Doyle looked down at what some would generously call a cluttered mess. Symbols from cultures the world over were all clustered between a pair of circles. Why two circles, one inside of the other?
No reason, Doyle just felt it was easier to target the space inside of the inner circle than it would be to target something else. Oh, and this wasn’t his first attempt at getting the circle working. This wasn’t even the tenth time. He had altered the circle almost a hundred times at this point.
Each new iteration involved replacing symbols and moving them around. It was simply a sad fact that he wasn’t capable of connecting with every rune system the world over. This was especially true for the cultures that left less of a presence or simply hadn’t been focused on within the books available to him. Though it certainly didn’t help that, some translations were, at best, guesses.
The good news was that the ritual circle failed to even activate, so there wasn’t any cost to be paid. On top of that, Doyle was specially qualified for figuring this out. Whereas others would have a hard time picking out what wasn’t working, he could just see it.
Doyle’s ability to see everything going on in his dungeon revealed which symbols weren’t taking power or had reactions to other runes. Though he was getting close now. The last iteration only required three runes to be replaced and another to be moved away from a cluster of symbols that interfered with it.
Doyle pushes world energy into the circle and watches as a single rune stays dark. In theory, that could have possibly let the circle work, except the lines and intent used to make the set up like a circuit done in series. Everything has to work or nothing would work.
Oh, there was just one catch. That rune was supposed to fail. It was in fact one of the first runes Doyle verified had no chance of working ever and it was the last one before the circle would have activated. The rune wasn’t even needed, except it made sure the circle didn’t work despite every other part saying it should.
So, now that there was in theory a working ritual circle, Doyle went through and rerouted lines and made last-minute changes. The next test should in theory work and he was going to make sure everything was how he wanted it. Stuff like having some runes work in parallel so that it would split the power between them. That and, of course, removing the faulty rune.
Ready, Doyle separated out the smallest amount of world energy he could manipulate, much less than what the system referred to as a single point. Then he sent it into the circle. From rune to rune the energy flowed until it ran out, not even a percent of the way through. A reasonable enough outcome when the design is more meant for a constant flow of power instead of a single burst at the start.
Though Doyle wasn’t afraid to admit that this was likely one of the less efficient examples of its type, likely only beaten out by designs made specifically to waste power. You can’t really avoid that when jamming so many runes from so many different sets. There is a reason formation masters tend to stick to one runic library, with only the occasional borrowed rune thrown in.
Either way, the circle was going to need more power to work. So slowly, Doyle increased the amount of world energy being input as the power reaches further and further. One point of world energy, three, ten, and then with 37 points of world energy the power is just a hair short of activating the circle.
Doyle lets the circle drain one final time and examines it. Some symbols show signs of change. Such things as it being worn down, connections where there shouldn’t be, and even one that ended up with extra material being added to fill in parts of the rune. This was expected as some of the early trials had seen much more spectacular results when an early rune would block the flow, causing a back up.
It would be fine once the power was actually running through it, instead of just being applied in bursts. Though after fixing the damage, Doyle compresses the stone he had engraved the circle on, making it as dense and sturdy as he can. They would still eventually fail, but not before the circle worked enough to prove the concept.
Doyle spawns a bunch of monster stones and hooks them up so that they would provide a constant pressure of 38 world energy. Right away, the power makes its way through the runes and the inner circle begins to visibly glow. Another sign of wasted power, but the circle was only to prove that it could work.
And it did! In the center of the circle, a small planter of wheat seeds began to rapidly sprout. They grew and matured at a rate visible to the naked eye. At least, until runes within the circle began to fail. Though not before he spotted a few undesirable outcomes.
The growth effect wasn’t targeted enough and various funguses and molds had also grown rapidly. Not only that, but the wheat had taken more nutrients from the soil than a normally grown one would have. That last bit Doyle felt was likely the result for not having access to enough water.
Though the first bit? That could be deadly. A living being sitting in the inner circle would suffer. Stuff that normally the body would take care of, would suddenly be growing faster than it can manage. Not only that, but the things growing within them would be extracting extra nutrients from the person. A real nasty way to go.
Though this would be easy enough to fix. Doyle simply had to introduce stricter limits on what would be affected. Most obvious would be to either target a specific plant or species of plant. To grow one tree or just wheat would be a lot easier than a mixed vegetable garden. Then again, it was always easier to grow mono-crops when going for scale. All that aside, what was more important was the system messages that came with the success.
