Chapter 8 - Fleshmancer

Fleshmancer demon

It is reported that there was a sighting of an abomination. It stands on two legs but has multiple pairs of arms and many more fleshy appendages. It does not seem to have skin as its flesh and muscle are exposed. Its whole body is swollen with grotesque and imbalanced muscular growth. Another sighting also reported that this mysterious entity also has a scale-less scorpion tail or fleshy wings. It seems that this mysterious being is shaped like a human at the base but it could grow any kind of extra limbs as it wishes.

In a fight, they have a nigh immortal regeneration ability. It could fight an attrition battle with a regiment of 1000 tier 1 knights and it could consume any corpses around it to increase its regenerative prowess.

They mainly fight with their strong body filled with unmatched power but they could also cast magic from their various limbs. There are also reports where they summon another combatant made of flesh like them that is obviously weaker than them but are still formidable nevertheless. It is suspected to be a variant of summoning magic.

It is advised to let tier 4 or higher combatants face it in a one-on-one match rather than taking weaker soldiers to the fight as the weaker soldier would only become unnecessary sacrifices that can strengthen it. Facing it together with other tier 4 or higher combatants is the best course of action.

From its obvious dark element wave it released and the calamitous effect it brings, this being is categorized as a demon. And from its obvious main characteristic of manipulating flesh as its main spell, and thus, they are named as fleshmancer demon.

“Oh wow”

Yeah, oh wow. There’s not much I can comment about it. This abomination has a strong feeling of a ‘government secret lab test gone wrong’ with it.

Yet I can find 1 similarity with the magic that I accidentally ‘learned’, the summon tentacle spell. It’s just that, from the report, this fleshmancer demon could permanently summon it out on his body it seems.

I could infer that a fleshmancer demon could summon extra body parts, cast regeneration or healing magic, summon a companion, devour flesh probably to fill their energy tank, and perhaps a physical buff type magic.

So if I turn it into flesh-themed magic, those abilities could be translated into summon tentacles, summon extra limbs, mend-flesh, summon flesh-golem, devour, and flesh-enhancement. That would sound appropriate.

This… doesn’t it sound like a set of spells that is perfect for a tank? I mean the fleshmancer demon is already a fleshy juggernaut and with this set of spells, it can actually face off against an army and sustain for a long time in battle.

In my previous life, I used to look down on the role of tanks as they are just punching bags. Their playstyle is not at all cool. But as I read more and more web novels, I find myself converting to the tank-ism religion.

Sure they are not as flashy as mages or melee dps but in a real-life situation like me now, being a tank means that you can live longer. And in real life where you only live once, living longer is obviously important.

That’s why I don’t walk the path of pure mage and still put effort into working out my body. It is because I still want to increase my resilience a bit so I don’t become a weak and skinny glass cannon. Well, aside from the fact that I am also trying to fight the curse with my physical strength which is not really doing much currently.

But there is still one question left about fleshmancer. Where did the tentacle come from? Did I summon a new one every time I cast it or did I store my tentacle somewhere in my body and pull it out when I cast the spell? I think I still need to research some more about this.

And the answer to that comes to me soon after.

It is said that necromancers can turn their shadow into a storage space to store their undead. With that technique, necromancers can move around inconspicuously and wreak havoc when it is least expected.

It is a technique called shadow pocket and one needs to be able to control their own shadow to learn the technique.

I immediately check my shadow with mana sensing and eureka, there are indeed tentacles stored there. 8 of them in total actually. Checking those tentacles, I once again realize just how strong these 8 tentacles are. Its flesh is strong like steel while still maintaining its flexibility.

This… should be something from that black stone right? Jane said that the tentacle coming out of the black stone had all ‘absorbed’ into my body. So this might be a part of that wannabe god. Heh, I would also get mad if someone far weaker than me managed to steal something that I have no matter how trivial the thing is.

Just in case, I need to study these tentacles and shadow pockets more in the future. Who knows what method a wannabe god could have? It is better safe than sorry.

After I finished checking the tentacles, I turned my attention toward the shadow pocket. It's actually quite huge. It is cuboid in shape and it has maybe around 10 meters of edge length? That should be around 1000 cubic meters then. That is like a cuboid 3 story building in volume.

This… Did I get my dimensional storage spell at last? Feeling excited at the premise of dimensional storage, I tried to store my lunchbox inside the shadow pocket. I don’t actually know the exact spell for shadow pocket so I am just doing my usual thing of brute-forcing the magic with my mana control capability.

