“It’s finally over…” As soon as I made it back home, I collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. Ugh, that had gone for far far far far far too long - more than five days.
On the silver lining, there won’t be anyone bothering you. Shade’s voice resonated in my head, but only evoked another sigh. While yes, there were no more suspicions about me - how could there even be when I’d killed that man so blatantly - a lot of those close to me are scared.
Mmm… I guess you’re right. With that, I got back up and made my way to the room that still hadn’t been fixed up following the pendant’s explosion. Sitting on the remnants of the shelf was a golden scroll tube. Thank God that they didn’t take the scroll away, at least.
What god? That’s just because they couldn’t figure out a way to open it. I simply ignored Shade’s words, since of course a devil wouldn’t want to accept that God had anything to do with good fortune.
I picked up the scroll case and opened it with ease. Of course the officials wouldn’t be able to open it, since it's part of Mom’s inheritance for me! Though, I am surprised that the scroll itself is also seemingly made of pure gold.
Uh, there’s no way that Mom was the one to make these… Where did she get them from, then?
My questions didn’t get in the way of my actions as I unfurled the scroll to finally see exactly what spell was written on it and kept in such a manner. Suffice it to say, I didn’t expect for my eyes to be blinded by brilliantly glowing golden words.
Fucking- I could faintly hear Shade cursing before my mind was forcibly filled with… something.
“Ugh…” It took a few blinks to get rid of the tears in my eyes before I could finally see the room again. Only now could I see that the scroll in my hands was completely blank.
That makes no sense… But then I realized that there was information in my head that hadn’t been there before. I still checked with Shade, though. Did… Did the words on the scroll just get implanted into my head, Shade? Actually, could you even tell what was happening? It sounded painful for you.
Of course it fucking hurt! Although its voice was in my head, I still winced due to the ‘shouting’. But, you’re right. It’s a rare and difficult technique used to pass down exceedingly complex spells. After all, every spell needs to be practiced, but some are so deadly in the case of failure that practice isn’t even an option.
Is that so? Finally understanding - even if only slightly - what had happened, I turned my attention to the new knowledge in my head.
This spell… It’s called Steal Yin, an essence sustained contact control spell. A sigh of relief came from within me. Now I see why it was in a scroll like that… sustained spells are supposedly really difficult to do.
Right. I could tell that Shade was thinking, so I didn’t interrupt with my question about what the spell would even do. I’m sure it would explain to me regardless.
This spell seems to be more of a safeguard than anything else… A pair of violet eyes appeared in my shadow on the floor. Uh, since it's doing that, then Shade must have something important to say. To put it simply, this is a spell meant to increase the amount of yin in your body by taking it from others.
Yin… What’s that? It was an unfamiliar word to me.
Yin and yang are… two opposite forces. There’s far too much complexity to them, so all that matters to you is that femininity is yin and masculinity is yang, and that some Laws belong to one of the two.
My brain hurts a bit trying to take that in, but it reminds me of something- Does it have something to do with what the teacher had said, that some people’s spells will be stronger than others’?
Exactly. The more yin you have in your body, the stronger the spells of a yin-type Law will be. And the more yang, the weaker a yin-type Law would be. It’s the same the opposite way. Hmm. Shade isn’t as annoying when it actually explains things in an understandable manner.
I looked down at my hands in thought for a couple seconds. So, if I use this spell to increase the amount of yin in my body… Then my yin-type Law spells will be powerful, and the yang-type ones will be weaker? That doesn’t really seem like it could make me one of-
A sudden question arose in my mind. Wait, what did you mean that the spell is like a safeguard?
Although it didn’t have visible anything other than eyes, it still felt like Shade furrowed its brows. Is it trying to figure out how to explain it to me?
It’s almost certain that this spell was given to your mother by someone. My eyes widened, but I know how to be patient - Shade will surely explain. When it comes to yin or yang, there are two extremes - someone who has only yin and no yang, or all yang and no yin. A… pure yin body, or pure yang body, if that makes sense. And you, Shadow, have a pure yin body.
I blinked my eyes a couple times; I don’t really know what to say in response.
But if you didn’t have one, you would at least be really close to having one. And this spell would be just enough to bridge that gap. Shade’s explanation made sense, finally.
I see. So it’s a safeguard in that it means I can be guaranteed a pure yin body… Still, I couldn’t help but frown. So whoever gave it to Mom… They know I would somehow be at least close to having pure yin?
That’s what it seems like.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
My eyes shifted into a glare towards my shadow. Shade… You told me the spell in this scroll would make me extremely strong. But this is completely useless to me.
You’re making judgements too soon. I’m certain this spell is useful to you. Don’t we need to test it before coming to a final conclusion? I was looking forward to it being flustered or something, but Shade remained completely calm. How unsatisfying.
But its words make sense. After getting up, I made my way out of that room and towards where I have the rice kept. “Well, let me eat first. I’ll see about getting a test subject later.”
Make sure you pick a girl to use it on. A reminder from Shade.
…Right. Femininity is yin, so a girl would have more for me to take, huh.
Are you really sure about this, Shade? Now that I actually stood here, it felt… wrong to me, somehow.
Of course. Just make sure you don’t screw up the spell; even if the information was forced into your head, you still need to focus on it. Shade responded just as freely as I’d expected.
That’s not what I was asking about, though.
