Chapter 189: Chap.186 - Gene Awakening

The days passed as Rigel's frustrated mind quickly gave way to a tranquil calm.

There was no way to accelerate progress quickly, trying to use rituals for that would only put him in unnecessary danger, so he had given up for now. There was still enough time ahead for him to take it slowly.

Since there was no rush, Rigel simply continued with his life, although now he had to perform the Animagus incantation every day at the right times and add the Animagus practice to his Transmutation practice.

With some free time, Rigel decided it was finally time to take a look at some of the items he had received on his last adventure.

He intended to begin learning how to engrave the Central Pearl runes and eventually use the Awakening Gene.

The Gene Awakening is the potion he received upon discovering Davy Jones' Locker, its ability was very simple: there is a 70% chance of awakening a random, dormant genetic ability in his genes.

Rigel didn't want to use it before because although there was a 70% chance of getting something, even within that 70%, something completely useless could appear, although nothing harmful, but if, for example, he received a visual enhancement that allowed him to see colors more clearly, Rigel wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Thus, he was hoping to find a way to improve his chances of achieving something better, however, after studying the potion for a while, and with the Adventure Book making it clear that not even Felix Felicis could help him achieve anything good, he understood that this potion could only depend on one's own luck.

Since he needed an enhancement of his soul, Rigel still held onto some faint hope that this potion would grant him some useful ability in that regard, he wasn't even willing to use it on the Dragon's Dream.

He could test the effect thousands of times, and if he finally achieved what he needed, he would still have to rely on luck to extract that ability, that is, no matter how hard he tried in the simulation, in the end, he would still have to be lucky in the real world.

It was a complete waste of time.

Rigel chose to enter the Room of Requirement to take the potion that night.

He simply asked for a simple room, looking at the potion in his hand, in the transparent bottle, a crystalline potion that seemed to have small diamonds sparkling inside, Rigel didn't hesitate much, pouring the entire potion into his mouth.

The next moment, while Rigel waited for the effect, he felt an extreme cold spreading across his skin, the cold wasn't actually psychological, because Rigel's breath began to condense in the air.

Despite the extreme cold, Rigel didn't shiver, instead, he felt a strange comfort, like drinking a hot beverage on a freezing day.

The changes didn't stop in his body, inside, he could feel the coldness reaching his very soul, though he wasn't sure if it was real, that was the feeling he had.

The potion took only a few minutes to take full effect, when it was all over, Rigel's body slowly returned to normal, but if he could measure it, he would realize that his temperature had permanently dropped by 0.1 degrees.

When it was all over, Rigel was extremely confused. He tried to sense any ability within himself, but couldn't feel anything. Although the potion had a 70% chance of failing, based on the effect he felt, he was certain that something had happened inside him.

After searching for a while without success, Rigel turned to the Adventure Book.

"Hey, Book, I can't feel anything different inside me, what's going on?" He asked, confused.

The adventure book opened with a snap, and words quickly began to appear on the blank page.

[You're very lucky, Writer, there was only about a 30% chance of getting a magic ability and you did, the reason you didn't feel it is because the ability you received is passive, what you received was: Resistance to Dark Magic.]

Rigel read the contents quickly and frowned slightly. Resistance to dark magic? Didn't he already have the coffin for that? Although the effect wasn't direct, he only needed some time inside the coffin to rid himself of the impact of any dark magic.

"Is that all?" Rigel asked, a little confused. It wasn't that the ability was bad, but simply that Rigel didn't have much real use for it.

[Don't underestimate this, Writer! This talent is not simple, although resistance doesn't mean immunity, the resistance value isn't low at all. To summarize, even if you cast hundreds of death curses at this point, you won't feel much of it. Even if some curse affects you, its effect will be minimal and may even disappear over time. This resistance to Dark Magic isn't low at all, instead, it has been raised to the theoretical limit of your lineage.]

Rigel's brow finally softened, and he became thoughtful.

A resistance to ordinary Dark Magic might not be very useful to him, but a resistance to Dark Magic taken to its theoretical limit...?

Not only that, but Rigel thought about the previous rituals he had been reluctant to try, he had found three rituals that were suitable for strengthening the soul, two of which were practically suicidal, and only one had any margin for error, but even that was difficult to use.

