Chapter 37: Ritual Magic
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Thane grunted as the ritual latched onto him gluing his palms to the floor with an irresistible suction. Then Thane felt his mana being pulled out from his pathways and into the ritual, as the flickering stopped and the fragmented lines started to recover.
At first the sensation wasn't painful but as the seconds tickled by the draining went from tolerable, to somewhat uncomfortable, to unpleasant, down to outright painful. At that point Thane estimated his reserves had reached the halfway mark and he started to feel lightheaded.
With a bit of effort Thane managed to pull his hands off the ritual circle and he stumbled back onto his ass taking in a few deep breaths to steady himself, 'Well…that was something.'
Getting back onto his knees Thane looked down at the ritual which was now glowing brightly with no signs of deteriorating like before. Probing the ritual with his senses Thane realized that all the mana the ritual had absorbed from him was being stored within the circle itself instead of releasing into the surrounding air and fading out.
'It needed mana to sustain itself, that's why most rituals need alchemical ingredients or magical beast parts. They're natural sources of mana to fuel the ritual…but it only failed a few seconds afterwards. It was almost as if…the ritual was trying to draw mana from the air itself.'
Thane's thoughts trailed off as all at once the puzzle was put together in his mind, 'What if…mana used to exist without a source of magic…not as a byproduct but a source that could be drawn on.'
While it was only a guess every part of Thane was screaming at him that he was on the right path. The only question left was what event could have caused the very nature of magic to change on a fundamental level. Luckily Thane already had a pretty good idea of what had transpired, 'I think it's time that Thalion and I have a talk.'
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"You know I didn't expect us to be having this talk so soon," Thalion spoke as soon as Thane appeared in his mind, "But I guess I couldn't expect an ancient castle to be so impatient."
"So I'm right?" Thane asked with a broad grin, "The change in ambient mana was caused by the Fae disappearing from the earth."
Thalion rolled his eyes and sighed, "Yes yes, you're correct. Ambient mana used to exist without magic being performed, which is why rituals in the present are highly expensive and prone to failure."
"But that's not all, is it?" Thane probed further, hoping that Thalion was in a sharing mood and gave him more than just the bare details, "It's not just rituals that were affected."
"It's hard to overstate just how fucked the magical state of the world is," Thalion replied nonchalantly as he leaned against the armrest of his throne, "I'm surprise shit hasn't hit the fan already. Though hopefully, you Thane can press the reset button and make things right again."
"You're making it sound like I'm the clean up crew for one massive mess," Thane replied sourly, "Will you at least tell me what I need for the ritual now?"
"Oh the ritual's simple, all you need is a drop from the Philosopher's Stone and a decent source of mana to power your transformation. Just visit that storage ritual every day and make sure it's topped up. By my guess in a few months you'll have enough to get things going. This will also be a good way to increase your mana reserves."
"Why not tell me right off the bat?" Thane asked a little more relieved but still a fair bit irritated.
"I'm your mentor Thane, I can't give you all the answers when I know you're perfectly capable of finding them for yourself," Thalion replied in an even tone, "I just hope you don't hold it against me."
"I'm not that irrational, though it doesn't mean it doesn't suck though," Thane replied with a sigh.
Thalion smirked, "Fair enough, now enough idle chit chat let's start our lesson for the night."
"On what?" Thane asked as Thalion stood from his throne and cracked his knuckles, "Why rituals of course."
---
"Look at him," Ron exclaimed seething as he glared at Thane from across the room which was slowly filling up as potions class was about to begin, "I still can't believe he just took it from you!"
"Let it drop already Ron," Harry muttered as he glanced down at the desk, "It happened like a month ago."
"Let it go…do you know how rare expensive invisibility cloaks are?!" Ron asked as he stared at Harry like he had grown a second head, "That was your christmas present and the note said it belonged to your father!"
"Apparently not," Harry grumbled as he briefly glanced at Thane who like always was reading his book, "I've never seen anything like it Ron, the cloak flew over to him and turned into a robe, after he flashed his ring."
Ron huffed and crossed his arms, "I guess the sorting hat was right, Thane is basically pure blood, has a signet ring and everything, but not even the other snakes can tolerate him. I still think we should have told Hermione."
"There's no point in telling her," Harry replied, "She already feels bad enough for liking Thane, no need to ruin her view of him any more."
Ron frowned, "Why are you defending him?"
"I'm not…I'm just tired of the drama. Besides, we have bigger things to be worried about. We need to figure out how Snape plans to steal the philosopher's stone and stop him."
Ron nodded albeit reluctantly as he tore his eyes off of Thane, "I guess you're right, are we still meeting Hermione after curfew?"
"Not so loud Ron!" Harry replied in a harsh whisper as he looked around wearily, "Yes we're still meeting her."
Ron nodded but turned his heated glare back to Thane, "All of this would have been a lot easier if we had an invisibility cloak."
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Thane's brow furrowed as he felt someone's gaze try to burrow a hole in skull for what felt like the fifthteenth time but he ignored it and instead focused on his quill strokes as he carefully drew a detailed ritual circle inside his grimoire.
After Thalion's lesson on ritual magic, Thane realized how foolish he had been to believe he could replicate it. Unlike other branches of magic that were somewhat influenced by the emotions and willpower of the caster, rituals were hard set in stone to the point of being formulaic in nature. Every line had to be perfect or else the ritual would fail, and even beyond that there were countless factors that could influence a ritual's performance.
In the middle of his stroke Thane swallowed only for a heavy medicinal taste to fill his mouth making him gag which had the unfortunate effect of jostling his quill hand. Thane let out a tired sigh as he waved his hand and erased the failed diagram, 'Thank god tonight is going to be clear, I don't know if I would have had the strength to do this over again. Mandrake tastes god awful.'
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