I smiled at the stars above me. There were no clouds in the sky, just stars and a crescent moon looking down at me as I sat by the fire pit in my grandparents back yard. The heat radiating from the flames was making me sweat in the already warm Texas heat. But, tonight was symbolic.

After the car crash I sat around in a daze at my grandparent’s house. First came the funerals. I was technically there. I let my grandparents handle the funerals and they set up a trust with the left-over life insurance money and the money from selling my old house. I went through the rest of high school like a robot. But there was a reason for this. I was busy studying.

I kicked the pile of books next to me into the fire out of spite. Stupid school requiring me to buy text books I didn’t even use. Graduating high school is a joke when you can just feed all the knowledge you could want into a codex just by glancing at each page. A codex is an ever-expanding book of knowledge, and for some reason I was gifted with my very own to teach me about magic. I could interact with my codex just by thinking about it. It was like a mental computer. It learned how to interpret my thoughts and put the information I wanted up in front of me. The codex was originally limited to magical knowledge, but I eventually (accidently) learned it could recall any page that I saw and help me understand it at an incredible speed. I spent about a week after school my junior year just looking at every page in the local public library to fill the codex with human knowledge.

Because of this gift, I never paid attention to my classes and instead started reading up on the magic world around me. Whenever asked a question in class, I would just pull up the answer on my codex and keep studying the magic world. While I acknowledge that it was technically cheating, I really needed to study magic. The codex knew most everything about the nature of magic and the magic history of the world… It was scary.

After months of preparation (and finally graduating high school) I was 18 and finally going to attempt to raise my first minion. Why? Simply because I was scared and really needed a bodyguard. According to my codex, as a Necromancer I could raise a ton of undead. So much so that the old world hunted those like me to extinction.

Before the Europeans found the new world, they thought the ‘threat’ of necromancy had been extinguished. But in the Americas the necromancers were the rulers of the various native tribes and were protected by shaman and druids. The magic races of the old world quickly went to work executing the magic races of the new world. Because genocide is apparently on everyone’s to-do list, the non-magical humans did the same to the animals and non-magical peoples who lived here. Essentially, the Americas are the wild west of the magical community because nearly all its occupants were killed and there was plenty of new land to conquer. Considering most magical creatures and races lived for over 500 years, it hasn’t even been a single generation for most, since the new world was invaded… I mean discovered.

The most critical point from all of this, the most important thing, is that necromancers were/are hunted. To (supposed) extinction. I am a necromancer. This was some shit luck.

I spent most of my study time figuring out a way to not die because, you know, death isn’t on my to do list. As an aggressively average person, I had no clue who could be a mage in my school and who was just a normal person. I stayed away from everyone out of fear. After two years of studying and practicing various spells I was going to take my big first step into the magic world. I was making a Flesh Golem. How? Well with human corpses. Ten of them to be exact. Not something I am looking forward to.

The reason I chose to make a flesh golem?

1. I am currently rank 24 out of 25. I am weak and tiny compared to all other magic creatures I have learned about. (I spent two years learning this over and over as I was finishing high school)

2. Flesh golems are strong, and this spell is the strongest creature that can be made by a non-specialized necromance.

3. I can hide one flesh golem creation much easier than I can hide an army of undead.

That’s about it. The thing is, Necromancers can either focus on a few extremely strong minions or create an army of mediocre minions. Most Necromancers chose the army either because they didn’t understand there was another way (thank you codex!) or because an army of undead is nearly unstoppable. But because an army of undead is nearly unstoppable, it creates a lot of enemies. I am trying to not get killed, so the option that creates even more enemies is definitely out.

Before putting out the fire and beginning the… unpleasant task ahead of me, I go over everything one more time. I thought to my codex, ‘show me my class information one more time’.

Class – Necromancer: a master of death. A magic user that uses soul energy combined with mana to master all things to do with death and undeath. There are 6 paths possible for necromancers to follow (though only five have been seen on this world). These paths are: Mass Summoner, Strong Summoner, The Path of Blood, Path of Blackness, The Path of The Soul, and Gatekeeper of Death.

The catch is that mages can only choose half of their available paths. They choose these paths by simply casting a spell of those paths, but the path(s) they don’t choose will be forever locked to them. For example, an elemental mage can only choose two of the four elements (Earth, Water, Fire, or Air). A holy mage can either choose the path of the priest or the path of the paladin. And so on.

I chose my paths about a year ago, and I chose the ones I believe to be most useful in my goal of not being killed. Mass summoner was out. I in no way wanted a horde of undead around me, it would be like holding up a sign saying ‘Necromancer here, please come kill me’. Strong summoner was also out. It would allow me to summon non-humanoid creatures back from death to do my bidding. I could potentially call a dragon or a dinosaur to smite my enemies. But that shit was the complete opposite of keeping a low profile. Path of Blackness has to do with creating diseases and plagues and curses to slowly consume your enemies. I found it gross. According to the codex, this path was smelly and you had to have a tough stomach for it. That is saying a lot because all necromancers used dead bodies.

The first of the three paths I chose was The Path of Blood to make my blood magical and enhance my physical abilities. With this I could absorb my enemies blood to heal myself and use my magical blood to enchant things better than a regular enchanter. I came up with a wonderful way to use this to help make my flesh golem stronger. I had a way to connect myself to my minion that would let my already tough minion get these bonuses as well. The codex even confirmed it would work. The only downside of The Path of Blood is that all its spells NEED blood.

