Chapter 4

I’d taught my son to never question bureaucratic bull that works in your favour. Gorak seemed to agree with this philosophy because he didn’t argue or question my demands. When Gorgath returned with the core, his uncle informed him that he would have to participate in empowering the circle to repay his debt. For Gorgath to be able to do this, Gorak awoke some of his ancestral memories.

The Gor seemed like a very straight cut and traditional people, so I got the feeling that Gorgath only received the ancestral memories that directly applied to what he needed to do. We were on the fifteenth floor of the abyss, so that was likely a lot more information than he would receive having to do this anywhere else. The kid might not know any spells yet, but he knew how to manipulate mana as easily as any adult. It would give him as massive advantage as he descended through the floors. And it would build a lot of good will with his family.

When that was done, Gorgath sat down and held his head, clearly in pain.

Gorak went back to preparing his condensing circle. A few minutes into fiddling with it, he paused. “Demon, are you certain you require no special conditions beyond a mana rich environment?”

To make my mana network all I needed to do was flood my nervous, circulatory, and digestive systems with enough raw mana to refine my body’s natural ability to circulate mana. I could do this over time, or all at once. Neither offered any benefits or drawbacks, because a mana network just allowed large amounts of mana to move freely through your body without causing harm.

“As far as I’m aware, my requirements for forming my core are identical to a normal humans.”

Gorak nodded and finished what he was doing. He beckoned me over to the condensing circle and I sat cross legged in the middle.

Without any warning, he empowered it.

The moment it began to rain mana, I learned something important. Vampiric flesh could not withstand liquid mana. The rain drops tore through any exposed skin, cutting through my flesh like bullets, coming out the other side without ever slowing down.

The hundreds of thousands minuscule runes etched along the Day Walker set and Slaughter began to glow as the first drop hit them. They drank in the liquified mana rain, filling the runic patterns reinforcing them in a way I’d never felt before. I could sense them growing stronger. And I immediately noticed that Day Walker set wasn’t taking any damage from the liquid mana the way my flesh was, so lifted my hood and buttoned my coat.

I had absolutely no idea what was happening, so I turned to Gorak. “Do you know what is happening to my equipment?”

He peered down at me and then picked up what looked like a massive magnifying glass to see me properly. “It’s called mana tempering. Liquid mana is the true state of mana. Your equipment has never been exposed to it, so the enchantments have never reached their full potential.” He put the magnifying glass down. “Nephew, you are needed.”

Gorgath was still holding his head, but he lifted his hand, and a stream of mana flowed into the condensing circle. The rain fell faster and faster becoming a deluge, like a tropical rainstorm.

Not wanting to miss the opportunity, I drew Slaughter from its sheath and placed it on the ground in front of me. The blade began to glow as it sucked in the liquid mana.

Gorak continued to feed mana into his condensing circle, increasing the density of the rain. “You may begin building your mana network.”

I nodded.

Mana wasn’t a hard thing to sense if you had a magical aptitude and understood what you were looking for. I’d been able to sense it ever since I put my first points into mana regeneration. At the time, I’d been far too busy and exhausted to explore what it could do, so I’d done nothing with it, not even bonding with my equipment.

That was about to change.

Passive mana regeneration was only useful for powering magical equipment, because storing mana in your core wasn’t a natural biological process. So magical practitioners mediated to both guide mana into their core and drastically speed up the process.

Stilling my mind to a meditative state came naturally to me and my predatory senses allowed me to focus on the mana around me the way I would prey. I guided my hunter instincts capturing the mana around me with my will, and slowly inhaled, tilting my head back to the storm above me.

A whirlpool appeared above my mouth as the liquid mana was pulled off course. It streamed down my throat, like I was funnelling a beer at a frat party. The liquid mana entered my lungs and stomach, before burning a path through my circulatory system, digestive tract, and nervous system.

Did this hurt?

Yes.

Did I scream?

Also, yes.

Did it work?

Yes, because I eventually vomited the rest of it back up, instead of experiencing it burning a hole straight through me.

When I finished vomiting, I inhaled a small amount of mana, small being relative, and cycled it through my body, testing the full extent of my transformation. This was a simple exercise to work out if you had fully built your mana network.