I struggled for quite some time but I finally managed to cast devour on the lunchbox. The devour is actually the method to put things inside my shadow pocket. The lunchbox is slowly covered by my shadow and after my shadow fully covers the lunchbox, it quickly returns back into normal shadow. But weirdly, the lunchbox is still there in its original position. Did the spell fail?

I immediately found the answer after I checked the lunchbox. The meat inside has gone missing. And when I checked inside my shadow pocket, I found my lunch steak inside close to where the tentacles are stored.

Did shadow pocket only work on… well, fleshy items? And how do I take items out of my shadow pocket again?

Or rather, the name shadow pocket does not match this pocket in my shadow’s ability. It is better to just call it flesh pocket to uniform the theme with other fleshmancer demons’ set of spells. That kinda sounds lewd to modern Earth people. Well, only I would understand the reference but it is better to call it something different. Don’t wanna be found laughing out loud when talking about this shadow pocket that can only be used to store flesh.

…… I’ll just call it flesh stock. I infer that the mend flesh magic might use the flesh from the stock I have. So yeah, that is a better name I think.

And I have a lot of things I need to test with the flesh stock and devour spell. Better not try taking out the steak inside. Who knows if it will shoot out from my shadow and make a whole lot of mess. Better take prudence when exploring new spells.

So I continue on gathering more information about darkness element-related monsters and demons just to make sure I don’t miss anything.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I also read some books about magic circuit casting in between. I can’t help but feel that I can gain a lot more from magic circuit casting methods but my main concern now is to explore deeper in my fleshmancer abilities so I just treat it like taking a break from my main research.

I return back to my mansion at noon that day as I feel hungry and I also need to do a lot of tests on my new abilities.

Tomorrow I will return to research more things in the library. Who knows what I might find while waiting for the academy to start?

Time quickly passes by until the day before the academy starts.

From all my testing and information gathered, I managed to learn more things about my flesh stock, devour skill, and those two spells related to the shadow-refuge spell.

I managed to cast the shadow-refuge spell and contrary to my hope, it is indeed a good stealth spell but the downside is too big. I am literally stuck inside my own shadow without any ability to sense what happened outside. I am blind and deaf to what happened outside which is fatal if I want to play stealthy. I might be able to sense what happened outside my shadow if I train more but for now, it will be only a flawed hiding technique.

Anyway, I am trying to see if my shadow refuge is also connected to my flesh stock area. The answer to that is unfortunately no. It seems that the flesh stock is in a different dimension from where I hide when I cast shadow refuge.

I also managed to find out a few things about my flesh stock and devour spell.

First of all, all things related to fleshy living beings can be devoured. That includes muscle, fat, bones, blood, skin, hair, feathers, and scales. What about the foreign things inside a living being’s digestive tract? Well, just like my lunchbox, my devour spell could not devour it if it isn’t in the flesh category. That was really a mess. I immediately bury it with my earth magic though so no problem.

I can interact with the things inside my flesh stock with my mana. I can use it to separate each body part to sort them into categories. Advanced inventory management baby! I can also take out the things inside. Most of the items, that is, I can’t take out the tentacles without the summon tentacle spell.

Then I also realized that I can ‘consume’ the things stored in my flesh stock. I tried ‘eating’ the meat in my flesh stock and I managed to do so with the cost of some mana. I can’t really taste anything with this method though so I don’t really fancy this skill but I imagine it is very important in combat and survival scenarios. This might be one of the reasons why fleshmancer demons are such an absolute unit when fighting with seemingly infinite health and stamina.

As for devour, I can devour any flesh-related objects as long as I surround them with either my own body, my conjured flesh, or my shadow. After a few days of training, I managed to shape a monstrous mouth filled with jaws with my shadow to make my devour form perfect. That will be my main devouring skill for now.

And then I also find out that I can devour living beings. I tried swallowing a horn rabbit whole with my devour and I succeeded in doing so but I can feel the horn rabbit struggle even after I devour it. It seems that I can’t use devour skill as a sure kill skill when facing a stronger opponent.

Those are all I managed to discover in my test. The ability to ‘butcher’ a whole corpse inside my flesh stock is the most useful for me at the moment because butchering a corpse in my flesh stock actually helps me train my mana control and other basics in magic. I didn’t mention this but while I’m reading, I am also simultaneously training my mana control. I have reached a level where doing one or two side things won’t interrupt my concentration in reading and I will keep on training it until I can do more.

It’s just that, as I don’t have a system, I don’t know whether this kind of training could help me become stronger. There are only a few novels that mention the greatness of doing this kind of basic training and there’s even one that makes training like a passive act. That will be my goal I guess.

