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So then, if the Skill had been unlocked at Level four, it would expect him to be working with Level four amounts of the stuff. But instead, not only did Zeth have a massively higher Shaping Stat, he also already had another Skill that reduced his drawing times in Vile Focus, which likely sped up his Rank progress even more. By now, it’d been a while since Speedy Rites had improved to Rank six, so it seemed like it might start following a more normal trajectory for the latter half of its Ranks, which supported the theory; by now, the Skill would expect him to be stronger, and so it would expect him to be working on these larger, more powerful rituals.

Regardless, the ritual was nearing completion. Astrys had worked alongside Zeth the whole time, carving away to lower the floor so her aura of fear wouldn’t clip people walking above them anymore. They made some idle conversation as they both did their jobs, and Zeth really felt like he was growing more comfortable having her around now. It was nice, really, having someone to talk to instead of always just sinking into Vile Focus’s unconscious work mode to skip the time.

As he was drawing up the last lines of his circle, he thought of something, turning to her and asking, “So, you said you covered your tracks to ensure nobody would be able to trace the destroyed bandit camp back here, right?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What exactly did you do?”

“Other than literally covering any tracks I inadvertently left behind, I primarily did what you suggested, and ransacked their base to make the destruction look as if it were conducted by a monster. Your idea to pay particular attention to their food supplies was a good one, so I broke their containers open and removed a large portion of their food from the area.”

“Oh, good.” Then he frowned. “Wait, you ‘removed’ it? Where’d you put it?”

“Some I scattered around the area. But if I left it all there, it would become obvious to a careful observer that there was no animal here, since nothing had been eaten. So I took the rest here. I didn’t know where you wanted it, so I left it all in the entryway.”

“Alright. Yeah, we can just store it here, then. I’ve been having to buy food with my wages, but with Erza in prison that might become less feasible to do in the future. Having a stockpile would be good.”

As he spoke, Zeth drew the last of the lines of his ritual, feeling it finally complete. With it done, he went and grabbed the newly-acquired blood from his storage and poured it in, watching the completion percentage slowly climb upward. The blood requirement was the one Zeth hadn’t yet gotten any sort of reduction Skill for, and he was really feeling it. But, for as long as he had enemies, he had sources to draw from.

After quite the volume of bandit blood was poured in, he felt the notifications roll in.

[Otherworldly Excellence’s Rank has increased to 7.

+5 Dexterity. You have 65 Dexterity.

+1 Skill Point. You have 11 Skill Points.]

[Blood Magus’s Level has increased to 13.

+3 Endurance. Your Endurance is 45.

+5 Dexterity. Your Dexterity is 70.

+1 Awareness. Your Awareness is 13.

+2 Poise. Your Poise is 26.

+7 Shaping. Your Shaping is 91.

+3 Skill Points. You have 14 Skill Points.]

[Requirement fulfilled: Blood Magus Level 13.

You have unlocked Blood Magus Skill: Reinforcement Ritual.]

With the ritual complete, Zeth eagerly looked over the newly-unlocked Skill.

[Reinforcement Ritual - Cost: 14 Skill Points

Uses a ritual circle to magically strengthen the surface it is drawn on, which requires a sacrifice each day to maintain. The object’s material hardness is increased by 25% per Rank in this Skill, plus an additional 1% per point you have in the Shaping stat.

Strength of sacrifice required: Depends on size of object being strengthened, once per day

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Required ritual circle diameter: Depends on size of object being strengthened

Time required to draw: Depends on size of object being strengthened

Upkeep time required each day: Depends on size of object being strengthened]

A far more defensive option, it seemed. Chances were, the Blood Mage version of this was what was used in those tunnels Zeth had seen, making the wooden walls nigh-impenetrable even to Astrys. Whoever drew those must’ve either had a very high Shaping Stat, or had evolved this Skill a number of times to bring its Rank upward—at least, presuming their version of it worked the same way his did.

The Skill certainly looked good. With his Shaping having just risen above ninety, at Rank ten, it would give a three hundred and fifty percent boost to the resilience of whatever option he wanted. If he wanted a door his enemies couldn’t knock down, this would be a pretty good way to make one. And he imagined there would be all kinds of other creative applications of an ability as broad as this.

Unfortunately, it was pretty vague in its requirements, with every one simply stating they depended on the size of the object the circle was painted onto. So, a smaller object would need less while a larger one needed more, but he didn’t actually get to know what those ‘less’ and ‘more’ figures would be.