I hadn’t.

So, I repeated the process.

Eleven attempts later, I was successful. I did it again to see if it made a difference to how easy it was to move my mana around. Sadly, it did make it easier. A hundred and eighty-three repetitions, later and I stopped seeing improvements. A hundred after that and I was sure I wasn’t going to see any more benefits.

For the final test, I filled my lungs and stomach with liquid mana, holding as much as I physically could. With another effort of will, I instantly expelled it through my mana network and out hand, in a long jet of liquid mana.

A satisfied smile sat on my face when I was done.

The mana I could channel through my mana network was now limitless. There wasn’t even a twinge of discomfort. I was one step closer to keeping Kathrine safe.

“I need to take a break,” I said.

Gorak didn’t ask why, he simple stopped powering the circle. The mana storm immediately vanished, spreading out to take on the consistency of the mana around us.

Light spilled from the edge of my cuff as the liquid mana disappeared. I pulled it back to see my veins and capillaries glowing blue under my skin. This was not the way this usually happened. But since, there seemed to be no adverse effects, I ignored the change.

I held out my hand and willed the ambient mana around me into a small ball. Manipulating mana was the first step in learning how to cast a spell. As a vampire, I could learn extremely fast, but I still needed practice.

Gorak went back to etching the dagger, while Gorgath stood and watched what I was doing.

Eventually Gorgath’s curiosity got the better of him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m learning how to cast spells. Manipulating mana outside your body is harder than manipulating it inside. Begin able to condense mana into a ball like this and passing it from hand to hand is the amount of control your need to cast the most basic spell. Making two of them and swapping them is the amount of control you need to cast any basic spell. Once you get to three, you need to juggle.”

Gorgath summoned two balls of mana, one in each hand, and swapped them over. Then he looked at me. “What is juggle?”

I’d only just managed to summon and swap two mana balls, so I wasn’t ready to do three. I glanced over at the knife Gorak was working on and saw bone chips lying on the table.

I blurred to his hand and pointed to the chips. They were the size of baseballs, but when you were three hundred feet tall, they were chips. “Can I borrow these to teach your nephew?”

“Yes, but you must return them.”

Any other time, I would have protested, trying to claim his unused loot. These were bone chips from the fifteen floor of the Abyss after all. But Gorak was a nice guy, and more importantly he could crush me like a bug and possibly kill me. “No problem. I’ll bring them back in a moment.”

I picked up an armful and blurred back to the other side of the table where Gorgath was.

I picked up three and started juggling in a circle. “This is juggling.”

Gorgath frowned and them summoned three balls of mana and copied.

I started juggling in a crisscross pattern. “This is a crisscross pattern that is slightly more difficult.”

Gorgath copied.

I added another ball.

Gorgath added another ball.

I added a fifth ball.

So did he.

I changed the pattern. “This is called a crisscross circle. Two balls are moving in a circle and two and moving in a crisscross pattern. The fifth ball swaps between each pattern each time you finish it.”

Gorgath frowned but copied. “This is more difficult. What level of spell does this represent?”

“Intermediate spells.”

“So, I will find advanced spells challenging.”

“The high end of intermediate requires nine balls. Advanced spells require eleven.”

“Show me the advanced pattern.”

I picked up six more bone chips and added them to the five I was juggling. The pattern was extremely complex, but it was a simple thing to manage when I was moving so slowly. “If you can manage this pattern with each ball being a different density of mana then you can cast advanced spells.”

Davina would have been able to do this with her eyes closed.

Gorgath let his mana balls fade and picked up his uncle’s magnifying glass to see what I was doing clearer. “I would struggle to make such a pattern. My arms do not move so easily as yours.”

That was true.

My student had special needs and as his teacher it was my responsibility to assist him. The prince had said he had a bright future ahead of him. I needed to make sure that happened.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I tossed aside all the bone chips and summoned six mana rings, one around each wrist, ankle, waist, and head. They moved like hula hoops as I summoned another five mana balls.

“Make six rings like I have while you juggle five balls and give them all different mana densities. If you want to make it more difficult and push to the upper edges of advanced magic, then you can vary the timing and rotation of the hoops and oscillate the density of the balls.”