Currently I was in the abandoned district of Fortress City, where all of the people who couldn’t afford the price of living were chased to by those who could, and where they scavenged for a way to survive. Before me was a girl older but even skinnier than myself, who I had promised food in exchange for me casting a spell on her.
Though I disliked it, this was a common practice amongst Sorcerers of the city. After all, not every spell was so convenient to practice. Take Heal Wound for example; since the spell needs a living being to take effect, it can obviously only be practiced on living beings.
I should stop dithering. Having the girl before me stand still, I started casting. It felt like my body was being controlled for me to an extent. All I gave was the intention to cast the spell, and my body following the implanted experience to do so.
Sustained spells like this require the Sorcerer to continuously make hand seals as long as they want the spell to keep taking effect. But in this case, there were no problems.
The spell started with a hand seal that used both hands. A simple and intuitive one; just my hands pressed together with all of my fingers straight and pointed forward. This created the link between my two hands that was necessary for a sustained contact spell like this.
While continuing to form seals with my right hand, I reached out and placed my hand on the back of the girl’s neck. Her body was shaking slightly, but suppressed. She must be nervous…
Unfortunately for me who wanted to take advantage of this time to hopefully figure out more of the relationship between hand seals and their effects, none of the seals made sense. The only good thing is that once the spell is fully cast, the sequence to sustain it is simple enough.
And so, the final activating seal of the spell came. I felt a faint force begin pulling something out of the girl and into my body. It felt… cold. This must be the yin energy? I continued forming the seals that kept the flow going, but then I noticed the girl starting to slump over.
Dammit… I had to wait for the end of the sequence before I could safely stop with the seals. But…
Don’t stop! Shade shouted into my mind. For a spell like this, you need to continue until there is nothing left for it to act on or you’ll be hit with the backlash!
At its words, I grit my teeth and continued to form the seals. Since the girl’s body was collapsing to the ground, I had to kneel down myself in order to prevent contact with her neck from being broken.
After a few more seconds that felt like many minutes more, the flow of energy from the girl’s body suddenly cut off.
“What have I done…?” My body shook as I stared at the now-lifeless body of the girl that had slumped forth into the dirt. I couldn’t help my hands from covering my mouth as I stared…
I had just killed her.
Don’t act like this is something strange, girl. Shade’s voice stirred me from whatever state I’d just been in. Your father was already killed by you, what does one girl matter? Yin and yang are both vital energies in the body, so of course stealing the majority of that vital energy would lead to her death!
This… This is different though. I didn’t mean to kill her, you didn’t tell me that this would kill her! I had to resist the urge to shout aloud, but I made sure Shade felt my anger at it concealing things from me.
For an ordinary person like her to be of use to you is her blessing. Shade obviously didn’t share my thoughts of… regret. They are only alive because we protect them, so what if we kill off a few of them? Their lives belong to Sorcerers anyway.
Its reasoning made sense. After taking a deep breath to calm myself, I walked away from the body and into the alleys of the abandoned district. I at least knew that I wouldn’t be cleaning up after this.
As I walked, I checked to see if this Steal Yin spell had had any actual results. Shade said it should be useful, but whether it did or not would greatly impact how trustworthy this ‘inner devil’ is.
Looking into my core, I saw that it was completely full to the limit of my aptitude. That’s… odd, since I’m fairly certain that my essence had been drained by the spell just now. With a closer look, there was a very faint black mixed in with the ruby essence, seeming full of power that my essence didn’t have.
Upon noticing this, I immediately found a place to sit down and focused all of my attention on my core. I drew out my essence with the black mixed in and sent it flooding through every single tiny meridian in my body. As the essence scoured through, it tore away a thin layer of iron-like material coating the walls.
The black energy didn’t last long, as the impurities on the meridian walls no longer scraped off as easily as they had just been. Despite that, I felt exhilarated. This short moment alone had gotten rid of half as much impurity as every previous cleansing session of mine combined!
Seeing hints of silver on the walls of a couple places within my meridians, I thought of the words the teacher had mentioned about impurities. Although Sorcerers are above the ordinary people, we’re still just mortals, and like all living beings, have imperfections.
Impurities gathered within the meridians restricted the amount of essence that could travel through them, thus weakening the ease of casting spells. Not only that, but the removed impurities were then used by the essence core to strengthen itself.
Once all of a single type of impurity was cleansed, the core would begin producing a higher level of essence. Iron went first, then silver, and then gold. After that, the meridians were fully cleansed. And of course, with each type cleansed came another level of essence.
Faint, bright, deep, and pure - each one containing twice as much energy as the one before. Blood Spike currently uses 10% of my essence, but if I got rid of the rest of the iron impurities to have bright ruby essence, then casting it would only require 5%!
Shade, isn’t this wonderful news? My excitement was too much to hold in, and I told Shade about what I’d discovered. It was right after all, it was a blessing for that girl to become fuel for my own strength. If I had enough, I might be able to go straight from initial Rank 1 to the middle stage!
If stealing the yin of an ordinary girl was already this useful, what would happen if you used it on a fellow Sorceress? The question raised by Shade caused my eyes to light up at the thought of an enticing answer. The follow-up only made that enticement stronger. Just this can make up for your low aptitude, but perhaps it could even overflow the limits of your essence storage?
That’s right… It did seem that using the spell would refill my essence as it went on. Not only did it have the effect of allowing me to use it limitlessly, maybe I could even hold more than my aptitude allows?
Time to make a plan, it seems.