Chapter 143: Arcanum (2)

Watching the departing Magus, Nayu looked up at her Master who was still in thought.

“Master. Why were you so polite?” Not even for the Wolf King did her master greet a customer so nicely. And this person came to the most renowned smith in town, one who had wait lists in the counting of years rather than months, asking for scrap metal.

“A feeling.”

“From the earth?” Nayu asked, resisting the urge not to roll her eyes whenever he spoke about the voice of the world. She knew he was lying and was just teasing her by not telling the real reason.

“Of course.”

“Do you think he’ll actually make good on his promise…Those were expensive even if you consider them failed products,” She grumbled.

“He did not lie.”

Nayu just shrugged and went to the back, it seemed she wouldn’t get a clear answer this time. Her master followed, humming the same strange tune the Magus was.

--

The following night, Rainer’s party entered the White Void. With Kara mentioning a bit of fuzziness of the mind, he opted to send everyone into Auto-pilot. Sitting alone, Rainer pondered over his coming night. A part of him wished to start on his enchanting, but his mind could not get off the subject of his [Arcane Weaving]. It consumed him.

Without further hesitation, Rainer began weaving the ritual circle to create the Mana Pool. The moment it was done, he activated Final Arcanum on his own arm, and stopped it just short of firing. His mind went over the runes that twisted and distorted his Runic lines of [Arcane Awakening] from down his arm all the way to his forehead. These were the runes he needed. It was now a question of bringing them into the ritual.

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He looked down at the massive Arcane woven ritual beneath his feet. He sought a starting point. An intuitive place to put the first rune and that answer was simple. The shining rune on his forehead that stood for the Arcane now overlaid with the Mana pool rune. From there, he connected it to each point of the six pointed star. And both at the points and along the way he used the runes of Final Arcanum and looped it all the way back to the source in the center.

When it came to converting actual spells to rituals, unless there was a great compatibility, it was almost impossible. And yet Rainer knew with his recently gained skill on Arcane rituals, that his [Arcane Awakening] variations lent themselves quite well to rituals. They weren't spells and yet used runes. He finally made the connection that Body Enchantment itself was a variation of ritual magic. The enchantments were composed of blood after all.

Backing away from the woven circle, Arcane power swarmed as he activated the massive ritual. The Mana pool was correctly created and yet nothing else seemed to occur. The added runes merely lit up and did nothing. Rainer frowned. While it was his first attempt, he already had a finished version to work off of, even if it wasn’t strictly a ritual. At least something should have occurred.

He tried again and assumed he was wrong. He made countless variations and yet straying away from the first merely made it worse. His variations would often not even light up, or screw up the Mana Pool ritual itself. So he went back to his first attempt.

Staring at the massive ritual circle, Rainer couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Instead of wallowing on this, he started working on a needed step, shrinking. He made the ritual smaller and smaller, drawing upon Arcane power en masse. All the while he never stopped considering what was missing.

Hours passed as he nearly found himself in a trance, wielding the full power of [Arcane Energy Manipulation] to assist in his efforts. It was then the information of the original ritual floated through his mind. A note, that the most effective place to do said ritual was exactly where the sacrifices are made. He then recalled Amer’s comment on the weave circle he showed him. It seemed slightly off, and yet when he later tested it on his forehead it worked just fine.

A medium...I’m missing the needed medium.

His body provided the medium for Final Arcanum. So after another few hours of finally getting the ritual circle small enough to cover his chest, he tried again. Yet the failure was the same, both with [Arcane Awakening] turned off and then on.

At this point, he started to consider for the first time it wasn’t possible...before immediately shaking away that thought. He needed to just find the right medium. He knew this to be true.

Final...Arcanum…

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He thought in his head. Why was the spell so powerful? Was it purely because of it’s efficiency and that it consumed his Arcane Power at once with great drawbacks afterwards? Or was it like [Arcane Energy Manipulation] in allowing him to draw Arcane from Beyond or as it was now listed, the Arcanium.

Rainer focused, drawing Arcane Power from beyond. The thought that he needed to create a Void to use [Void-walking] but nothing to draw Arcane power floated through his mind. But he left the mysteries of [Sleep Learning] for another time.

