Chapter 281 Shamanism (1/2)

With a broad grin on his face, Stahl spent the next hour or two simply creating different magic circles, playing around with different mechanics as he did so. He even figured out a few neat ways to use it together with his other skills, by simply strengthening those exact skills in itself and some weapons. There was a certain type of sorcery called 'area sorcery', which would, for a short time, change an area into something else.

It wouldn't actually change the physical appearance of anything, but it was something of a position-based boost-magic. You could create healing effects in the area, or you could create skill-boost effects in a certain area, so that was something that Stahl was really concentrating on while practicing sorcery.

The base effects were quite similar to his Grandfather's 'Crafting Space' skill, after all, although that was still a good bit more potent and far, far easier to use. Eisen just had to think of the activation and what skill to activate it for, while Stahl had to spend a good time to actually draw the magic circle required to cover the whole room, which was basically just an array of multiple magic circles placed at each 'boundary' of the effect range.

But either way, Stahl soon managed to finish learning sorcery, before he opened his Status and noticed that his Mana Manipulation skill was already at Level 90, meaning that it wouldn't take all that long for him to Rank it up to 2 now, which was the point at which he would gain his element!

Before then, though, Stahl wanted to make sure he had learned all the skills that he really could, so he swiftly moved to Xenia again. ”What comes next? Just ranked my Sorcery skill up!” He exclaimed with a smile, before Xenia stood up from the chair next to Koro's, who the High-Elf was still teaching about proper useage of Magi-craft-skills.

”Next is about the 'Exchange' Magic that I talked about. The most notable ones being Shamanism, Witchcraft, and Praying.” She explained, before starting to talk about each one in a little bit more detail.

”Shamanism exchanges mana for 'Spirit Energy' to create Curses and Blessings. Witchcraft, as mentioned before, exchanges mana for 'World Energy' to create all kinds of effects, often bound toward specific items or people, instead of a stand-alone effect. And then Praying is a skill that changes depending on your Deity, so we'll have to look into that when we go to get you the skill.” She explained, and then stepped over to the door.

”We're going back outside now, Shamanism and Witchcraft is easiest when done in natural environments.” Xenia said and stepped out of the room, and then back up to the area on top of the meeting room, before handing Stahl a knife.

”For shamanism, using ingredients coming from the dead or the living is quite normal. So, we're using your blood. Cut your finger, and then drag it over the wood to draw a small circle. Oh, and place your mana over the cut to keep blood coming.” She told him, so Stahl quietly sighed before inevitably nodding his head.

”Fine…” He answered with a wry smile and took the knife he was given into his hand, before dragging it over the surface of his finger to create a shallow cut.

With his mana then covering the small opening, the mana simply dripped out as if through a just-so-slightly opened tap. And then, he squatted down onto the ground and drew the small circle just as he was told, before looking back up at Xenia.

”That's it, you can stop now. But keep the mana inside of the cut, just don't bleed inside the circle.” She said with a smile and then handed Stahl a few items, while he stuck his finger into his mouth so that he wouldn't bleed all over the place.

He was given a small bundle of different herbs, finely ground down white powder, and a bowl filled with water.

”First things first, cover the whole area that you just created with your blood in your mana, like a half-sphere so that you can cover everything that happens next. Then, place the bowl into the center of the circle, and pour the ground-down bones inside of it. After that, you have to mix it around with one end of the bundle of herbs, until it becomes thick enough to hold the herbs without them touching the bottom of the bowl. And then, you need to put a few drops of blood at the top of the bundle of herbs, and then ignite that end.” She explained step by step, before Stahl slowly began to do as he was told.

He first created the small mana-area, then poured the white powder into the bowl, mixed it around with the herbs that he then stuck inside of it vertically and then drenched in his blood, before grabbing a 'fire starter', which was simply a long mana crystal that would create fire at the end of it.

”And now, repeat what I say.” Xenia said, as slowly black smoke was starting to rise from the herbs, before Stahl nodded his head and listened, and repeated her words as soon as he could.

”Oh spirits of the other realm, take this offering of mine and show me your power.” With this, relatively short, chant, the black smoke that was rising so far started moving as if in reverse, as if being 'pulled back' into the fire. And when all the smoke that rose before disappeared back inside of it, the flame itself turned pitch black, while Stahl noticed that the mana that he covered the small circle in disappeared the more the flame burned.

[Shamanism Skill Learned]

[You created a Black Flame]

[Black Flame]

[Quality – High][Rank – 0]