43 – Anger management issues

At the end of the maze was a door, and beyond the door was the real entrance to the ruins of Tiamat Azur. At least according to the map. The heterogeneous team of different people, come together by chance or external forces, all observed the magnificent door made of brass and pipes and giant gears carved out of stone and etched with metals like titanium or imperdurium, that had resisted the corrosion of time unperturbed. There was no mention of the door in the map, and thus no way to open it. The door also proved to be resistant to brute force: the most the team could do was make the giant cogs and gears rotate by pulling on them, and their rotation moved another series of mechanisms that eventually disappeared in the walls to the side. Pistons, levers, metal strings and servomechanisms. At times, particular configurations in the shape of the gears and the mechanisms resulted in some steam being expelled from little whistles at the end of the brass pipes, producing sounds, and at first this had been taken as a good sign, but it was soon clear that it was just another piece of a riddle none of them knew how to solve.

“Well, this is going to take a while.” Ishrin said.

“I still want to try to solve this.” Melina said. “I think I can figure it out. I just need some time.”

“Didn’t you hate riddles?”

“I did, still do. But, Ishrin, we can’t always cheat out way out of problems.”

He shrugged. “I disagree, but fine. Have fun!”

The situation was actually convenient for him, thus why he conceded so easily. He did agree, in principle, that having good problem-solving skills was a good thing, but between theory and practice there was an ocean to cross, and also nobody ever said that the game had to be played by following the rules. If he could figure out an alternative way to open the door, then the door was still opened at the end of the day, and it was thanks to his efforts. That was it. However, he let Melina play with it for the time being because it gave him time to mind his own business. Since he now had a reason to reach Tier 15 as fast as possible, he was once again motivated to invest as much effort as he could towards gaining power, and he needed to do so organically as not to fall victim to grave imbalances in his magic field that would make him very vulnerable to attacks, ritual failures or complications of various kinds.

“I’m going to do a ritual, be right back.”

The girls nodded. Lisette was sitting cross-legged on the floor wit her eyes closed, and in front of her laid open the book on meditation Ishrin gave to Melina the other day. He didn’t expect the book to change hands this quickly, but he reasoned that perhaps there was a chance that among the two, Lisette was actually the one who was going to find the book useful the most. Not Melina, for she didn’t really need it to find inner peace or whatnot. Liù too found the situation a bit funny, and the little holographic avatar that surrounded her AI cube fluttered its wings in amusement. She had taken to using it after Ishrin expressed how much he missed seeing her little flying form, and she had been very happy ever since. It did use up a bit more power, but it was very much worth it.

Meanwhile Sir Westys and his team were fuming. Once again did they show their impatience and naivete when faced with a tedious task like figuring out how to open the door. Or be asked to wait and not rush headfirst into another adventure. Ishrin could have lectured them, but truth be told, he was more like them than not. In fact, the first thought that came to his mind when he saw the sealed door was to use Boseman’s Passepartout to get it open.

“Alright,” Ishrin said, talking to Liù while he prepared the ground for a ritual. This time he was reading from the instruction manual rather than drawing from memory, so while his right hand held the scroll inside a hard leather book, the other hand guided the items necessary out of his inventory and down on the carefully smoothed out floor.

“This is a little thingy that should help me down the path. It’s an adaptive shield.”

Oooh. Adaptive!

“Yup. What it does is that it diverts all of my mana generation whenever I am at full capacity and converts it into a sort of battery that can power either the armor itself to absorb hits, or other rituals or even magic. Not that I know any magic. Yet. The keyword is yet.”

I see, I see! This way you never waste it :D

“Exactly.” He said, laying down some crystals from the enormous stash that was his inventory. Truth be told, not even he knew the full extent of the contents of his inventory, and he always made a mental note to sort through the stuff in case there was something useful, but never did.

Liù also helped out in drawing the ritual. She flew to the top of the tall cavern and projected holograms of geometrical lines, pointing out where Ishrin had deviated from the book’s illustration and how he should fix the ritual. When all was done she went to stand on his shoulder like she always did, balancing her cubical material body so that it didn’t fall, while her holo avatar dangled its little legs. She pouted a little when the legs didn’t touch Ishrin’s shoulder, and instead sunk into it.

“You should look for haptic feedback in your data banks.” Ishrin said, laughing. “Or something along the lines, I’m not an expert. But it should help you.”

Okay! Will do. But first I wanna see the ritual >:3

Her wishes were soon fulfilled. The whole room lit up and the materials gradually dissolved into a stream of little particles, like glitter, that flew up into the air and coalesced around Ishrin’s body in the shape of a bland, plain set of ethereal armor. She was about to say something but then she noticed that gradually, ever so slightly – and she could only pick up the tiny changes thanks to her newly acquired photographic memory her storage as an AI granted her – the armor was changing. On it little grooves and decorations appeared as it sucked the energy from the environment around them, until there was no more. Then it stopped changing, the energy around them all but gone, and quickly faded until it was invisible.

She cooed.

Ritual Successful: Passive Accumulator Adaptive Shielding of Ochre. PLACEHOLDER TEXT – Tell the underlings to figure out what to put here.

“Forgot about that placeholder!” Ishrin said, suppressing a laugh. “Guess they never fixed it, did they? Let me see. Ah yes, I raided their sect before anyone could take a look at the scroll and put it in my stash and forgot about it.” He waved the air off, diverting attention from the embarrassing thought. He really did forget he even had the ritual. “Well, the ritual works fine. Now, as soon as I’m back to max mana, the armor will be absorbing energy again. Did you like the fireworks?”

Liù nodded, her little head moving up and down quicker than the eye could follow.

