Out of Ritzy, Mognog, and Xiotal, the only one with an accurate perception of time was Mognog. He had his military training to support him and help him keep track of how much time had passed since Ritzy went silent and started focusing on his magic.
Xiotal was busy lying on her own body with closed eyes and worrying about what her fate would be. With anxiety clouding her mind, she couldn't be bothered to keep track of how many seconds, minutes, or hours had passed. As a pixie, she was also a timeless being.
Unless she got killed off, sick, or bored of living, Xiotal could, in theory, live forever. Naturally, a period of time that would seem long to a human would pass in the blink of a pixie's eye.
However, it wasn't like she didn't care about what happened or the passing of time when she was waiting for Ritzy to save her or help restore her life. She couldn't help but guess about what Ritzy was doing or how long it was going to take.
But Xiotal could sense that Ritzy was using magic and that he was taking this as seriously as something could be taken, which inevitably warmed her heart. Despite his irritating, demanding, and cocky attitude, he still had a good and warm heart in the center of his chest since he was willing to go so far for her sake.
Xiotal concluded that his earlier bargaining and requests for advance payment were just a way of either being taken seriously or so that people wouldn't misunderstand him as a good guy.
'How cute!'
Xiotal also couldn't help but realize that she hadn't placed any insurances. If Ritzy really wanted to, he could just not help her, maybe even sabotage her soul now that she was defenseless, and take her treasure for himself without saving her. Ritzy not doing that only solidified his mixed and embarrassed impression on Xiotal.
However, the truth was very different from Xiotal's dreamlike impression of Ritzy.
The only reason why Ritzy was taking Xiotal's attempted resurrection seriously was for Talia. And he had gotten absorbed in the wonder of magic while trying around for a way to extract the aspects of power he needed from his mana. He wasn't thinking much about Xiotal other than that he needed to match his magic to her body and the poison inside.
So, when he finally achieved something along the lines of what he had in mind when he first started, Ritzy was more curious about how well it would work rather than worried about Xiotal's wellbeing. If she died, she died. Again. That would be that, and Ritzy would have to find someone else to experiment on.
Ritzy put one hand on Xiotal's belly and the other on the top of her body's head. Without waiting for Xiotal to react to the sudden change from his previously passive state, Ritzy injected his mana into her.
"Don't resist."
Before Xiotal could even utter an acknowledgment, Ritzy's mana poured into her with surprising force. Or, considering he had amassed that power for several hours, it wasn't so surprising how powerful it was.
The mana flowed through her body and soul, dying both in Ritzy's unholy mana. Ritzy's mana didn't take over Xiotal's mana or soul, but it covered her, and it mimicked what it did in her soul and in her body until there was no distinction in the magical auras they gave off.
"Hold your breath."
Ritzy warned Xiotal the moment before he began the next part of the procedure, not because he was worried but because if she didn't, it would increase the odds of failure.
As a ghost, she hadn't needed to breathe, but when she reentered her real body, Xiotal would want to breathe again when Ritzy brought it back in a state of forced animation using his magic. However, if she did breathe, she would let the tiny spark of life that he could manage to reignite back out.
Before Xiotal could understand what he meant since she was dead and didn't breathe, ritzy pushed down on her stomach and forced her soul inside her body.
Xiotal's soul flopped into her body without much issue. But it was reluctant to stay, and if it weren't for Ritzy's hand and mana blocking and chaining it, Xiotal's soul and body would have separated again.
Ritzy's mana that had been split in two became one and swirled around inside Xiotal's body and soul like a tornado, twisting and forcefully binding them together while at the same time filling her body with energy and vitality.
The process wasn't smooth, but it wasn't a failure either. It was like a dirt road, completely usable and passable, even if it wasn't the greatest comfort.
That was the case as Ritzy pumped Xiotal with his mana, forcefully reactivating her organs and making them work, which was surprisingly difficult since Xiotal only looked like a human on the outside. Within Xiotal's body, Ritzy had no idea what the various odd lumps of meat did. But they had to do something, so he activated them by manually controlling them with his mana.
