Sacrifice Mage-Chapter 33: Broken Artifices

It wasn’t a huge issue. I probably shouldn’t have tried to show off, but hey, the look on the Rakshasa professor’s face was definitely worth it.
Thankfully, Linak was able to stop the alarm while the Ogre sent off a little messenger bird created from blue mana threads. I wondered if that was some kind of Aspect, but I forgot to ask about it when the academics all turned their vivid eyes onto me and asked me to demonstrate the ability again. That was, my newfound punching-cutting skill.
I complied, this time firing off the blade of compressed air at a small wall of fire created by the older Rakshasa professor. It smashed into the flames, briefly making it flicker.
“Fascinating,” the younger Rakshasa said, head swivelling between my fist and the wall of flickering fire. “And you said this only lasts for ten minutes?”
I nodded. I also decided against pursuing the question of whether they actually had the same units of measurement as I was familiar with, or if it was just a Universal Language Approximator thing. Good thing we weren’t in charge of creating spacecraft here.
“Interesting what ability Sacrifice gifts you,” the Ogre said. “A knife cuts. Now, your fists cut too. I suppose the original artificed properties of the knife are lost, so your Aspect defaulted to the inherent slicing power of the blade.”
After I explained how Sacrifice seemed to prioritize the emotional value of offerings from my experience, we tried another artifice.
This time, I Sacrificed a small goblet.
“Wonder what this will give,” I said.
“Formerly, it was capable of holding multiple liquids of the same amount—which is the total amount that the goblet’s cup can hold,” Linak said. He confirmed that was true with the grad students. “With a bit of mana, you could switch around which drink it offered. Now… it’s just any old goblet.”
“Huh.”
It was interesting to hear about a magical goblet that could hold multiple liquids. Would be so easy to hide something illicit within, disguising it with something like water.
Once it went up with a flash of white magical energy, I got another reward.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Drinking Implement. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward
: Capacity to hold any drink has been doubled for 5 minutes
]
“Uh…”
I explained what my blue screen told me about the reward. They all laughed. Well, all save the old professor. His face remained unamused.
The Ogre elbowed me while grinning. It was supposed to be a friendly gesture, but the guy was so much bigger, I stumbled a couple of steps. “If you ever go drinking, make sure you sacrifice a cup or two beforehand, eh?”
“Yeah…” I righted myself, my laughter a teensy bit forced.
“Alright, last big thing,” Linak said, pulling out a grotesquely misshapen object made of dried flesh that had turned ugly purple. “This is the heart of a demonic ascetic from the Kyol-Vy continent. Don’t worry, all its mana and any other magical properties have essentially dried out, so I don’t think Sacrifice will offer you anything too, um,
demonic
. But we aren’t forcing you to use Sacrifice on something you’re unwilling to try, of course.”
“No.” I didn’t hesitate. “I’m curious what I’d get too.”
A part of me really wanted to know if this would temporarily turn me into a demonic ascetic too, whatever that was supposed to be exactly. I mentioned to them about how Sacrificing a Scarthrall heart had temporarily and partially turned me
into
a Thrall. They were
very
interested to hear about it, even the old Rakshasa, who asked about specifics like duration and even emotions.
We concluded, though, that this was probably different. Back then, I had earned the heart by fighting, through desperate effort, and the heart itself had been fresh. This was a desiccated, magicless relic more than it was a living being’s heart.
Nevertheless, like with all the other old treasures I had received so far, the Weave approved of the transfer of ownership from the academy mages to me.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I murmured, channelling Sacrifice to drive threads of power into the dried, warped heart.
The heart burned with white power. I got lost in visions.
As the room with all the boxes and broken artifices disappeared, I was instead in some cloudy area watching scenes flash past way too quickly for me to understand what was going on. A horned, fanged creature that looked humanoid but moved in an extremely non-human way was always at the centre. Eating, talking to itself, fighting, reading, and everything else.
A montage of its life compressed into a few seconds. An overwhelming amount of information made so dense that a headache split my skull in two.
I groaned as I blinked, once again back in the magic academy.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Broken] Heart of a Demonic Ascetic. Windfall bonus activated.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from NovelFire. If you see it on Amazon, please it.
Reward
: Your Spirit has risen by 1 Rank
]
[ Rank Up!
Your Spirit Attribute has risen by one Rank
Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank.
Your Paths of the Acolyte and the Newborn Star have risen by one Rank.
Spirit
: Iron V
Sacrifice
: Iron VI
Path of the Acolyte
: Iron VI
Path of the Newborn Star
: Iron VI
]
I felt a tiny flicker of energy writhing to life somewhere within me, the same kind I did whenever I ranked up anything. “Hmm, that was kind of underwhelming for everything I just went through…”
Even if I hadn’t expected a big, fancy transformation into a demonic ascetic, I had hoped it would be something interesting on
some
level. An Attribute rank up wasn’t that. It wasn’t good to look at gift horses in the mouth, but even getting cutting blades with every punch by Sacrificing a knife was more interesting than this.
“What happened?” the Ogre asked.
I explained what I had received, which made them immediately delve into a roundtable discussion of how and why I had received an upgrade to my Spirit’s rank.
“Ascetics are rather spiritual,” the young Rakshasa grad student mused.
The Ogre nodded. “And the heart was rather old and dry and mostly powerless now…”
Those were good enough reasons, in all honesty.
That was enough for the day. The heart was the last artifice the mages had for me, though I wasn’t sure if that last one even counted as an artifice, really. But who was I to complain. I was getting paid for it all the same.
