Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 325: Calling for help
"Evil...demon summoning circle?" White's hand trembled as he gripped the quill, but he didn't stop drawing the circle. "Sir, are we going to commandeer a demon to forcibly invade the ceremony and rescue Lambert?"

Harvey shook his head. To be honest, he didn't want to be enemies with these necromancers at all. His experience as a classmate of Lambert for several years in the past made him quite familiar with the undead family his friend came from. This was indeed a family of spellcasters keen on pursuing truth and knowledge. Although they specialized in an unpopular undead faction, they did not violate the rules most of the time. In the more than one hundred years that the family had flourished in Daes, there had never been any rumors of any research involving bloody and evil spells. Even the source of the corpses was clean and they were purchased and stored from corpse dealers.

But they were particularly cruel to him. According to Lambert, he was not the eldest son in the family in the true sense. He had two older brothers and an older sister, who died accidentally in a magic experiment accident and a magic duel caused by an academic dispute within the family.

In Harvey's opinion, this was purely an act of his own making his family wither away. It also confirmed why Lambert, after becoming an adult and becoming a spellcaster, chose to make playing badly and enjoying himself as his life goals, without any ambition to make progress.

"Unless absolutely necessary, we should avoid using force to rescue Lambert..." Harvey had a plan in mind. "Do you know how many mid-level spellcasters and above are at the ceremony?"

White thought for a moment and replied, "Among the clan members, only the patriarch himself is high-ranking... There's also a newly promoted high-ranking member among the secret cult councilors. The rest are mostly mid- to low-level spellcasters..."

There are only two high-level ones, and one of them is still in the process of ritual transformation and should not be able to take action. That means that even if Harvey uses force, he only needs to face a high-level necromancer. By summoning Mr. Inner Demon through the ritual, he can completely suppress the opponent.

When drawing the magic circle for the summoning ceremony, liquid mithril with the best magic conductivity performance is preferred as the magic solution. Although this stuff is not cheap, Lambert still collected a whole bottle of it, and it seems that it has never been used or consumed, so it comes in handy.

If the ritual offerings were to be made in the wasteland territory, Harvey would prefer to choose innovative delicacies from the territory's specialties that Mr. Inner Demon liked. After all, the wishes and desires contained in them were very strong, coming from the satisfaction of the chef who prepared the food and the desire to taste the food from those who wanted to taste it.

But right now, in this spellcaster camp, there is nothing to eat except water, salt and bread, let alone delicious food. Harvey rummaged through Lambert's felt tent and took out several antiques whose surfaces were patinated by repeated playing. It seemed that these items should be Lambert's favorites, and he must have taken them in his hands from time to time to appreciate and comment on them.

Although it only carries Lambert's desire, it must be very strong and can completely replace ordinary sacrifices. Through the stimulation of the ritual, it can quickly attract the attention and lock of Mr. Inner Demon.

With White's assistance, the two quickly completed the control of the summoning array. Since a large amount of one's own magic power needs to be injected into the array to activate its operation when drawing the array diagram, and Harvey is now just living in the body of a soul puppet, he can only hand over the entire task of injecting magic to White, which almost drained the magic power stored in his veins, and cold sweat ran down his already pale face.

After the summoning array was activated, one could clearly feel a slight surge of turbulent energy from another dimension beginning to surge inside the tent.

Harvey quickly began to recite the summoning spell three times, and soon a thick dark red mist rose from the center of the formation. Then, an irregular door-shaped hole slowly condensed in the mist.

A figure with overly long arms and legs, a tall, thin body, and a slightly twisted figure slowly emerged from the hole...

A crack similar to an eyeball suddenly appeared on the head of the twisted figure, and a series of voices as if countless people were talking at the same time were immediately heard. White felt a sharp pain in his head and quickly retreated to a corner of the tent, not daring to look up.

"Mr. Kel'Thuzad?" The inner demon lifted his long legs and stepped out of the spatial rift formed by the summoning circle. "It's not even the day we agreed to visit yet, so why are you summoning me in advance..."

He turned his head slightly and looked around, only to realize that he wasn't in the familiar lord's castle. "Hmm... what's going on?" Harvey smiled and nodded, explaining, "This happened suddenly. I'm currently on an island reef in the sea. I summoned you to seek some help..."

The Inner Demon nodded, narrowed his single eye, and pretended to take a deep breath. "Depression, coldness, numbness, and an unexpected hint of enthusiasm. There are more dead things than living people here. To be honest... the environment is worse than the public restroom in the frontier territory..."

Mr. Devil's complaints and sarcasm were always so uniquely venomous and funny, but it was a pity that Harvey didn't have time to joke and chat with him right now.

"I need you to help me stop a ritual in progress... or more precisely, to reverse the outcome of a ritual that is doomed to fail."

The inner demon nodded to show that he understood, and while stretching out his long arms to casually grab Lambert's collection of antiques in the tent to look at them, he gestured to Harvey to continue explaining the situation.

White, who was huddled in a corner and dared not say a word, raised his head cautiously and was surprised to find that the objects touched and caressed by the twisted demon suddenly became dull and lusterless, completely contrary to common sense. They looked dark and rotten, as if they had been buried in the soil for thousands of years and had just been dug out.

"This is an ancient lich transformation ritual. I'm sure you, Mr. Heart Demon, must have heard of this ritual in the long past."

The inner demon nodded honestly, "Yes, although it is rare, I have witnessed the transformation process of this kind of ritual once..."

He put down a porcelain cup and commented somewhat teasingly, "I have to say, you humans have come up with quite a few shocking things in pursuit of immortality. Lich transformation? Haha, trying to circumvent the natural law of ephemeral lifespan by extracting life essence and soul core. Whoever first came up with this idea is truly a mad genius."

Harvey glanced at the sky through the tent's air vents and cut to the chase, "The lich's transformation ritual requires extracting a life essence rich in humanity and desire. So, I'm thinking of asking you to extract this energy and reinject it into the person undergoing the ritual... This might reverse the ritual's progress and prevent its failure."

The Inner Demon was stunned for a moment, staring at Harvey with his giant single eye for a moment. He couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, "I take back my praise for the Lich Ritual, Mr. Kel'Thuzad. Compared to you, you are the true genius. Your ideas are more subversive than madness. I wonder how many surprising ideas you have in your head."

He pointed at White, who was huddled in silence in a corner, and asked with a chuckle, "Is this the vessel prepared for me? Without a real flesh and blood vessel, I can't help you achieve your goal."

White's body trembled and he looked at Harvey in panic, his eyes full of pleading and rejection.

This is a demon, a high-level demon with intelligence and rationality who can communicate normally with humans. If he is used as a vessel for his descent, his brain will probably be turned into a mess after the incident, and he will become an idiot.

Harvey was speechless. He smiled and shook his head, saying, "No, this is a new friend of mine, not a vessel. Mr. Inner Demon, you shouldn't mind sharing a body with me, right?"

(End of this chapter)