Amulets

Witchcraft, a word that can mean many things, from the practice of magic to demonic rituals in some worlds. But everything can be summarized by simply calling it a subversion of reality. Forcing the unnatural into the natural for one's benefit.

Even the most simple spell to read whether or not someone would be lucky in their love life was already considered witchcraft.

And as the goddess who hails from the very concept of Witchcraft, she had her means of using it even though her Arcanun was sealed in this world, witchcraft wasn't intrinsic to her nature, after all, any could practice it so long as they had the knowledge of how to.

Of course, to do so requires no small amount of knowledge, most mortals would never be able to scratch the surface of this art even if they spent their entire lives studying, but with her as a guide, the learning process could be reduced by hundreds of times.

And that's only considering someone without talent, as a certain level of affinity is required to practice it, if the person was talented as well, then it could make the learning process very smoothly.

She figured that if she was to teach him, Leofric might be able to attain a small level of success in less than a year, but that would require of them an amount of free time that they currently doesn't have.

Hecate sighed and stopped before a store, it was quite big and most people coming and going were all adventurers wearing expensive sets of equipment.

Veterans, most of them being around level 2.

She looked at the sign above the door and sighed, Hephaestus must be doing well in this world, humans probably aren't that annoying when it comes to others appearances.

*Trimm!*

The bell rang as she came inside, walking to the counter, she was greeted by the sight of an old man. His skin was brown, and his hair was white, but not white due to his age, it was a much different white, full of vigor, and despite the wrinkles around his eyes, they were like a sea of fire, so intense one would tremble only by being looked at by him.

Hecate had seen his kind before, he was a human from the southeast, they were usually called lava-casters though rather than humans, as most of them was born with the natural ability to manipulate lava.

There were many stories and theories in regards to why they were like that, the most popular story speaks of the forbidden love between Gajlan and Lyumi, a spirit born of the explosion of a volcano that devasted most of the world eons ago.

Whether or not it was true though is difficult to say, spirits are considered extinct most of the time after all, if they don't want to be seen, nobody can force them, so their sights only happens in intervals of centuries. The last one having disappeared around the time the first gods descended.

"How may I help you?"

"Uh, do you sell raw materials?"

The man raised an eyebrow hearing her words, he gave her a pondering look, she was so thin and frail, looked nothing like blacksmith, why would she want to buy something like that?

"We do."

Hecate sighed in relief, thankfully they won't have to hunt for materials on their own.

"Could you take a look and see if you have any of these for sale?" She passed over a note and the man left with it to check.

In the end, Hecate left with a sigh and tears in her eyes, but no money left in her pouches.

Meanwhile, the man could only frown as she left, none of those things she bought could be used together to make weapons or armor, it was a very weird selection of products.

Whatever the reason behind it, he figured that it most certainly wouldn't be used to forge.

###

Hecate sucked a mouthful of air and cleaned the sweat in her face using a nearby towel. In front of her, lying still in mid-air and surrounded by an orb of light was an pendant, made mostly of three ingredients, each more expensive than the other, alone and together they served no purpose as far as the common sense goes, but together they actually formed the principle of prima materia, of course, it was not by any means the real deal, it was but an anchor for the very concept of the thing.

Still, the basis for it wasn't wrong and worked fine, after all, Witchcraft relied on alchemical theory more than most realized. Even more so sorcery, unfortunately, she wasn't sure whether or not sorcery was something that she could use, but if it was possible her job would have been easier.

"Now, for the last touch..." Hecate held the pendant close to her chest and closed her eyes.

Light shone from within it and surrounded her, covering her in a spinning bubble of specks of light, on the pendant's surface, complex carvings surged out of nowhere and formed a great variety of runes on it. By the time she ended, she looked at the pendant and smiled seeing the familiar symbol inside the runic circle. A serpent entwined on a rod.

"It's finally finished... the Light of Asclepius."

One of the most useful aspects of Witchcraft is the creation of amulets.

It is a very complex art, requires a level of knowledge and research of the arcane comparable to that of array formations and alchemy itself, but once grasped, one can see the benefits easily.

This was specially true in the hands of wizards and witches, as there were even more benefits to wielding amulets for them.

Amulets were in essence similar to grimoires, and yet different. They could store spells to be used later, but unlike grimoires, they could also store charms that would be always active so long as there was a source of mana nearby.

They could provide many benefits, the only reason they hadn't seen the light of the day in this world was due to how underdeveloped magic was.

"With this... I won't have to worry about you." Hecate smiled and turned to look at Leofric who was still sleeping.