Showing my student how to do this simple exercise with such an unorthodox method took all of my considerable magical skill. But I wasn’t an archsorcerer because I had a pretty face.

My student tried to copy, but the pattern was too complex for him. I let my demonstration fade and reached out with the ambient mana to reinforce his patterns for him, to help him understand what he was trying to achieve. It took a staggeringly massive amount of mana, but that was why we were working in this training facility.

Fifteen minutes passed as I continued to instruct my student. Then it all seemed to finally click for him. I stopped guiding his magic and watched he took over the pattern all on his own.

A twinge of envy ran through me at how quickly he picked it up. He was good. Too good. He needed to go, or I might lose the prince’s favour.

A nasty smile tugged at my lips. “You have done a brilliant job. You have progressed to the point where you can learn your first advanced spell.” The backlash from this spell would kill him instantly and leave no body to resurrect. The prince was mine.

I reached for the mana in my core and froze.

Where was my core?

Panic set in as I searched through my body, everything I saw was wrong. It was all wrong. It was like it wasn’t even my body.

A cascade of memories from several different lives hit me all at once and I snapped back to reality. Magical knowledge from the elder vampires I’d eaten ran through my head as the world spun.

It had happened again, just like the first time I trained with Sir Brandon. I let the memories washed through me the way they had in the past as I flopped to ground.

“Gorgath is ready to learn.”

The giant gorilla child was looking at me with expectant eyes, but I needed a break. Also, giving him an advanced spell might not be the best idea since his was about to return to the surface and that much power so close to civilisation might constitute a threat to my family. Gorgath had done everything I had but a thousand times bigger. An advanced spell would be like setting off a nuke.

I turned to Gorak, easily noticing the way he wove magic, because of my new memories. It was at an intermediate level of spell casting. His control was advanced, but the magic he wove was only mid intermediate.

He noticed me staring at him. “You have unlocked ancestral knowledge.”

“Of a sort. Is that the most advanced spell work you can do?”

“Yes.”

“Are you one of the better enchanters of your people?”

“I stand among the best.”

I turned back to Gorgath. “Your people do not practice advanced magic. You would owe me a debt if I taught it to you.”

Gorgath turned to his uncle and opened his mouth.

Gorak leapt from his chair and loomed over his nephew. He didn’t say anything or raise his fists, but the message was clear from his body language, ‘boy if you open your fool mouth, you are going to be in for a butt whooping’.

Gorgath maintained his posture, proving his statement that he would never back down again. Then he turned his head to me. “Gorgath does not wish another debt. Not one so great that it would upset his family.”

Gorak flared his nostril, about to lay a beat down.

I came to the kids rescue. “This is the way.”

Gorak tilted his head to the side and reconsidered his nephew’s words. The offer of advanced magic would help their people. His nephew was willing to take on such a debt to help them, but not at the cost of upsetting his family. He was essentially saying he was willing to sacrifice himself for his people, but not in a way that would upset his family. It was a very brave and selfless thing to do.

Gorak finally nodded. “This is the way.” He leaned down and bumped his nephew’s forehead with his own. Then he went back to his work.

Gorgath continued to look at me. “Gorgath is ready to learn an intermediate spell.”

***

In the end, I taught the kid three basic spells, because Gorgath didn’t have access to death magic. The barrier and bolt spells were standard spells every sorcerer learned and would keep him safe when he lost his spikes. He immediately grasped how to perform the spells just by sensing how I channelled the mana. He promised to practice them when he gained the time.

Because it amused me, the third spell I taught him involved his acid spit ability. It allowed his to hock acid loogie as far as he could see, and he and I found it incredibly amusing to be able to spit across the entire camp. So did his uncle Gorak, who stopped working long enough to learn the spell.

Spells like cores were broken into the tiers: basic, intermediate, advanced, expert, master, and divine. Each tier had three ranks, making a total of eighteen ranks. Very few people knew that the last tier and three ranks existed. I only knew because of Contessa’s library and the secret vault in Arcadia’s Royal Northern Library.

