Sofia made her way down all the way to floor 4 of the teachers’ tower, but Astelia wasn’t there. Next she went up until she found Zerei’s floor, which was the twenty sixth. She knocked not expecting anything, but the door started unlocking a few seconds later.
It was Astelia who opened the door, she was wearing the same embroidered robe Sofia had first seen her in at the Skyreach Vampire embassy.
“Sofia! You were accepted?”
“It wasn’t too hard. What is Zerei doing?”
Behind Astelia, Zerei’s room looked less like a room and more like a madman’s attempt at a ritual circle. There was hardly any furniture anywhere, the entire floor covered in magic circles and runes, with Zerei in the middle of it, sprawled on the floor.
“Ah, right. She’s trying to replicate your [Summon Blood] spell. Or rather, she just gave up,” Astelia answered with a shrug.
Oh. “Why would you even try that?”
“She believes it to be the first step to turning mana into any stable matter you want. I stuck around for reasons. Obviously it has not been going well.”
Well, it certainly is an attempt.
“She is basing that on all the times she saw me use it?”
Astelia nodded.
Sofia entered the room and walked up to Zerei. “Hey birdie.”
She opened her eyes. “Hello Sofia… Your skill is too much for me, yes…” She answered while still lying on the floor.
“You should have asked me for help, I could have told you it was impossible.”
There’s seriously no way.
Zerei finally sat up. “I know, yes… But I still wanted to try.”
Sofia shook her head and sat on the floor in front of Zerei. “I think if you spend a thousand years or two at this rate you might get there. I tried probing a bit deeper into [Summon Blood] myself after Ihuarah hammered how much of an anomaly it was to be creating stable matter other than water. But uh. It’s not looking good. Just the external part of the skill is my most complex skill by a thousand times. I observed an Angel’s spell when he showed me and it only took me a few weeks to replicate it. [Summon Blood] though? I don’t think I could copy it in a thousand years.”
Astelia joined the two on the floor, although she actually floated right above it instead of truly sitting.“Truth be told, Agran’s said the same thing. He helped Sofia bottle the blood way back in Skyreach, and he spent the whole time staring at her casting the spell. His opinion was that not even the Queen would be able to learn such a complex spell.”
“What. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t cast it either, as I said, not in a thousand years. It’s the system doing all the work.”
“Such a missed opportunity, yes…” Zerei was a bit sluggish still, but she suddenly opened her eyes wide and started summoning stacks of paper out of a storage item. “Right! Sofia, I made a new ritual aura for you! Well, I didn’t make it for you, but you could use it, yes,” she proudly declared while brandishing a piece of paper with a complex ritual circle on it. The center of the ritual circle was blank, which was not something Sofia had ever seen.
“What’s that?”
“A secret project I have been working on since before your second trial. Hear me out, yes. Last time when I showed you my aura tattoos, you said during the meal after that you thought it was funny how we could be considered objects to enchantments.”
“I did say that.”
“Well, we are not, no. Regular enchantments do not work on living beings, no. But passive skills do, by embedding themselves inside of our body and soul, yes? Well I thought of a new way to bypass the issue! I present the ritual-circuit converter! It is a way for the ritual circle on it to latch onto your soul, wrapping around it, this way you can have a ritual circle on your body that will not conflict with your own magic and last forever because it is fueled by your own mana, yes!”
“Wait… So you can enchant yourself with any ritual circle?”
“Correct, yes!”
Since Zerei seemed too excited, Astelia was the one who finished explaining, “You can only use one because you only have one soul to serve as a canvas, and the cost to maintain the ritual is the cost of whatever ritual you use plus about five percent of your mana regeneration speed.”
“Has this been tested?” Sofia asked as she stared at the ritual circle on the paper.
What would happen if I drew Pareth’s ritual on my body with this? What about the Annihilator’s sigil from the labyrinth of Zar?
Astelia nodded, “Let me show you…” Saying this, she pulled on the collar of her robe, exposing the upper right part of her chest. On her skin right where her heart was, Sofia could see the softly glowing ritual circle embedded in Astelia’s flesh.
“It works? What does this one do? It looks rather simple.”
Astelia nodded again, “This is best used with cheap enchantments or rituals, to avoid impairing mana regeneration too much. This ritual is one that enhances stamina regeneration. It works really well!”
Sofia returned to her room a few hours later, her back aching like she had been hit by a cannonball. She could still clearly remember the sensation of Zerei’s nails digging into her flesh as she carved the ritual.
That’s such a good upgrade though.
Looking at her back in a mirror that originally came from Zangdar’s castle, Sofia couldn’t contain a smirk.
For the low cost of five percent of her mana regeneration, she had improved her mana regeneration by twenty percent, up to two hundred percent under direct sunlight.
It’s too bad that I can’t get the effect twice by standing inside a regular ritual circle, but thanks to my special exemption, I can use the ritual without sacrificing any gold. I used to make a bone platform to stand on when I needed the regeneration, but now I have it on all the time!