At least for now, Zeth didn’t think this would disrupt his plans for the next Skills he wanted to buy, at least immediately. Experimentation would be good, but he wanted a few others first—primarily the combination of Vascular Hypertension and Ephemeral Bloodforge. Those two put together would greatly assist his versatility in combat, finally allowing him to fight effectively even after exhausting all of the rituals he might have brought with him into any given conflict.

Still, though—he was curious about what Reinforcement Ritual could do. Taking it just for the sake of experimentation was tempting.

For now, however, there wasn’t much time left in the day, so continuing to work wouldn’t bring much benefit.

“Hey,” he said to Astrys, “you said there was some food you left in the entrance?”

She nodded. “Would you like to see?”

They walked over through the hallway together, over to the staircase, and upon arriving, Zeth realized he had greatly underestimated the amount of food Astrys had taken.

There was a practical mountain of smoked meat, dried fruits, loaves of bread, jars of pickled eggs and vegetables—there were even several foods that looked like they’d been frozen through magic coldboxes. It was a completely absurd stockpile of preserved foods.

“Holy shit,” Zeth said. “You found all of this in their base?”

“Yes,” she replied. “It seemed as though all of this was stolen from various sources, as they were all stored in different types of containers. I left those and simply took the food with me.”

“This is incredible. But, uh, I don’t know if we can keep all of it.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“There’s no way we could eat it all in a reasonable timeframe.”

“Would it not be a good idea to keep a stockpile, then?”

He shook his head. “We couldn’t safely store it. It’s not good to keep this much food just sitting around.”

She stared at him, confused.

“Ah, right. I forgot you’re not from this world. I guess in the Thirteenth Realm, you don’t have things like rats or insects that’ll come for your food if you don’t store it properly? They’re these little pests that can get in practically anywhere, and the more food you have, the more likely they’ll smell it. With this much sitting around for so long, we’d likely get an infestation, and at that point, it’s basically impossible to get rid of them. We don’t want that.”

“I see. Shall I take it back, then?”

“No, no, we want to ensure it looks like a monster attack.” Zeth looked down, deep in thought. “Trying to scatter it through the forest for animals to eat wouldn’t work, and we can’t keep it here to eat…Burning it would create too much smoke, burying it would leave spots of disturbed dirt that someone could notice and would draw attention here…Maybe we could dump it in the nearby river, but if anyone noticed it as it floated away, it’d be an issue…Hm. It’s harder to get rid of food than I thought it was.”

“I apologize for creating an inconvenience for you.”

“What? No, don’t. I mean, this is the definition of too much of a good thing, here. I’ll keep a smaller amount of this stuff—getting that much is great. It’s just when it’s too much that…” He blinked. “Wait. Oh, I got it.”

“Hm?”

“The way we’ll get rid of it. We just give it to other people. It’s getting to be dark now, so in the middle of the night, we just sneak through town and give a little bit to every single house we can find. There’s a lot of people who had the providers of their families stolen away by the Inquisitors, and suddenly they aren’t getting income or food anymore. If we just give those people some of this stuff, they’ll just assume it was a charitable donation from a stranger who wanted to help them out in their time of need. According to what Garon said, the cabal mostly just makes up the town’s leadership, so even if some people notice the strange appearance of all this food, I doubt they’ll go complain about it to the captain of the guard, or whatever. And really, since it’ll be such a small amount to each person, they probably won’t think it’s such a big deal, anyway. And even if it does get noticed by the cabal, they’d have to connect this random act of charity in town to the bandit camp miles away that got ransacked by some animals, and somehow conclude that the two were connected. It’s not a perfect cover, but it’s a good one. And honestly, it’d be nice to help these people out. Wouldn’t feel right throwing all this food away when people are starving.”

“I see,” she said. “I would have never thought of such a thing.”

“Well, I’m gonna need your help transporting all of this, and also your protection. Sneaking around in the middle of the night handing out all this food—if someone does connect this with the Blood Mage, that’s fine, but if they also see me doing it, then it’s over for me. So I’ll have to put on my suit while I give it all away. Meaning, if the guards see me, they won’t know my actual identity, but they will attack. So it’ll be good to have you watching my back.”

“You know, this scheme reminds me of a publicity stunt my mother would come up with for the sake of improving my reputation and my esteem in the king’s eyes. Only, I don’t think she would have actually done it. All the times I made some grand gesture, it was always faked, and always done in the most public way possible. It will be interesting doing the same thing for real, as secretly as possible.” Then she nodded. “Would you like to depart now?”

“Yeah. Let’s do this.”