Chapter 3 – Can you Avoid the Death Flags?

            It has been a few days since I started practicing my control over various elements and studying up on various bits of information. Unsurprisingly, my mastery over magic has already increased leaps and bounds from where it was before.

            If an angry bear were to stroll on towards me, I am confident in my ability to not die. Not that I have fought monsters yet. It may be that even a tiny rabbit can shoot death lasers. It would be really sad if I died to a rabbit of all things. I wonder if a carrotman exists in this world of heavy mutation. If it did, then at least I won’t be the saddest existence in the world if I did end up dying to a rabbit.

            Anyways, one of the things I studied up on was what a will truly is. There are 2 types of will which are active will and passive will. Active will is more like programmable instructions put inside an inanimate object for convenience.

            Passive will, however, can be summarized as strong thoughts directed at anything in existence. Someone who kills or harms people will accumulate negative will from the anger of the souls that has died. Negative will can make people uncomfortable around you, make you prone to bad luck, and/or outright strike you down with lightning consistently which should theoretically be impossible. It also forms the foundation of what people consider killing intent.

            Positive will can accumulate when someone heals or saves people. It has the effects such as making people feel safe around you, making you prone to good luck, and/or potentially saving your life when you normally should have died.

            This is why a will can make things complicated when I give a soul fragment to a weapon or golem. A weapon or a golem formed with the intent to kill could potentially harm me in its desire for bloodshed.

            I sigh as I look around the room I was given to sleep in. I am currently laying on a decently sized bed that could easily fit 2 people and it is very comfy. I expected bed bugs or something that would make me burn it to the ground. I may be a guy, but I hate bugs. Like, really hate those nasty things.

            On the wall is some crystal screen used to playback recordings stored in a memory crystal. It’s basically a magical television without the modern entertainment value. I asked one of the maids if it was possible to upload some of my memories into a memory crystal, but it’s impossible unless I learn mind magic or ask someone proficient in it to go through my mind. As I am not that trusting of people, it looks like I also have to learn mind magic if I want to watch tv.

            I wonder if I can make a lot of money if I sold all those tv shows and movies I watched. Everyone must be bored with so little to actually do to have fun. Then again, circulating tv shows might turn people into couch potatoes and shut-ins. I still think the money might be worth it though.

            Near the bed is a mirror which I used to finally get a look at my eyes. They actually look pretty nice. It’s similar to the white spider except that all of my pupils are moving around inside my iris. There are so many pupils swimming around in both of my irises that I find it difficult to count how many demon eyes I actually possess.

            Because of that, I asked one of those vampire maids for a book on demon eyes. I have just 1 thing to say about it. How much overkill is it to have over dozen ways to kill someone? Yeah, that’s what my demon eyes are like. Lots and lots of death.

            I do like the demon eye of sight though. I can do so much with it as long as it is limited to seeing things. Downside is that it is that it is also called the demon eye of stalking. It’s even impossible to detect.

            Demon eye of telepathy is another convenient eye ability. It allows me to connect to someone’s mind and do anything I want if they can’t protect their mind. Nobody can lie to me as long as I keep this eye active. This eye is similar to that vampire chick who can make people feel pain by just looking at them except much better. At least now I know how that blue skinned woman was violating me.

            The elemental eyes just kill by drowning, burning, freezing, petrifying, electrocuting, and suffocating. Light can heal and darkness can make them blind. Plague is a really nasty one as it can make people come down with something like the bubonic plague. Death just outright kills someone.

            This leaves the utility eyes like gravity which can alter someone’s weight and magnetism which can keep people away or bring them closer to me. Void is an interesting one since it can devour all mana and magic to replenish my mana. Magnetism makes me feel like my understanding of true pain has increased.

            All in all, these eyes are ridiculously overpowered. As long as I can look at someone that is. Judging by my demon eyes alone, anyone that can move faster than I can perceive, invisible to my eyes, or someone who can blind me are capable of countering them. Considering how easy it is to just shine a flashlight in my face, light might be the biggest middle finger to me.

            Of course, this is something that only matters sometime in the future. I don’t even know how to tell them apart when I send mana to my eyes. The elemental eyes are color coded, but the others are very weird and complex. And this book doesn’t even try to describe what their magical aura looks like to me. Another downside of having multiple pupils in a single eye.

            A knock interrupts my thoughts. “Pardon my intrusion hero.” An ominous voice echoes throughout the room as a robed skeleton walks in.

            “Hello elder.” Yesterday, I had asked the maids for someone to explain to me about being a summoner or at least the basics. It seems the necromancer is the most proficient in this area.

