"Where am I? What is this place?”
Those were the questions that appeared in Edgar Rossi's head, the 20-year-old young man with black hair and green eyes.
Right now, he was floating in a sea of endless darkness without gravity. It didn’t hurt him. After taking a moment to regain his senses, a mysterious voice talked to him.
“So, it is you boy, the soul with more anger and hate than I could find”
In front of Edgar, something was getting closer. Moving in the sea of blackness, he could see the form that was talking to him. It was a giant skeleton with some robes hanging from the shoulders and a strange hat on top of the head. It was incomplete; only the head, the arms and some of his ribs remained. In the empty space between his sockets, there were two lights of red looking at him.
“Do you remember why you are here, little human?”
“I… I died, didn’t I?”
It was correct. He had been killed. He was coming back to his old, crummy apartment after going to drink with his only friend, but a homeless man stopped him asking for money. The drunkenness made him less patient than usual, so he just pushed the man out of the way. The homeless persisted, grabbing his arm and starting screaming. He couldn’t remember the fine details of what happened next until the moment that the guy took a knife and stabbed him in the gut.
"AH, THAT DAMN SON OF A BITCH KILLED ME! BASTARD!” He exclaimed, after understanding his own situation.
The anger was making his face contort in a very ugly expression.
“I hate people so much. They are complete trash. 99 percent of them are irredeemable scum” He said, while covering his face with both hands.
“Yes, that is why you are here. The ritual allows me to make contact with the soul of someone filled with hate for others, just like myself”
"Eh, what are you talking about?” The young man asked the skeleton, “Why did you bring me here?”
“My name is Zek, the greatest necromancer that once terrorized the continent, and you will be my successor”
The young man was unconvinced; he had no idea what was happening. Life after Death was nothing like he had imagined.
“Seems like you need a bit of proof” Zek then raised his right hand and a small black book appeared in it.
“This book contains my power and all the knowledge that I have accumulated during my long life. It will serve you well”
“What are you saying?” Edgar raise his hand in protest. “This is sketchy no matter how you look at it. First, if you can revive people, why don’t you revive yourself? Second, why do you pick me specifically? Are you going to try to possess me?”
The necromancer laughed a little to himself before responding.
“You´re really interesting. It's been only a couple of minutes but your soul has already accepted that you are dead” Edgar keep a neutral expression while hearing this.
“To answer your question, I can´t revive myself” He pointed to one of his ribs that was slowly but surely disintegrating. “This was done by very powerful light magic. Even if I resurrect, my soul will eventually die”
"Second, the reason that I choose you is that your heart is full of resentment, hate, and contempt towards others. Those are the same emotions that I felt long ago, so I have a bit of sympathy towards you”
Zek did not appear to be lying, or at least, he looked more like he was taking a weight off of his chest.
Slowly, the young man swam towards the hand. He took a moment before grabbing the black book.
“Even if I use it for my own purposes without harming anyone, are you willing to give it to me?”
“The chances of that happening are small but not impossible. Either way, my knowledge will survive, and that is insult enough to the ones I hate”
With that, he fills himself with courage and grabs the book.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH”
The scream of pain was loud. The pain passed through his hands into the inside of his body, commencing the transformation. His bones were broken, his organs pulverized and burned from the inside, his skin peeled off and used like clay. He took a moment to realize that this was not happening to his body but rather to his soul. Whatever happened next, he had one thing clear, he would not be human anymore.
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“HAHAHAHAHA. Excellent kid. You are going to become much more powerful. You are going to have the power to shape the world” Zek's laugh sounded like a madman, but his intention was pure encouragement.
The shadows were starting to enter the body of the young man. The bones were filled with a dark viscose substance. The organs were reformed with a coal like texture. The skin was remodeled to look humanoid and much whiter, like a doll. When all the shadows finally entered his body, there was nothing left.
[Level obtained: Lord of darkness]
[Level obtained: Necromancer]
[Level obtained: Glyph decoder]
[Level obtained: Alchemist]
Just like that, he was reborn in a new world...
Darkness surrounded him again, but this time it wasn’t a sea. It was regular darkness. He could see clearly that the space was much smaller, he was in a cave.
He stood up and looked around him. The silence was only interrupted by some water dropping from the ceiling. He was alone.
He noticed the black book in his hands. That wasn´t some dream. His body felt slightly different. His stature was around the same, but his muscles were bigger, as if he had been doing exercise regularly.
The factions of his face were the same when he touched them, but just to be sure, he walked to the sound of the water to find a small pool to see himself. The only difference was his skin tone, which was much whiter and his eyes, which were yellow and sharp like a hunting animal.
