Placing the remaining skill stones in a dimensional pocket, I began work on our next move. The escape beads were not just useful items, they also let me track spacial fluctuation around them. Due to their deliberate advantages and disadvantages making them perfect for students to use in the dungeon, all I had to do was wait until enough had passed through the teleportation gate so as to record the coordinates and frequency. With that information in hand, it would be easy to piggyback onto the signal and teleport into the dungeon from my own homemade gate.

I was doing some research while waiting and the more I learned about this dungeon, the more strange it became. There was no physical entrance to the dungeon, making it impossible to enter without magic and the dungeon was called the tower because it had inverted gravity making you have to literally fight your way up while going down. All this power had to come from somewhere and considering so few sentients were dying inside, it meant that either the entire thing was a natural mana dynamo or it was located on a lay line.

The next few days passed uneventfully with the remainder of the escape beads being sold, the school itself placing an order for more which I ignored, and the princess paying to extend our stay. Deciding to use some of our surplus money rather than my limited time. I used our new wealth to pay for someone to capture a specific, aggressive though not overly powerful, monster from the Wild Lands. Eventually, I gained enough information to finish the gate and we prepared to set off into the unknown. If the unknown was mapped and had been explored by thousands of people.

The space gate I constructed was an amalgamation of science and magic. While normal space gates would be delicately carved from marble, inlaid with golden runes and constructed around a warp stone core. I did not have access to such restricted materials to time to make it look pretty. My warp gate was an upright iron ring as thick as my thumb and large enough for a person to walk through, wrapped in copper wiring that was linked to a circle of runes carved into the floor and powered by numerous mana crystals found throughout.

The device sparked and hummed as it activated, folding space in its centre and creating the appearance of a fisheye lens. The princess looked at the device before turning to me. “There is no way in hell I am going through that! I have seen functional space gates and this collection of junk looks like it's going to explode any second.”

With a sombre voice I replied, “Ok princess, I guess we can find another way.” Before pushing her into the device and walking through.

Arriving at the first floor I was met by a circular aged stone bricked wall surrounding a permanent magical teleportation gate casting shadows with it's haunting purple light, and a furious elven girl. Trying to end an argument before it began, I preached. “We made it in one piece and we didn't have time to find another option. The school will be opening the dungeon to public raiding parties this week, giving us the best chance to do this without being discovered. We don’t have two years to wait with our names on the entrance list and neither of us can risk joining the school. We had to move now.”

Despite accepting the facts, the princess was still upset and kicking me in the shin as she walked past. This action had kind of become a display of intimacy in a similar manner to how some people who one another other punch each other in the arm. Taking my focus off the princess allowed me to better view the environment. Knowing it was safe did not stop the ancient room gave off an eerie vibe, with the entire structure draped in an oppressive almost muggy gloom. After walking through the arched door into the adjacent hall lit by ominous blue flames torches, we noticed a shambling figure approaching from the distance.

Draped in a robe it walked with jerky movements and I immediately knew we had encountered the most common denizen of the dungeon, a zombie. These undead creatures, unlike their vastly superior relatives created by the Astrals, were a plague on the living. While the true unliving was formed from those who performed great deeds and in turn were blessed to continue their existence outside the universe, these horrors only sought to spread death.

Knowing about something and seeing it for the first time are completely different. Something about the dead stare of the corpse broke my mental shielding. For the second time, my memories returned with vengeance and they seem to have been growing stronger by syphoning away all my feelings toward death and murder. I realised that I was not fine when I killed those bandits in the tree line nor was it fine for me to slaughter the goblins on mass. The entire time my feelings were being sapped into this ball of self-hatred and despair. The belief that I was becoming numb to the violence was a self-induced delusion which had just been viciously torn from my eyes.

The colours of the world became vivid before fading to tones of grey as my heartbeat accelerated. I collapsed on the floor as my muscles spasmed forcing my body into the fetal position, smacking my head onto the harsh stone in the process. My mind was screaming at me to remember my sins as a headache began forming and an intense fear of myself began to develop. I tried to apply the mind seal once more only for it to fail and intensify the clarity of the memories.

