Autophagy

As noises of steel scratching against iron resounded throughout the room, Song Lei did his best to filter out the irritation. The words that were said by Aston were tugging on his mind. However, even though the possibility of him being mentally influenced by a greater being seemed pretty plausible, he didn't feel like that was the case.

"Ugh... This makes my head hurt..." He muttered to himself. His voice was gone unheard by Aston because it was overshadowed by the noises of scratching. Seeing that he still seemed pretty busy, Song Lei curiously got up from the bed and walked to Aston's side.

The iron dagger was fixed in its place by a piece of metal. Aston had his left hand on the table as he held a rotary tool with the other one. He was carefully etching the runes onto the dagger one by one.

"Do you really need to be that careful while doing it?" Song Lei asked. His voice was low because he was scared of disturbing Aston's work. Fortunately, he didn't seem bothered by it.

"The better you engrave these, the better whatever you're going to do works," Aston said. "Although I don't know much about ritualistic magic, I had heard about it a few times before. Be careful, as ritualistic magic is generally considered a taboo by supernatural organizations."

"What? Why?" Song Lei asked as his eyebrows arched upwards. From what he had learned up to this point, the ritualistic magic used by shamans seemed pretty harmless. He neither had to do any sacrifices nor hurt himself. Nor was there a possibility of accidentally summoning eldritch beings on his head mentioned in the guide.

"Tapping into the powers of higher beings is considered cowardly and wrong by many. Not to mention that it is usually much less effective," Aston said in answer. As he was saying, he flipped the dagger and started carving on the other side of it. "Although it's mostly harmless to the others and yourself, most gods that respond to such ritualistic magic are evil ones."

As Aston kept explaining, a sharp pain settled in Song Lei's head. It was hard to understand what a god that allowed ritualistic magic was.

"Umm... I don't know if I should be asking this but... What is a god?" Song Lei asked. "It's my first time hearing such a thing being mentioned even in the New World. Is it the Abrahamic God? Or are there a bunch of different ones like in the Greek Mythology?"

"Hmm..." Aston hummed. After turning the rotary tool in his hand off, he slowly spun on his chair and shifted his gaze to Song Lei. "Gods I mentioned are not those," he said. "Although, they share the same names with some. When you say Poseidon, you are talking about a real god that has been proven to exist. However, what they really are is very different from what you may think."

"Uhmm..."

"From what I understand, they do not have free will, nor any of them are omnipotent, although some are really close," he said. Taking a paper and pen from one of the nearby drawers, he started drawing a grid.

"Although not much is known about them, I was able to figure out a few things. First of all, they aren't conscious beings. They are more like systems of energy that respond to particular stimulants from our dimension," he said after completing the grid. He drew a small circle and named it Earth. He then drew a few bigger circles and gave them names such as Poseidon, Hades, or Zeus.

"They can blend into each other and mix. None of them have particular shapes," Aston continued. "When people pray or start killing each other for them, the gods become stimulated. Projecting their energies onto our dimension, again, unconsciously."

"So what you are saying is that they are similar to machines, rather than intelligent beings?" Song Lei asked to confirm. Aston solemnly nodded as an answer. Before he returned to his carving, he added,

"And the ritual you are about to do is the same. Although I have no idea what you are going to do, all the ritual magics work in the same way."

"Some people are adept at understanding how particular gods work. They pray, prod at those machines all day long. Seeing what their responses to different stimulants are. They eventually figure out guidelines on how to interact with them. Those guidelines are the rituals. They provide gods certain stimulants that lead them to do certain actions."

"I seem to understand," Song Lei said as he caressed his chin thoughtfully. What Aston had been speaking about seemed to click into place pretty well.

"Well," Aston said before finally finishing. "They are pretty simple when you think about it. However, as I've said. Most of them are evil ones that have harmful tendencies. To stimulate them, you will usually have to sacrifice human flesh or soul."

"But I still don't understand this," Song Lei said. "Why do these orthodox organizations hate ritualistic magic so much? I could just use rituals that are usually harmless and get done with it."

"Well, just like what you are thinking," Aston said. "There might be another underlying issue. Or there would still be some factions that utilized ritualistic magic. However, no such faction exists as far as I know. In the Old World at least."

"What differentiates soul users and ritualistic magic users are simple," Aston said. "Soul users rely on the power that comes from their own. This makes them independent, highly flexible, and most importantly, limitless."

"However, ritualistic magic completely relies on another existence other than yourself. One day, for some reason, the god that you are stimulating suddenly doesn't respond. You'll be no different than a normal human."

"And compared to soul usage, ritualistic magic doesn't require 'that much' training. You can just pick up a few ingredients, draw some stuff on the floor and kill a few cats and dogs. Even if you were to do these randomly, you might have a chance of stumbling upon a god. This fact probably annoys soul users."

"Wait," Song Lei said. A frown appeared on his face. "So you are saying that ritualistic magic doesn't require training?"

"Yeah? Mostly..." Aston answered.

"But the guide I used clearly explained that I had to use soul energy to proceed the ritual," Song Lei explained. "Is there a certain type of ritualistic magic type that combines soul usage with the traditional ways?"

"Not that I'm aware of..." Aston muttered as he turned off the rotary tool.

"That's awkward...."