Thank you for the free mana, Sun!
Being able to simply walk up to her windows and watch her mana regeneration speed shoot up really felt like she was cheating.
“Zerei really outdid herself. And she’s sharing it for free. Maybe I should try to do something for everyone else too.”
But I’m no craftsman. At best I can make skeletons… Or bone sculptures. They look nice but aren’t particularly useful.
Her thoughts drifting onto magical items, Sofia recalled another of the topics of discussion Astelia and Zerei had brought up while her back was being slaughtered. The academy was apparently organizing a special event for its three thousand year anniversary which would span the entire year. The best teachers would get awarded enchanted brooches crafted by the headmaster, while the best student would receive a national treasure of the Empire, donated by the Emperor himself and an offer to work as a court mage trained directly by the Empress.
The specifics of how the winner would be decided and what the magic items did were to be revealed during the opening ceremony two days later, with the Emperor hosting the event with Beligenus.
I could use another magic brooch. I still have the one from the Saint Alliance but it’s more of a decoration than anything else at this point.
Can I pretend to be one of the best teachers though? That’s not very realistic. Astelia and Zerei are both better teachers than me, not to mention the other thirty or so real teachers of the academy.
But it would be nice if I could at least get one of my students to win the student prize. On paper they looked promising enough. Let’s aim for that!
Sofia had also learned that Saria, Alith, Cinthia and Joah were still staying in an inn outside the academy, as the students weren’t allowed in quite yet. Sofia had debated going out to join them, but she instead chose to spend the next two days in her room.
Alone with Pareth, she spent the entire time thinking about how she would be teaching her students, all the while starting to work on the next step of VPPV. The skill description hadn’t lied in that it was quite an involved process. It took forever to finally get the timing right and make the transformation work, and Sofia screamed every time a drop of her blood successfully and painfully turned into light.
As someone who had once stabbed herself in the heart, Sofia could confirm without a shadow of a doubt that unlike what the description said, turning blood into light was much more painful than a simple stabbing.
After more than thirty hours of this painful training, Sofia dejectedly looked at VPPV’s description while she showered to prepare for the opening ceremony.
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step of the Light forging realm :
Light forging realm :
Starting step : You no longer age.
First step : Your skin becomes tougher and opaque (1000/1000%)
Second step : Your blood becomes light (42 / 126 441 drops converted)
Good lord…
Sofia made her way down all the way to floor 4 of the teachers’ tower, but Astelia wasn’t there. Next she went up until she found Zerei’s floor, which was the twenty sixth. She knocked not expecting anything, but the door started unlocking a few seconds later.
It was Astelia who opened the door, she was wearing the same embroidered robe Sofia had first seen her in at the Skyreach Vampire embassy.
“Sofia! You were accepted?”
“It wasn’t too hard. What is Zerei doing?”
Behind Astelia, Zerei’s room looked less like a room and more like a madman’s attempt at a ritual circle. There was hardly any furniture anywhere, the entire floor covered in magic circles and runes, with Zerei in the middle of it, sprawled on the floor.
“Ah, right. She’s trying to replicate your [Summon Blood] spell. Or rather, she just gave up,” Astelia answered with a shrug.
Oh. “Why would you even try that?”
“She believes it to be the first step to turning mana into any stable matter you want. I stuck around for reasons. Obviously it has not been going well.”
Well, it certainly is an attempt.
“She is basing that on all the times she saw me use it?”
Astelia nodded.
Sofia entered the room and walked up to Zerei. “Hey birdie.”
She opened her eyes. “Hello Sofia… Your skill is too much for me, yes…” She answered while still lying on the floor.
“You should have asked me for help, I could have told you it was impossible.”
There’s seriously no way.
Zerei finally sat up. “I know, yes… But I still wanted to try.”
Sofia shook her head and sat on the floor in front of Zerei. “I think if you spend a thousand years or two at this rate you might get there. I tried probing a bit deeper into [Summon Blood] myself after Ihuarah hammered how much of an anomaly it was to be creating stable matter other than water. But uh. It’s not looking good. Just the external part of the skill is my most complex skill by a thousand times. I observed an Angel’s spell when he showed me and it only took me a few weeks to replicate it. [Summon Blood] though? I don’t think I could copy it in a thousand years.”
Astelia joined the two on the floor, although she actually floated right above it instead of truly sitting.“Truth be told, Agran’s said the same thing. He helped Sofia bottle the blood way back in Skyreach, and he spent the whole time staring at her casting the spell. His opinion was that not even the Queen would be able to learn such a complex spell.”
“What. Don’t look at me like that. I can’t cast it either, as I said, not in a thousand years. It’s the system doing all the work.”
