Judge took the parchment that he had put away and started writing on it with a fountain pen that he took from inside a secret compartment in his desk. The prerequisite for writing runes is that, unless it was written on a special paper, you have to use blood.
Judge had requested a fountain pen without any ink and filled it with his blood beforehand, it was when he was just starting to learn runes, he had read that it required blood in the book about runes his grandfather gave him.
He had first tried to create the fountain pen within the studio and bring it back, but alas, he could only create stuff and bring it to the outside world before was because it was all just an illusion. The fake reality had registered it as an attempt to teleport stuff and created it within the illusory world.
Wow, that is really powerful, but that is a god we are talking about. Anyway, back to Judge, where were we? Oh right, Judge slowly starts to draw the rune for summon in the parchment with his own blood. But oh boy, did he get caught!
(A/N: If you kind of narration in the middle, please do tell me. I will try to do this or avoid it according to your suggestions.)
Judge could feel the same gaze again, it was currently night, so the gaze was definitely not Lediya, and it was not a spirit since it looked away when he opened his diary. So, the only person this gaze could belong to was his mother.
But if it was indeed his mother's gaze, there was one problem, the gaze was still calm despite him clearly trying out runes.
Suddenly, it clicked! All the dots started connecting, and his unanswered question about why his mother changed her to teach him about summoning even before she took all of those lessons about spirit history or whatever. Because apparently, spirits resonate with you more the more you know about them.
She actually wanted her son to try the summoning ritual himself, but try was doing a lot of heavy lifting here, since she knew that there was no way he would succeed. But if he experienced the sealed world firsthand and then failed, he would be more eager to learn about summoning the spirits.
She was keeping watch because if anything happened, she knew well enough to not allow a serious problem to occur. Otherwise, she would not spy upon his privacy, that was also the case previously when she assigned a spirit to watch over him.
The spirit would only tell her if problems occurred and not anything else about his private moments. Anyone entering his room would knock first, so as to not disturb his privacy.
He sighed and held his fountain pen firmly. He started to draw the rest of the rune.
The first part was a vertical rectangle with curved edges, "runes with sharp corners NEVER work!" he had seen those lines inside the book of runes more than he had seen the office coffee machine break down— at this point, it felt like a ritual sacrifice!
On the top part, there was the sealing rune, same details but smaller. Over that was a wavy line, representing the unstable realm. At the bottom part was just a flat line, representing the stable realm, the mortal world. Above that, at the center, were two symbols, one was the rune with intertwined circles, representing connection.
On the center of the intertwined circles was a single line, "I", which represented the self. After everything was drawn and finished, Judge leaned back to look at the symbol, the smell of fresh blood permeated the air.
The blood had been put inside the container for years, foreseeing this would happen, he had specifically requested for the ink cartridges to be enchanted to keep the liquid inside it fresh and the state it was poured in.
The ink cartridge was made as per his request, and it could keep the liquids in the same state as long as he provided enough ether, and also other could be liquids it cannot keep fresh.
With the first step done, Judge moved on to the next one, it was to take out his catalyst. He took the wand-shaped catalyst that his Mom gifted him on his birthday, the one which can hold an absurd amount of ether inside it.
Opening the path from his current world to the sealed world did not take up much ether, but it was dependent on what kind of spirit was the summoner trying to call. Low-level spirits responded to calls with low ether offers, which was most of the summoning rituals. If a person had to offer high quantities of ether, then a more powerful spirit may respond.
There was also another factor that affected the type of spirit a person summons, if one had a high affinity with a high-level spirit, then even with small quantities of ether, they could summon powerful spirits.
Holding the wand tightly in his hand, almost too tightly, Judge proceeded to the next and final step, which was to chant a summoning spell that came to his mind, it should be natural and forced, as if letting your tongue speak without a thought.
Judge heaved a big sigh before he proceeded. He cleared his mind, circulated his ether towards the rune, and let his mouth do the rest, he could feel his mother's gaze lifting as if it was being blocked by something unknown. He paid it no mind and began to chant without thought.
Servants who bind the gods.
Heed my voice, the call has been made.
Your master commands your presence
Rise from the depths of your slumber.
Obey my words, the time has come
Judge's blank thoughts were quickly filled with embarrassment, Did I actually just say that? Who even wrote this script?
Amidst his embarrassment, and the thought of failure, he saw an illusory crack within his mind, it did not exist in the world, but he could see it by the window, strong and violent ether was seeping out from it.
Judge watched as two menacing purple eyes appeared behind the crack.