Might as Well

The room was a rather traditional affair. The building itself was made of stone, with wooden inlays and floors. The walls were adorned with simple scrolls or basic paintings. Nothing that screamed wealth, more like it whispered about an overworked interior designer who ran out of ideas after the reception hall.

Sam hung the small sign, that told people that a ritual was taking place on the doorknob, then after making sure that the door was locked behind him, he turned to the room, ignoring it for a moment as Lucky curiously sniffed around, and took in the ritual room.

A simple stone surface, elevated slightly in the middle, surrounded by wooden flooring, that was found everywhere else in the building. Next to the walls were several desks, empty, with only one covered with simple writing utensils and a few reams of parchments. And next to the door, on the wall, was a small cabinet that, according to the booklet Sam was given, contained some basic ritual materials that were needed in almost every ritual. Chalk, salt, and a few more reagents and such.

On the ceiling was a dark hole, right above the short stone plinth in the middle of the room.

‘Probably for ventilation or maybe it opens and allows the sky to be seen…’ he wondered as he curiously gazed at it. But in the end, he just shook his head and took out the booklet.

Thankfully, it contained the basic update ritual that the natives of the world called Evolution Ritual. Naturally, there were better and more intricate rituals, but he was in a position where he could only use this.

Opening the cabinet, he retrieved some chalk, gave Lucky some snacks to allow him to work without distraction, then began drawing the ritual circle on the stone platform.

One big circle to encompass the ritual, and setting a boundary for the magic.

Then a smaller circle, with even smaller circles placed on it, equidistant from each other to hold the reagents.

Followed by a few important runes between the two concentric circles. Coincidentally, one of the runes that he drew was one he already knew.

The rune of magic.

After all, this ritual was nothing more than channeling the mana of the world through certain filters, the reagents, into the pet or familiar, to evolve them.

It took him around an hour to draw all the runes out painstakingly, ignoring how every time he perfected one, his notification chimed in that he learned a new rune.

He would have turned it off, but the notification was needed to tell him when he was finished with a rune.

Then, after the ritual circle was fully applied to the stone, Sam took a quick breather, making sure he was as ready for the ritual as he could be.

Then he simply stepped up to Lucky, lifted the silly wolf into the circle, then squatted down, and looked directly into his eyes.

“Okay, Lucky! I need you to stay, veeery still! Alright?”

The wolf looked at him for a moment, then simply licked his face. As Sam cleaned the slobber off his face, he hoped it was the lick of agreement.

Sam watched Lucky for a moment, and when he saw that the young wolf had no intention of leaving the ritual circle, he let out a relieved sigh and began walking around the ritual circle.

In the smaller circles, he began placing the reagents.

Into the bottom two went a small shadow wolf fang and a tuft of Lucky’s own fur. The next two received the blood of the swamp shadow murks, which were creatures from the swamp that blended into the shadows from where they ambushed their victims. And the top two received two tiny pieces of mithril.

Finally, at the top, into the seventh circle, he placed the bottle of the fractured Lesser Shadow Spirit essence. Originally, he planned to hunt down a Shadow Murk, but this was much better. Now he just had to pray to the RNG gods that he chose the correct reagents, and Lucky would get the skills he wanted.

Stepping around the wolf sitting still, curiously gazing at the surrounding stuff, he kneeled down behind the ritual circle and placed one hand on the shadow wolf’s fang and the tuft of fur.

Then Sam took a deep breath and began channeling mana.

He closed his eyes and concentrated fully on the mana as it left his body, making sure to extract every last ounce of mana from his body.

With his senses he followed as the mana flowed from his hands into the items he was touching, saturating them, then following the circle drawn with chalk continued into the runes, filling them, causing them to shine strong enough that he could feel them through closed eyes, then continued into the next circle.

Watching through his mind’s eye, he waited as his mana infused the blood, then continued to travel further in the circle. The pieces of mithril barely took a second to fill with mana, proving their capability with conducting mana, and then his mana reached the most important reagent.

The shadow spirit, however fractured, still had its own mana, so for a moment that felt like years, Sam felt his mana straining against the spirit’s own mana, the two warring against each other. Thankfully, the mind was destroyed by its defeat, so Sam only had to dominate the instincts that were inherent in such a being.

