Local specialties of the Wizarding World

Chapter 44: Local specialties of the Wizarding World

After finding the Sacrifice Ritual for the Black Orc God, Isaac first estimated the materials he would need.

The actual base success rate was the same as the other two: one percent. However, the odds boosters for the Black Orc God were easier to acquire. One Black Orc could raise the rate by around one percent, with the exact increase depending on the individual's quality.

Tenfold success odds meant a thousand Black Orcs...

That was quite a lot, but fortunately, ordinary Black Orcs could serve as offerings too. Black Orc warriors worked even better, so five or six hundred should be enough to max it out.

Well, five or six hundred Black Orcs was still quite a lot, considering they had to be alive.

But that had nothing to do with Isaac. That was something his older brother and the others needed to consider.

And yet this was still the easiest of the three. Khorne's odds booster was battle blood. Only the blood of warriors who died immersed in frenzied combat could increase the success rate. One warrior could provide ten portions of battle blood, and it would take at least three hundred portions to push the odds to a thousand percent!

That would be hard to find, but the Dream Fairy's was undoubtedly the hardest. The deity's odds booster was the combined bodily fluids of a virgin man and woman after intercourse...

A full thousand portions were needed!

That was more than a little perverse...

And hard to collect, too.

Still, they could take their time with the latter two. There was no need to rush.

After making a list of the necessary materials and handing it to his older sister, Isaac immersed himself in his research again. His research into Flesh Conversion had made major progress after Hamon's enhancement was completed.

He expected to finish the new optimization soon. Once he did, his combat methods would become even more varied. Everything was progressing steadily in the right direction.

Meanwhile, Caesar and the others fell into deep thought after receiving the list, particularly over those several hundred Black Orcs...

"Why would sacrificing to that god require so many Black Orcs? Isn't that their god?" In the Lord's Mansion, Gaia, Caesar, and Cheryl stared at the list Isaac had drawn up on the table, their faces full of confusion. Caesar directed his question at Cheryl.

Gaia also looked at Cheryl. Although she outranked her daughter and was the territory's only High Knight, she still could not compare with Cheryl in terms of knowledge.

But even Cheryl failed to understand why live Black Orc sacrifices were needed, no matter how long she studied the list...

Quite a few people offered sacrifices to the Black Orc God, including spellcasters and ordinary people, though most were Black Orcs from the wilderness. But none of those groups had ever been known to use Black Orcs as living sacrifices...

Still, she trusted Isaac's professional expertise as a Legendary Wizard. Since Isaac had said so, they would do as he asked.

"I don't know either, but let's trust our younger brother... Several hundred Black Orcs... That's too vague a number. Let's prepare a thousand, and make them all warriors!" Cheryl studied the list for a moment, then looked up at Gaia and Caesar.

"All right. I'll leave this to you. Gather them as quickly as possible!" Gaia looked at Caesar and patted his shoulder.

"I'll lead the team myself!" Caesar nodded, then turned and left without hesitation.

It was a considerable number, and they needed to deal with it quickly. They did not have much time left.

After Caesar left, Gaia said to Cheryl, "Besides catching them ourselves, ask Remy whether he has any in stock."

"All right." Cheryl nodded, then vanished from the room in a flash of arcane light.

"Isaac..."

In the room, Gaia took a painting from a drawer and gazed at the beautiful woman depicted in it with complicated emotions... This was the mother of Isaac and his siblings. She had died giving birth to Isaac, and her final wish had been for him to live out his life in peace and safety...

That was why, when Gaia first learned that Isaac had no arcane talent, she had felt a little happy amid her disappointment. Though Isaac's body could never fully recover, at least he could live a peaceful life under her protection.

Yet nobody had expected Isaac to be so exceptionally talented that he would become a Legendary Wizard using nothing but a collection of miscellaneous things he had gathered himself...

And now he was playing for such high stakes...

"Ah..."

The more she thought about it, the more worries piled up, until they finally dissolved into a melancholy sigh. Gaia put away the painting, quickly composed herself, and returned to work.

The Black Orcs had only just begun assembling and were still a long way from the fortress, but that did not mean they could only sit around waiting. Besides preparing war supplies, they also needed to send cavalry out to harass the Black Orc army continuously.

While disrupting their march, they could gather intelligence along the way.

