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It had become apparent that spells that were each a simple derivation of the other, would be severely penalized and not considered new ones. The Epworth Curse was unique enough to give him five hundred Exp, which was insufficient to get him over the line, given the increased requirements for each level.

All other kinetic spells he could reliably cast without aid earned little more than a few dozen experience points. His mastery was too limited, and their similarities were too significant.

This meant he couldn\'t game the System by spamming slightly different spells. Given his substantial advantages, Nick wasn\'t too broken up about it, especially since direct casting had never been his forte. Old Nick never had a significant enough connection to magic to throw active spells out as needed, and their knowledge had become increasingly lost to time anyway.

While his path to explosive growth had been cut off, Nick still had a wealth of knowledge in the more esoteric arts that went far beyond what anyone else in this little town—save perhaps old Ogden—could prepare for.

"I even managed to sneak around without any magical aid. Yes, no one would expect a kid to be interested in espionage, but you\'d think people would be more paranoid given how many monsters live nearby," he grumbled to himself in his room as he drew ritual lines on the floor with the powdered stoneroot.

The pentagram slowly took shape, and Nick stopped for a moment to observe his work critically. It wouldn\'t do to make a rookie mistake like having a flaw in the circle just because he got cocky. That and ingredient testing were the most basic security measures any good ritualist needed to take, and his grandfather had drilled them into his mind too often to forgo them now.

Especially since that led me to my death. I\'m still not sure what happened after the ritual went wrong, and the more I think about it, the less I\'m confident in my initial assessment, but that doesn\'t mean I can be sloppy. I\'m not doing that again.

Fortunately, it seemed that he hadn\'t lost his touch. Grabbing the meticulously carved obsidian shards, Nick placed one on each of the pentagram\'s points and five more around the center, where he\'d sit.

I\'m not risking leaving myself open to attacks. The dryad might not have shown up again, but if there is a fae, there is probably more. Some might call this overkill, but I\'m willing to limit my sight to earthly matters if it means I cannot be possessed.

After all, rituals were about give and take, much like alchemy. His grandfather would say they were the ancestors of modern alchemical practices, though Nick had always suspected it was a case of concurrent development.

With the ritual circle completed, Nick took a deep breath, feeling some trepidation about what was to come. The lines of stoneroot powder would be hard to clean after he was done, given how finely ground the substance was, but Nick couldn\'t afford any stupid mistakes. Preparing for and conducting the ritual without overextending his reserves was a delicate, painstaking process. If he had to keep some mana in reserve to defend his spirit from any nearby non-corporeal beings, he\'d never be able to leave the house, much less explore Floria.

Satisfied with his preparation, Nick knelt in the center of the circle, legs folded beneath him, and reached for the Silverthorn leaf. He had never used this particular herb before, which meant a whole day of testing whether its effects were as close to the dragonfern as he thought. Luckily, his senses hadn\'t betrayed him, and it was as good a concentration aid as he anticipated, which made it a more natural source of magical Adderall than what he had used in his past life when the going got tough. He placed the leaf in his mouth, its sharp bitterness flooding his senses, and chewed slowly, grinding it between his teeth until it formed a pulpy mass. The taste was almost unbearable, but he endured, swallowing it in slow gulps.

A soft chime echoed in his mind, followed by the familiar whisper of the System:

He dismissed the prompt with a thought, refusing to let the gamified mechanics distract him from the ritual. He had more important things to focus on.

Now came the critical part.

Nick\'s hand trembled ever so slightly as he reached into his satchel, his fingers closing around the cold, smooth vial of Dream Spider venom. Testing this specific substance was much more challenging than anything else, if only because he had no idea whether he\'d be able to get his hands on it again. While he was willing to use some of it for a simple divination of the town, he couldn\'t afford to be wasteful.

Nick unscrewed the cap and swirled the silvery liquid to ensure it hadn\'t thickened. That was always a danger with blood, even from magical creatures.

His heart pounded hard, but he kept his movements steady thanks to the inherited experience. Chanting wasn\'t necessary for a ritual like this, but Nick didn\'t see why he\'d deprive himself of such a wonderful concentration aid. He began to murmur in Latin, reciting an ancient Orphic Hymn he\'d learned in his youth:

"Hear me, O King of the Heavens, and grant me sight beyond the veil of flesh, beyond the chains of body and blood, that I may see the truth that lies hidden in darkness."

The words flowed like a prayer, and with each verse, his mind cleared. His concentration sharpened, the rhythm of the chant syncing with his heartbeat. With deliberate care, he tilted the vial in his mouth and let a single drop fall onto his tongue.

The effect was immediate and violent.

Nick\'s consciousness snapped away from his body as though yanked by an invisible cord. His senses went dark, soundless, weightless, and then everything exploded into clarity. His body remained seated in the circle, perfectly still, but his spirit floated free, almost untethered if not for the thinnest thread of mana.

He waited, breathless in this disembodied state, to see if anything had gone wrong. But no—the ritual was working as intended. His spirit remained tied to his physical form, precisely as he\'d planned. The obsidian shards shimmered faintly beneath him, forming a protective barrier that kept out unwanted entities. No astral attacks. No fae trickery.

