Chapter 16: The Ritual

' ': speaking to himself

" ": regular talks

[ ] : status and store related sections

<Fireball> :silent activation

<Fireball !!> : voiced activation

*...* : action

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After checking out fire magic I thought I could just let the clones do the grinding but unfortunately, I underestimated the legion zombie.

I send three clones to the dungeon. Only one of them was still standing after the boss fight and getting to that point took them nearly half an hour.

They have to use some distraction and took turns to attack the boss. This way of fighting increases the skill < Art of War > but It takes too long to complete a single dungeon run.

The only way I can increase my clones power in a short time is by upgrading my apprentice zombie hunter title.

I thought It would be upgraded when I killed the boss for the two hundred and fiftieth time but my hopes were crushed pretty easily since the only thing notification I got was a level up warning.

After that, I go completely berserk and start wiping out dungeons in 4 to 5 minutes. After about 16 hours of constant fighting, I finally killed the five hundredth boss.

Apprentice Zombie Hunter turned into the Adept Zombie Hunter and the boost it gave upgraded %30 to the %80, but that wasn't the end of it.

I got the evolved mod of the Zombie Dungeon that mobs consist of the legion zombies and a zombie boss called ' The Gravelord ' and I got 130 other skill books and blueprints.

I don't think I will enter this evolved dungeon any time soon. Skill books I got from this one will keep me busy for a while and this new dungeon possibly gonna have books as rewards too. I'm only going to start fighting on it after I got all the different books in the old dungeon.

My clones already start grinding on the old dungeon with the help of my new title. I expect them to finish a single dungeon at most 15 to 20 minutes.

I know that there is not much difference between 20 and 30 minutes but unlike the last time 3 of them do their best to finish it as soon as possible, they are going to have different missions like how they will fight in the dungeon.

Between the three of them, one is responsible for fire magic as the main attacker, another is gonna support it with wind magic and direct the forest fire surrounding them to the legion zombie and finally, the last clone will use the combination of Haste, soru, foundation footwork technique, and bound longsword to distract the boss and gather its agro at the close range.

Since I won't dispel another clone from outside of the dungeon to refill their mana's for them, I let them use mana potions freely in their fights.

...

Currently, I'm in an empty dungeon to preparing the ritual for summoning off my soul mate. The Ritual zone needs to be drawn by blood or a liquid with similar iron capabilities and the liquid had to be infused with the summoners mana while drawing the circles, pentagrams, and other symbols shown in the instructions.

It took me 20 minutes to complete the diagram. I tried to be careful as possible to complete the task without a single mistake.

After reading through the book and making sure that there won't be any mishap in the ritual, I sit down in the middle of the central diagram in a meditative position and try to get comfortable as possible before starting.

Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to relax my stiff shoulders and straightened up my hunched back. Feeling that I'm finally ready, I start guiding my mana through my body.

The small amount of mana first move in my veins in my heart like blood and spread across my torso and then slowly reach my limbs and my head. and after all of that, I start to guide the mana through my body to form a complete cycle.

This feeling is not something new to me. This cycle thing exactly what I do while practicing mana gathering technique and I have been practicing that technique for a whole month so this is not the part I worry about.

The challenging part is the guiding my mana trough the whole ritual diagram trough the lines I draw with my blood.

Actually I'm confident about my ability the manipulate my mana to follow those lines but the thing worries me is how much mana I should use. I don't think this ritual will explode my face or somehow hurt me but stopping between dungeon runs to collect my blood was such a bother and I don't want to go through that trouble again.

So I move slowly and try to move like a calm river just flowing at my own pace, taking deep breaths to stay relaxed as possible and don't thinking about overdoing.

It doesn't take long to complete the first cycle flowing the whole diagram and after that, I repeat the cycle 10 more times.

At the end of the eleventh cycle the whole diagram first turns into a small pond of blood sea then slowly revolves around itself and starts to resemble some sort of a portal.

After the portal solidifies my sight blurred for a second. I closed my eyes and shake my head instinctively.

When I opened my eyes once again the sight in front of me wasn't the empty dungeon that I create and prepare this ritual but rather a weird seemingly infinite dark space.

I said weird because, although the color surrounding me is some shade of deep black and I shouldn't be seeing anything since there no source of light around, and that's the weird thing since this place somehow looks dimly lit.

Since currently, I have no way of solving the secrets of this place, I just close my eyes and I did what it says in the book. Use my mana to send ripples throughout this space and wait for its echoes to reach me back with my sposed soul mate.