That night, the sky was clear and full of stars, although the moon wasn’t full. Now that we’d cleared the place of trees, there was nothing blocking the moonlight and starlight on this patch of flat land.
On a spot in the clearing, I’d prepared a table with a metal container—a reflective one I’d had an iron slime create for me. It was shaped like a traditional jelly mold: a bowl with a raised bottom. On the raised portion of the bowl, I’d place the cursed object—today, that was a ring I had borrowed from Rosenberg—and pour purified water around it. Back in the day, when those documents were written, they amplified the moonlight with a metal mirror and the reflective surface of the water. Since it was our first attempt, I conducted the experiment exactly as described...
“But no results,” I grumbled.
“Hmm. It doesn’t seem entirely ineffective...” Rosenberg mused.
Despite repeating the ritual several times, there was barely any progress towards breaking the ring’s curse. “The curse on the ring is an easy one?” I asked.
“It is our first attempt,” Rosenberg confirmed. “Just to verify the ritual’s effect, I gave you an object of level 1 difficulty according to the standards set by the Cassiels.”
“That’s what I thought... By the way, what are the guidelines for those...curse-breaking difficulty levels? I remember that my curse was level 7, which was the highest.”
“I suppose I never explained. There are eight levels of curses, marked by how difficult it is to break them, ranging from level 0 to 7. That being said, level 0 means that there is no curse or the curse will fall off with time. Unless it is a matter of life or death, there is no need to break a level 0 curse. On the other hand, level 7 curses are an extreme rarity and are generally considered unbreakable. Levels 0 and 7 are not worth concerning yourself with.”
Then, Rosenberg went on to explain levels 1 through 6, which could be summarized as follows:
Level 1: Won’t fall off on its own, but weak enough that a half-baked technique could break it.
Level 2: Can be broken as long as a curse-breaking technique is properly performed. Breaking a level 2 curse was one of the last tests of a warlock-in-training.
Level 3: Breaking a level 3 curse was the mark of a full-fledged warlock who could make a living with their craft.
Level 4: Has to be dealt with by a seasoned warlock who specializes in curse-breaking.
Level 5: Only the best of the best can break one of these.
Level 6: Extremely difficult for a warlock to break—often requiring multiple experts working together.
“Different curses of the same difficulty level can be more or less challenging to break, and a precise measurement requires a dedicated magical solution,” Rosenberg explained.
“You mean like the one you used on my blood before?”
“Precisely. We determine the curse’s difficulty level by looking at what color the solution changes into.”
Like a water pH test. That process was familiar to me, at least.
The problem was that the ritual was a total flop—even against a curse of the lowest difficulty level—despite what should have been optimal conditions. According to the documents, what we had now was enough moonlight to see some results. When I shared a slime’s vision, I could verify that there was natural magical energy where I’d activated my hex, and the magical energy was surrounding the cursed ring and purifying it...
“But I’m not using the magical energy efficiently,” I realized.
“I would be remiss not to point out that hexes are an art that warlocks master slowly, and your progress so far has been exceptional. Perhaps the technique itself is meant to weaken the curse over time. Let us not be hasty. We should continue to perform the ritual and observe its results,” Rosenberg said.
“You’re right. I’ll leave this set up to monitor progress over time, and prepare another one.”
We continued experimenting late into the night without much to show for it.