He kept walking through the cave that had only one path. After a few minutes, he reached the exit. There was some sort of magical barrier that blocked the entrance. The feeling that it gave him was magical. After touching it with his hand, the barrier collapsed.
For the first time in this new world, Edgar felt the heat of the sun on his pale skin. With the wind caressing him, he finally realized that he was naked.
"Let's start exploring and see if I can find some clothes before I get sick”
The young man started walking down the mountain from where the cave he had previously exited was located. His black hair was blowing in the wind, and his eyes were fixed on the forest in the distance.
His eyes were much better now. He could see far away without any trouble. His ears could pick up the sounds of small animals moving in the tree branches and on the ground. His sense of smell could differentiate between the flowers he was passing by.
He decided to test his new body a bit. He started running through the woods at great speeds, without getting tired. His arms could break branches with little effort. Even when he hit a big rock, his hand was intact and the stone split.
"Even though that barely hurts my hand, I don’t have a scratch. That skeleton really gave me powers”
After believing the words of his evil savior, the only thing left was to start studying his book.
He started flipping through the book pages. He first realized they were written in a strange language, symbols of different shapes covered the pages and mixed with each other. However, he could read them. Somehow, his brain managed to make a translation when he observed them, and the message was interpreted. "Fire" "Water" "Earth" "Flesh" "Dead" "Skeleton" "Control" "Reinforcement" "Alchemy" "Transmutation" "Glyphs". All the symbols had a meaning.
What was written were spells and incantations of different abilities. Attacks of fire, electricity, and ice. Defense magic and barriers. How to create potions and even revive the dead. It was truly an encyclopedia of magic.
As he progressed through the pages, Edgar realized that he was reaching a point where he could no longer understand the glyphs. He couldn't discern its meaning.
“Did he forget to give me all his power, or are these glyphs different in some way?”
He wondered as he sat under the shade of a tree. At that moment, his ears realized that something was in front of him. Just a few meters in front of him was a wolf standing, watching him from some bushes. His dark eyes stared at him and his calm breathing gave him to understand that he was preparing to hunt. Edgar thought it was the perfect time to test if he really was as strong as Zek had told him. The wolf leaped into a run straight with its fangs open at the young man's pale neck.
Edgar jumped without problems out of the way of the wolf, in fact, the animal's movements seemed slow. It was almost as if they were in a slow-motion recording. He threw his right fist against the animal's side. He felt the crunch of bones and the warmth of blood pouring from the flesh. The wolf flew into a tree and stamped violently.
When he fell, he was still alive and dying, vomiting what little he had in his stomach. It was moaning like a small puppy, but it was clear that it did not have long to live. Instead of letting him suffer for minutes, Edgar raised his hand.
“I'm not one of those sick people who likes to see animals suffer, so [Fireball]”
A small ball of fire formed in his palm and shot toward the animal. It was exactly as he had read in the book. The sphere caught up with the wolf and exploded, leaving his body in a shower of incandescent flames. The smell of burned fur was the first thing he could smell, and when the dust from the explosion calmed down, he observed the roasted body. What was once a predator was now nothing more than a piece of burned meat with some hair still unburned.
“Man, that was stronger than I expected” He said in amazement in front of his own power. “So that sense of loss that I felt is the mana being spent, just one way to check it”
He approached the still warm remains and again extended his hand.
“[Raise the dead]”
He felt the sensation of mana gathering in his hand again, but this time not to make a ball of flame but to spread like an invisible cloak that covered his target. In just a few moments, the magic penetrated the remains of the animal and gave it movement.
The wolf had been transformed into an undead, just as he had read in the spell. Although its legs were as fragile as twigs and most of its body was burned, it remained standing without any problem.
“Unbelievable, I really turned him into a zombie. HEHE” He said, as he gave a slight laugh to himself.
Even so, he realized that his breathing was heavy, and a bit of sweat was running down his forehead. The mana expended had evidently tired him. Despite only using two spells, he could tell inside that he had little mana left, probably just one more spell.
What a problem that magic consumes so much in just a few moments. I must be careful. He thought as he approached his creation.
The wolf was still waiting for orders from his master.
“I'm starting to get thirsty, help me find a source of fresh water” He said to his servant who responded with a bark and began to walk down the forest.
No matter what he finds in his way, he would decide the fate depending on his mood. Life or death, soldiers or murderers, none of that mattered to him. The necromancer would be a judge, jury, and executioner.