This time, instead of focusing on the ghost-devouring ritual, he was more focused on the other two. These two rituals were not simple, each was extremely sinister, and the associated Dark Magic could kill him before any effect was even visible, especially the first one.

However, with resistance to Dark Magic pushed to the limit... it seemed that there was a real possibility of using them.

The first Ritual was rather macabre, so Rigel was reluctant to use it. Basically, it was a ritual that used the blood and soul of a newborn to strengthen his own soul. This type of ritual corrupted the soul and body enormously, and one paid with a large part of their own vitality, paying for power through life, it was truly sinister.

Rigel wouldn't use that, not only because the curse would kill him before he even completed the ritual, requiring a series of other rituals beforehand to strengthen his resistance to curses, but also because he couldn't bring himself to sacrifice a newborn to complete such a thing.

The second ritual was more complicated and less powerful, but much less disgusting.

It was called Gift from the Dead.

The ritual had to be performed specifically on Halloween night, which was annoying because Halloween had already passed that year.

At that moment, the Wizard would use the ritual in the middle of the cemetery, summoning the soul remnants of the deceased who died with regrets. Upon fulfilling their requests, the power of the souls of these remnants could be absorbed. Furthermore, they were much weaker than ghosts, so they were much easier to absorb, although their power was much less.

The tricky part of this Ritual is that although most of the deceased's power is absorbed, the purified resentment of the deceased does not dissipate, but clings to the Wizard.

If that were all, the Coffin could still handle it, but no, although he said that resentment clings to him, it's not exactly to him, but rather transforms into a life form of its own, even more hidden than a ghost that follows the wizard from afar, it's the kind of thing that even wizards can't see.

The more souls that are used, the stronger this thing becomes, so when you're in a terrible situation, the kind that could kill you, this thing appears and casts a curse of bad luck on you, turning a situation of extreme danger into certain death.

This type of curse basically kicks you when you're down.

Rigel possessed the coffin, but he needed to remain inside it to rid himself of the curses. However, if he were in the midst of a dangerous battle, this thing would simply cast extreme bad luck upon him, especially since if Rigel were to use this ritual, he wouldn't accept just a slight enhancement of the soul. With a vast amount of accumulated resentment, the power of the curse would grow increasingly strong.

Previously, he had no way to deal with this thing, so he gave up on that ritual, but if the extreme bad luck is negated or weakened enough, he can simply use Felix Felicis to balance the lingering bad luck.

Although it wasn't a definitive solution, it was still very useful to him, so Rigel began planning that he could try this ritual the following Halloween.

[A/N: For this skill, I used a roulette wheel to figure out what the MC would receive. First, I spun the wheel with 10 options: Magic Skill x3, Human Skill x4, and Thank You for your patronage x3, the last one having a 30% probability of receiving nothing. So when the wheel stopped, I was surprised to receive Magic Skill. The chance was only 30%, so I was quite surprised, actually.]

[A/N: After that, I added 10 magical abilities to the roulette wheel to find out which magical ability Rigel would receive. The options were: 1- Natural Occlumency, 2- Natural Legilimency, 3- Dragon's Tongue (control), 4- Resistance to Dark Magic, 5- Foresight (Prophecy), 6- Magical Conductor Physique, 7- Mystic Eyes, 8- Metamorphmagus, 9- Sense of Resonance, 10- Magical Strengthening (Soul). The result, as seen, was Resistance to Dark Magic. I had put that in purely to increase the numbers, lol, but it made possible the use of several rituals that Rigel didn't want to get involved in due to the danger, so it wasn't a very bad result.]

[PS: The Sense of Resonance was a very interesting ability that I was hoping to receive. Its effect is basically extremely useful with potions, alchemy, runes, etc... For example, with potions, this sense could determine the compatibility of the ingredients with each other, the quality of the ingredients, the potency and effect of the potion, and even assist in the preparation of the potion by sensing exactly the 'nodes' where the ingredients should fit together. It would be very useful even for creating new potions. In itself, the talent was basically being able to 'hear' the components while producing something, as if they were telling you where and when they should go. This ability would even be useful in combat, being able to 'hear' the magic of others and his own. It was really a shame Rigel didn't get it, but who knows, maybe I'll add it as a reward in the future.]