            “Greetings young one. Are you ready for your lessons today?” His voice is so deep, scary, and yet somehow cool. I feel like the women of this world suffered a massive loss when he decided to be a necromancer. He just gives off that air that makes you want to look up to him if not for the fact that he lost his flesh.

            “Yes elder. Thank you for taking the time to teach me.”

            “Then allow me to begin. Before you can even think of creating a bond, you must be able to separate a piece of your soul without actually harming your soul. To make things easier, a soul crystal was developed that was designed to absorb the bare minimum of soul force that all infants have which is a soul force value of 1.

            For most people, the creation of a few bonds isn’t that impactful on their daily lives, but it does add up over time. Increasing the size of one’s soul is also not an easily accomplished task. A soul gets stronger as it accumulates memories, knowledge, experience, and age. Even a professional magician will struggle to make their soul force surpass a value of 200. Even the demon lord is still stuck around 750 and he has lived for centuries.

            In your case, you have a soul force value of around 4000 due to the hero summoning ritual infusing your soul with raw soul essence. This allowed you to skip the entire ordeal of having to strengthen your soul normally, but it has also made your soul very unstable. That instability will likely force you to absorb all forms of knowledge and expertise like a sponge which is why you heroes are able to grow so rapidly in just a few weeks compared to the decades or centuries of practice that everyone else has to go through.

            It doesn’t even end there as your soul will grow faster than an ordinary person’s because of being made of so much pure soul essence thus ensuring that the hero can inevitably defeat anyone should he be incapable of doing so from the start.”

            My mind was blown. My soul is already among the strongest alongside other heroes and possibly the angels. I always thought heroes were so strong because the ritual forced their bodies to have large mana capacities or strengthened their bodies to an inhuman degree, but it actually amplified your soul beyond the limits of common sense. I did notice that my mind was very clear-headed to the point of allowing me to recall every single detail these past few days and even in my old world, but I didn’t think this was the reason.

            So I have a soul force of 4000 and I only need 1 point per bond eh? Sounds like I can just make an army. But 1st, I should make sure that my minions can actually become strong.

            I nod towards him that I am ready to continue. “When you create a bond, you share a fragment of your soul with your retainer. Through this bond, your follow will have their growth sped up significantly. In exchange, your soul fragment will send a small bit of their power back to the main soul to reinforce it. As you have probably heard, it is the underlying reason why I no longer have flesh anymore.

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            As you get more experienced in utilizing your soul, you may get access to a soul realm. A soul realm is an empty realm that is full of mana. Every being that has bonded with you can be absorbed into your soul realm as they are considered a part of you.

            Over time, your soul ream will advance down the path to becoming a divine realm. Divine realms are so rich in mana that they can possess an entire world inside that is fully under the control of your soul. I only possess a small city in my soul, but I do hope to gain an entire undead kingdom someday. I have plenty of time after all.”

            You know, I almost got my hopes up on this being an inventory system. Yet again, the man keeps knocking me down. At least I can store my soul weapons and have a surprise ambush with my minions. Should I bond with a few cats?

            “This concludes your lesson on the basics of summoning and taming. Now then, do you have any idea on what type of retainer and weapon you wish to bond with. I may be able to find one while you are busy practicing. There is even a golem shop where you can buy or custom order golems that suit your needs.”

            “Well, there are a few things I have in mind.  I wanted to start off my taming career with a wind slime since that should be the simplest to raise. I would like a beautifully designed ice bird golem, but that is probably too much effort for someone to make. A plant fox golem with 10 tails might be fun to have around. A 6-winged steel valkyrie golem would make the perfect defense. Lastly, I think I want to specialize in chakrams as my weapon.”

            I respond to his question with detailed descriptions. I am of the opinion that if you are going to make a golem sentient, you should at least give them a functioning body. A certain sculptor, though, would disagree with my thoughts. I think his skull twitched for the 1st time as he pondered over what I said.

            “The slime should be easy to acquire and it does serve as practice for most tamers before they move on to stronger retainers. It is also one of the unofficial requirements that golems made specifically for harboring a soul to be as artistic as possible as most sentient golems lack the skill to make themselves look better. Unless they started off so horrible from the beginning.

            Might I inquire as to why you want a fox to have 10 tails, a valkyrie to have 6 wings, and a chakram as your weapon when it is a barely used option while swords are extremely popular? Not to sound rude, but I am very interested in why heroes do weird things.”

            So golems are not known for the artistic talents? I pouted a little when he called me weird. I like to think I am normal. You don’t see me rushing to get myself killed on the frontlines like some justice idiot do you?

