18 Root for you

A couple weeks later Harry was in the midst of the Welsh wilderness, as soon as they'd gotten off the train Kali had pulled Harry straight away from civilisation and started teaching him how to survive on his own.

Currently, she was flying far overhead to keep watch on him as he wanders through a forest, occasionally picking edible looking plants and stowing them away. He'd learned quite a bit from her tutelage, though most of it was mainly hunting based.

Of course, there was a reason for that. She wanted him to improve at conducting rituals, and as strange as it might sound, hunting was one of the best ways to go about this... The reason for this was due to something called 'the rite of conquest', he'd heard of it before while researching rituals, but thought it was just tradition or something similar.

But once Kali had explained it to him, he'd had an epiphany. The rite of conquest was essentially the pact a hunter made with their prey or equally matched foes. It essentially determines the quality of materials you would receive once one has slain the other.

Say, if you were hunting a Moke to make use of its skin to make a magically expanded pouch. If you hunt and kill it yourself, the effectiveness of its materials would be markedly better than if you'd used the skin that someone else had hunted.

For this reason alone, it is very heavily recommended that you personally harvest any materials you wish to use for a ritual. Otherwise the rewards for conducting it would be significantly lower than what you would usually expect.

Obviously, Harry hadn't known this, yet he'd already participated in a rite of conquest... He'd conducted it when he cut the heart from a dog and used it to power the ritual to summon Kali.

Right now though, Harry had been given a task by Kali, he was still a rookie in hunting, but as she kept saying, 'practise makes perfect'. So, he was currently hunting for 'bigger' prey than what they'd usually go for to eat.

He sneaks through the cold forest with a spell muffling his steps rendering him almost completely silent, the only sound he's giving off being his quiet breaths. He continues walking until he finally spots his quarry.

Kali had cast a dancing lights spell in an area to attract them, and it seems like it had indeed caught the attention of some of their targets. Happily dancing under the lights were around five tiny figures, one would incorrectly call them fairies, but Harry knew they weren't by their evident lack of wings or potent fairy magic.

Pixies. They came in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but these particular ones were known as the Forest Pixie, due to their preference for wild areas and ability to promote plant growth. They were usually giddy and excitable things with almost human intelligence.

Harry still wasn't sure why Kali wanted some, but Harry was determined to prove he was ready for whatever else she wanted to throw at him. So, he snuck ever closer to the dancing group, his fingers twitching slightly as he goes through the various spells he intends to cast at them.

Once he was sure he'd be able to get one before they fled, he jumped into action. Thrusting his palm down at the floor and causing a circle of dirt to raise out of the ground to completely trap one of the Pixies. The others give squeals and sprint away, quickly disappearing into the foliage with help from their magic.

He makes sure the walls of 'earth well' he'd created were high enough that the Pixie couldn't escape, and walks over to his prey. He checks that the Pixie is still inside and once confirmed he sends a minuscule amount of electricity down into it to knock it unconscious.

With that done, Kali flies down from above and transforms into her succubus form, pleasantly smiling at him as she observes the captured creature. "Very good job, master... I'm unfamiliar with this race of Pixie, but they seemed very skittish. The others seemingly vanished into the forest, so much so that I would have to employ large-scale magic to find them."

Harry shrugs, "At least we caught one, right?"

She nods, "Right you are, it looks suitable for what I have in mind."

...

"Just what is it that you want to do with it though? I can't think of any ritual that would be suitable for it." he asks, wondering if he was missing something.

Kali smiles, "What are the three main things that are needed for survival, master?"

"Shelter from the elements, water, and food." he lists off, having been drilled in the basics of survival.

"Good." she affirms, "But, what if you were to find yourself in a desert? Or a place that only contains contaminated water?"

"I-er, don't know... Learn a cleansing spell for the water?" he guesses.

She shakes her head, "While that might be suitable for some areas, there is such a thing as magical pathogens master. In my own realm, there are fourteen stages of cleansing the water we gather, which is why we had to find alternatives. Which is why I picked this specific type of creature to hunt...

We will conduct a ritual and create your first magical item, one that will produce clean water in exchange for magic." she explains.

Harry looks confused, "Are there not spells that produce water?" he asks, holding his hand out and conjuring a small amount of water, "Isn't this drinkable?"

Kali shakes her head, "there are two types of water spells you need to be aware of... Transfigured water spells, and conjured water spells. Transfigured water just transforms any material into water, but eventually turns back into its original form once the magic runs out... As you can imagine, this would be very, very dangerous to drink.

The second is conjured water, where you condense the water in the air to produce it... Of course, in a desert where moisture is extremely limited, this would not usually be possible. Additionally, there are magical viruses that are able to contaminate conjured water before the spell is even cast."

Harry nods in understanding, who knew there were so many intricacies with magic... He just wanted to run around and fire lightning bolts from his fingers, all the other complicated stuff was annoying and unnecessary. Despite these thoughts, he enjoyed learning about them and resolved himself to etch these lessons in his mind.

Kali picks up the unconscious Pixie and sits down, conjuring a mortar and pestle and placing the Pixie in the stone bowl. She waves her hand over the creature and causes all of its skin, flesh, and other organic material to melt away and vanish, leaving immaculate small bones in its place. "Be a dear master and prepare a water attributed ritual circle." she asks sweetly, Harry nodding and doing so there and then in the clearing.

She grinds down the bones of the Pixie into fine dust and retrieves some sort of damp roots she'd stored away previously. She then makes a cut on her wrist and drips some blood into the bone dust and mixes it together before soaking the roots in it.

A couple minutes pass and Kali places the blood-soaked roots in the middle of hte ritual circle Harry had drawn and teaches him the incantation. As he was the one who defeated the Pixie, it would be wise for him to conduct the ritual, plus the experience of conducting his forth ritual wasn't anything to scoff at.

Harry slowly intones the words she'd taught as she stands outside the circle, watching as the roots quickly turn black and start producing enough water to leave a puddle. Once done, all that was left are the blackened roots. Harry bends over and examines it, taking a glance at Kali after it does not in response, "Did it work?"

She shrugs, "Push some magic into it and see, master."

He nods and does so, jumping slightly at the spray of water shot out by the roots, soaking his trousers and shoes. He sends a blank look at Kali who's currently laughing at his expense but can't help but smile.

This was the first magical item he'd created, it might not look like much, but it was his. "What is it called?" he asks her.

"My people call it an Everlasting Root, but I suppose you can name it whatever you want since it's likely the first in this realm."

Harry shrugs, "I'll call it... Aqua root."