More! More!

“Not now, little one. We have a door to open, and a pair of bracers to steal from the tomb of a dead sorcerer.”

That big door out there? Liù can help! Why didn’t you ask me earlier? :s

“Because I wanted to cast the ritual first, and Melina was having fun trying to figure it out. You know what? Let’s give her a couple more hours so I can also regen my mana and then, when she’s all frustrated, you swoop in and save the day, what do you think?”

Devious… Ishhi bad boy :I

Ishrin looked at the tips of the wings on Liù’s ethereal form and noticed that they were twitching. “But you like the idea, don’t you?”

Mayyyybe.

***

Liù passed the whole two hours projecting a small, but very intrusive, countdown clock right in Ishrin’s face. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was Liù, he would have found it very annoying, but instead he found it very amusing. The two watched the numbers trickle down to zero, even reading them out loud when there were only ten seconds left, and then…

You are reading story Isekai of the Ultimate Ritualist at novel35.com

“Wake up boys! It’s time to go!” Ishrin yelled, shaking Sir Westys awake, and forcefully dragging Lisette out of her deep meditation. He saw her close her eyes and take a deep breath right after looking at him with murder in her eyes, and suddenly the expression vanished from her face, and she got up while smiling at him, rushing to play with Liù’s now semi-material body. Strange how quick she had progressed, he thought, but very promising. She did have anger management issues, after all.

“What’s going on?” Melina asked, not diverting her eyes from the door she had been staring at for several hours straight.

“I think that maybe you need a little helping hand.”

“No, no. I can figure it out! See, when I rotate the central cog to the right, the steam only comes from the left pipe. But when I—”

“What if it’s Liù who helps you figure it out?” Ishrin said.

Melina mulled over it for a moment. “Well, that changes things. I would gladly have Liù help me.”

The door was open in a matter of minutes. Everyone was ready to go, and Melina had the big smile on her face of someone who was proud of having figured something out, just like when earlier she and Liù discussed the method to use to get it to open. It was really interesting seeing how Liù could use SPAWN tools and logic networks to figure out how to solve riddles and puzzles in a matter of seconds, while still being her silly and airheaded self.

“That’s amazing, Liù!” Melina said. She was showring the little pixie with compliments, and Liù was more than happy to be at the center of attention.

Sir Westys, who was walking behind her with his team, seemed less happy about it.

“What’s that abomination? Where did it come from? It your pet?” he asked.

“She’s Liù. Definitely not an abomination.” Ishrin said.

“Why not? Look at her.”

Ishrin put a hand on his shoulder, and the expensive enchanted armor began to bend under his grip. “She is very much not.” He said with a smile on his face.

The boy was suddenly silent. Ishrin was suddenly a tall, towering sight before his eyes, and the environment around seemed to vanish into darkness while a pair of deep brown eyes glowed like judging embers behind a wicked smile. He looked around, scanning the large cavern they were in, his eyes searching for his teammates. All three were looking at the scene, but as soon as their eyes met with his, they looked away and pretended not to have seen anything.

“Good,” Ishrin was suddenly just a man, and sound returned to the cave along with sight, and color. “Glad that you agree with me. Now go.”

Ishrin let him go, and he yanked himself out and away, and went to his healer to get his shoulder checked, massaging his temples and pointing at the dent in his armor. “Fucking freak,” he muttered, under his breath.

Ishrin heard him, though. “You watch your tongue, boy. I am usually patient, but there’s things you should never say to an adventurer stronger than you. It’s important that you remember this because if you don’t and you repeat this scene with an adventurer less… mentally stable than me you might not survive it, and most of them are less mentally stable than me because you know, adventurers. Okay?”

The boy said nothing, but his face was a mixture of rage, indignation and disbelief. He stormed off, seeking refuge among his peers, put there by his father, who immediately offered him their total support, and he reveled in it, no matter how fake.

“Are you sure that blowing up at a kid is a good way to do it?” Melina asked, after having pulled Ishrin a safe distance away.

“That was only talk. If anything, I was ranting. I barely even showed aggression! The kid needs to learn.” Ishrin protested.

“Hmmm,” Melina’s ears went down and twitched, before rotating and coming back up. She often did that when she was immersed in thought.

“To take a page out of your own book: who cares about a random kid you will never see again? What if he doesn’t learn and gets himself mauled by a brute at a random guild because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut? It’s his business, and you are not here to teach him anything. Or to rant at him. Unless you needed to let off some steam? Tell me, do you feel better?”

Ishrin said nothing.

“This wasn’t about teaching him a lesson at all, was it? It was about Liù.”

Ishrin’s face quickly changed, betraying the fact that he was still incandescent about it. He hated that she was always right, that she always seemed able to read him better than he could read himself.

“He insulted her!”

“Every time she’s involved you become overprotective, and you overreact. You need to watch yourself. Didn’t your meditation manual mention observing emotional states as they arise, and not getting swept up by them? Well, do it.”

He was taken aback by how hard she went with the last words, like an angry mother. He took a deep breath, and as the anger subsided a sense of shame hit him.

“You’re right. I let a nobody work me up like this. Hell, it probably was his intention all along. He’s been teasing us and acting bratty ever since the maze. I think he feels inadequate.”

Melina shrugged. “He’s the duke’s son. But not the firstborn. He’s being sent off as an adventurer, covered in gifts and expensive armor to compensate for the fact that his father never even told him he loves him. He’s surrounded by mercenaries who pretend to be his friends! Can you blame him?”

Ishrin looked at her like she was an alien. “How do you know all this?”

“I have empathy, Ishrin. As do you, but you choose not to listen to it.”