Chapter 980: The Only Cure is Death

The ritual room was a large and empty space. The walls and ceiling were plain, smooth plaster, while the floor was polished concrete. The lighting was non-magical fluorescent. Narrow, vertical slots were set at various points around the walls, running floor to ceiling. The only other permanent feature was the single door, the room lacking windows, decorations or furniture.

The ritual diagram Carlos and Farrah had created occupied one corner, with the rooms occupants gathered at the other end. Bussinger looked at the dense web of lines and sigils drawn onto the floor with fine powders of various colours. Set amongst them were piles of spirit coins and other materials, ranging from the seemingly mundane to the exotic. A glass bowl held murky water, and there was a pile of small metal ingots. What looked like a normal apple was radiating magic and a blue candle stub burned with green light. As she watched, the melted wax slowly crawled up the stub to restore the candle, as if moving backwards through time.

Earth was more interested in magitech than ritual magic, but she had seen rituals conducted several times. Compared to what she was now looking at, those ritual circles were the crayon drawings of a child. The only place not filled with intricate lines was an empty circle at the middle of the diagram. It had just enough space for one person to stand.

“Please move to the middle of the ritual diagram,” Carlos told her. “It would be best if you levitate in. I know you have gold-rank coordination, but a stumble should you hop in would cost us quite a bit of work.

She turned to look at him.

“I don’t have a levitation power,” she said, getting odd looks from everyone but Asano and Farrah Hurin.

“I’m largely responsible for the aura-related sections of Farrah’s training programs,” Jason told the others. “I was focused on the people starting from scratch, not the ones who had already reach the mid-ranks using cores. Rufus refined what Farrah had spread to the world but didn’t disseminate the higher-level techniques either. Not after relations between the clan and the rest of the world started to sour.”

He turned to Bussinger.

“You can thank the Australian government seizing my uncle’s land for that one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told him.

“Every silver-ranker can do simple levitation using their aura,” Jason explained. “You can only use your aura on yourself that way, unless you’re a bit odd, like the messengers and—”

“Don’t digress, Jason,” Farrah told him in a schoolteacher voice.

“Sorry. The point is, one of the first lessons of silver-rank aura control is levitation. It’s not very useful, outside of niche circumstances, but it’s very basic. For now, I should probably levitate you in.”

“No,” Carlos said. “The circle is sensitive, and I don’t want your aura contaminating the results. That’s why I asked you all not to use any active powers, and why I had this room lined with magically suppressive materials. Precise ritual work is tricky when the entire building is an expression of your power, Jason.”

“I know, right?” Emi said. “I’ve had to do the same thing every time I—”

“Task at hand,” Farrah told her, in the same tone of mild scolding she’d used on Jason.

“Ms Bussinger,” Carlos said. “Please carefully hop into the circle.”

Bussinger leapt into the circle. It was an easy task with her strength and coordination, yet she found herself almost stumbling out of nervousness.

“That might have been easier if there hadn’t been so much build-up,” she confessed.

Carlos pulled a remote control from his pocket and clear panels slid out of the slots in the wall. They cut off the corner of the room, enclosing Bussinger and the ritual circle. A panicked expression flashed across her face before she smothered it.

“Sorry,” Carlos said. “I should have warned you. The screens are to filter out any extraneous magic during the ritual, as well as display the results.”

“Are you sure this is safe?” Bussinger asked.

“Quite harmless,” Carlos said.

“It’s just that I’ve seen screens like these on TV, when people are setting off explosives.”

“It does look like those,” Emi said enthusiastically. “That’s fun. But don’t worry; new ritual circle designs hardly ever catch fire.”

“Hardly ever?” Bussinger asked.

“New rituals often take some troubleshooting,” Emi explained. “Farrah, have you ever had a newly designed ritual circle catch on fire?”

“Stop teasing the poor woman,” Farrah scolded. “You’re as bad as your uncle. Ms Bussinger, this is a very old ritual, and is not going to have the mistakes an overenthusiastic ritualist…”

She glanced at Emi.

“…would make because they were too enamoured with their own cleverness.”

“Hey…”

“How about we start before she changes her mind?” Jason suggested.

Once the ritual began in earnest, the observers behind the glass quieted down. That helped calm Bussinger’s nerves, but she still felt like a fish in a tank as they all stared at her from the outside. She was about to ask when it would start when she felt a pressure pushing against her. It was like being submerged in liquid, but in a spiritual sense, the pressure flooding over her aura.

The weaknesses in her aura defences were laid bare in short order. The spiritual pressure found every flaw, seeping in like water into a poorly designed submarine. She instinctively pushed back, but it found every gap and crack in her defences.

“Please don’t resist the process,” Carlos said. “Your aura manipulation isn’t up to the task anyway, and you’ll only make the experience more unpleasant.”

Giving up her resistance was like forcing herself to breathe while underwater, knowing that she’d drown. She couldn’t bring herself to do it until a sense of tranquillity passed over her, seemingly out of nowhere. In a single moment, she went from the verge of drowning in a submarine to floating in an isolation tank, peaceful and safe. Her magical perception drifted away, and her other senses followed, everything going black.

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***

After Bussinger entered a trance mid-ritual, she had stood, senseless and still, unconscious but still on her feet. When the ritual came to a close she started to fall. Clive used his Juxtaposition ability to switch-teleport with her, and Jason caught her before she hit the floor. He carried her into the middle of the room and a cloud bed floated out of the flask amulet around his neck. He set her down and left Emi to watch over her.

Carlos retracted one of the clear screens for Clive to get out. The other screen was awash with colour, like a flat lava lamp, displaying the results of the ritual. Jason and Carlos peered at it from up close, with Clive and Farrah behind them.

“This make any sense to you?” Farrah asked Clive.

“No,” he said. “I’ve dabbled in more magical fields than I probably should, but this is outside my experience entirely. Well, not entirely. Obviously, it’s a map of physical-spiritual dissonance through an application of resonating—”

“Oh, yeah, obviously,” Farrah said. “Jason, do you understand this?”

“I do,” he said. “I’ve had an avatar working with Carlos all through my absence. It was learning, and I took in that knowledge like a skill book.”

He pointed at a display.

“Are you seeing this?” he asked Carlos.

“I am,” Carlos said, his voice an awed whisper. “Is this what you saw during the fight?”

“I wasn’t sure, but this confirms it, right?”

“We should run more tests,” Carlos said. “A lot more tests, starting with this one again to replicate the results. But it’s a strong indication, yes. You said that an essence ability did this?”

“I did. Have you ever heard of a power that can do this?”

“Never,” Carlos said. “If anyone knew about something like this, it would be me. I’ve never heard of an essence ability or any other kind of power that can do this. The only thing I’ve even heard of suggesting it’s possible would be—”

“The Purity relic everyone on Palli is fighting over.”

“Exactly,” Carlos said with a nod. “I can’t even imagine the ramifications of this, even if the power’s effect is so miniscule to have no practical impact.”