章 46: Odin's Gallows

"Are you sure that you wish to go through with the ritual." asks Scathach as we make our way to the designated area for the ritual. "If you go through with this, there is a 9/10 chance that you may not survive."

"I will survive. Do not worry. If I don't, Setanta will never let me live it down. He would be so insufferably smug." I say to lighten the mood.

It does work to some extent as her previously grim face brightens up a bit. Arriving at the designated area for the ritual, a clearing in the woods with an ash tree, we begin to make the preparations.

The ritual makes use of a three part array, ᚷ\ᚷᛞ/ᚱᚨᛊᛁ/ᛚᛚ ᚷ/ᚢᚾ/ᚷ/ᚾᛁᚱ ᛟ/ᛞᛁᚾ, that requires three different objects to inscribe the runes on, an ash tree located on a leyline, a spear given to the me as a gift and myself. It is called Odin's Gallows, and I invented it with Scathach making some adjustments to make sure that everything goes smoothly.

The reason for Scathach's hesitation is because of what happens once the ritual begins. Once it begins, I will enter a deathlike state, and keep right on the border between life and death.

For nine days and nine nights I will remain in this state while in great pain. Despite the pain, I must not do anything other than to contemplate the meanings of each individual rune and my meanings once they are combined for the whole ritual, otherwise I will most likely not survive its conclusion.

While hanging there I can neither eat nor drink, if I arrange for someone to provide it to me by either feeding me normally or injecting any other way, it will interfere with the ritual and kill me. While the runes will keep me from dying from starvation and thirst, it will not keep me in good health. At the end of the ritual, I will be frail and thin and only inches away from death's door. It is impossible to avoid the damaging consequences of the ritual; the presence of other people or the use of healing artifacts will disrupt the workings of the ritual thus causing a backslash that will inevitably kill me.

When the ninth night is finally over, the ritual will conclude and the slow and steady buildup of the nine nights will erupt in a burst of activity.

In a few short instances, my soul, which has been prepared for alteration during the ritual, will be suddenly and irreversibly altered. My origin will change from whatever it used to be and become Runes. My elemental affinity will change from whatever it used to be and become Divine Letters. I will gain a Sorcery Trait called Rune God which replaces my preexisting Sorcery Trait if I already had one.

While there are methods for gaining Sorcery Traits and methods to change one's Elemental Affinity exist (albeit painful and dangerous ones) a ritual to change one's Origin, Elemental Affinity and Sorcery Trait at the same time is absurdly rare and incredibly dangerous. Even with a disciplined mind that never falters even once during the ritual there is still only a 1/10 chance of survival and for those without said discipline there is no chance of survival at all. In addition to that, the process of altering my very soul is indescribably painful, no matter how strong my will is or how high my pain tolerance, it is physically impossible for me to not scream in pain. In addition to that even if I survive the procedure I will have a scarred neck for the rest of my life. Even if magic or surgery is used to remove the scar it will simply return again as the scar originates from my soul and the body will simply mimic the state of the soul thus returning the scar. Or that would be the case if I didn't have a way to manipulate my very soul.

Throughout my stay with Scathach, I did not focus all of my magical training on runes. No, I decided to master the basics before moving on to a different field, the soul. Unlike everyone in the nasuverse, I have a head start on anything that has to do with the soul, energybending.

Energybending is the ability to bend another person's, or your own, life energy. At first it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the soul, until you remember that in the avatar world life energy comes from, and is, the very soul. When Aang stripped Ozai of his bending, he literally reached into the man's very soul. Which is why the lion turtle who taught him how to, gave him a very severe warning "To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed."

All the years practicing in Dun Scaith, and even before that since I have been practicing even in the Avatar, and the PJO world, have finally allowed me a breakthrough. It was the day when I met Aife that had my breakthrough, so around two years ago. I had finally interacted with my soul to give myself airbending, then took away my firebending only to revive it. Two years of training, that's how long I practiced altering my soul, and almost making irreparable damages, to feel confident enough to do this. Many times I caused catastrophes upon myself, luckily they were reversible. While it might sound like I have reached the third magic, I haven't, my soul isn't a perpetual motion machine nor have I reached the point of the materialization of my soul. I have however reached a point of altering my soul with extreme precision and accuracy, making the scar on it a mute point. However, that isn't the only danger.