However, no dirt road would be complete without potholes. And Ritzy had finally arrived at the largest pothole on the road.
The poison that was most likely the cause of Xiotal's death didn't like what Ritzy was up to, and it rebelled. Pushing it to a corner was the first thing Ritzy had done, but the poison struggled against the surge of mana and currents of vitality and the existence of Xiotal's soul within her body. It was like a feisty ferret, trying to fight off Ritzy's unwelcome intrusion.
But Ritzy needed to put the poison in check if he wanted to see the effects of his attempted revival. So, even if it wasn't something Talia suffered from, Ritzy still did his best to isolate the poison in one part of Xiotal's body. He tried to expel it, but it was like it had grown into Xiotal's body.
Ritzy could stuff the poison in a leg or an arm or something and then amputate that body part. But he didn't have anything to amputate. And if he did it before the soul and body were fused completely, there would be an imbalance between the soul and the body. They wouldn't match, and it would thus be impossible to reconnect them without finding a way to mirror the damage to Xiotal's body on her soul or restore her body so that not even a trace of the injury remained.
Ritzy's only option regarding the poison was to stop it in its tracks and hinder it from touching Xiotal's soul.
It was easier said than done since none of his attributes had any clear effect on the poison. He could push it around with his mana using brute force. But that wouldn't work long-term, especially when he was already running out of mana.
Ritzy also didn't have the same leeway to experiment with the effects of his mana and the power he could accumulate the way he had done before initiating the procedure.
Ritzy tilted his sweat-soaked head to the side as he thought about what to do. Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with anything that was guaranteed to work.
The only thing Ritzy was left with was forcing the issue. He roused a greater intensity in his mana as he shoved the poison into a corner of Xiotal's body while finishing the fusion of body and soul as well as pumping a fabricated feeling of life into her.
"Welp. If it works, it works."
Mognog felt that it was fortunate Xiotal couldn't hear Ritzy's flippant and seemingly careless words as the procedure neared its end.
With a gust of air that swept around the room, Ritzy drained his mana into the magic ritual, binding Xiotal's soul and body together using a thread of life he had constructed by using the powers of the Unholy Codex.
As Mognog sensed what Ritzy had done, at least as much as he could sense, he had to admit that he and Ritzy had created something monstrous when they made the Unholy Codex. Although Ritzy hadn't recreated life, which was something even healers or users of the life attribute could do until they reached a certain rank, he had made something similar to replace it.
And he had done it while he was an Apprentice Stone.
It was still a far cry from actual life, and anyone with enough experience or insight would realize that it was fake and went against the laws of nature in a different way from ordinary necromancy. But Ritzy had done it!
Ritzy had stuffed Xiotal's soul inside her body, and he had done something akin to bringing that body back to life.
Xiotal opened her eyes wide like saucers as Ritzy removed his hands and stopped exerting minute control over every single piece of flesh, bone, and blood inside her. She stared at Ritzy in shock.
At the end of the procedure, she had regained her senses and noticed what Ritzy was doing. Although he was controlling things that didn't need to be controlled and made some things do stuff they weren't supposed to do, he had still imitated her body's internal operations while controlling his mana in an extremely complex and difficult manner at the same time.
Xiotal couldn't believe it.
Xiotal sat up and followed Ritzy with her eyes as he got up and circled her while inspecting everything to make sure she worked. Eventually, Ritzy noticed Xiotal staring at him with a gaze too heavy to bear.
"What?"
"CanIbreathenow?"
Ritzy shrugged.
"Do you want to risk it?"
Xiotal hurriedly shook her head and used her stiff and awkward mana to suppress her need to breathe. Once she finally regained control of her body and need for air, which was only as dire as it was because of the state her body was in, she sighed in relief.
Xiotal instantly realized what she had done, and her eyes opened wide in alarm as she turned to Ritzy for help.