Chapter 158: Dragonlord Ritual
Dreadfort Castle
POV of Domeric Bolton
It took a whole hour of pleasure before Ygritte got too exhausted to continue.
Domeric's enhanced body could easily allow him to go for another hour, but he didn't want to injure her, so he left her in the bed and used a portkey to leave his room.
He appeared in the long underground hallway with the three doors and opened the one on the right.
The Incubation Chamber, he called the room.
He felt a hot wave of heat go past him as he entered the room, but ignored it and went to the large table glowing with magical runes.
The table had 50 oval-shaped holes, with glass covering the top half of each hole.
Twenty-three of those holes were filled with dragon eggs. Eggs that were petrified till a few months ago. Eggs had come out of their petrified state and were now looking much like the egg that Hagrid had before he hatched Norbert.
He could hatch these dragon eggs. They were ready, and he knew the ritual required to hatch an egg.
The only thing that stopped him from doing so was that the dragons wouldn't be bonded to him.
He knew of the rituals that the Dragonlords of old used to change their bloodline in a way that allowed them to bond with the dragons.
A ritualistically changed Dragonlord would gain silver, platinum, or golden hair with eyes in a variety of shades of purple or light blue.
They would not only become much more magically powerful but also gain the trait of being immune to fire.
Some of these Dragonlords even had the ability similar to that of a seer from his past life, allowing them to dream of the future.
He wondered how much more magically powerful he would become after this ritual.
Would he become powerful enough to rival himself from his past life? Would he still be weaker? Or would he become stronger?
He himself was excited to know and could barely hold himself back from performing the ritual on himself.
The only reason why he had yet to perform the ritual was that performing body-altering rituals in quick succession, one after another, could be very harmful to a wizard or witch and lead to unnatural side effects.
A warning that Tom Riddle didn't heed, which ultimately led to him losing most of his humanity, his mental faculties, and transforming into a snake-like face.
The reason for this was that a powerful ritual always leaves magical residue that interferes with other rituals, altering the effect they might bring to the wizard performing them.
From what he had found from his own magical inspection. The magical residue left by the body-enhancing ritual would last in his body for a few years before completely dissipating.
He also needed to make some adjustments to this ritual, just like he had done to the previous one. It wasn't as extensive as the last ritual, but this bloodline-changing ritual did have some overlapping points with the previous body-strengthening ritual.
Although Domeric doesn't know precisely why, the Valyrians designed the bloodline change ritual to make the body structure appear leaner and less muscular. Most likely because they considered this type of physique to be more elegant and noble.
However, if this weren't changed, the ritual would mean Domeric would lose some of the muscle tone he had worked so hard to achieve, and this was unacceptable to Domeric.
Therefore, he needed to make some adjustments to this part of the ritual. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that he would change the physique he had achieved.
Valyrian body appearance was a cornerstone of the ritual, and making significant changes to it required extensive practice and repeated trial-and-error rituals. Therefore, the ritual guaranteed a lean physique for Domeric.
So Domeric considered trying another method. He wouldn't alter his physique, but he would modify the process used to achieve it.
This way, during the ritual, his physique would assume a Valyrian-style form. Instead of losing muscle mass, Domeric would transform into a more compact and flexible one. Instead of weakening, he would become stronger.
Ultimately, Domeric would possess a compact and flexible musculature within a lean body, giving him an advantage in agility and speed. And best of all, he would have a stronger physique than before, even if it didn't appear so from the outside.
While Domeric added muscle development to the ritual, he decided to make some adjustments to enhance his body's potential. Typically, there's a limit to how much muscle people can build, and after a certain point, excessive muscle growth can disrupt the body's mobility and coordination. This is primarily due to the excessive swelling of muscle mass, which distorts the body's structure.
Therefore, Domeric planned to adjust the ritual that would allow his muscle structure to become more compact as it grew. This way, no matter how much new muscle mass he gained after training, the muscles would become more compact and stronger, rather than bloated. This allowed Domeric to continue to gain strength without any significant changes to his physique.
But the adjustments he would make to the ritual would take time. And the magical residue left behind by the old ritual would take time to wear off.
The problem was that Winter was coming. And the White Walkers were coming with it.
If he wanted his dragons to grow large enough to fight the White Walkers, then he would need to hatch them as quickly as possible.
He checked the health and status of all the eggs before returning them to their places and leaving the room.
He then crossed the hallway and went to the large room where he would perform his rituals.
The room was filled with runes he had carved to stabilize any ritual he might perform in this room and aid in its success.
He looked at the half-completed ritual circle in the center of the room and started working on it immediately.
It was a long-term use ritual circle that would allow him to enter within himself and expel the magical residue left by the last body-altering ritual.
If he continued this ritual every day, he would reduce the time required to eliminate the residue from the body-altering ritual from a few years to a few months.
Even then, some of the magical residue left in his body would never leave him.
This was why, after a few body-altering rituals, no matter how careful a wizard or witch is, they would start getting side effects from those rituals.
Too many rituals are never a good thing.
He just hoped that he wouldn't have to perform any other body-altering ritual after the Bloodline changing one.
Because, as incredible as it might sound in theory, he didn't want to turn into a half-dragon.
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Next Chapters' Name:
Ch.159: To The Last Hearth
Ch.160: Joint Expedition