Chapter 10

It was the last year of Ryuu's ten-year training plan and he had a feeling it would be the most fruitful one.

The major goal for this year would be undergoing his final ritual to complete the trinity of mind, body and soul. Though unlike he planned before, it wasn't going to be a true "cleansing" ritual.

Being a devil means being a creature of darkness not unlike vampires. Cleansing the soul of a dark creature would lead to total annihilation. No rebirth, no afterlife. Just disappearing into Nothingness.

Ryuu wasn't discouraged though, God left him a rather useful and more frutfuil alternative in the system. As for the system sometimes, during his sleep it would project itself into his mindscape, allowing him access to elementary level knowledge God organised for him.

The ritual he'd be undergoing would be a modified soul condensation ritual. It was developed by Lucifer himself after he came to the realisation that the exchanged souls during devil deals had a negative effect onto his creations.

Since they would be taking in complete and unprocessed souls, they'd also burdened themselves with their entire existence. Personality traits from the attained souls, would bleed into them and they'd start suffering mental disabilities like schizophrenia.

The soul condensation allowed for true devouring of their newly gained souls. Strengthening the base instead of overwhelming it.

It became a stable thousands of years ago, when trading souls was its peak in the underworld. But with the new prohibition of those trades the ritual, eventually came into disuse.

It quickly became apparent that God deliberately left the knowledge, about soul condensation rituals on the elementary level.

He knew Ryuu would need it, especially after unknowingly devouring the soul of the deceased stray exorcist during his last ritual. The base of the seed for the connection of God's system and Ryuu was the soul of the corpse.

When he died God's system caught it before it could join the reincarnation cycle and processed it into the seed, which was then placed back into the body.

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"And with this, the final preparations are done," Ryuu said with a satisfied sigh. Standing on top of the black ritual circle in the middle of nowhere he closed his eyes and started a few last simulations on how it should proceed.

The circle itself was made out of multiple rings, overlapping geomatric symbols and a shit ton of runes from different factions.

Ryuu had no idea what most of them meant, he just gambled opting to trust God and follow his instructions to a tee.

If anyone with a higher understanding of runes could see just what kind of abomination Ryuu made there, they'd be disturbed and intrigued in equal amounts.

After all, different Runesystems were never meant to be combined. In fact their creators put multiple fail-safes into them to avoid such a situation. After all every system has their own advantages and disadvantages.

If one were to successfully combine them, the could potentially cancel the negative effects of certain overpowered runes with the use of simpler ones from a different pantheon.

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Ryuu opened his eyes just to see the same unchanching purple sky dimly lighting the mountain peak he was currently on.

He decided to no longer delay the ritual and go ahead. His made use of his second consciousness that has fully matured now, to go into a semi-automatic state.

He gave his control over the body to it and chose to take on a spectators perspective. This would allow him to react faster to any mishap.

Ryuu's body began muttering incantations long since forgotten. After three minutes the ritual circle showed a first reaction. Starting outermost of the three circles started lighting up in a murky grey color.

Another five minutes later the middle one started lighting up in light shade of grey. It was also then that Ryuu felt a shift in his soul. It felt as if something that was only ontop of his soul finally connected to it. 'Most likely the seed," he guessed.

It took another five minutes until the last circle lit up. This one was colored in a rather majestic silver. The longer the incantation went the brighter it got, to the point that it even started purifiying the colors of the other two circles.

A total of thirty minutes later Ryuu felt himself sucked into something beyond his control. Yet he didn't panic. According to God's journals he'd now find himself in his soulscape. A place many deities dream to get access to.

After all the soulscape is something like an editor. If you can change something here, depending on how you do it, can effect your body positively. Given one doesn't mess up.

Ryuu was rather excited. He knew that he wouldn't be changing something consciously and just watch how he changes but he was happy nontheless. After all not many will be able to see what he'll be seeing.

When he finally arrived all he saw a little golden seed. The moment he arrived the seed seemed to spring alive and suck him in. Ryuu was utterly unable to react or resist.

When he regained consciousness he felt caged. Something was pressing onto him from all sizes which made him migthy uncomfortable. It didn't help that he couldn't see or hear anything either. Frowning Ryuu decided to try and break himself out.

Taking in a deep breath he tensed all his muscles and started trashing around. It honestly looked like a child throwing a tantrum, but it was shown to be effective nonetheless.

Cracks could be seen in his cage. Those cracks let some light in which only intesified his little "rampage". Approximetialy half a minute later he finally managed to crack the egg, so to speak.

When he wanted to step into the light he once again lost consciousness. When he came to himself he found himself looking at a little sapling surrounded by golden shards that looked like egg shells.

It didn't take a genius to figure out just what he did and it left him gawking, but not for too long. Whatever he did exhausted his soul and made him feel weak. This worried him.

Regardless which world, soul fatigue was always a bad thing that would most likely lead to death. The gears inside his head were spinning in hopes of finding a solution. Then he remembered the golden shell shards laying on the ground.

He remembered that for many beings in fantasy worlds or stories eating their own shells is not only a ritual but also important from a nutritonal standpoint. Seeing no other option he started devouring those shards as fast as possible.

The once serene soulscape was now filled with heartbreaking crunching. For some reason Ryuu found those shards to be the most delicious thing he has eaten in both his lives combined.

Once he swallowed the last piece he lost his consciousness one last time and was ejected from the soulscape.

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Ryuu was currently twisting and groaning on the floor. Getting yeeted out of his own soulscape was not a pleasant experience. It took him some time to calm down and fully come to himself.

When he'd finally calmed down enough he started checking on himself. According to his research his new sublimated soul should give him two things: a higher magical potential and inner peace.

He could already feel the changes in his magic. Though his reserves were still in the higher parts of the low-rank they became as smooth as butter practically allowing him to at least use what he has to its maximum potential.

As for the inner peace that would be a long term study. The reason behind his inner turmoil was always the fact that, depsite everything that has happened so far, he always felt like an outsider.

A mere observer towards this new reality. The ritual should hopefully help tone down those contradicting feelings.

After observing some more it was finally time for practical test. This had Ryuu grinning in anticipation.