            “Well, a fox is considered to be stronger if it has more tails. I once saw a movie where an angel ripped people apart with their wings so I figured it might be useful. As for chakrams, I have some ideas that might make it a powerful weapon for a ranged fighter, but I have to test it out 1st.”

            What I said was true, but I think there was a hundred tailed fox in some story. Not sure how you can have much of a body with that many tails.

            My ideas on a style of fighting are a secret though. I think? Mind reading magic can’t see images right? One of these days I need a mind protection spell.

            “In other words, your weird actions are due to your perception of power as shown in a moving picture book.” His words actually hurt me on the inside a little. “Ah sorry! I am quite curious of heroes and I never had a chance to study one up close.”

            Something about the way he said that made me a little anxious. It’s that feeling that a white mouse has when staring into the eyes of a scientist. “Is that so? Then I am glad I was able to help.” I respond to his apology with a stiff smile.

            “I am glad to be of service.” As if not even noticing my concerns, he gives off that satisfied feeling until he spoke again. “If you ever need anything, please send me a message. I would even be very grateful if you were to ever agree to some more hands on experiments.”

            In a fluster, he grabbed my hands and shook them very hard. “Now if you don’t mind, there is knowledge to be gained.” He then rushes out of the room as if his life depended on it. It probably did.

            Note to self, researchers are dangerous no matter what world you live in. Extra note to self, do not ever be alone in a lab with that skeleton. Extra crucial note to self, just avoid every lab in the 1st place and not be burdened by the hassle.

            I shake my head with a sigh. I have been wondering why these demons have been so courteous to me. They give me a lot of items and services that are probably expensive, yet they desire nothing from me in the foreseeable future.

            It’s more like they have no actual need of me outside of being an anti-hero defense. I guess that’s true since they always lose to the hero, but it’s still weird compared to the treatment that the human heroes would normally receive. By now they would probably be thrown into a training dungeon where they will barely escape with their lives from a dragon or something. Another note to self, avoid training dungeons like the plague.

            Now that he is gone and my control over magic is suitable, it is time to enact one of my safety survival plans. Magicians have an Achilles heel where they are weak in melee, but I intend to fix that. Nay, I tend to crush that proverbial nail on the head.

            I had thought of many ideas to increase my defense and healing rates. One of them was to have scales covering crucial areas of my body, but I am not sure if that would mutate into covering my entire body. It’s still an option in times of emergency or I can make sure that it only covers crucial areas. Another idea was to change the structure of my bones into something stronger, but that might make my body heavier. Then again, magic metal might just do the opposite and be lighter just to be weird.

            One of my favorite thoughts involves utilizing soul weapons to subconsciously protect me 24/7. Minions would get tired eventually, but a weapon won’t. Although, being granted a soul means that they might get bored of such a job so I probably need multiple soul weapons to rotate that duty in set intervals. If I do it right, this might make for a very powerful primary defense before I even get hit and will give me the time to counter.

            My best thought leaves me a little conflicted. In this world, there is no such thing as mana veins, mana heart, mana core, or anything similar that generates mana and holds it in your body. So I figured that maybe I could just fill up my blood veins with mana and get something similar. This is all well and good, but what type of mana do I use?

            Light mana might grant my blood a healing effect and possibly make my body stronger. Dark mana might be able to grant my entire body magic resistance. The other elemental mana types will likely not be useful in terms of survival. Lunar mana can grant me anything, but this type of mana is known for mutating demons. A werebeast would never be a werebeast if there was no moonlight.

            I might come to regret this later, but I don’t think I want a pink body mutation. The stigma may not exist in this world, but I could never be like those guys who can bravely wear pink. They have balls.

            Gathering my mana, I create a large sphere of lunar mana in front of me. Next, I willed the sphere to allow a stream of mana to slowly trickle into my veins. Was not a difficult process to find them as I am very skinny to the point that I probably weigh less than most women. Some people joked about that, but then some girls would give this horrified look at imagining themselves to weigh like 100 lbs.

            Ridding my mind of unnecessary thoughts, I brought my attention to the sweet sensation of mana flowing into my heart and being pumped throughout my entire body at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with. This kept going until I felt a bulging sensation in my body warning me to stop.

            Taking a few moments to check myself out, I noticed practically nothing. The mana was flowing normally inside me like the rest of my blood, but it seems to not be doing anything. Even pricking my finger to let a little blood ooze out just made some of the mana leak out before I healed the wound with my own magic.

            Either I just created a secondary mana tank or this might take a while for any effects to pop up. That blue skinned woman did say that mutations take a while. Hopefully, whatever mutations does pop up, it won’t make me look too inhuman. Did I just flag myself?