But in the end, it was just a fractured remnant of a weak spirit, so he managed to overwhelm it.

And the moment the spirit’s defenses broke, Sam felt the ritual circle complete, and the drain on his mana increased. He didn’t hesitate and gave everything freely.

After all, he was investing in the future, so he couldn’t afford to be stingy. Plus, it was just mana, it would regenerate.

So, he dug deep, dragged up every last mote of mana, and channeled it into the circle.

Meanwhile, the circle, which previously shone with light, began to turn dark, and as he opened his eyes, he saw as if the very darkness was swallowing the light, birthing… shadows.

Shadows danced on the wall, and even though the room had a few windows, they were obscured by the shadows that seemed to be erupting randomly from Lucky, who became a big ball of darkness that seemed to be pulsating to a weird beat.

It took Sam a moment to recognize that it was beating to the rhythm of his own heart.

For a while, he just knelt there, and watched, amazed, the spectacle as mana was drained out of him as soon as it regenerated.

After an unknown amount of time, the pulsating dark mass began to die down in intensity, and the dark ball of nothingness in the middle of the room began to shrink.

Soon it lost its globular shape and began to take the familiar shape of Lucky, albeit a little smaller.

Lucky’s body, instead of sinfully fluffy fur, was made of black shadows that seemed to dance a little every time Lucky as much as twitched. Otherwise, it was still shaped like a wolf and had the same adorable face.

For an entire minute, they stared at each other, then at the same time a multitude of notifications popped up, and Sam felt himself being hit by exhaustion that he had never felt, and Lucky pounced on him and began licking his face.

Sam couldn’t help but laugh out loud, then bury his face into Lucky’s fur.

Thankfully, it was still as soft as previously, more like it was even softer and more delicate. For a moment he let himself loose in the sensation of Lucky’s fur and played with his friend, but then, still laying on the ground, exhausted, he began going over his notifications.

[Congratulations, you have correctly recorded an entire Rune scheme!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Direction!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Health!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Control!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Assimilation!]

[You’ve learned the rune scheme of the Ritual of Evolution!]

That little addition to his rune dictionary was a nice bonus. He would have to get some skill that would be able to make use of it. Though if the exhaustion meant what he suspected it did, then he would have enough time at a library to get the skill.

[You attempted the Ritual of Evolution with your pet, Lucky!]

[Compatibility check…]

[Your Ritual of Evolution was a success!]

[Lucky, the Adult Gray Mana Wolf (Level 15) has successfully transformed into Juvenile Shadow Spirit Wolf (Level 1)!]

[Lucky lost the Strong Jaw skill!]

[Lucky gained the Animalistic Shadow Control skill!]

[Animalistic Shadow Control: Level Max (Passive) The wolf controls the shadows around him just as easily as it breathes.]

[Lucky gained the Shadow Spirit Body skill!]

[Shadow Spirit Body: Level Max (Passive) The body of the wolf is part shadow and part spirit, which makes it much more malleable.]

[Name: Lucky

Race: Juvenile Shadow Spirit Wolf

HP: 945/945

MP: 285/285

Level: 1

STR: 21

DEX: 25

AGI: 30

VIT: 21

END: 18

MAG: 19

PER: 31

WIS: 14

LUK: 7]

Sam read the skills and couldn’t help but celebrate. He got the skill he wanted! Granted, he was just aiming for the Shadow Body skill, which was a well-known pet skill in his inherited memories, but the addition of the Spirit prefix couldn’t hurt.

And the stats…

They were amazing, showing clearly that without the evolution ritual, poor Lucky stood no chance.

Then, while scratching behind Lucky’s ears, he started reading the notifications about his own skills.

[You have successfully finished the first ritual you ever tried! You gained +1 MAG and +1 WIS!]

[Thanks to keeping calm during the ritual, the Basic Breathing Technique reached Level 8!]

[Advanced Mana Control reached Level 6!]

[Mana Sense reached Level 11!]

[You gained the Focused Sense subskill!]

[Focused Sense: Level 0/5 (Passive) The more you concentrate your sense on something, the more you can sense.]

[Multitasking reached Level 22!]

[Mana Synergy reached Level 4!]

[Thanks to drawing deep and long from your well of mana, keeping nothing back, and supporting your companion, your Mana Well skill reached Level 3!]

