A month passed by without much change. Twice a week Damon went outside to hunt goblins and small rodents. He’d use their skeletons to practise his reanimation spell, their meat as food, and the different body parts and organs to create alchemical concoctions.

Books were brought to him, and Stolas would sometimes come and help him in his study. Although, he said that he’d come by more often when he’d pass the intermediate stage. How long would that take? He didn’t know; however, it wasn’t soon, that much he could tell.

Unfortunately, Damon couldn’t speak with Pythias since they were now out of range; however, they agreed to try using their telepathy skill as soon as either one leveled up.

On the other hand, these were his stats:

Damon Asmodeus LVL. 3 (300/820)

Charisma

Intelligence

Perception

Agility

Endurance

Strength

Mana

14

29 (+4)

21 (+2)

21 (+3)

15 (+2)

14 (+1)

82 (+14)

* All humanoid language acquisitions

* Arithmetic’s Lvl.6/7

* Black magic Lvl.2/10 (+1)

* Dark magic Lvl.2/10 (+1)

* Dark spirit communication Lvl.2/10

* Detect diseases and viruses through smell Lvl.3/5

* Earth magic Lvl.1/5

* Improved memory Lvl.2/5 (+1)

* Medium disease tolerance

* Night vision

* Telepathy Lvl.3/10

The slow progress pained him. For the first two weeks, he passed his time learning about different alchemical procedures, different ingredients, and their properties. It helped him understand why different potions used different ingredients but not much more. In general, his mana limited his skill growth. Even if he could get an endless stream of bodies, if it took him a day to create one undead, it would take him two centuries to max out his level. Although this made sense given his life span, it didn't change the fact it made his daily life repetitive to no end.

He also discovered that to level up a magic skill from level 1 to 2 required someone to use 1000 mana points worth of spells from the specific magic skill in question. This probably increased near exponentially when you considered humans only reached the eight level at the tail end of their lives.

As such he’d require more mana to increase his skill level faster. For this he required a higher base level. Increasing your skill level did more than add new spells to your repertoire. Now with level two magic skills the casting of a level one spell felt instinctive, and the cost to cast them cost him half of their original cost.

For said reason, he asked Stolas if he could take a break from his studies and go on a hunting trip.

“A hunting trip? You want more experience points? Aren’t you going a bit too fast for someone with four hundred years to live?”

“I don’t think I’m going at this too fast. I’ve been in this world for two months and I’m only at level two.”

Stolas thought about it, “How old are you? I’ve never asked.”

“Twenty-two,” answered Damon.

“I suppose that’s rather low for your age. Well, I have an idea for you. Since you’ve been relying on me too much, I’ll send you with one of the members to collect material.”

“That sounds great.”

Damon went to the smoking room in the trees interior and retrieved smoked meat prepared for such excursions. He proceeded to pack his bag with some spare clothes he’d gotten from the skeleton helper, water skins, and some bread.

The next day the skeleton came to his room empty-handed and pointed towards the exit. Damon followed him out and saw Stolas next to an old woman.

He spoke aloud, “Good morning my little prince. This here.” He pointed to the lady, “is Emilia, she’s been a devout follower for many years. She’s reached the sixth level in black magic and water magic. Although she doesn’t often come by these parts since she works in the capital but for the next little while you’ll be in her care.”

Damon shook the woman’s hand and introduced himself, “Hi my name’s Damon.”

The old lady gave a large smile, “and I’m Emilia, let’s find some good material. If you do well I’ll give you a gift.”

Damon smiled back and thanked her but couldn’t help but imagine that she’d give him a bag of hard candy as a gift. The human lady looked to be in her mid to late sixties, however, her a handshake seemed firmer than his. The knights in shining armour of this world were most likely in their late sixties, the levelling system was a terrifying existence.

When the were over Stolas dropped a large leather bag in his hands, Damon nearly toppled over.

“Armour,” said the owl.

Inside, Damon found a chainmail shirt, leather pants, leather gloves and boots. Damon didn’t know how this owl had so much cash to spare but he graciously accepted it.

“Although I can always come to save you it’s better if you learn to save yourself. I’m not always in the mood to babysit.”

Damon removed the beige tunic he received from the church. Although he did take baths, the medieval world wasn’t clean to start, and when everyone you know plays with dead bodies and rotted flesh dirty clothes are par for the course.

When he’d taken off all his clothes, he asked Emilia if she could blast him with a bit of her water magic. Although it didn’t remove all the grease, he felt much cleaner and refreshed. He put on a new tunic given to him by Stolas. Next came the leather equipment and chainmail. Although he looked unconventional, to say the least, beasts wouldn’t judge his fashion sense. He took his sword which he’d taken good care of, and the new shield Stolas had given him a week ago. This shield had a metal rim and the wood felt heavier and sturdier than the last one.