A 1st rank core had enough mana capacity to store exactly one 1st rank spells worth of mana if the spell were cast by an unskilled sorcerer. This was ten times the mana you needed if you had mastered casting the spell without wasting mana, but it was normally what a sorcerer needed in order to practice casting a new spell, so it wasn’t an arbitrary measurement.

Strengthening a core beyond the basic tier required materials, special potions and pills that held magical properties that joined with your core’s enchanted structure to make it stronger. If you weren’t one of the wealthy, with access to potions and pills designed specifically for your mana types, then you used monster cores, which was what the core spell was originally designed to mimic.

Gorgath had already said he had me covered in that department. So, when I was finished teaching, I sat back and waited for memory cascade to settle down.

It took several hours and then I was back in the concentration circle to make my core.

Mana rain poured over my coat as I sat cross legged. This time the rune covering Slaughter and the Day Walker set failed to glow. Gorak’s statement that my equipment was going through mana tempering because of the liquid mana, suggested that several theories I’d read about higher states of mana were true. One theory postulated that the spells sorcerers cast were not true spells, but something akin to a reflection.

This theory was used to explain why only advanced spells worked against demons, yet even the most basic demon spells could cut through anything but an advanced barrier. If that were true, then liquid mana was the true state of mana and any spell cast with it became a true spell not a reflection.

I slowly began to inhale as I tilted me head back. Liquid mana poured down my throat and through my mana network until I reached capacity. I tilted my head forward and then closed my mouth, feeling the liquid mana surged through my mana network.

I began to cast the core spell.

With my new knowledge, the spell came together easily forming a perfect peak 3rd ranked core. The core didn’t feel like any 3rd ranked core any of my memories had ever felt.

Usually, a core was just a ball of mana that resided within your body. It was denser at the centre and grew less dense the further out you went. The spell was like a lodestone holding mana in place, so it didn’t cause any issues or escape your body. Mana would still constantly trickle out, so you had to replace it to keep your core full. But this trickle was very slow, taking over a week for most people.

My core still felt like a ball, but instead of one dense point at the centre it had three layers. Each layer housed a different density of mana. It was like I had three cores inside each other, each one capable of casting a spell of each rank. Actually, it wasn’t capable of casting a spell for each rank. The first layer held enough mana to cast three 1st rank spells and the second layer held enough to cast two 2nd rank spells.

A prompt appeared as I finished the spell.

You have mastered the Magic skill.

The prompt definitely pointed the theory of magic on the surface world being just a reflection. No one had ever mastered magic by casting a core spell.

Out of curiosity, I flooded all three layers with liquid mana. The mana flowed into the outer layer without any trouble but began to concentrate as it reached the second layer and concentrate further as it reached the third. It worked similar to a regular core, except with liquid mana.

I put my curiosity aside. “I’ve formed my core. We can begin the next step.”

The mana rain vanished and the density in my core immediately dropped to match the mana saturation of the floor we were on. With the drop in density, went my hopes that I had discovered a way to keep my family safe. Moving between the surface and Abyss to refill my core would have been a pain, but the results would have allowed me to create unbreakable barriers.

Gorgath reached into his sack and pulled out a sharn beast core. It was the size of a minivan. He casually placed it on the circle beside me, like he hadn’t just offered me a core the size of a freaking minivan.

“Gorgath gave the smallest one to start in case you make a mistake and waste it.”

I stared at the absolutely massive thing. There was more core to work with than most sorcerers saw in their lifetime. I turned to Gorgath because the kid was looking at me expectantly. “This is a small one?”

Gorgath nodded and lifted his sack. “I have more.”

I mean it made sense that something his size would consider this small, but it was still absurd enough to upset a vampire’s sensibilities. I could fund my academy for a decade with one of these.

I climbed to my feet and leapt onto the black crystal surface. Usually, sorcerers held their monster cores in their mouth while the tried to strengthen their core. That wasn’t an option, so I sat on top. “Ready when you are.”

The mana rain started up again.

Monster cores were mostly crystalized mana. Inside the crystalised mana were particles that helped stabilize a core and make it stronger. You had to break down the crystalised mana to free these particles and then ingest the mana and circulate it through your core while it was at capacity.