“Such a missed opportunity, yes…” Zerei was a bit sluggish still, but she suddenly opened her eyes wide and started summoning stacks of paper out of a storage item. “Right! Sofia, I made a new ritual aura for you! Well, I didn’t make it for you, but you could use it, yes,” she proudly declared while brandishing a piece of paper with a complex ritual circle on it. The center of the ritual circle was blank, which was not something Sofia had ever seen.
“What’s that?”
“A secret project I have been working on since before your second trial. Hear me out, yes. Last time when I showed you my aura tattoos, you said during the meal after that you thought it was funny how we could be considered objects to enchantments.”
“I did say that.”
“Well, we are not, no. Regular enchantments do not work on living beings, no. But passive skills do, by embedding themselves inside of our body and soul, yes? Well I thought of a new way to bypass the issue! I present the ritual-circuit converter! It is a way for the ritual circle on it to latch onto your soul, wrapping around it, this way you can have a ritual circle on your body that will not conflict with your own magic and last forever because it is fueled by your own mana, yes!”
“Wait… So you can enchant yourself with any ritual circle?”
“Correct, yes!”
Since Zerei seemed too excited, Astelia was the one who finished explaining, “You can only use one because you only have one soul to serve as a canvas, and the cost to maintain the ritual is the cost of whatever ritual you use plus about five percent of your mana regeneration speed.”
“Has this been tested?” Sofia asked as she stared at the ritual circle on the paper.
What would happen if I drew Pareth’s ritual on my body with this? What about the Annihilator’s sigil from the labyrinth of Zar?
Astelia nodded, “Let me show you…” Saying this, she pulled on the collar of her robe, exposing the upper right part of her chest. On her skin right where her heart was, Sofia could see the softly glowing ritual circle embedded in Astelia’s flesh.
“It works? What does this one do? It looks rather simple.”
Astelia nodded again, “This is best used with cheap enchantments or rituals, to avoid impairing mana regeneration too much. This ritual is one that enhances stamina regeneration. It works really well!”
Sofia returned to her room a few hours later, her back aching like she had been hit by a cannonball. She could still clearly remember the sensation of Zerei’s nails digging into her flesh as she carved the ritual.
That’s such a good upgrade though.
Looking at her back in a mirror that originally came from Zangdar’s castle, Sofia couldn’t contain a smirk.
For the low cost of five percent of her mana regeneration, she had improved her mana regeneration by twenty percent, up to two hundred percent under direct sunlight.
It’s too bad that I can’t get the effect twice by standing inside a regular ritual circle, but thanks to my special exemption, I can use the ritual without sacrificing any gold. I used to make a bone platform to stand on when I needed the regeneration, but now I have it on all the time!
Thank you for the free mana, Sun!
Being able to simply walk up to her windows and watch her mana regeneration speed shoot up really felt like she was cheating.
“Zerei really outdid herself. And she’s sharing it for free. Maybe I should try to do something for everyone else too.”
But I’m no craftsman. At best I can make skeletons… Or bone sculptures. They look nice but aren’t particularly useful.
Her thoughts drifting onto magical items, Sofia recalled another of the topics of discussion Astelia and Zerei had brought up while her back was being slaughtered. The academy was apparently organizing a special event for its three thousand year anniversary which would span the entire year. The best teachers would get awarded enchanted brooches crafted by the headmaster, while the best student would receive a national treasure of the Empire, donated by the Emperor himself and an offer to work as a court mage trained directly by the Empress.
The specifics of how the winner would be decided and what the magic items did were to be revealed during the opening ceremony two days later, with the Emperor hosting the event with Beligenus.
I could use another magic brooch. I still have the one from the Saint Alliance but it’s more of a decoration than anything else at this point.
Can I pretend to be one of the best teachers though? That’s not very realistic. Astelia and Zerei are both better teachers than me, not to mention the other thirty or so real teachers of the academy.
But it would be nice if I could at least get one of my students to win the student prize. On paper they looked promising enough. Let’s aim for that!
Sofia had also learned that Saria, Alith, Cinthia and Joah were still staying in an inn outside the academy, as the students weren’t allowed in quite yet. Sofia had debated going out to join them, but she instead chose to spend the next two days in her room.
Alone with Pareth, she spent the entire time thinking about how she would be teaching her students, all the while starting to work on the next step of VPPV. The skill description hadn’t lied in that it was quite an involved process. It took forever to finally get the timing right and make the transformation work, and Sofia screamed every time a drop of her blood successfully and painfully turned into light.
As someone who had once stabbed herself in the heart, Sofia could confirm without a shadow of a doubt that unlike what the description said, turning blood into light was much more painful than a simple stabbing.
After more than thirty hours of this painful training, Sofia dejectedly looked at VPPV’s description while she showered to prepare for the opening ceremony.
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step of the Light forging realm :
Light forging realm :
Starting step : You no longer age.
First step : Your skin becomes tougher and opaque (1000/1000%)
Second step : Your blood becomes light (42 / 126 441 drops converted)
Good lord…