Naturally, the more intelligence they had, the better.

That made the cavalry sent out hunting especially important, and their strength had to meet a high standard. There were currently two candidates: Remington and Black Snake Barry.

The former needed to atone for his recent mistakes and earn leniency. The latter needed to accumulate merit to exchange for secret techniques and secret potions that would let him advance to High Knight. Both were peak Grand Knights, and each had a powerful cavalry unit of his own, making them the ideal choices for field operations.

After a little thought, Gaia chose Black Snake Barry. First, she had already decided to give Barry the secret techniques and secret potions, so she needed to give him opportunities to earn merit and receive them legitimately. Second, she did not trust Remington now, nor did she dare to.

Who knew whether Remington had truly come to his senses?

What if he was only pretending to admit his mistakes while still intending to collude with the Black Orcs?

Once certain seeds were planted, they were not so easy to dig out, whether they were seeds of desire or suspicion.

Besides, leniency?

Not cutting Remington down on the spot was already lenient enough!

Gaia merely wanted to preserve some dignity, so when Isaac pleaded for him earlier, she had taken the opportunity to back down. That did not mean she would leave him unpunished. She was only postponing it until after the war.

And so time flew by as Isaac continued his research. In the blink of an eye, three days had passed.

For Isaac, those three days had been incredibly fulfilling. Every day brought new discoveries, all his research projects were progressing steadily, and even Little Mouse's godhood had improved considerably, reaching the point where a second divine spell could be inscribed.

However, he had yet to decide which divine spell to form. The ones in the manuscript were all too basic, with very mediocre effects. He was trying to turn ordinary spells into divine spells, but this path was far more difficult than his research into optimizing Flesh Conversion.

Three days had passed, and he still had no idea where to begin.

For the fortress's soldiers, those three days had also been fulfilling, busy, and utterly hellish!

First came the most normal development: the Young Master and the eldest young lady brought in wagonload after wagonload of Black Orc slaves, almost all of them Black Orc warriors!

Quasi-Knights!

The sight left everyone trembling with fear!

Their numbers already amounted to a fifth of the fortress's current forces!

If so many Black Orcs mutinied inside the fortress, the consequences...

The mere thought sent chills down their spines!

Honestly, if the people escorting the Black Orc slaves had not been either the Young Master or the eldest young lady, they would have been certain there was a traitor in the fortress!

Yet something that would normally have been shocking beyond belief was now the easiest thing to accept in Solomon Fortress...

There were two even more horrifying sights inside the fortress!

One was the Flesh Lair Isaac had set up in a corner of the fortress. As the fortress continued feeding it demonic flesh, the magic power it contained had reached an astonishing level!

Anyone walking nearby could often hear countless overlapping heartbeats!

Not to mention its utterly bizarre appearance!

It was an enormous blood-red heart covered in densely packed fleshy tumors. Simply looking at it made people feel as though their minds might break!

The other was the newly built Snake Den in another corner of the fortress, constructed by the newly arrived Witch, Snake Princess. It was not as grotesque and bizarre as the Flesh Lair, but it was packed with colorful snakes!

Every hour, snake women could be seen crawling out of it!

That was what terrified the fortress's soldiers most!

Although the snake women had stunning figures and wore nothing at all, not a single soldier felt the slightest lust at the sight of them.

Because only the lower halves of those snake women were human!

Anyone who could get it up even when they were naked would have to be superhuman!

And that was not even mentioning how those snake women only appeared briefly for a few minutes before turning back into heaps of colorful snakes and slithering into the Snake Den again.

In short, the fortress was particularly terrifying this year...

Rip!

While the soldiers lived in a hell of misery, Isaac was happily conducting experiments in the Mage Tower. Hamon, who had grown increasingly demonic and terrifying, emerged from the back of Isaac's neck and spread his five fingers. A mysterious fluctuation of magic power appeared along with a purple glow.

Under the purple light, the Demonic Wolf in front of Isaac could not help closing its eyes.

The next instant...

Gurgle...

The sound of writhing flesh rang out. Agonizing pain from within its body startled the Demonic Wolf into opening its eyes. It turned to look at a swelling lump just below its neck, its eyes filled with terror!

Then... the lump slowly grew...

Squelch!

A bloody wolf's head emerged from it!

