
* Step 12: Survive the Test of Anathema.
* Step 13: Gain Acceptance by the Planar Will.
After looking over the ritual, I realized it wasn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped. I guess I really shouldn’t have expected anything different. I wasn’t some protagonist with a golden finger who would be given everything I ever dreamed of. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I would survive the ritual even with divine assistance.
At first, I had thought step two and step five would be difficult, but then I realized I was a demigod. Therefore, I could probably use my own blood. The scary parts were steps four, eight, nine, ten, and twelve. In each of those steps, I either had to survive or resist something terrible, such as insanity. As for gaining acceptance from the Planar Will, I had never even heard of a Planar Will before. How was I supposed to gain his approval?
That was even assuming no one tried to sabotage me while I was conducting the ritual. I might even be too injured after the fourth step to continue with the ritual. Still, I had to try. If I didn’t try, I would die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. With these thoughts in mind, I made a cut on my hand and began letting the blood fall onto the Aegis Libram and the Entropic Quill.