In this state, you had to recast the core spell and force the particles to bind with your core. The particles the monster core gave off also had to match your own magical affinity, because you couldn’t build a core beyond the 3rd rank with just raw mana, not unless you were willing to forgo internal magic or having internal magic performed on you. Sorcerers who were willing to forgo this, still occasionally exploded when hit by spells.

It was not an experience that interested me.

The core I was sitting on was mix of death, necrotic and raw mana, so it contained the perfect materials for me to strengthen my core.

I got to work and before I was even halfway through the monster core more prompts appeared.

You have mastered the Death Magic skill.

You have mastered the Necrotic Magic skill.

***

My new core was a hungry mistress. She liked expensive monster cores and lots of them. By the end of the sack Gorgath had brought, I’d reached the thirteenth layer. After I used Gorak’s core which was the size of a warehouse, I reached the eighteen.

Gorak picked up his magnifying glass as he ended the mana rain and peered at me, muttering an incantation. “Eighteen layers. Good. Gorgath and I have done all that we can. Do you accept the material part of your debt has been paid, demon?”

I stopped examining my core and looked up. “Yes, Gorgath has repaid the material part of the debt to me. When he returns me to the first floor of the abyss, I will consider his shelter part of his debt paid in full.” I turned to Gorgath. “Thank you for protecting me from your elder and sparing my life.” Core or no core they could crush me like a bug.

Gorgath nodded. “This is the way.”

“This is the way,” Gorak repeated.

***

We stopped by Gorgath’s home and the kid informed his parents that he had repaid the material part of his debt and that he was taking me to the first floor where he intended to remain until he was strong enough to return to their society. He was still a kid, so he couldn’t help showing off his magic skills before he left, which caused his parents to puff up their cheeks and beat their chests. Gorgath then collected the non-sapient members for his troop, and we continued our ascent.

The higher we travelled the lower the saturation of mana in the air and the more my core leaked mana. By the time we reached the first floor, the mana density had become just a fraction of what it had been, less than a thousandth of the mana remained.

Gorgath carried me into the chamber where I met Gorbaron. My original guide was sitting on his stool surrounded by his sleeping troop.

He roused them with a small hoot and then rose to his feet as we approached, staring at Gorgath. “You have entered my territory. Do you come seeking shelter?”

Gorgath raised his chin. “I seek no shelter. Only to return the demon so I may finish repaying my debt.”

“By the ways of our people, to enter an equal’s territory in the wild and not seek shelter is a challenge for their territory. You must best me and claim my territory as your own or return the way you came.”

I understood what was happening. Gorbaron knew his territory sucked and was looking for an excuse to leave and find a better territory. He knew he had Gorgath trapped, because Gorgath had to deliver me to the other side of the cavern. If he wanted to clear his debt, he would have to claim this terrible territory.

I turned to Gorgath’s massive ear. “A nice quiet place is the best sort of place to practice magic.”

Gorgath continued to look at the floor boss as he reached up to his shoulder and placed me on the ground. “This is the way.”

He exploded towards his opponent, looking like he was going to tackle him, but pulled up right before he reached him, and spat a glob of acid on Gorbaron’s forehead.

Gorbaron hissed in pain as he wiped away the acid and lowered his head. “You could have blinded me but chose not to. I have been spared great injury.”

“This is the way,” Gorgath replied.

“My territory is yours. Take it with my respect.”

Gorgath did not gloat. He was strictly business. “I am in search of mana crabs.”

Gorbaron raised his hand and pointed down a side tunnel. “That way. They’re small and weak, but they are what you seek.”

“Gorgath will raise them to be strong and then he will eat them and grow mighty.”

“This is the way.” The other youth hooted and began heading for the exit. His troop followed.

Gorgath came back and picked me up, placing me on his shoulder. Then with great ceremony, he carried me across the cavern to the exit on the other side and place me on my feet.

I looked up at him. “You have repaid your debt in its entirety, like for like.”

He smiled at me. “This is the way.”

I smiled back. “This is the way.” I turned to leave.

“Gorgath will be here for many generations. Will the demon Vincent be nearby?”

I could hear the loneliness in his voice, and I had a soft spot for children. Even sixty-foot giant gorilla children. “Would you like me to show you were I’m going to be living, so you can come and visit?”

“Gorgath would.”