"Thank you, but first to do anything we have to solve your inability to see through the Mist. If that isn't solved any of our other experimentation would be way more difficult that it is supposed to be." Once Nick said this, Jonathan's face looked as if Christmas came early.
"You can do that?!" Jonathan said, almost losing his manners in the process.
"Yes, it's a matter of preforming a ritual appealing to the Goddess Hecate as she is the Goddess in charge of Mist, though it will take us a few days to construct the ritual" Nick said.
~5 days later~
The ritual, was far more intricate than the one he had performed before. It required a polished mirror under moonlight, three black candles made with beeswax mixed with ash, and an offering of silver coins bathed in saltwater.
The place had to be dark, but not entirely — Hecate, being the goddess of thresholds, demanded balance between shadow and light.
This particular ritual was used by Greek judges to bless them to be able to find the truth of a particularly challenging case, he just appropriated it for a different purpose. It was also his first attempt at making minor changes on a ritual.
The original chant of the spell was "Hecate Enodia, Keeper of the Secrets, She of the Crossroads, hear my call. Let night no longer conceal the light, reveal truth where lies conceal.".
After a few hours of tinkering and thinking, he finally found a good symbolism that would fit the spell and he changed it to "Hecate Enodia, Keeper of the Veil, She of the Crossroads, hear my call. Grant sight where none should see, reveal truth where lies conceal."
To change the ritual he tinkered with using prescience to instead of asking for information outright to instead tune to the interference he felt to the mystical interference he found in some objects and track them to their source, this allowed him to see how different interference sources interacted in each other in spells.
He found out that all rituals and spells were built and when written on parchment would emit their own interference.
They were essentially ways for the symbols to combine with each other to produce an effect when he wrote them down one by one as soon as the last one was written, they all synergized to produce one interference instead of several distinct ones.
Though this combination had to be done carefully, for example if he wanted to invoke both fire and water in a spell, there had to be an added symbolic "mediator" to make them behave nicely and dictate exactly how the resulting cohesive meaning would change.
For example, one such mediator would be the general symbol of the world. In Ancient Greek Myth, the world consisted of Air, Water, Earth and Fire elements and thus its symbolism could be used as a mediator for the unification of the 4 elements into a whole.
And his prescience showed the new ritual as one unified interference rather than a bunch of different competing interferences that could cause issues, so he was reasonably confident in its success.
Nick figured that the change was minor enough and that the worst that could happen was nothing happening at all.
But if it succeeded it would give him crucial insights on if it was the language of the spell itself that was mystical and given by the Gods, working as a sort of direct phone line to them or the intent and meaning of the chant that determined the effects and the communication, sort of like it was him making the phone himself and determining the request.
If it was the latter, it would increase the value of magic immensely and the power ceiling would be raised, giving him the potential to raise it far beyond the simple spells that could be found in mortal histories.
While the materials for the rituals were being prepared and purchased, Nicholas kept a close watch on his father.
His prescience allowed him unique insight into the thought currently going through his mind though it appeared somewhat muted the close distance allowed Nick to see that his father was struggling accepting the sudden change in Nicks behavior.
He was having trouble accepting that his 7-year-old son was now suddenly speaking as if he were a person 4 times his age but when Athena showed up on his doorstep with a son, he already had some expectations according to the myths.
Myth such as Hercules strangling snakes as a baby, Asclepius the demigod son of Apollo that appeared to be aware from birth already indicated that all demigods would be special even from childhood.
Knowing those myths, he already made mental preparations in expectation of his son's uniqueness, so his thoughts quickly calmed down and accepted the changes.
They prepared the study for the ceremony drawing a circle with chalk infused with crushed laurel leaves and powdered obsidian.
Jonathan followed his son's instructions with unnerving precision, every motion deliberate, every candle flame trembling as if aware of the divinity being invoked.
As midnight approached, Nicholas felt the air thicken with energy.
His prescience wavered, then surged, feeding him flashes of strange images — crossroads that led nowhere, a silver torch burning in the void, and a face that was always shifting, three expressions layered into one.
Nicks eyes flickered, it appeared that more complex rituals would allow his prescience to get a glimpse of the domains and powers being invoked.
When he began the invocation, his voice felt like it echoed twice, once from his lips and once from somewhere behind him.
"Hecate Enodia, Keeper of the Veil, She of the Crossroads, hear my call. Grant sight where none should see, reveal truth where lies conceal."
The candles flared white-hot, bending toward Jonathan.
The silver coins dissolved into shimmering mist that coiled around him like smoke, then sank into his skin. Jonathan gasped, clutching his head. His eyes unfocused for a moment and thus it was done.
Upon investigation it using his prescience the answer was crystal clear. Jonathan was now a clear-sighted mortal.
~10 days later~
As the days passed, Nick finally decided it was time to start the experiments on Runic Magic.
"So, this is the first time I am doing tests on rituals and magics not from the land of Ancient Greece. I started with them as I figured that it was probably a safe bet considering who my mother was, but all of their magics and rituals are based on calling upon the power of the Gods." Nick said facing Jonathan.
They stood in what was once the grand dining hall, however it was now restructured the large table capable of seating more than 16 people was removed and in its place now stood a ritual circle, written using Norse Elder Furthwark runes.
"That was a smart call, but anything further would get tricky considering your parentage no matter the experiment you can't ever be truly sure of its results especially the bias that the Gods could have towards you or your mother, both positive and… negative" Jonathan replied, his mind flashing to Hera's rage and then attempted murder of an infant Hercules.
Nick nodded and then continued laying out the ritual at hand.
The Runes were the language the Nordic tribes used in order to appeal to nature to grant their requests. Their magics didn't necessarily have to call upon a Gods power and were thus the perfect target for their baseline of ritual power.
The first Norse ritual circle he was attempting to draw was a simple rectangle shape of the GEBO rune symbolizing exchanges and balance feeding into the rune URUZ symbolizing strength feeding into the rune KENNAZ representing the Flame feeding into DAGAZ representing the awakenings.
The ritual required a small offering of a drop of blood dripped on the rune GEBO to start, it also a chant of a spell in Old Norse that roughly translated to "With this offering of life flames bring forth the fire to keep away the cold night." And thus, a fire should have been born.
The ritual work was quick and once Nicholas poked his finger with a needle his father purchased for the express purpose of this ritual, his blood dripped onto the rune, with a small flash of light within the center of the runic circle, a fire approximately half a meter tall appeared.
It looked as if an invisible torch was burning at the center of the circle with only the flame being visible, the flame lasted for 9 minutes before winking out of existence