hunter20
patreon
Ritual and meeting the old man again
🕑 Added 2024-11-13 19:02:28 +0000 UTCThe air in the great hall hung thick and heavy, a mist of light blue magical energy visible to the naked eye. It was accompanied by the smells of sweat and the tired murmurs of the incarcerated, rugged voices, bloodshot eyes, and the hunched backs of everyone—students and professors alike—painting a vivid picture of just how exhausting this entire ritual ordeal was. It had been 24 hours of continuous magic depletion and incantations. The only reason no one had given up or even messed things up was the support circles I had prepared previously for an entirely different purpose, and the very subtle and frequent use of mass compulsion. The real ritual had just begun, bringing with it an urgent need for sleep that overwhelmed everyone here making them slumber.
While they slept, I began checking the results of this entire endeavor. All parasitic entities had been extracted and contained, just as I had intended. The ritual was still ongoing, and purification was starting to take effect on the castle first; soon, it would be everyone’s turn.
This whole situation hadn’t been needed or even planned, but it had worked out alright. I had already informed the house-elves to transfer everyone to their beds after the ritual and tasked them with preparing plenty of juice and food to be ready by everyone’s bedside when they first woke up.
I think this whole situation might just yield many unexpected results…
I was starting to feel heavy; I needed to sleep too, I guess...
Suddenly, I found myself standing in the same colorful realm where I had first met the old man. What happened? Had I died already? No, I hadn’t. I hadn’t even begun my job yet, so what was the reason for being here? I started walking and looking around, hoping to find the old man so he could clarify the situation.
“Hello! Old man? Are you in here?” I shouted after a while. It was boring to keep walking without finding anyone, plus I had things to do.
“Ah, right. I forgot that I brought you here,” I heard the old man say. I knew he was lying, but at the same time, I couldn’t find anything to retort.
“Yeah, sure. So lay it on me, old man. What happened that made you bring me here without any prior notice? And at a critical time, no less?” I asked, my voice somewhat agitated.
“Ah, don’t worry about anything here. I brought you here to discuss all your questionable decisions so far,” he said, his voice sounding smug for some reason, as if he had just won something I wasn’t aware of.
“Okay then. Tell me,” I replied. I was ready to argue that all my decisions had been impeccable, but even I knew better than to engage him on that topic. Despite his laid-back demeanor, he was still the creator.
“Okay, let’s start with some of the side effects of you being in the $&@$@—or as you call it, the void—while being mortal. Maybe I should have told you this first, but I wanted to see what would happen to you.
You see, your soul adapted to that place, which has left you very much time-challenged, among numerous other things. This means that until your soul adapts to time once again, you will lose track of how long it has been or how long it’s going to be, etc.
You’ve also developed an arrogant and somewhat skewed sense of existence. I won’t elaborate on this one because I find it amusing and want to see what it makes you do.
There’s also the fact that you made the foolish decision to manipulate and erase some of your memories and feelings without considering the repercussions or having sufficient information on the topic. Your only references were a megalomaniac, a depressed teen, and your own skewed train of thought. Are you with me so far?”
I couldn’t answer him. I wanted to refute him, especially on the topic of emotions, but I knew better, so I simply wanted to know why he thought so.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m with you, but can you elaborate on what you said last?” I asked.
“Hmm, oh, well you see, you’re a mortal. You were damaged, you survived, and you fixed the damage, but that didn’t mean everything was fine. So when you played with your emotions and memories, you made small mistakes. You were arrogant enough not to find more sources of information about the topic, and you failed to notice that after fixing your emotional center, it would do its job and regulate your emotions. This means the empty memories you left behind needed emotions, and now your emotional center is randomly assigning them. You’ve been lucky so far, but you will need to rework everything you’ve done. It will be long and tedious, it will require real-life references that you do not have, and you might not succeed in the end,” he said. All I could take from his words was that I had messed up.
“Okay, I still don’t understand why I’m here, though. I get it, I messed up, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to fix it,” I said confidently.
“If you think that, then you still don’t get it, but that’s okay. You haven’t tested how much of a mistake you made,” the old man told me, then continued, “Anyway, I’ll be helping you with this by sending you to another reality for a job. No, you cannot refuse it. Yes, it’s necessary. Yes, I will tell you the details.” Ah, I had forgotten just how annoying it was to talk to him.
“Okay, but what about my current job? You know I still haven’t started it,” I asked.
“Oh, right now, you have no chance of winning. Thus, completing this job will be very hard—that’s also one of the reasons I’m sending you on this job—to make you stronger. Everything that’s happened until now was just to help you anchor yourself and to solve the immediate problem. Or do you think everything went your way just because?” he told me, his last line especially scathing.
“Okay, I get it. Everything that’s happened until now had nothing to do with me and everything to do with you,” I said with a resigned tone.
“Good, you understand. Anyway, you’ll first return to your body. Your ritual will do what it’s supposed to do, and then when the time comes, you will be transported to your new reality. You will know everything when the time comes. For now, goodbye,” he said with a smile and a wave of his hand. The next thing I knew, I felt very pure wisps of magical energy—I believed to be from the ritual—entering my body as I drifted off to sleep.
