Ritual

Rituals are magic ceremonies consisting of a series of actions performed by magic casters in the New World.

Background
Tier Magic is the main magical craft that flourishes the New World. Despite years of study and research, the inhabitants of the New World barely comprehend its power. Whereas the Players, who originally brought its power, could easily cast spells of the 6th tier and above, the average magical standard in the New World is at 2nd or 3rd tier. For that reason, rituals are used as a mean to bypass those limitations.

Additionally, they enable magic casters working in unity to achieve levels of magical phenomena that can't be normally acquired in living time. Magic casters in the New World perform rituals to gain further access in using spells that is said to be impossible to achieve under normal conditions. For instance, there was one country like the Slane Theocracy in particular that conducted a ritual to use 6th Tier spells and possibly beyond.

Mechanics
Rituals tend to vary in different uses and purposes. The necessary components for performing a ritual depends on several factors: skill of the focal user, special items, type of magic etc. However, fundamentally, the purpose of all rituals are to temporarily increase one’s magic power by concentrating the magic power of a group into one person.

The rules or conditions of Ritual casting are as follow:


 * A person or thing is required in the center of the ritual. [V2, V10, V12, WN]


 * The more Magic Casters the faster the time it is to cast. [V4]


 * An ability to transfer power is needed. [WN, V4]


 * At the Lizardmen's current level, they could only use a ritual to cast one tier above. [V4]


 * Allows Meta Magic Enhancement, particularly Over Magic.


 * Theocracy's rituals are limited to rituals of two tiers above.

In the Web Novel, Maruyama noted how the Theocracy can cast the 8th tier. They do this by having the 5th tier magic casters which are the Six Miko Princesses to use the Crown of Wisdom for gaining access to a higher tier, conduct a jount ritual which provides an additional tier, and casting Over Magic to ascend to the next tier.

With that magic item, ritual, and Over Magic used in unison simultanously, one can elevate a Miko Princess's tier power by 3 times. However, that was not the only condition for what was possible to reach 8th tier. It was not only this sort of item and ritual included, but a Miko who can improve it with her use of Over Magic despite only being able to use up to the 5th tier. However, for the Miko Princesses, combining the mana consumption involved with using Over Magic to the negative effects of item used for the ritual, doing so will end up extremely hurting them by bleeding and having their mental state damaged during the process.

In the case of the Slane Theocracy:

Miko Hime: 5th tier magic caster

Ritual: Improve Tier of a spell by 2

Over Magic: Improve Tier of user's spell by 1

Miko Hime + Over Magic = 6th tier without a ritual.

Miko Hime + Over Magic + Ritual = 8th tier

While so, MP transfer ability are unique to divine magic casters especially during a ritual connected between them. These type of particular magic casters can not only conduct the Ritual, but use Over Magic with it. This is more than just simply sharing MP among themselves, but it is drawing upon something that people deemed to be a God yet is look by Ainz Ooal Gown as being something more mysterious than that, hence his need to carry out experiments on divine magic casters like Roberdyck Goltron.

On the other hand, unlike the Theocracy's method, the Lizardmen without Over Magic or an item needed to perform a ritual to reach the realm of 4th tier magic like [Control Cloud] with various 3rd tier magic casters. Particularly, a gathering of Elder Druid Lizardmen tend to be of the 3rd tier at best suitable for the role. They were known to be performing the ceremony together for accessing a higher tier beyond their level. However, for the Lizardmen, due to the mana consumption involved with just using Over Magic for the ritual, it will lead them to experience just a heavy toll of exhaustion.

Communal Casting: (Lizardmen):
A group of Divine casters work together to cast a spell. This increases the castable Tier by 1. Communal magic requires the mana transfer and communal casting ability.

Magic Concentration (Calca Bessarez's Crown):
A ritual is performed using a magical keystone or focus if you will. A group of divine casters do not create a shared spell but instead funnel their magical power into an item or focal point.

Different from neither the the limitations of Theocracy's divine magic casters or the Lizardmen's own, Khajiit Dale Badantel and Nfirea Bareare who are arcane magic casters can only go as far as being able to use a 7th tier spell from the item. This had been done with a person particularly wielding the Crown of Wisdom to act as a catalyst and several other magic casters for performing a large-scale ritual. In other words, both Nfirea's way and Calca's way of wearing their crown respectively, lets the magic item perform the spellcasting of the ritual for them while they served as its vessel.

Based on these underlying factors told so far, the Theocracy are in possession of 5th tier divine magic casters. The higher-ups will have the Six Miko Princesses, each one be strapped with a similar item on themselves to make the holder into a magical item. Theoretically, it also count for their casters' communal ritual casting buff.

Overall, the Theocracy's procedures to combining these methods has the advantages of both communal casting and magic concentration. Their item method allows them the use of a high tier spell, but since their Miko Princesses are viewed as dispensable items, by normal YGGDRASIL rules, that spell cannot be enhanced. However, for the Lizardman's way, while still limited by the spell casting ability of its user, can go on to receive enhancement by the group or meta magic. Meanwhile, the Theocracy has a magic item-type person, so theoretically they fall under both categories! Since they select Miko Hime's who are Tier 5 users (WN), they can abuse the item rule of turning the person into a focus. At the same time, the divine magic caster rule has enhance the ritual further beyond what an arcane magic caster are allowed to do.

List of Rituals

 * Death Spiral
 * Planar Eye
 * Ritual of Holy Fire

Trivia

 * The Lizardmen Alliance used some sort of unnamed ritual-type magic in summoning Swamp Elementals during their war against Nazarick's army of undead.
 * So far as the Light Novels have shown, the nations of the Slane Theocracy and Roble Holy Kingdom are known to actively use rituals.
 * Wild Magic also utilizes rituals as explained in Volume 9.
 * Likewise, Ainz is capable of performing a ritual to learn new spells as well as for other purposes, like enhancing his undead creation skills.
 * According to the Slane Theocracy's Cardinals, the Black Scripture is said to be capable of conducting a grand ritual jointly as a group to summon the highest-ranked angel.
 * Fluder had once cast an unknown ritual spell on himself with the intention of becoming immortal through it, but it did not seem to work out as planned since he is still aging but at a slower rate than most humans.
 * Calca possess a magic crown that allow her to cast a grand ritual spell called the Last Holy War.
 * Rituals that go wrong can have disastrous consequences. The gigantic tornado in the Dolor Desert is an example.