With everything in order, Damon left with Emilia towards the goblin nest in the east.

Emilia spoke first, “You are a level two user of dark and black magic.”

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Damon nodded, “Yes, it’s rather low, so I wanted to gain levels and increase my mana pool.”

“Makes perfect sense. Although we’ll see it when you fight, I want to know what kind of magic you use.”

“Well, it goes without saying that my black magic isn’t very useful in head-to-head combat. Other than that, I use dark and earth magic. For dark magic I have shadow meld, shadow agility, and lessen reflection in my level one repertoire. For level two spells I have group shadow strength and agility which increases my targets agility and strength in the shadow by five percent. Although some of the sun passes through the trees, it works fine if there’s a shadow.”

“That’s good, but it’s unfortunate humans can’t see in the dark, we would have left at night. But first, I want to see how you fight.”

When they came close to the goblin nest Damon activated all his level one skill. In total it now cost him 5.5 mana points per 5 minutes thanks to his increased level.

Damon climbed a tree on the usual goblin path. A few minutes later, a group of three goblins trekked down the beaten trail. When they were directly under him Damon jumped down onto the first goblin. However, unlike in the past he didn’t stab the goblin; it took too long to pull out the blade. He only needed to drive the pummel of the sword into the goblin’s head. This let him immediately slash at the second goblin's throat. The third tried to bash in Damon’s head, but he parried the strike with his shield, pushed the goblin to the side and stabbed its chest.

If he were to bring back the goblins for black magic reasons, he would normally strangle to death the last goblin to prevent further damage on its skeletal and muscular structures. But since they had limited time and space, he didn’t have to worry about damaging the goods.

Emilia took out two large glass containers and filled them with goblin blood. She proceeded to cast a high-level preservation spell. The red liquid flashed before she stored the containers in her bag. Through these past two months, he learned that black magic influenced death. As such it could also slow it down or accelerate it. Perhaps the magic acted on the cells and other microscopic organisms; however, he wasn’t a biologist in his previous life, nor did he know if biology worked the same way in this world. Perhaps when he’d gain a sufficient level and became a proper necromancer his previous world's knowledge would come in handy, however, it couldn’t do much for him currently.

“Next we need a goblin shaman’s spinal liquid,” said Emilia.

“What is that used for?” asked Damon, every day he learned the use of organic materials, sometimes he needed to hear it ten times to commit it to memory even with his skills. There were too many ingredients, too many organs, too many plants. A single potion could use ten to twenty unique ingredients and he often wondered if some of them weren’t of any use; however, he didn’t have the luxury to apply the scientific method to alchemy.

“It’s used as a mana conductor in magic smiths,” answered Emilia.

“Magic smiths?” asked Damon, he’d never heard of it.

Emilia nodded, “They’re rather rare in the rural parts of the country, however, most master craftsmen in the capital use them. It’s used to help regulate the temperature of the hearth.”

“If I may ask. Why don’t adventurers do this job, gathering goblin blood shouldn’t be too hard?”

“That’s true but since we black mages require certain ingredients which, well, aren’t exactly legal; I need get them myself. And to do so I need to gather other materials as a cover. All I need to do as a cover is say that adventurers are too rough, and render the ingredients unfit for use. And that last statement is true, sometimes I buy goblin blood from the guild and find chunks of flesh mixed in.”

Damon frowned, “that’s rather unprofessional, how can you even get flesh mixed in blood?”

“Most don’t have the sensibilities of us black mages, it’s unfortunate, to say the least.”

Damon nodded and switched topic, “I’ve never fought a goblin shaman.”

“Just follow behind me, you’ll also be able to see how I fight.”

He felt disappointed at the loss of experience points, but he still nodded.

Emilia led him to the entrance of a cave. A strong odour emanated from the entrance; it wasn’t the smell of disease but simply that of a humidity and musk. Emilia entered the cave with a lit torch in one hand and a shield in the other. Damon who stood behind her could still see perfectly well in the dark cave and told here that four goblins were approaching with wooden bats. She nodded and told him to keep going. They advanced till the torch light illuminated the goblins. They who could now feel the heat of the flame on their dirty green skin rushed forwards, bats brandished high in the air. However, before they could get in bats length of the intruders, Emilia trapped the goblins inside a massive water bubble. The goblins tried swim to the border edge of the bubble to escape; however, strong currents kept them in place. Half a minute later they stopped moving. Emilia released her magic and the goblins fell to the ground.

“They’re unconscious, you can finish them off.”