I was limited in what my magic could accomplish as I did not have the mind magic affinity and the shielding was failing more every second. My superego was screaming at me while wielding guilt and self-loathing like a pair of hammers. I knew this time there was no escape, no easy path. I would have to face my demons lest they consume me and I refused to just lie down and die. I could do nothing with my body except grit my teeth and tighten my fists but I could still think meaning I could still act. Using what little magic power I could access, I separated the memories and cast a spell to relive each one individually. I would divide and conquer, I would not let the past ruin my future and I would survive.

Once more I was in the wet cavern standing before the suspended dracon, watching my own actions occur. The feeling of the blade slicing through flesh was disturbingly no different from killing the goblins or cutting up meat to make stew. A brief moment of resistance before it began to slide through the unfortunate man and he began to bleed. I forced myself to watch as he struggled till life finally left him and he had the same eyes as the zombie, eyes filled with hate. I struggled, I fought to overpower these memories only to realise I was wrong. This was not a battle, I could not fight these emotions because they were as much a part of me as any other. I had to accept them, surpass them and understand them.

I relived that scene over and over again, each time taking control of a little more of the actions taken. With each iteration, I was transitioning from a passive viewer to an active participant. It was not like I could change the scene or alter the outcome and the same thing happened if I was in control or not. But the simple act of committing the sin myself let me work through the emotions and move closer to resolution.

The first step was accepting the weight of the blade. Realising it was a tool of both death and protection but like any other tool, its actions were governed by the user. A blade would be no more deadly than a flower if left sitting on a table. I could not blame the blade, I had to bear the weight of its use. 

Next was the warmth of the blood on my hands, the red liquid of life and the reason for my first sentient kill. The liquid flowed unnaturally from the wound since it was being extracted by magic but it was easy to tell that it was the same fluid that flowed through my veins. It let me realise life was as precious as it was fragile. Today I watched as it came from another but tomorrow someone may well watch as it flows from me.

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Lastly was the acceptance that this was murder. Despite the evils committed by the man, he was helpless. It was no act of self-defence, it was no act of heroism, it wasn't even an act of revenge or justice. His death was a choice, slowly I accepted that this was MY choice. No matter what excuses I provided, the harsh truth was it had been my decision to follow the path the pheonixians had created. Fate called and I answered that I would pursue strength and survive instead of lay down and die.

Only when I was the one in control of the entire process did I let the memory fade into the back of my mind, overcome but never forgotten. With a mental sigh, I forced myself to continue and the empty cavern dispersed into white mist, only to be replaced by a scene of corpses hanging on a tree by a glade.

Being forced to go through each event involving life and death was a humbling and horrifying experience. I began with dracons and elves but slowly expanded to the goblins and eventually monsters, concluding with the first horned rabbit I killed in the cave. As I became aware of just how many lives I had taken over the last eleven months, the weight of my choices hung heavily upon me, however, it did not crush me as it once had.

Awakening from the event I realised, I was slumped against a wall and incredibly thirsty. Looking into the darkness, I did not see either the princess or the zombie, so I tried to stand up only to fall back to the floor. Using healing told me all I needed to know, I was dehydrated from excessive crying and my muscles had locked from being tense for so long.

Casting the same simple water spell I did at the beginning of my magical path, I quenched my thirst, before using Ki to relax the muscles. Deciding to just take in the whole situation I rested against the wall. Fifteen minutes later, the princesses return startled me as I was about to fall asleep. After a brief explanation, I only half remember, it became apparent that I had collapsed and started crying upon seeing the zombie. The princess effortlessly killed it before dragging me into the corner.

I had been unconscious for about three hours and a group of students had passed, some poking fun of the dracon crying in the corner. Luckily there was no teacher present so the princess managed to trick the group into believing that we were part of a public raid and that I was deathly afraid of the undead. The princess had actually been talking to some elves from the fire spirit kingdom before I awoke.

With a note of concern, the princess whispered, “Are you alright? What the hell happened back there?”

I paused and turned to her, “You know when you found me in that cave, I had never killed anything.” I waited for her to accept this fact and continued after she nodded. “It appeared the transference managed to shield my mind from the deaths I had caused up until now. But seeing that zombie broke that protection and mad me face my demons. Honestly, thanks for saving me, if this had happened while I was alone I would be dead by now.”

