After Xiotal's resolute decision, there was only one thing for Ritzy to do.
"Gimme."
He had to ask for advance payment, of course! So, he held out his hand like last time and gestured for her to hand over treasure.
Xiotal gritted her teeth.
*You want me to pay you to break my egg?*
Ritzy held up his hands, refusing to take any blame.
"If you don't want my help, just say so. There's no need to glare at me like I'm a thieving scoundrel."
Xiotal was really starting to regret getting involved with this dastardly necromancer, even if he was her only shot at being healed. However, she quickly concluded that no treasure was worth more than her life, at least not in her eyes.
*Fine. I'll be right back.*
Xiotal made to leave the room and fetch another treasure for Ritzy. But Ritzy blocked the door before she could exit. Xiotal gave Ritzy an impatient look.
*What now?*
"What happened with the promise of letting me choose any one item among your treasures?"
*Tch.*
Xiotal clicked her tongue and looked to the side before shoving Ritzy aside.
*Follow me. And don't touch anything.*
Ritzy suppressed a grin as he accompanied Xiotal out of the bedroom and into a neighboring room. His view was immediately filled with shelves and drawers packed with trinkets, items, stuff, and thingamajigs.
"Wow, a hoarding pixie. That's new."
Xiotal groaned in frustration.
*It's literally not. This much isn't even a fraction of what other pixies have. I am the first pixie you have seen, so everything I do is new. When you live as long as a pixie does, it's only natural that you pick up things here and there.*
Xiotal threw out every retort she could just to vent some of her frustration.
"Yeah, yeah."
Ritzy shrugged off Xiotal's glare as he strolled into her treasury, scanning the shelves and containers. He walked around with his hands behind his back until he found something that caught his eye.
"Ah, here it is."
*That sounded an awful lot like you were looking for something specific.*
Xiotal couldn't help but comment on Ritzy's comment as she approached Ritzy and looked at what he had found. It was a glass jar.
"That's true, I guess. I've always wanted a Serbal's Eye."
*You know what that creepy thing is?*
Xiotal stared at Ritzy in incredulity as he grabbed the head-sized jar with the dark green eye and yellow liquid.
Ritzy tilted his head, slightly confused.
"Apparently?"
Xiotal sighed. She wanted to ask what he meant by that since she hadn't expected a young human who seemed to still be wet behind his ears to know what like a Serbal was. But then she remembered it was Ritzy and that it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to talk with him. He would probably ask for another treasure to even consider answering her question. She also wanted to get him started on her revival.
Xiotal led the way back to the bedroom, where Mognog and the egg waited for them. Ritzy obediently followed while cradling the glass jar.
He could store it on a Deathbed since it was something dead. But the other Deathbeds hadn't followed him into Xiotal's den, and he didn't want to risk trapping the Serbal's Eye underground inside Xiotal's den.
Ritzy would just have to carry it until they left the den.
For now, he put it on the floor as he got up on the bed and stood next to the egg with a pensive expression.
"I'll get cracking, then."
Xiotal winced as Ritzy picked up Mognog and used him as an egg-cracking tool.
"Kiddo?"
"Yeah?"
Mognog wanted to ask why Ritzy used him to break open the egg. But he had also noticed that Ritzy's other undead, such as Pile O' Bones or Bone Club, were outside the den. And Xiotal probably wouldn't agree to Unholy Avatar doing it. Xiotal might have something in her house. However, she might also not have anything. It would also take time to find something, especially considering that Xiotal would most likely stall since she was reluctant to the whole operation.
"Nothing…"
Mognog sighed, and Ritzy continued knocking away at Xiotal's Pixie Egg, not that he had stopped when Mognog spoke.
The egg was hard, but it was resistant to magic, not physical force. Eventually, it began cracking. Still, Ritzy hammered away and broke off pieces of the eggshell until Xiotal's body in a fetal position was on full display.
Ritzy wiped the sweat off his brow.