Every time he pulled out power, he tried to get a sense of its coming. To get just a glimpse at what this Arcanium was. He reached out with his mind, just as he did when trying to master [Void-walking] so long ago. Searching and searching for another existence beyond this one. He recalled his encounter with the Divinity that tried to prevent [Absolute Rebirth] and used his own armed [Arcane Presence] to try and near the beyond he sought.

[Skill Gained: Arcanium Detection lvl 1/10]

His mind reeled back. Whatever it was, he wasn’t ready to peer into it. But his excitement remained the same. With the Arcanium and his new skill in mind, he drew the ritual once more. The circle thrummed with power. And he activated it.

A bright violet light encompassed the white void. And it took Rainer with it.

Refreshing his body moment later, he realized the issue. There was nothing aiming it. It was merely an explosion of Arcane. Final Arcanum was aimed by his arm and the lines of [Arcane Awakening], but the ritual had no such thing. Having not an idea how to change the ritual to aim it, he didn’t try to.

Instead, he opted to a create a spell to do the same. Sitting down with a created paper in front of him, he feverently wrote as he borrowed from similar beam like spells such as the unlearned and yet always borrowed from [Deliverance], as well as one of the first light spells he ever learned, [Light Beam] and its arcane version.

He felt the sensation of waking coming for him, but fervently ignored it. So long as he sensed nothing of ill news from Luna, he had no plans of waking until his task was done.

Rainer stood still. The ritual placed in front of his outstretched palm. Arcane flowed from places unknown as he drew the very weave upon a world outside of this one, and yet connected all the same.

And so came the word he longed to speak.

“Arcanum.”

A line of violet, brighter than the white of the space itself, signaled the desire he sought. The beam of Arcane tore through the air, the sheer energy radiating in all directions.

[Spell gained: Arcanum lvl 1/10]

He let out a deep breath. In terms of strength it fell behind an overcharged Spear spell, but it had an instant activation with no physical component. He added the word merely in the moment, but it was not needed. So long as the ritual was prepared ahead of time for use in battle, it was hard to compare to any of his current spells in usefulness.

Now, however, Rainer found himself at a standstill. How was he to create an Armament spell for this? It was one thing creating a spell for, say, [Arcane Presence], which was a set skill, but this ritual circle was the application of [Arcane Weaving] and [Arcane Ritual Mastery]. It wasn’t a straightforward action.

Staring at his hands in thought, he went into a different direction. He thought back to the very first time he tried to arm Arcane Weaves, back in the Wyvern-filled Dungeon near Nalmar. He failed then too, but he remembered clearly his thoughts on how to succeed; he needed a magically created space to draw the weaves from.

So instead of arming them as originally planned, the success of how quickly he altered the ritual to include the runes for Final Arcanum was brought to mind.

First he drew the ritual with [Arcanium Detection] active, giving it a connection to that realm. And then, he drew on another set of runes, in the spaces between each pointed star. These ones resembling the recently created Void-Step. Taking care to keep the Void part of the ritual as a separate activation he finished drawing it while focusing on the Void.

[Arcane Awakening: Storage] activated as he put the woven ritual circle inside. It wouldn’t exist once he awoke, of course, but he needed it for his current test. More importantly, the weave wouldn’t degrade so long as it was in that space just like the Arcane weaved chains he kept in there.

Once more he prepared to write another spell formula, one to retrieve the circle from storage and place it in the spot he desired. There were numerous remote ritual activation spells in all the learning materials he had. So he picked out the ones most desired and added [Void-walking] elements so he could activate it while it was in storage.

Numerous strange attempts later, and a few where his body refreshed for seemingly no reason, Rainer had the spell for retrieving and activating the Void-step part of the Arcanum ritual. He merged it with the Arcanum spell, creating a situation similar to his [Arcane-Spatial Domain] and [Arcane-Spatial Domain: Spatial Shift].

[Spell Gained: Arcanum: Retrieval lvl 1/10]

With but a thought, the ritual activated and the circle appeared over Rainer’s shoulder. Manipulating it back into storage, he did the same, this time merely using the base [Arcanum] in concert with the new spell so it activated the moment it appeared at the desired location.

[Arcanum]

The violet beam fired just as before. More difficult to aim, but powerful all the same. Watching the power of the violet light, Rainer found finally himself drifting awake, no longer having the sheer force of will to keep himself unconscious.