With a sad smile, she comforted me “your welcome.” Before grinning “But I'm never going to let you live this down!” Gritting my teeth, we continued down the path towards the stairs.

During our stroll, we encountered another zombie. Rushing up to the creature, I ignored any sense of strategy and proceeded to beat the monster to death. In hindsight, I don't know if it was an attempt to prove that I was completely over my trauma or whether or not, it was just to take my frustration from the princess gaining leverage over me out on the poor zombie. The next few encounters with the undead went a bit better before I finally settled back into blasting them with space infused wind magic from afar.

There was no real end to the zombies since they would slowly melt into the floor after they died leaving a mana crystal, only for the dungeon to use the biomass to produce another one in a different location. It was a strange sight to watch with mana sense as normally invisible particles gathered into an egg and rapidly constructed a monster before bursting. To those who could not see the process, it would seem the zombie just popped into existence, just like mobs spawning in a game.

Speaking about interesting dungeon functions, despite the dungeon having inverted gravity, there was no space magic involved meaning, this was an applied skill. The other point of interest was that the mana density inside the dungeon was almost five times that of outside allowing me to use real magic.

What do I mean real magic? Haven’t I been using magic ever since the first forest? Looks like I need to give a lecture on magic so strap in and hold on.

To start explaining magic you must first explain mana. There are two types of mana. Natural mana that exists everywhere above the 8th layer and personal mana, the mana displayed on your stat screen. Personal mana is produced by refining natural mana, synchronising it with your soul by forcing its vibrational frequency to match yours.

The next step in magic is runes. There are three types of runes, with the only one available to most being spell runes. Spell runes were created by the phoenixes and can be viewed as blueprints, with each rune having an exact effect. There is a rune for each basic spell and I will be using 'icicle' for example. Two people using this rune with the same affinity level will produce the exact same icicle with the same size, density, shape and temperature. Increasing the Affinity will increase its attributes making it larger, denser, sharper and colder, but it will always remain relative. These runes can be combined like building blocks to make different spells but can not be customised.

Next is Spirit runes that were invented by the Astral and they are something even I don't really understand. These runes are essentially a small semi-sentient mana construct that acts on feelings. The spirit rune for 'protect' is just as likely to form a magical barrier around you as it is to heal you and depends on factors such as your intent when you made it and the natural frequency of the surrounding mana. It is the fastest and most powerful single runes you can create but it is highly uncontrollable.

Lastly is Law runes that were found by the Minon. Unlike the other races that created a way to use magic, the Minon studied the universe until they found what could be described as the universal source code. Using law runes is like writing a programming code that the mana will execute and allows a person to define every variable.

Now that mana and runes are out of the way, we can talk about spells. To cast a spell, a person must take their personal mana and create a 'formation' of runes. This formation can be as simple as a single rune anywhere up to millions. After creating the formation, it is released from the body and interacts with the natural mana, forcing the natural mana to follow the script. The larger and more complicated the spell the more natural mana has to be gathered to complete the instructions and thus the longer 'cast time'.

This is were mana density comes into play. A being can normally only draw in the natural mana from a three-meter sphere around their body and if the natural mana inside that sphere is insufficient to power the spell it will fail. The higher the mana density the more mana is available in the same area and thus the more powerful spells can become.

The spells I had been using up till this point had been of pheonixian design. Using spell runes as a base with law runes to adjust values, offering the simplicity of one with the customisation of the other. The problem was that I had to use runes stored inside mana crystals if I wanted to cast anything besides the standard template and the stored runes had set values. Now that I had access to higher density mana I could use the spell formations as intended and start adjusting the values on the fly.

To answer your other lingering questions, rituals are just formations created outside the body with material components in place of personal mana and magic nullification or invalidation works by overriding the spell script with random information causing it to stop whatever it was told to do and revert back into harmless natural mana. Yes, this also means you can't use spells in a mana void no matter how much personal mana you have since it's not the personal mana creating the effect but the natural mana.

You have now compleated magic 101 for dummies. Tune in next time to find out if our daring, brave and handsome adventurers can fight their way through the tower of undeath!