A whoop of joy burst from Nick\'s lips—or it would have, had he been in his body. Instead, the excitement reverberated within him like a silent pulse. He floated above the pentagram, his view detached and surreal, before cautiously stepping outside the circle.

His spirit passed through the boundary without resistance, confirming that the ritual had worked perfectly. He was still tied to his body but free to explore in this form. There was a moment of giddy triumph as he floated up until he emerged from the roof, and then, with a thought, Nick propelled himself toward the town.

He soared through the air, weightless and free like he hadn\'t been in so long, while the town unfolded beneath him like a map. Houses, shops, and streets blurred past, and he could feel opportunity come his way, unseen but palpable. The secrets of this place were his to plunder now.

The first thing Nick did as a spirit was go back to his house and make sure he had sealed his bedroom door. It was a very modern impulse he thought he had left behind alongside his car keys, but it seemed to have stuck with him.

Secondly, Nick took a route that would give him a wide berth from the alchemy shop. The old man might have been perfectly friendly, but he had seen too many runes carved along the building. He wasn\'t risking being trapped by one of those.

Floria opened his eyes in a way he had never seen before. From above, the town was a beautiful sight. Familiar places stood out clearly: the temple with its white stone, the bustling adventurer\'s tavern near the wall, and the austere town hall on the central square. Each was a high-priority target in his mental map, though he knew he couldn\'t get to them all today.

He drifted lower, cataloging them all. Shops of all kinds lined the streets, filled with interesting goods he wouldn\'t mind checking out now that he couldn\'t be shooed away. They weren\'t particularly valuable to him right now, but he promised to take some time for a thorough sweep. The barracks buzzed with activity as Nick\'s father put the latest recruits through their paces when he flew over them.

The private houses of the wealthiest citizens, too, caught his eye, but he dismissed them as distractions. The real prizes wouldn\'t be found in people\'s bedrooms, at least not this morning.

Beyond the town\'s borders, the Green Ocean sprawled endlessly. Nick rose higher, curious to see if there was any end to it, but no matter how much he ascended, the horizon remained a boundless stretch of green. Majestic as it was, he forced himself to focus.

Enough sightseeing.

Nick swooped down, making a beeline for the temple. It was the location that concerned him most because of the divine protection surrounding it and because it held the most potential for valuable information. Rituals, tomes, artifacts—if there was anything of worth in Floria, it would be found there.

Still, he was cautious. He\'d already tested [Blasphemy] and confirmed that it protected him from divine reprisal, but there was always a chance something unexpected could go wrong. The temple was the juiciest target, but Nick wasn\'t foolish enough to be completely reckless.

As he drew closer, his spirit sight revealed something intriguing. An amber haze clung to the grounds, invisible to the naked eye but unmistakable in his current state.

It gets thicker closer to the building. I wonder if this is the much-vaunted divine protection of Sashara.

Nick slowed his pace, hovering at the edges. Cautiously, he extended a hand toward the amber haze. It didn\'t react as his hand got close, and to his relief, it parted as he went in, almost like it was avoiding him.

Good. [Blasphemy] was doing its job.

Feeling more confident, Nick entered the temple grounds proper. The haze swirled around him but remained harmless, as though whatever directive it followed didn\'t recognize him as a threat. He flew onward to the vicar\'s private office, one of the few places he wasn\'t allowed in.

Nick easily slipped through walls and doors, unhindered by physical barriers. As he neared the office, he almost laughed with giddiness. It had been too long since he was allowed to trawl through a magical repository freely.

The early hour meant there was a good chance the vicar wouldn\'t be around, as he could usually be found tending to the sacred fire, which was another reason why he had chosen it. If luck was on his side, the office would be empty, and he could inspect the valuable tomes and artifacts without issue.

But as he passed through the final wall, his heart sank. Alexander was there.

The man sat at his desk, his bald head gleaming under a sunbeam as he scribbled on a parchment. Nick hovered silently, pouting. He and the vicar had a complicated relationship, to say the least. They\'d butted heads more than once, but there was mutual respect between them. Nick wasn\'t sure he wanted to spy on him like this, and he definitely didn\'t want to wait long enough for him to leave. The ritual was mana-intensive enough that he only had an hour before he\'d be snapped back to his body.

Just as he was about to float away, possibly to check the basement, Alexander sighed, murmured a quick prayer, and reached into a drawer, pulling out a spherical artifact and cradling it with great care. The air around the object seemed to hum with latent power. Nick immediately recognized it as something significant despite not having noticed it before or being unable to identify its purpose.

Alexander placed the sphere on his desk, folded his hands, and murmured softly. It emanated a faint glow as it activated, and Nick watched, transfixed. Moments later, a voice—disembodied yet authoritative—came through the sphere.

"Greetings, Vicar Sloan," the voice intoned formally.

Alexander bowed his head despite the lack of visible feedback. "Bishop Umlaut," he replied with reverence. "I have compiled my monthly report."

Ah, now that sounds interesting. Yeah, it might be just a dull review of what went on in the temple, but something tells me it\'s much more. Why would they use such a powerful artifact if it was ordinary bureaucracy?