Although the overall quantity of knowledge was lesser, each memory that forced itself into his mind had far more depth than the little techniques and procedures that he had absorbed before. These were not simple spells, there was no fireball or lightning bolt, rather they were far more sinister. There was a spell that could turn someone inside out while preserving the parts of them that let them experience the process, there was one that could just delete the flesh, leaving perfectly clean bones behind.

As more and more horrifying visions forced themselves into his head, Bobby ran for the toilet clutching his stomach, leaving a slightly confused group behind. Bile clawed its way out of his throat as he desperately tried to push away the source of his disgust and failed as it was literally being force fed to him. Even pulling on his magic didn’t help as it couldn’t properly shield him from the very system that had been embedded in his soul.

After retching a while, Bobby steadily climbed to his feet. This visceral disgust he felt was not something he had experienced yet, it in no way compared to any of his experiences before besides reassembly via god. Even digging up corpses and touching a hundred year old pickled rat seemed like a walk in the park in comparison.

There was a mirror above the sink, so he looked at his reflection and for a moment got the horrible sensation of feeling unfamiliar in his own skin. A pale gaunt face topped with a mess of brown hair and the stubble of a nascent beard stared back at him. He slammed his eyes shut, trying not to picture the countless ways it was possible to magically flay a being while they were still alive.

Then he opened his eyes. Something in them had changed, a little shadow had been born where there had previously been a spark. Steeling himself he delved into the new knowledge. He needed to know how to defend himself and it wasn’t like everything he had absorbed would be equally vile, perhaps there were some spells he could use differently than intended?

Bobby used his magic to protect his mind from being overwhelmed by unconnected memories, and steadily began sorting through all the fragments. This was going to be an annoyingly long process as the spells had mixed in with all the knowledge he hadn’t properly assimilated from the previous knowledge download.

But he was limited by the speed of his thought, which was incomparably faster to how it had been due to the improvements in his stats related to perception and manipulation. In his status his soul had grown an extra five percent larger than it had been, and some part of his mind realised it was probably a result of his stats increasing, after all his power seemed related to his soul heavily, and if he got stronger, then it was probably reflected in the thing that contained them.

Perhaps it was similar to the exercise he had figured out to expand his magic core, maybe the stats getting bigger inside him forced his magically malleable soul to stretch and accommodate them?

Bobby realised he was getting distracted and refocused on the task at hand. He had begun sorting the knowledge, having created a sort of partition in his mind from magic, and moving all the knowledge he wasn’t interested in currently to one side, while he kept anything useful seeming nearby him.

Eventually he did come across a few spells that didn’t seem to adhere to the vile nature of their cousins. There was a spell that would let him create a kind of magical filament with properties that could be altered at will, he could use it like a rope or whip, but he could also make it impossibly sharp and stretch it between his hands or fingers like a cheese wire.

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Another spell could allow him to create a sort of targeted artificial gravity surrounding him, and another summoned a ball of searing light that as far as he could tell would summon energies from some space where the rules of physics were wrong, and would disintegrate any matter it came into contact with.

Bobby finished looking through the collection of loose fragments of knowledge, there were a few more that could be useful to him if they were modified, he wouldn’t do that now, however it would be nice if he could keep them together until later. He looked at the partition he had created from magic and had an idea.

Taking threads of magic he shaped them into a tree, twisting them together and letting them branch up and flop down like a willow, then he bound the knowledge fragments to branches and rooted the construct in the base of his mind so they would stay put. He looked at his little tree of knowledge, it seemed quite solid, the magic wouldn’t fade while it was in his mind as there was nowhere for it to leak to unless he allowed it to.

Then he left his mind and went back to the group he had left. It was time to explain his odd behaviour.

“Are you okay?” asked Gary as he walked in, concern visible.

“Yes, Sorry about that, some horrible knowledge forced its way into my head.”

Wat-haf Wedon did the rat equivalent of raising an eyebrow, which actually involved twisting his whole face away from his eye, because rats couldn’t actually move their eyebrows. “Did the future concern you that much?”

“No, I just sometimes have this.”

The rat narrowed its eyes and hummed, “I diagnose you with irritable bowel syndrome, I prescribe herbal teas and more sleep and exercise.”

Gary began laughing.

“Wha-...” Bobby’s mouth opened and closed at the audacity of this rat before him. It truly was an enigma. He’s just returned from death and refuses to believe in magic, then he also has the audacity to try and diagnose me with things. “I do not!”

“Do so, I am your elder and I was raised by scientists far wiser than you.” Wat-haf Wedon stared him down, “You don’t look very wise.”

Before Bobby could get defensive, Rho Dent stepped forward to address her primogenitor with the nervousness that accompanies meeting someone you’ve revered your whole life. “Excuse me, please don’t be rude to the saviour, he just brought you back to us.”

“Yes, and he won’t even tell me how. Perpetual motion doesn’t exist human, do I have some kind of battery that will run out? Are you using me to trick my descendents and take advantage of them?”

“No, of course not, they asked for me to resurrect you as their reward for saving me.”

“They did?” The old rat suddenly looked very pleased and turned to look at his descendents gratefully.

“Ugh, what happened to me?” Asked a voice from the sofa, making everyone jump. Lucinda sat up slowly and looked down at the weird greenish rat on the floor, her brain seemed to have given up trying to process what was happening today.

“Oh good you’re awake.” Bobby said, striding over and sitting next to her.

“Yes, I remember something about bones and then I fainted, it could have been a dream though, did you knock me out?”

“No, you fainted.”

“I fainted?”

“Yes, you couldn’t withstand the ugliness of Michaela.” said Gary, cackling madly.

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