Chapter 4
Zeth eagerly awaited his next Level.
Despite how much he wanted to just sprint right to town, see his parents and his sister, fill his belly with food, and get rest in a quality bed, he had an obligation. Get as strong as possible, as quickly as possible, so he could kill that damn mage. That meant doing the Empowerment Ritual now and not later. Besides, he had no idea where he’d even do something like that in town without getting seen.
So after drinking his fill from the stream, he sat on the bank and found a good place to work. His hands shook slightly from the hunger—now that he could see the sun, he realized it was morning, meaning he must’ve gone all day and night without food or sleep—but he pushed through. Just a few hours of work and he’d have it.
Zeth found a wide, flat stone a dozen feet off shore that was large enough to fit the Empowerment Ritual circle, glancing at the Skill’s requirements to double check. Strength of sacrifice required was still Low, the diameter had moved up to three feet, the minimum time required to draw was up to an insane six hours, and the upkeep time required each day—he still didn’t know what that meant—was an hour and ten minutes.
The six hour drawing requirement was the tough one. It’d consistently gone up by two additional hours per Level so far. Though, he hoped he might have some recourse against that growing requirement. Back when he’d hit Ritual Circle Mastery Rank 5, he’d unlocked a new Skill that seemed extremely useful.
[Vile Focus - Cost: 8 Skill Points
Your mind is sharpened and honed while creating ritual circles, allowing you to make fewer mistakes and become less distracted during the art.
Decreases each of the required diameter of your ritual circles, the amount of time required to draw ritual circles, and the upkeep time required each day by 2.5% per Rank in this Skill.]
Zeth currently had only two Skill Points, having spent them all on Hellfire Ritual and only Ranked it up twice so far, so the eight point cost for Vile Focus was out of his price range, but he felt like that was likely what he wanted next. If he could get it up to Rank ten, that would cut down on the requirements of his ritual circles by a significant margin. Besides, at a cost of only eight Skill Points, it would end up profiting him points by the time he got it to the maximum Rank of ten anyway.