Ashton walked up the stairs to the rooftop. All day, this place had been locked off due to the appearance of the wyvern. The only ones that were allowed here were the people actively standing watch. However, since Ashton had helped expand the area downstairs yesterday, it wasn't a big deal since people could still get some fresh air with some relative safety.

  There were some other exceptions, though, in which people were allowed to be out here, which was when it was related to attaining a class. There was someone else that was trying to get the watchman class, so that they might be able to create synergy with archery. It was an interesting idea. They would aim for the Archer class next.

  Another person trying to get a class up here was Oliver. The moment Ashton arrived, he spotted Oliver sitting in the middle of the roof, with six candles placed in a circle around him. They weren't lit at the moment, so the area around Oliver was being illuminated with a torch that John was pointing right at him. It was pretty dark already, and the moon was reaching the end of its cycle so it wasn't all that bright, either.

  Though, that did make the stars shine in a way that Ashton hadn't ever seen here before. Sure, this wasn't the biggest city in England, but the light pollution still made it impossible to see the night sky properly anywhere around here. And now that not just all of Drakewood, but most certainly the entire world, had gone dark, the view everyone was blessed with was something special. Not that it made up for all the other bullshit they had to deal with.

  There were a few things flying through the sky right now that Ashton was a little concerned about, but they were probably just simple bird or bat monsters. Maybe some insects, but nothing too bad. Either way, they were something that they had to look out for, being this high up. He had spotted a few nests being build atop larger buildings while he was out and about as well, and this one might become a target for those monsters, too. But if anything like that were to happen, they had the watchman to warn them about it. It was still a bit unsettling.

  "What's happening?" Ashton stepped toward Oliver, who quickly snapped his head toward him.

  "You're here! Perfect! Okay, so, I was thinking about doing a ritual."

  "Mhm, that's what it looks like," Ashton said with a smile, squatting down to take a closer look at what Oliver had laid out around him. There were the six candles, just small ones that would stay lit for barely an hour. But, and Ashton hadn't seen this before now, Oliver was sitting on a large plastic sheet that was encompassing him. Something was drawn on there in what was unmistakably blood. It was too much to come from one of these guys, so it was probably monster blood.

  It was a large circle with words that Ashton didn't quite know written along the outer edge. Maybe they were Latin, but he wasn't certain. The candles were placed right outside of that circle.

  "So, the ritual that I've prepared is a variation on the Bornless Rite. I used partial inspirations from the Liber Samekh and others from the Golden Dawn, but I've also tried to stick to the original sources for the rite a lot. I've actually been doing this sort of research for fun for a while now and came up with some things myself to figure out how it would make most sense for me to connect to these higher spiritual planes. I've already done everything that I needed to to cleanse the area. I've used some ash from the campfire you made up here the other day to purify everything."

  "Ah... That's what that smell is." Ashton looked around, when Oliver stood up. Now, it was clear that he was wearing clothes that were clearly covered completely in that ash as well. "... What's that about?"

  "My clothes? Oh, yeah. So, you're supposed to use specific ritual garments, but I didn't have that, so I just figured I could purify my clothes as well by leaving them in some ash long enough. I did some other things too, don't worry."

  "I wasn't exactly worried," Ashton said with a slight laugh. "Either way, this is a pretty interesting-looking magic circle. What exactly is this 'Bornless Rite'?"

  Surprised, Oliver widened his eyes. "You don't know?"

  "Should I?"

  "I mean... It's kind of a big deal in these circles, and I figured you would know about it since it's related to summoning."

  Ashton crossed his arms and frowned. "You're trying to get into summoning?"

  "Oh! No, no, I get it, I know what you meant when you said you wouldn't teach me... it's just that summoning powers and entities is a part of a lot of occult practices, too. But it looks like it works a lot differently to what you tend to do," Oliver tried to explain it as best as he could, walking Ashton through the process a bit more. It was accompanied by some yawning on John's end, but Ashton was actually really interested. He wasn't the only one, either.

  [[Observer in the Veil] is utterly delighted at the magic of this world]

  Suddenly, Oliver flinched. He stared at something in the air, and looked past it at Ashton, "Wait, this 'Observer in the Veil'... is it a constellation?"

  "They sent you a message?" Ashton smiled lightly. He figured that this would happen sooner or later. Especially since Ashton clearly wasn't the sort to get into the type of contract that constellations generally wanted. The quests for the lowest grade contracts that Ashton had gotten were clearly just something they were trying to use to build a link to him in any way possible. That didn't mean that they weren't going to try and sponsor someone else. Most constellations sponsored dozens, if not hundreds, of people at once, though a lot of the time they focused on a select few. Powerful constellations tended to be more selective, but it was almost unheard of for one to only sponsor a single person. It was more likely that a constellation sponsored nobody than that they sponsored just a single individual.

  Oliver might be a good match for the Observer, especially since he actually had knowledge of magic that was developed on earth, whereas Ashton's came from other worlds.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Either way, Ashton was also extremely curious to see what would happen. And Oliver was extremely excited as well.

  Apparently, he had been somewhat practicing a lot of these occult rituals for a few years now, since he first took interest in it, but he was too focused on actually learning how it all worked that he realised there was never any tangible and provable effect. But this time might be different, so he was clearly thrilled about what he was doing right now.

  He stepped back into the middle of the circle, and slowly used a match to light up each of the candles, though not in order. Rather, it was like he was drawing a six-pointed star in a single line, staying careful to use just the single match that he had for the whole thing. When he was done, John stepped to the side and turned off the torch, so Oliver was only illuminated by the candles and the dim light of the moon and stars.