"Phew~ I almost feel like a carpenter."
Neither Mognog nor Xiotal felt like retorting, so they remained silent as Ritzy unfurled Xiotal's body and placed it flat on the bed while he put aside the eggshells that had been trapped under her.
*Gentle!*
Seeing Ritzy's forceful way of straightening her stiff limbs and hearing them crack, Xiotal shouted at him. But Ritzy just waved away her worries before patting on the body's stomach.
*Hey!*
"Here. Lay down."
Ritzy's voice didn't allow refusal as he concentrated on sensing and maintaining the body's condition. Xiotal hesitated, but eventually, she flew over and laid down on her own body. It was a disconcerting feeling, lying on herself. But Xiotal did her best to set that feeling aside and listen to Ritzy's orders as he told her to close her eyes and put her arms on her stomach.
*Have you done this before?*
"Nope."
*But you know what you're doing?*
"Nope. Not a clue. Now, be quiet. I need to focus."
It was the first time both Xiotal and Mognog heard Ritzy speak with such gravity and seriousness in his voice. So, although Xiotal wanted to protest due to his carefree reveal, she remained quiet. She was still nervous, though.
Ritzy couldn't care less what Xiotal felt or thought. He just wanted to try reviving someone. It would serve as great practice for when he was going to do it with Talia, even if their situations were a little different. Well, it was more than a little different, considering Xiotal's soul was intact, and she was a pixie. But Ritzy had to start somewhere.
The promise of all her treasures was also a nice plus, considering she had a lot of stuff.
Ritzy set aside any stray thoughts and focused.
Xiotal's body wasn't in a bad state. The egg had protected it from decay if things in her den now could rot. Even if things didn't decay on their own, the egg had still maintained the body in the exact same state as when Xiotal died. However, it wasn't all good.
That meant that the foreign matter that had separated Xiotal's soul and body was still there, and Ritzy could sense it. It seemed like poison. But poison was outside his area of expertise, and there wasn't anything he could do about it.
But, he could circumvent it. Unfortunately, it meant that Xiotal wouldn't be reviving, at least not completely. It would, at best, be a pseudo-revival only marginally better than undeath.
Fortunately, that wasn't Ritzy's problem. He would still do his best, which was why he gathered as much of his mana as possible and guided it around his body, twisting and curdling it to concentrate on gathering the necessary aspects of each attribute.
He would need the control of the dead and maintenance of dead bodies from the death attribute. He needed the revitalizing and healing powers of the life attribute. Light and darkness would let him fuse and stitch Xiotal's soul and body back together while also isolating the poison in one part of her body.
It was the first time Ritzy used his magic for something more complex than simple corpse reanimation since he learned Deathbed or tried to regain control of Lenny. It was also the first time he had properly used magic since reaching the Stone Apprentice rank and beginning to develop the foundations of his own mana vessel.
Ritzy fished his mana out of the fuzzy circle and guided it through his body, accumulating the power he felt he needed through extensive trial and error. He flowed his mana through his body, testing out what twists and turns brought out what power.
The combination and culmination of power that Ritzy needed to bring out from the attributes Unholy Codex granted him was complex. He not only needed to gather the individual powers of each attribute. He also had to make them fit together and work in synchronization to achieve what he wanted.
Without a prior spell to base his mana circulation on, Ritzy had to start from the very beginning, and he had to redo it each time he reached a dead end. It was a mindlessly grueling and single-minded process.
But Ritzy barely noticed as he sank into the mystical world of mana. His control and understanding over mana, especially mana regarding death and the absence of life soared like a baby bird learning to fly. Of course, he still had the vast sky left to explore, and any buffeting winds sent him rocketing back down to the ground again. But giving up or taking a rest wasn't even a possibility in Ritzy's mind.
All Ritzy could think of was to explore his mana and piece together a working spell to stuff Xiotal back inside her body and also bring that body back to life.