One day, while he was testing them out, it came to him. If Runes allowed for Rituals to be run by anyone, what would happen if he created a Ritual that, upon creation, would allow others to send sacrifices in his name?
If that were to happen, it would allow him to boost his authority semi-permanently as long as the sacrifices were being made every once in a while.
So he could create a Ritual in his house, which has long been warded to hell and back this time with new rituals using actual living sacrifices of goats and such.
These new offerings, no matter how mortal they may be, allowed his house to now withstand even monsters at the level of the hydra.
Explaining why we needed a living goat to be brought into the mansion to the staff was a bit of trouble, but now that he knew how mist manipulation worked, creating a simple confusion charm was barely an effort.
It would essentially become a source of power, similar in nature to the eternal flame kept by the priestesses of Hestia, which, now that he thought about it, could be a Ritual made to raise the authority level of the Goddess.
If he created the Ritual right, it could boost his authority in a particular branch of magic to the point that it could have some real offensive capability against monsters.
The first problem he had to solve was how he would indicate the recipient of the Ritual's benefits. Given that magic worked on intent, it seemed he had to find a way to weave the intent of the Ritual to be such that anything offered as an offering to the Ritual would reach him.
After spending the next few days thinking about it, he came up with the following Ritual. As he had done experimentation on intent, he figured out that it wasn't the Norse runes themselves that were magical, but that the symbolism and intent carried in them was the key.
Given that, as a Greek Demigod, all Greek magic was more compatible with his nature, he switched to writing and doing the Rituals in Ancient Greek. So this was the Ritual he came up with.
The Ritual circle was to be drawn in ash obtained from burning bird feathers, its lines traced with characters that looked like the older form of Greek, angular and almost runic.
At its edges, the names of the four winds had been scratched in: Βορέας, Νότος, Εὖρος, Ζέφυρος. Around them, faint words wove together like smoke: πῦρ πανφαγόν, ἀνάλαβε τὴν θυσίαν, ἄνεμοι κόσμου, φέρετε τὴν εὐλογίαν meaning "All-consuming fire, take up the offering; winds of the world, bring forth the blessing."
Nicholas stood at the center, watching the faint glow rise from the inscriptions as if the ash itself remembered light. His voice, low and even, carried the words that joined them:
«Πῦρ πανφαγόν, ἄναψον τὴν προσφοράν· τέτταρες ἄνεμοι γῆς, φέρετε τὸ δῶρον.
Εὐλόγησον τὸν Νικόλαον Ἀλδριτζ, υἱὸν Σοφίας· ἄνωθεν ἀήρ, χάρισαι αὐτῷ χάριν.»
("All-consuming fire, kindle the offering; four winds of the earth, carry the gift.
Bless Nicholas Aldridge, son of Wisdom; upper air, grant him your grace.")
The runic array was to work in tandem with the chant, weaving the intent into the Ritual.
The Ritual was made to be everlasting as it would constantly be creating the consuming fire, and as long as continuous offerings were given to the fire, it would be ever burning, thus the intent that was created would never dissipate.
It was an ingenious way to make sure that another chant wouldn't be needed for the Ritual to work, but only the offerings. It also made the Ritual easy to disguise; after all, it was much easier for the servants to understand burning food offerings than for them to see the background of the Ritual circle.
The type of offering the ritual required was birds, as they are associated with the air. He was originally thinking Eagle meat, as it would be the most symbolic, given that most people think of them as the king of the sky, which would automatically amplify the result of the Ritual.
However, given that they are a symbol of Zeus and he was a Greek demigod, he rethought that idea and finally settled on the sparrow. Not nearly as significant, but they are quite well known for their speed and riding the wind.
And thus the prototype of the Ritual was created, and all that was left was for testing to begin.
~5 days later~
Acquiring the sparrow meat was a bit troublesome, but given their families' wealth, collecting enough offerings to last a month was barely an issue; they also managed to make a deal with the person selling it to deliver it every week.
The Ritual started with Nick chanting the spell to start the Ritual, and thus, a gathering of smoke like mist conjured up a flame over half a meter tall, floating in the middle of the runic circle.
Once the fire bloomed, Nick immediately threw the sparrow meat in the middle of the flame. The sparrow meat vanished in an explosion of flame, as the fire expanded to one meter tall before quickly retracting.
Once the offering was taken, he immediately felt the difference.
It was an instinctive feeling, like the kind of security you feel when you are under a blanket, but in this case, it was coming from all around him. Like the air itself was the blanket.
The other feeling he got was like a breeze flowing down from the top of his head towards his brain.
His brain grew even clearer; he could instinctively feel the surroundings even when not utilizing his prescience, and he could even see the mist directly through his newly developed sense.
It was like a blanket of smoke covering as far as his new sense could see. Through his new 6th sense, he could see it attaching itself like a thread connected directly to a servant's eyes and brain.