  Oliver carefully looked around, as if searching for something in the night sky, and then aimed directly for a small constellation in the east. He started with a few hand and arm motions, briefly touching himself at various parts of his body. It was a total of seven motions, which he continued to repeat over and over again.

  By the fifth repetition, he began to add words.

  "Thee I invoke, the Bornless One."

  With that as the start, Oliver continued to speak. He recited a full incantation over the course of the next few minutes, and then stood there silently. Instead, he just kept doing those same seven motions. After a few more cycles, he repeated the incantations again. This repeated over the entire next hour. It felt like a slight waste of time to just sit here and watch the entire time, especially considering the time-limit Ashton found himself under, but he was able to work on a few other things while he was here. It also let Ashton just watch what was happening. There was actually something that he figured he should try, that worked pretty well.

  He called on the lesser wisp and connected to the magic elemental's senses in the same way he had done through the undine. Technically, through the wisp, Ashton should be able to control mana directly. It was just that there was little use for this. There wasn't exactly a lot of mana in the air until just recently, so there wasn't even much to control in the first place. If Ashton learned to cast spells, beyond allowing him to imbue one into the wisp, the elemental should help with that. If there were magic users on earth, Ashton could use this ability to disrupt spellcasting, but that was also useless for now.

  But what this did allow Ashton to access was a new view of the world. It was faint, incredibly, ridiculously faint. Like a slight shimmer that stuck to a particular few places more. It couldn't be used to navigate like the water-sight, but it was good to deepen Ashton's insight on what Oliver was actually doing right now.

  With each motion and each word, the mana around him was being twisted into complex knots, carefully building up into a larger structure. Clearly, something was happening, Ashton just didn't know what.

  Though, this did make Ashton curious. Right now, he had just sat down and was working on preparing the xantusi leather to make the rare magic item for the observer's quest, but he had other items with him as well, including the instant print camera that he wanted to look at a bit closer.

  Choosing a moment where Oliver's eyes were closed, so that he wouldn't be bothered by the flash, Ashton snapped a picture with the first filter. Slowly, the picture was developing in his hand. The same places where Ashton saw the glimmer in front of him were now shown in bright red on the picture, and far clearer than what Ashton was able to see. But it showed what he expected, a complex knot of magic that was continuing to be used as a base for each next layer. It was rather beautiful.

  It did also make Ashton curious in other ways, though. So, he decided to use this chance to snap two more pictures, each with the other two filters.

  The base of each picture was almost the same, just in slightly different stages of the ritual. The second had a slight green shine in parts of the image. Particularly, the green was focused on the centre of that magic knot building up around Oliver. This was supposed to depict the 'truth' of the world. That meant that within the green parts, there was something normally unseen and hidden that was now being revealed. The language that was used in the description usually referred to things like invisibility, or the effects of certain spells that were lingering on people, specifically when they were powerful enough to have a particular shape to them.

  There was also another green shape floating above Oliver, though it wasn't quite clear what it was. It was pretty blurry.

  "Hm..." Ashton was a bit frustrated. This really didn't show much of anything.

  [[Observer in the Veil] notices you are distraught]

  [[Observer in the Veil] suggests you continue to attune to the magic item]

  Ashton sighed slightly. The observer was probably right. Powerful magic items like this could only really show their true power with the correct user. It was possible that the item wasn't really showing its true ability yet. He hadn't gone through a proper attuning ritual yet, anyway. Plus, that way, he would be the only one that could really draw out this item's true power, so that was useful in its own way.

  Either way, Ashton briefly focused on the third image. It was covered in a slight blue shine. But it was... creepy. It was focused mostly on Oliver, as if clinging to him. It was like the blue shine was a blurry copy of Oliver, except that he looked different. Thinner, weaker, basically decrepit. And, most importantly, missing his left arm.

  Ashton had a horrible feeling about what the last filter could be. For now, he would tuck the pictures away. Maybe he could make the magical qualities of the actual pictures develop a bit more to show more details.

  But by the time Ashton gave the pictures to the Backpacker for safekeeping, he noticed that the candles around Oliver had gotten weaker.

  He looked over at him, curious, when the ritual seemed to come to a close. Oliver stopped moving for the first time in an hour, and was breathing pretty heavily. He pressed his hands together, in an action that seemed almost like he was praying, and closed his eyes.

  And then, the candles flickered and were extinguished, as there was nothing left to burn. The rooftop was silent for a while. Ashton was about to ask if it worked, but before he could open his mouth... the flames flickered back on.

  Just that instead of that dim red, orange light, they were green flames.

  Extremely weak, but they were there, though it shouldn't be possible. Ashton felt shivers on his back. He was experiencing a sensation that he had only felt a few times, but it was unmistakable.

  Through the wisp, he noticed a small outline of mana, as if it was refusing to move into the space occupied by this being. It was a figure of a man. Tall, probably around three metres. But it was missing its head.

  It just stood there for a few moments, not doing anything. Until it began to walk. Not toward Oliver, but toward Ashton. It got close to him. This entity stopped a few steps away from Ashton, and then reached out an arm. It placed its hand onto Ashton's chest, and he could feel something push into his body. Into his vessel and soul. Before being pulled back out just as fast as it forced its way in.

  The 'bornless one' walked back to Oliver. It stepped into the place where it had stood just before, and slowly clapped its hands together. Ashton could feel an immense pulse of mana pass through the air. It wasn't a lot of mana or anything, it just felt shockingly clear, like fresh spring water.

  A lot felt washed away, like all the mystical, unseen gunk in this place had been cleansed. And then, the flames turned off again, and Oliver fell down onto his knees, breathing heavily like he had just come out of a sprint.

  But Ashton wasn't in any state to go and check on him. He was just staring at the message floating in front of his eyes since a moment ago.

  [A primordial deity of earth has acknowledged your existence]