Damon stabbed each of their throats. However, he didn’t receive any experience points.

Although Emilia was as serene as ever, she lightly grinned. “It seems to be true, you don’t know much about the world. Stolas told me to teach you a bit about how this world works so don’t stray too far.”

Damon wiped off the goblin blood from his blade on their leaf skirts. He followed Emilia deeper into the dungeon. This time, when he saw the main path split in two, he didn’t bother saying anything.

Ten metres before the split in the path Emilia threw a smoke bomb into the tunnel. A few seconds later ten goblins rushed their position. Emilia trapped eight of them in the water bubble and let Damon deal with the stragglers. This time he decided to shoot a stone bullet at the head of the furthest goblin. This gave him two seconds to deal with the closest goblin without worry.

Seeing this the last goblin who had received a rock to the face turned around and started to run. Damon wanted to chase him down. However, Emilia told him to stop and let him bring the shaman. This way they wouldn’t need to venture deeper into the cavern. Although the goblins weren’t strong, and Emilia could probably wipe them all out. If they did such a thing, the black mages from the tree would need to find a new goblin nest later one. Instead keeping one close by as a farm made much more sense. While waiting for the shaman to come, she released one goblin at a time to let him kill them in a 1 on 1 fights. This gave him half of the regular experience points earned when alone.

The goblin shaman finally arrived. It had six goblins in tow, Emilia spoke, “goblin shamans come in many varieties, earth, fire, wind, and water. However, they are usually ranked 1 or 2 in terms of magical power and 2 in terms of physical abilities. I’ll take care of the small guys so you can practise fighting a magical beast. I won’t help unless you get injured.”

Damon nodded; this is what he wanted. He wondered how much Exp he could gain from this guy.

Once the other goblins were drowned, Damon activated all of his level one dark magic spells. The shaman held a club in both hands and directed a strike towards Damon’s head. Damon blocked the strike head on to see the difference in strength. Although the goblin was a few centimetres taller than the others, it was much stronger than them. Damon immediately took some distance, but the shaman shot a rock at Damon. It hit the upper portion of his chest. The impact hurt, but the chainmail helped spread the impact. However, an earth pillar shot from under his feet and made him fall over. The shaman rushed Damon and swung down his bat. He hadn’t lost his wits yet, so he blocked the swing with his shield and plunged his sword into the shaman’s chest. The goblin stopped moving and his blood dripped onto Damon’s stomach. He got up and tried to wipe off the blood; however, it had stained his new tunic and the chainmail.

“How do you fight mages if you don’t know what they’re going to do?” asked Damon as he tried to wipe away the blood on his hands.

“You don’t,” said Emilia, “If you’re planning on fighting one you should have items to nullify their magic. After that you must out power the other mage’s defences and kill him before he kills you. Of course, for beasts it’s easier since we understand their abilities to a higher degree, however, to fight other cerenoids, it’s not an easy task. If you ever witness a war, you’ll understand.”

“Doesn’t that make being a mage very expensive, in terms of items?”

“Yes, half of a mage’s problem is gathering enough wealth to afford these magical items. That’s why the kingdom and adventurer’s guild ignore people with average talent. Although a level four mages may be of use to the adventurer’s guild or army. The expenses required to train them vastly outweighs the gains. Money out powers everything after all. No country has the military budget to equip everyone with enchanted equipment. Plus, without that equipment they become just as vulnerable as regular soldiers. The enemy army will mark them as priority targets and pummel them with arrows or rock javelins. It’s better for them to stay in their villages and protect the crops from stray beasts. Being a magician may be honourable and give you many opportunities in life, but it also offers you many opportunities to die.”

Damon nodded and reconsidered his earlier plans to become a noble. Perhaps he could remain as a countryside black mage. Now that he thought about it, perhaps that’s why there were so many overly complicated formulas for the same potions.

“So, alchemy is a way for magicians to hide behind the safety of castle walls.”

Emilia laughed, “Now you’re thinking like a true magician. If the king believes that alchemy is a great and mysterious art, he won’t send us to our deaths.”

“What kind of things do you make then?”

Emilia laughed, “I would tell you and I don’t think there’d be a problem since you’re Stolas’ disciple. However, these things are the most precious things sects have. If we lost these things, the King would have our heads if we told him how it was made. And if Stolas hasn’t told you yet, it just means you’re not ready.”

Damon couldn’t have heard a more ominous answer but thinking about it wouldn’t help him. He’d only known Stolas for a month and a half. He couldn’t blame him for withholding a bit of information. “Where are we going next?”

To get troll blood. But for now, leave the cave, what I’m about to harvest is part of the secret so go guard the entrance.

Damon nodded and left.