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The Path of The Soul was my next choice because it gives me increased soul strength and the ability to talk/bargain with souls yet to pass on. It was even possible to try and dominate souls to my will, but that was something I wanted to avoid as it seems like a good way to make enemies. Mainly I chose this path because it let me do something special with my flesh golem. It let me manipulate my soul and put a small piece of said soul into the first minion I summon. The codex was VERY adamant that it had to be my first summoned creature. (Side note, a raised creature is different from a summoned creature. You can raise multiple creatures from one dead corpse, but these undead are normally mindless husks except under special circumstances.)

Lastly, I chose Gatekeeper of death. It was the one undiscovered (on this world) path available to necromancers. It was regeneration. Extreme regeneration. When one uses magic to command death, they can use that magic to STOP death. I could use mana to cast it on others, but it is automatically powered with my soul power to heal myself. The ultimate healer, one who could turn dead skin alive again and regenerate almost anything. Druids could heal by using nature influence to increase the natural rate of healing. As a Gatekeeper of Death, I could force bodies to regenerate or degenerate however I wanted simply by touch.

These three things together gave me what I wanted. I could enter the magic community disguised as a self-taught healer and enchanter. I could bargain with souls to help give me power and soul magic was incredibly potent for self-defense and attack. I have gotten very good at my soul shield and soul fire spells. I could (hopefully) not get killed in my first confrontation because of insane regeneration. Lastly, all these special paths would work together to give me a one of a kind flesh golem. A single minion made from human bodies (yuck) that was incredibly strong and I could link my soul to. As a summoned (not raised) creature it would be an intelligent life form. With a linked soul, it would be able to use my abilities like regeneration and the path of blood’s melee combat bonuses. Best of all, with my regeneration I could sculpt it to look like a normal person.

The biggest problem? Finding dead bodies laying around in 21st century Texas. I spent a year gathering the required ten dead bodies to create this golem. I robbed graves and walked the inner city at night to find people who had OD’d on drugs. Using my Dimensional Storage Space spell (I call it DSS) that I got from the overachiever title (that I still have no idea how I got in the first place), I would shove dead bodies into the space. The spell wouldn’t let me store anything living so I wouldn’t accidently take someone living. I felt a little bad for doing this, but I was more scared of the people that wanted me dead (See: The entire world) than I was worried about my slipping morals.

Because this is Texas, and everyone has a gun… I learned and used my soul shield all the time while gathering bod- …er materials. My soul shield used my soul power and my mana to surround me in a sphere. After almost passing out inside of it I eventually learned to manipulate it to add air holes. I also had to learn to make it follow along my body so that it would let me sit down and interact with the world without it looking like I was floating. It was slow going but I got it eventually.

With the fire finished devouring what was left of my school books and the coals glowing in the darkness, I began the unpleasant process of magically cutting and sewing the bodies together. Taking the bodies out one at a time I started using my mana and a small amount of soul power to compress them together into a single form. It was disgusting. The goal was to make all the tissue and bone denser and stronger. The original bodies were not in excellent condition due to most of them being addicts. (getting caught grave robbing and learning that my soul shield can stop buckshot is not an experience I wanted to repeat). I did use my regeneration fix them even though my codex said it didn’t matter what condition the bodies were in. Hour after hour passed as I droned on.

‘The left leg connects to the… other nine left legs… and compresses into one leg… eww’. After an extremely long night of dry heaving while ‘putting it together’, I was done with the construction. Thanks to whatever god gave me this codex I had surrounded the area in a large soul shield while I worked. It hid the smell so it didn’t wake up my grandparents. And everything with a nose within TEN MILES.

As dawn came, I stared at the mass of flesh before me and wondered where I went wrong. It was hideous and unnatural looking. Obviously so. It was vaguely humanoid shaped but looked like something out of a nightmare. Trusting in my codex, it hadn’t told me incorrect information before, I sat in mediation in front of my creation and began the last step. Moving a small part of my soul into my new… friend?

It hurt. It hurt a lot. Using all my mana and all my soul’s strength, I slowly pushed a part of me into the monst- err the flesh golem in front of me. Whimpering from mana exhaustion and pain I fell asleep sitting in my meditative pose. I had no idea if my first summoning could be considered a success or not.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

“John Smith! What in the FUCKING HELL do you think you are doing!?!” I woke to my grandmother screaming at me and a chill running down my spine. My grandmother never used curse words because they are sins. Last night came back to me and I realized I never gave any commands to my newly created flesh golem. Where was it?

It was in that moment I felt a telepathic reply to the question in my mind. ‘Master, I am behind you keeping you warm. I have taken the form of a potential mate to better blend in with human society.’ Gulping, I got up and turned around. Behind me was a naked woman. My flesh golem had used my regeneration on itself to make its skin normal looking and took the form of what could only be described as a super model. Naked. In the back yard of my grandparent’s house. Fuck.

“You are going straight to hell for breaking your vow of chastity young man! Jesus wants you to wait until marriage to lay with a woman! How could you do this to yourself! How could you do this to me! How c….” She continued yelling at me as I thought to my minion, ‘Why on earth did you end up looking like that?’

The golem replied simply, ‘I asked the codex what your preferred form was because you were asleep recovering from my creation. It showed me a series of images from something called the internet and…’

‘Alright I get it. Could you please put on some clothes, so my grandma will stop yelling so loud?’

‘I have none master.’

‘…’

While this mental conversation was going on and grandma was still screaming about the devil possessing a certain part of my anatomy that I wish she wouldn’t even think about, grandpa stuck his head out the door. He looked at my female (looking) companion. He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. Putting them back on, he blinked a few times. With a smile and without a sound he slid back inside. Seeing this I couldn’t help but let out a sigh. That sigh in turn made my grandma even angrier.

This was my first real step into a world of magic. Listening to the tirade from my grandmother, I realized one thing. This was going to be a long day.