Chess Mage of Faerûn

Chapter 335 Plane Projection Permutation
The group from Neverwinter had left, but the members of the Arcane Brotherhood were scratching their heads as they stared at the golden mist before them.

What appears to be a beautiful cloud formation is actually more troublesome than a stubborn plaster, causing considerable inconvenience.

More importantly, the original duration of Mystra's Mist, which was only a dozen minutes, was greatly extended by the addition of heavy magic, and it took more than two hours for the mist to show any signs of dissipating.

The Brotherhood members finally breathed a sigh of relief, removing their precious backsides from their seats in the mage tower and condescendingly venturing into the shattered space outside.

The moment they landed, they were greeted by Akram's old face, now completely blackened. The dignified leader of the Brotherhood was panting heavily, but the results were far from satisfactory.

While battling the magical net-like voids formed by the fog, they also had to repair the space that had been cut into pieces. This task was so demanding that even the donkeys in the production team would kick up their heels, let alone with a group of subordinates watching like they were watching a monkey show.

"Relying on individual efforts and piecemeal repairs is too inefficient. Let's hold a dimensional projection replacement ritual to resolve the current problem as soon as possible."

Akram had no interest in holding meetings to promote democratic spirit and instead made plans directly.

"Given that the West Tower is the main affected area, Blaska, you are in charge of leading the ceremony."

"Lord Gris, the enemy has already withdrawn. There's no need for us to rush things."

Blaska tried to argue with him, but Akram silenced him with a cold and unwavering tone.

"If they can launch an attack this time, who can guarantee they won't suddenly come back to kill us?"

"Every second of the Phase Barrier consumes the entire Brotherhood's resources, all for the sake of protecting the survival of your West Tower. Is it that you can no longer shoulder the responsibility of being the leader of the West Tower?"

Akram's questioning was aggressive, and Blaska's face turned pale, and he even considered resigning from his position as tower master.

The old man opposite him spoke as if it were perfectly reasonable, but Blasca was no fool who could be easily fooled. This dominant position was not so easy to hold.
The dimensional reflection substitution ritual is indeed, as he said, one of the most suitable solutions to the current predicament.

The principle behind the ritual is quite simple. As the neighbor of the Prime Material Plane, the Shadow Plane has an extremely close relationship with the Prime Material Plane. In a sense, the Shadow Plane can be regarded as a reflection of the Prime Material Plane in the past.

In other words, it's a somewhat blurry and distorted archive.

Now that we have an archive, things are much easier. If we can't solve the problem, we can directly address the issue of the archive's storage medium.

The principle of ritual is to separate and peel off a certain area of ​​the primary plane and the corresponding area of ​​the shadow plane, and then replace them.

Whether they are dimensional fragments cast into the Shadow Realm or Shadow fragments dragged into the Prime Dimension, they will exhibit a certain degree of repulsion and difference.

For example, most plant life forms entering another dimension would quickly become extinct due to this rejection, only recovering after a long period of adaptation and replacement. However, this side effect is hardly a breeze for the Brotherhood mages holed up in their mage towers, making it an ideal solution.

Moreover, the cost of this ritual is not high. Compared to other methods that are often extremely expensive, the cost is only one to three levels for the person in charge of the ritual.

This is quite understandable. After all, the Shadow Plane is the Goddess Shar's private territory. It's one thing to dump junk into Her homeland, but to even try to exchange inferior goods for superior ones, you would have to give prior notice and express your goodwill beforehand. What kind of behavior is that?
The price paid for the ceremony was actually to please His Majesty Shar.

As the head of the Shadow Fiend Network and Mystra's mortal enemy, Shar doesn't mind poaching talent from her adopted daughter. As long as the spellcaster abandons the light and is willing to sacrifice several spellcasting levels to convert them into spellcasting class levels based on the Shadow Fiend Network, then Shar will surely be pleased and won't care about these incidental acts of stealing.

Moreover, these lost levels are not lost in vain; they are exchanged for part-time levels as Shadow Mage, Shadow Warlock, or Shadow Servant.

only…

A mage with a level of 15 is incomparable to a part-time job starting from scratch. If you calculate it this way, Shar is not some kind of caring older sister, but probably a heartless maggot.

But to say that would be unfair to Shar, after all. She is the goddess of the night, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call her a cunning older sister, but she wouldn't stoop to the level of a heartless maggot.

This ritual is actually a shortcut for shadow spellcasters to advance. The usual procedure is for a spellcaster whose main class is linked to the Shadow Fiend Network to sacrifice their spellcasting level and offer a fragment of the plane, or to guide the power of the shadow plane to erode and permeate a certain area of ​​the main plane. After pleasing Shar, they can smoothly improve their main class level, which is already difficult to advance.

This kind of promotion is not only less costly and difficult than other methods, but its stability is also rare. However, for Blaska, a pure mage whose main job is not related to the Shadow and who has never even had a part-time job, it is no different from a bottomless pit.

To say that there wasn't an element of Akram settling a personal score involved would only make Blaska believe it if he were under a spell that reduced him to the same level of intelligence as a goblin.

Unfortunately, the situation was beyond our control.

No matter how Blasca tried to deny or defend himself, he received no response from the other senior members other than cold indifference and sneers.

There's nothing wrong with secretly plotting against Neverwinter; it could even be considered politically correct in Luskania. But!
He went back into the house smelling like poop without even wiping his butt properly, which attracted the attention of the debtor who came to collect the debt. That's just messed up.

You reap all the benefits while we all share the blame? What kind of good deal is that?
The two archmages were furious. How dare a mere high-level mage like you do such a shameless thing?
Do you even respect us two presidents? We're not that unreasonable!
Ahead of him stood Akram, his face ashen and his gaze menacing, while behind him was Quelta, who was leaning in with a forced smile. Blaska, caught in the crossfire of these two, knew he had no room for negotiation.

May the goddess of night bless you!
The ceremony went very smoothly. Looking at the completely transformed space before him, where the previously spiderweb-like cracks had vanished, Akram nodded in satisfaction.

Although the once lush and green island has now lost all its color, leaving only a gray expanse, it resembles an old black-and-white photograph washed out of the river of history.
However, Akram didn't bother with such trivial matters. Having solved the problem and given his subordinate a good talking-to, he was in a very good mood.

Thank you for the monthly ticket support, Death Finger sent you to heaven!

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(End of this chapter)