At least those basic training help me in deciphering the devour spell and help me find out about the pocket in my shadow. So I guess basic training does help.

Anyway, with my other dimension butchering skill, I would be rolling in the money right now if I were just a commoner. Sadly, I am someone with high standing already so only the training side-effect is useful for me. I can still help my followers though just like my wood-cutting training so that should be a plus.

I don’t have that much other harvest from the library. I managed to fulfill my initial goal to find out more about darkness elemental magic with some bonus so I count it as a success. I also found out about magic circuit casting method which could be handy in the future so even better.

But actually, the greatest harvest from my grind in the library is my meetings with that old wizard. That person is actually someone with high influence in the academy and I think I managed to give a great first impression on him. Well, I got the flag for a successful academy life in the least.

After finishing my last day of grinding in the library, I ask my 5 mage followers to report their findings to me.

First of all, is light affinity's report. He learned a lot about healing magic. But the problem is, healing magic needs to be practiced. Fortunately, he found out that the church will hold a community service day once a week to give free healing to the masses. He decided to try going there to increase his proficiency in healing.

I just remind him to not be hasty if the church asks him to join them. He is currently working for me after all so if he decided to join the church then in a way, he is asking to quit working for me. I tell him that he can be a believer in a god but don’t put blind faith in the church’s leader as they are mere men that might have faults.

Of course, I also told him to keep the healing technique in our army a secret from the church. That technique comes from modern Earth healing technique after all which is of course, very effective in healing especially when magic is added to the mix. Well, the effect is not as instant as direct healing magic but it is based on modern science and we all know how churches deal with modern science back on Earth.

Yes, the church treats the truth, science, at the time as it is blasphemous knowledge. I can never be too careful when dealing with the church. I also don’t know much about their influence in this kingdom. It would be bad if they are actually the true ruler behind the shadow.

Moreover, as the person on top, I have darkness affinity that would definitely rub those from the church in the wrong way. I guess I would not have any chance to develop my own romance story with a girl from the church or something.

So yeah. To not be too naive and not share our army’s secrets. Those are the only two things I remind him to avoid. More than that, I encourage him to learn everything he can on healing techniques and if possible, to catch a sister or two from the sisterhood as his lover and take them back to the army.

From nature affinity's report, he found out about a druidic order that specializes in attending to nature. I also told him the same thing I told light affinity, if those druidic order is doing things in an extreme way, don’t join them.

He also told me that the growth cycle in this world is indeed fast. Just a year for a tree to fully grow and start producing fruits? A month cycle of producing fruits? Can it be made faster with magic? Farmers on Earth would literally have an orgasm if they heard this.

He also managed to learn about many kinds of herbs that could be harvested in this area. He really went all out with this part of the research. Maybe because he knows how passionate I am about cooking. But I remind him to also learn the poisonous herbs. Those could also be used as spices in limited amounts after all. I need to experiment with all of them.

After all, some spices back on Earth were also slightly poisonous. Heck, spices are basically a form of poison so pests, bacteria, and fungi won’t eat those plants. But that special characteristic of spices which could kill bacteria and fungi are instead being used by humans to preserve food. And after a long period of continuous consumption, mankind became immune to spice toxins and started to appreciate the taste instead.

Earth affinity report is quite interesting. He actually found out about anti-magic material. Those materials are best used to build forts and other defense structures as they could reduce the damage caused by magic. But well, I don’t have much use for those now.

He also managed to learn a lot about construction in general. I don’t think we will have any problem in this regard.

He has reported to me before that he also found out about building enchantment techniques before but I think it will be too hard to do right now so I told him to learn the other basics first.

For metal affinity, he really could not get much harvest here. He learned more about magic related to metal and fire as those two could be used in the blacksmithing process and he also learned about the dwarves’ information but no more than that. Well, I still need a dedicated blacksmith in my army so he finished his grind in the library early to do more practical things.

And lastly, ice affinity one. Just as I expected, she finished collecting all the material I asked her but she still surprised me. After finishing with her ‘quota’ she actually went on and read things that she found interesting. And she found out about the elemental spirit contract method.

The elemental spirit contract method is a part of summoning magic study but elemental spirit is said to be the best summon for a mage. Why is that? Well, because a mage can learn how to control their elemental affinity the best from an elemental spirit. They are your summon and your teacher at the same time.

By the time I realize it, there is already an ice elemental floating around her. The ice elemental is shaped like the pattern of snow under a microscope and it lets out a cold aura around. Good stuff. I guess it is better to let her do her own stuff.

Our grind in the library has finally come to an end. Tomorrow we will start our study in the academy.

I can see boring days are about to come.