In addition to the low chance of survival there is another reason that for this array to not be used. In the future, modern orthodox magecraft relies on the elemental affinity one possesses and the types of spell one can use is determined by one's affinity or affinities. Possessing the highly specialized Divine Letters affinity makes it impossible to use any other form of magecraft than Rune Magic. Furthermore, changing one's Origin also makes abilities and weapons that relied on the Origin such as Origin Bullets, Unlimited Blades Works or Awakened Origins completely useless.

However, once again, none of this applies to me. With all four bending arts I will have no need for elemental magecraft, even the more complex ones since I can just compensate with my runes.

There is however, the possibility of drastic alterations to one's personality. I have a high chance of becoming a person who is always thinking and pondering. I would dig up every piece of information on something that I can find and spend hours, days, weeks, or even years, mulling it over, considering everything about it and its implications before acting. This fits with Odin's personality as someone who worked to discover everything he could to see if he couldn't avoid Ragnarok, and I can't circumvent it since I am invoking his very name to enact the ritual.

Furthermore, if I should come across a genuine or convincing enough fake of any of Odin's belongings, such as Gungnir or his magical whetstone, my new Origin will compel me to do anything I can to acquire it. Even if it means abandoning a vitally important task or throwing myself into near certain death. Which is why I picked my valyrian steel spear for this task. A part of me easily recognizes it as Gungnir due to its similarities with the spear from the Thor movie. As for his magical whetstones, well good luck finding any of those.

While there are several downsides to performing this ritual the benefits outweigh them for me. Thanks to the ritual optimizing me for Rune magic, I will gain prana utilization that is about two hundred times more efficient than the average magus, allowing me to perform wonders with very little energy. Obviously this only applies to Rune Magic, it is more likely to hinder me than help when using any other form of magecraft.

Rune Arrays that require a high number of circuits can be performed even if one has twenty times less circuits than what is needed. I also gain an instinctive understanding of runes and will never forget any of the rune arrays that I've learned.

The risks are high but if one is successful it becomes possible for a first generation magus with a low number of low quality circuits and average talent to become a force capable of facing mysteries of True Magic or Dead Apostle Ancestors in less than ten years.

The first part of the array, the runic name Yggdrasil, is inscribed into the bark of the ash tree. Secondly the runic name Gungnir must be inscribed on the spear, I chose my valyrian steel spear which looks like Gungnir from the MCU Thor movie. Finally the runic name Odin must be inscribed in a circle around my left eye so that blood from the wounds will seep into the eye and prevent me from seeing with it. If the user has already lost their left eye then they can inscribe the Odin (ᛟ/ᛞᛁᚾ) array anywhere on their body.

The array gains its power by recreating the event where Odin sacrificed himself to himself by hanging from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his own spear, in order to learn the wisdom that would give him power in the nine worlds. Nine is a significant number in Norse magical practice which in turn makes a ritual that lasts for nine days very potent. Furthermore the array invokes the runic name Yggdrasill which means Odin's Horse a reference to the old Norse practice of calling gallows "the horse of the hanged".

Once all the rune arrays have been inscribed, I take a deep breath to prepare myself for what is to come. Before I can accomplish the next step, I feel Scathach place her hand on my shoulder and lightly squeeze it.

"You don't have to do this, but since you wish to follow through, know that I will support you. I will stay here and make sure that none interfere." she tells me softly.

Taking another deep breath, I gather my courage, channel prana through the Gungnir (ᚷ/ᚢᚾ/ᚷ/ᚾᛁᚱ) array and stab myself in the side with the spear. Using the blood from the wound, I paint the Gungnir and Yggdrasill arrays red. Following through the final step, I tie a rope to the spear, stick the spear between a pair of branches to form primitive gallows and then hang myself from the tree while channeling prana through each of the tree parts of the array.

Once these steps are complete, I can feel the ritual begin as I enter a deathlike state, and keep right on the border between life and death.