{Successful Ritual using multiple new Runic systems detected}
A little light on the details. In fact, there weren’t any details at all! That was to be expected, though. After all, most of the actual outcomes are going to be behind the scenes and the system has no reason to inform Doyle of them yet. That time would come soon enough, so for now he turns to his skills as in theory he should have got one for this.
{Root Rune Master lv1}
Ally frowns after seeing it. ‘Not what we were looking for. I guess using the unknown runes and symbols messed things up.’
Doyle, ‘What is bad about it? While it isn’t array or formation based, it is a “root” skill which I assume is like what we wanted?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Yes, but no. This is like having a calligraphy skill, but no skill at actually writing words and such. We can fix this, though. Like the guy in town who has wood and bone skills, all we need is a skill to combine this with.’
Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Is there a reason we couldn’t keep it? Calligraphy is a well-respected skill, after all. I’m sure being able to write out the runes properly would be a bonus.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘The difference is that you don’t need a capital ‘S’ Skill to write something down. You don’t even need a language skill, though some people do get a skill similar to the pattern database, except it stores languages instead of patterns. On the other hand, while you can make arrays and formations without a Skill for it, you don’t have anyone to teach you and at a high enough level, the system might end up being the only thing that can teach you.’
Doyle tilts down, ‘I guess that does make some amount of sense. The question is, what kind of skill should I try to get? Plus, if I remember correctly, the skills need to be similar in level and on the same, well, level, but this time meaning rank or granularity.’
Ally nods, ‘It will be hard to get an array or formation skill and not use runes for it. However, it isn’t impossible. In fact it might be easier to get a similarly “primal” skill from it. First, though, we’ll want to watch the town closely.
‘It should only take the system a day or so to incorporate the new runes. At that point, anyone who had tried to use them will get a notification about it, as well as anyone working with runes in general. While we will get the message, I suspect watching how the town reacts will provide some interesting information on how things will shake out.
‘After all, the width and breadth of people in the outer circle is quite shocking. Though that might just be a result of Ace’s policy on religion and such. He isn’t trying to keep the weird or the dark out beyond simply enforcing his rules within the town. I’m sure other settlements aren’t so nice.’
Doyle laughed, ‘After various deities have been proven to be real? Nevermind the fact that technically those of other faiths were also proven true, there will be settlements that turn into true theocracies that don’t allow those not of the “proper” faith to even enter. Whole countries practically tried the same thing even before anything was proven and now? Blood will flow.’
Ally grimaces, ‘Yeah, that does tend to be a problem with newly integrated worlds. Worse, it is on purpose. Those deities always go out of their way to make sure the religion passed along has them as the “one true god” so that whole worlds will end up theirs. Of course, once the wider universe comes knocking, that rarely lasts.
‘Though enough low tech, low magic shrine worlds exist out there to make it worth it to the deities. In particular, your world seems to have gotten a couple particularly greedy types vying for it. Good thing even that didn’t fully stop other views from taking hold.
‘All that nasty hate and discrimination. Stupid nonsense about gender and preferences, there only to force people into making more believers. Who cares who a person likes! It isn’t like you have to like them back. And if they try to force it? Well, that’s a crime unrelated to their preferences.
‘Even the most devoted shrine worlds eventually get rid of that nonsense because all it does is push people away. Not like the deities actually care. They’re gods! Why would they care what mortals like in bed? If you believe your deity of choice cares, you truly worship a small-minded deity. Your soul isn’t male or female, it simply is.’
Doyle tilts back, ‘A little fiery there, not that I disagree. Though I guess for me, it was just always a complete lack of understanding why it would matter to anyone. Like, they’re not my partner, so just like I’m not going to care if you have blue or red drapes, I don’t care who you live with either.’
Ally sighs, ‘In just about any dimension you’ll find pain and suffering because of this kind of nonsense. Worse, so many people spread suffering without even knowing why! They just say that their church said it was so. There are a few things people can’t help, and hurting them for those things is vile.
‘Sigh, anyway, Wolf’s Rest has a decent size population of people who don’t fit the mold. Sure, some literally worship demons, but most simply don’t fit in and Ace doesn’t care as long as you can play nice while in public and don’t break the law. I know of at least one person who has been attempting a ritual circle once a week for the last couple months. It will be interesting to see how that will work out for them.’