[Calm Heart reached Level 5!]

[Your skill Companion Sense and its subskill, Deep Connection, transformed upon your companion’s evolution!]

[Companion Sense and Deep Connection transformed into the skill, Spirit Link!]

[Spirit Link: Level 0/100 (Passive) You have a connection to a spirit, and this connection is based on the deep bond you two share. It allows you to know the location of the spirit and their feelings and gives you a general idea about their wellbeing. The spirit is capable of the same. (Still provides the bonuses of the subsumed skills.)]

Sam stared for a long minute at the notifications happily, but then his smile turned into a frown as he beheld the last notification that popped up.

[Due to overdrawing your mana, you have been struck by Mana Exhaustion!]

[Mana Exhaustion: Physical abilities -90%, Mana Control -90%, Mana Regeneration -90%, Using mana could result in all manner of other negative effects. Duration: 99 hours 49 minutes]

Which neatly explained why he was feeling so exhausted. Sam scowled a little, but then shrugged. He already suspected that it would be the case, as nothing was free. And Ironwood’s library was much better than the one back in Greenwood, so he had things to do while recovering, but it still felt shitty.

But before he could do anything, he had to check something.

Carefully he sat up, still patting Lucky, then took a deep breath and called out to the changed wolf.

“Hey, Lucky!” the wolf immediately looked up, eagerly waiting for his words. “Could you do me a favor and jump into my shadow?”

The wolf cocked his head to the side, as if contemplating his request, but then barked out happily and jumped up and, with a picture-perfect dive, jumped into the shadow his sitting body was making on the wooden floor.

For a moment the shadow was still, then two big eyes opened and began staring at him as if expecting praise.

He wasn’t one to hold back.

“Good boy!”

After cleaning up the ritual room, one of those little things that made NPCs hate the players for if not done, he left the room, told the receptionist that he was finished, and left the mage tower. If anyone noticed that he left without the wolf he entered with, then nobody mentioned it.

Lucky, thankfully, managed to understand the concept of staying in his shadow to ambush people, though he expected to have to explain a lot in the future why his shadow was staring at people, or panting.

It was still much better than the person who did in the other timeline, and from whom he got the idea. That person was a fan of tentacles…

Knowing that he was exhausted mentally, and his in-game body was pretty much useless, he took out the letter he got from the owner of the Green Stump, checked the address, and began walking towards it.

Sam navigated through the winding streets of Ironwood for a while until he found himself standing in front of a three-story building with the same iron and wooden decorations that were present everywhere else in the city.

Over the door hung a sign proclaiming the building to be the Cloudy Day inn.

‘Weird name…’ Sam thought, but then shrugged. Sarah was nice and had a rather eccentric name for her inn.

Stepping through the door, he was immediately hit by the scent of well-made food and the sound of chatter as people enjoyed the aforementioned food. Dodging people as they rushed around, taking note of a few beautiful women, that seemed to delight in displaying themselves, he stepped up to the counter, manned by a bored man, dressed in slacks and a white shirt.

“Hello, sir, and welcome to the Cloudy Day! How can we help you today?” came the bored greeting, the man barely taking the effort to look at him.

Sam just gave the man a smile.

“Greetings, I’m here to deliver a letter to…” he looked down at the letter and then back at the man. “…Andrea.”

The man let out a deep and long-suffering sigh, nodded, then turned around leisurely and walked through the door behind the counter.

A minute later, the door slammed open, and a big woman, with black hair, put up in a delicate bun, wearing what Sam would call a stereotypical barmaid dress.

“It is, I, Andrea!” she exclaimed, standing proudly at the door, while the receptionist just sighed behind her. Sam, now, could understand a little better the man’s attitude. “Who has the letter for me?” She continued to yell, looking around until her eyes found Sam.

“That would be me, madam!” he stated humbly, then held out the letter. “It’s from Greenwood.”

The woman’s eyes lit up and she practically teleported next to Sam, snatching the letter from his hands.

“Oh, Sarah! I haven’t heard from her for a while!” Then she fell silent as she got absorbed in reading the letter.

A minute later, she silently folded the letter and slipped it into a pocket on her dress, and turned towards Sam with a small, mischievous smile.

“So, I heard you are looking for a room?”