As soon as the new wolf's head appeared, it let out frenzied growls, then sank its teeth into the Demonic Wolf's neck!

Squelch!

Its throat was bitten through instantly, and blood sprayed once more!

Beneath the purple light, both pairs of eyes on the two-headed Demonic Wolf slowly lost their luster...

Then the Demonic Wolf's corpse writhed, and several hideous demonic rats burrowed out of it!

Hiss, hiss!!

With the experiment complete, Hamon excitedly rubbed the back of his hand against Isaac's face, seemingly asking for praise.

"Yes, yes, you're the best! You're amazing, Hamon!"

Isaac was excited by the experiment's success too. He stroked Demonic Claw Hamon, unable to suppress the smile on his lips.

Not far away, Little Mouse, who was lying on the Book of Enlightenment, watched Isaac standing amid the mangled corpse, covered in splattered blood. Little Mouse tilted their head, curled their mouth upward, and smiled along with him.

Though Little Mouse did not understand what was happening, smiling was the right thing to do.

Their master was smiling, after all, so it had to be something good.

Cheryl: "..."

When Cheryl entered the laboratory, this bizarre scene was what greeted her...

Looking at Isaac standing amid scraps of flesh with a gentle smile, she suddenly began to understand why people said Legendary Wizards were all mad...

In an environment like this, who else would go mad if not them?

Although many Arcane Masters also researched biological modification, their work was nothing compared with Isaac's...

"Ahem." After a moment of silence, Cheryl cleared her throat and said, "The thousand Black Orc warriors are ready. How are things on your end?"

"That fast?" Isaac turned and looked at Cheryl in surprise. "Hmm? A thousand Black Orc warriors? If they're all warriors, I won't need that many."

"Caesar went out and caught some, but mostly we got lucky. A slave trader happened to have a batch of Black Orc warriors, so we bought them outright," Cheryl explained.

Isaac understood.

He knew about slave traders. In fact, before becoming a wizard, while researching Demonic Heart Transplant Surgery, he had considered buying some slaves to modify. It would let him practice, improve his combat strength, and help him adapt further to the Wizarding World.

But plans could never keep up with changes. The Talent Wizardry he awakened suited him so perfectly that researching Heart-Exchange Rats became a much more cost-effective option, and he gradually put buying slaves out of his mind.

He had never expected to come full circle and reconnect with his original idea.

Even if these were Black Orcs, and even if they were meant for sacrifice...

"All right, understood. I'll go set up the Magic Array first. There are quite a lot of them, so the array needs to be bigger. I won't need a thousand, though. If they're all Black Orc warriors, five or six hundred should be enough. Too many won't work. I'll make some adjustments in a moment."

As he spoke, Isaac took off his white lab coat, which was covered in filthy blood, changed into his Wizard Robe, put on his Wizard Hat, and headed outside.

"All right. We've already cleared a space for you at the Third Training Field. The other materials are ready too." With that, arcane light flashed, and Cheryl left the laboratory.

Although the Tower Spirit cleaned the laboratory thoroughly every day, so many bloody experiments had still caused strange changes on this floor. Staying there made her uncomfortable.

Seeing this, Isaac shrugged helplessly. He was used to it. This was perfectly normal. Bloodstains could be cleaned away, but traces of rituals were difficult to remove, and there was no need to remove them anyway.

For a Legendary Wizard, these changes were beneficial, just like those in a potsion cauldron. Like wine, they only improved with age!

Of course, that depended on the wizard conducting the experiments staying alive. Otherwise, without his restraint, the rituals' power would rapidly transform into bizarre otherworldly life-forms that devoured other living beings without restraint!

But what did that have to do with Isaac?

If that ever happened, he would already be dead. Why worry about so much?

So, in a sense, Isaac had deliberately encouraged the changes in the laboratory. At worst, he could take the entire laboratory floor with him when he left. What kind of older sister let her younger brother go home empty-handed? Surely she should give him some local specialties?

A wizard's local specialty being an entire floor of a Mage Tower was perfectly reasonable, wasn't it?

"Don't you need to prepare a little more?"

At the Third Training Field, Caesar watched Isaac begin setting up the ritual and asked worriedly.

"No need. Let's get this over with. He's just the Black Orc God. Watch me put him in his place!"