Strongest Necromancer System Chapter 1024: Awakening II

Jason ignored the crowd watching him, and he asked Ronan what they would be doing. Ronan gestured to the young women with the bowls first.

"They will mark you with the matrices required for the ritual. And once you are done with that, you will begin the true Awakening. Those elders have been kind enough to volunteer to stand as your pillars during the ritual, so you must be grateful to them. Leave your shoes. You will not need them."

Jason hummed when Ronan was done with his explanation, and Jason realised that he didn’t understand any of this! Jason turned his attention towards Esdath and asked him if this was how the ritual was meant to be done, and Esdath said it was.

’The young women are temple servers who have been trained to assist rituals all their lives, so you can trust they won’t make any mistakes. And usually, it’s three men from the same age group who would serve as your pillars. But I’m sure the elders all recognized the great power inside you and knew that none of the young men could withstand it. That is why the elders volunteered themselves. You should be grateful.’

Jason let out a calm breath, and he hardened his gaze as he finally took off his shoes and stepped forward. Once they all saw that Jason was ready, the tension in the room grew even more! A ritual atmosphere began to fill the temple, and the blue flames flickered and danced with an erratic energy as they cast long shadows across the ritual floor! The spectators watched with rapt attention, but none of them dared speak out of respect for the auspicious moment.

Jason first walked towards the three women, and he stood still as they came around him and began to work. First, they took Jason’s robe off his shoulders. The belt around Jason’s waist prevented the robe from falling to the floor, and it only exposed Jason’s toned upper body! The women were slightly shocked when they saw all the runes that Jason had carved into his body, and Jason saw one of the younger ones glance up at his face with a small blush! But she looked away quickly, and her blush was replaced by her regular impassiveness!

The three women reached two fingers into the bowl in their hands, and they brought out a black ink-like substance and began to draw on Jason’s body! The women completely ignored the runes that Jason had already drawn, and they simply drew over them to create new circular patterns that Jason immediately recognized as Qi Matrices!

The three women worked like a well-oiled machine, and there was nothing Jason had to do other than stand there and allow them to draw on his skin. Jason already had a very decorative body because of all the different runes that he had drawn on himself, but right now Jason looked like some sort of ritual experiment! There were so many markings on his body that he didn’t even know where his skin started and where the magical symbols ended!

As time passed and the Qi Matrices began to take proper form, Jason could sense his Qi flowing more easily across his body! It felt like the pathways inside Jason’s body had just gone through a cleansing, and Jason let out a small breath as he realised that this was what the markings were for.

’You must not fight against the ritual when it begins. It will seem strange, and you will be pushed to your extreme, but you must allow it to run its course. Do you understand?’

Jason hummed at Esdath’s warning, and it only took a few more seconds of marking before the women finally finished what they were doing! The women all stepped back as they admired the image that they had created, and when Jason tried to put on his robes, the young woman standing in front of him shook her head ’no’. Jason hummed, and he decided to just leave the robe down before he began walking towards the platform in the center of the room!

The platform was carved from circular stone, like an altar to a greater being. The three old men were still standing around the platform patiently with their hands joined together in a strange pattern that Jason didn’t recognize! Jason took the stairway leading up to the stage, and he finally got a good look at what had been created on the stage! There were circular lines drawn all over the stage just like the ones on his body. The Qi Matrices formed an intricate shape on the platform, and there was a single straight path right in front of Jason that allowed him to walk towards the center of the circle.

Jason walked barefoot through the straight line, and Esdath instructed Jason to kneel. Jason went on his knees in the circle and let out a calm breath while resting his hands on his thighs, but Jason turned to the side in surprise as he noticed someone else coming up the stairs. It was a woman wearing a strange ritualistic attire. She had a long cloth tied with a belt around her waist that covered her lower body but left the sides of her legs exposed. There was another strip of cloth around her chest to hold her breasts, but her midsection and shoulders were bare. Her body was decorated with hundreds of Qi matrices that travelled all the way from her legs to her cheek, and she held a large bowl in her hands as she walked barefoot up the stage. The moment Jason saw her face, he smiled.

"Stella."

Stella bowed to Jason respectfully before smiling back at him.

"I have been asked to be your priestess for this ritual, master. I hope you will allow it."

Jason hummed, and he sat back on his knees before nodding. Jason had already expected something like this right from the moment the cultivators took Stella away earlier. For the ritual of awakening, it was necessary to have one person who was close to the awakener to act as the priest or priestess! Usually, this would be done by another cultivator in the sect, but since Stella was the only person here who was close to Jason, the cultivators had to ask her to stand in for him!

Standing as the Priest or Priestess for an awakener didn’t really affect you at all, and it wouldn’t affect your magic or Qi either. The only difference that most priests and priestesses speak about after they carry out their duty is that they will feel a much deeper connection towards the awakener! Almost like being there at the moment of awakening allowed the priestess and the awakener to understand each other a lot more than before!

Stella had gone through a short period of training after leaving Jason earlier, and she now understood exactly what she needed to do.

Gong~!

A loud sound echoed through the room, and Stella let out a long breath to calm herself before she turned to her left and began to walk around the stage. The older men standing around as pillars began to chant in a language that was completely unrecognizable to Jason! But it only took a moment for the system to recognize it, and once Jason chose ’yes’ on the translation prompt. He could hear the chants properly.

"...Come forth, the distant wind. Devour, the unquenching fire. Destroy, the impenetrable Earth. Consume, the unstoppable water."

These words were being repeated over and over again, and Jason could feel the Qi in the room surging and receding, like it was following the pattern of the chants!