At Silver-rank rates too. The academy mages, even the older Rakshasa, were satisfied with everything I had said and shown to them.
“Kindly show him out of Ring Two, Linak,” the old professor said, sparing me a glance that was at least a little less scathing than it used to be when I first got here.
Linak was happy enough to accompany me all the way back to the Preserve. “Don’t worry, we’ll inform the guild about the change in the job rank. You’ll get your proper payment.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for coming along. You didn’t really have to.”
Linak’s beaky smile was still in place, but I could sense the slightly higher tension than before. “It’s best if I kept you company throughout Ring Two… and it’s Professor Arad’s way of showing kindness too. Um, just in case you still thought he didn’t think well of you or something.”
“Oh… I didn’t realize.”
We parted amicably, and I was a bit lost in thought on my way through the Preserve. Professor Arad had acted snooty at first, and at the end too, kind of. But he had changed his mind enough to spare me some kindness.
Because, from what I gathered through Linak’s implication, I wouldn’t have made it through Ring Two on my own.
Not without some sort of confrontation.
It made me think of the Scalekin woman who had angrily accosted me. What was her name? Aninta? The one who had been told off by the tester Ogre, Kliezeg. Just as with Professor Arad, things had started off on the wrong foot, but by the end, while we were far from anything even close to friends, she had come around to
not
hating the very sight of me.
All that without even me needing to go out of my way to prove myself or some other bullshit. I had just done what had felt right at the moment, and that was it.
It gave me an odd mix of both hope and confidence. Hope that, despite people here clearly possessing some sort of weird prejudice against humans because of a bunch of history riddled with baggage and other denigrating things related to the Weave, I would still be able to make my way through this world and find the
right
place for myself.
And confidence that I could do so while still doing what I believed in.
With a little smile on my face, especially after seeing that mana implosion’s counter had been pushed back by several days now, I returned to my home in Ring Four.
I had to train. The last few days had been all about securing my payments and getting more money through another job, which had naturally distracted me from training up my other Attributes and Aspects. Sure, I had raised Sacrifice by a rank, but I couldn’t forget the rest.
That meant focusing purely on training. It helped that I didn’t have a ton of duties and nothing serious occurred over the next couple of days. Elder Escinca was all done taking care of our neighbourhood with his Blessing and there were no sudden Thrall attacks or even sightings. I had room to focus on myself. Which was exactly what I did, with the help of Gutran and Aurier.
“Mace is definitely one of the better options for you,” the Scalekin smith said, eyeing me critically as I sweated while training with the spike-headed hammer. “You can more naturally condense Gravity into the hammer head.”
“Yeah,” I panted. “Exactly. I can… Infuse a lot of weight… right before impact… and make it hit…
really
hard.”
Gutran nodded. “Harder to do with a sword. You
could
maybe do that with a spear, but I think it would be less intuitive and difficult to execute. Spears don’t lend themselves to mighty blows. Although, by extension, flails might be good for you too. But handling those needs a lot more training, and you’re certainly not there yet.”
I nodded, too tired to talk but agreeing all the same. By the end of the training sessions over the next couple of days, I had raised all my physical Attributes and Gravity by another rank as well.
[ Rank Up!
Your Power, Vitality, and Agility Attributes have risen by one Rank.
Your Gravity Aspect has risen by one Rank.
Power
: Iron VII
Vitality
: Iron VII
Agility
: Iron V
Gravity
: Iron VII
]
But more important than the ranks were the actual training in combat and weapons that I was receiving. The more I used the mace, the more I swung it around with my growing Power while Infusing greater weight into the hammering end, the more I felt at home with it. It felt more and more natural and satisfying.
I also learned the pros and cons of using a weapon like that. With a mace, I’d be able to hit hard, breaking through armour and barriers more easily than with nearly any other weapon. It was also more simplistic than most other armaments, so it didn’t require learning any advanced techniques. Just a lot of practice and familiarity.
On the other hand, maces preferred empowered, slower strikes. It was most effective when I could gather the most strength I had, and that required precise use. No point in swinging hard if I just whiffed or the opponent dodged.
I could counteract that to some degree with growing Power and Agility. At one point, those Attributes would grow so high that I’d be able to swing a mace as fast as a bare fist, and with all the tremendous might I could bring to bear as well. But of course, I was far from that state at the moment, and fast opponents would always have an edge on me.
Still. I was learning a
lot
, and I made sure to express my thanks to Gutran for the lessons. They would be very useful.
In the back of my mind, it was still a bit odd that the Thralls had kind of disappeared. We had discovered nothing about them, yet. Even with Revayne helping and her guards patrolling and searching every abandoned quarter, it was like the Thralls had disappeared.
Shanceur’s hadn’t revealed much. The tavern owner had been thoroughly interrogated but he knew nothing about Thralls. A stakeout by the guards hadn’t revealed any suspicious patrons either.
A part of me was starting to think it was like the calm before the storm. The Thralls were luring us into a false sense of security before they’d smash in with brutal effectiveness.
There was nothing I could do about it, though. Not until I found out more.
“We will be conducting a meeting today, Ross,” Elder Escinca said early next day. “With the other cults.”
“Oh.” I had just finished Sacrificing my breakfast instead of eating it. “You want me to come along?”
“That would be appreciated.”
“Alright, I’ll be ready. Just let me know when.”
“But first, we have a different occasion we need to attend.”
“Oh yeah?”
The Elder smiled, getting to his feet. “We have some new members I would like to induct into the cult, and I think you can do the honours.”