Volume 2

Chapter 3

Spring is here. That’s good, right?

Yeah, it’s good.

Warm, fuzzy, happy spring is here.

Uuu~~~~uhm…

Well, what’s..

Ha, today I’m feeling good, don’t know why.

Maybe it’s because I got to take a goodwill nap after a long while.

You know, those you take because you feel like doing it, instead because of needing to do it?

I surely feel reinvigorated.

How are things going?

Well, the Temple is coming up nice. And training keeps following the old recipe. The soul techniques are hard to master, so I’m still working on them.

Besides that… well, I guess family life keeps being the same as ever?

Oh, right!

Little sister started to eat with us at the table.

She’s still kind of knee-faced, but it gives off a good vibe when she smiles and makes mother and father smile as well.

My jealousy?

*sigh*

It still hurts a bit sometimes, but I’m getting over it.

Little by little, I’m overcoming it.

Besides, she seems to like me.

She will stop crying if I pat her in the head and will always give me a smile when seeing me.

Is this because of me casting detoxification when she was made to drink the ricin oil?

Maybe she sees me as a nice brother already.

Jacen…

Well, he acts a little bit more mature around her than he acted around me. At least he doesn’t poke her.

But they don’t have any kind of special bond or anything, I think.

Oh, right!

Special bonds.

You see, Ralphe has joined the village hunters.

It’s a very dangerous job to be an apprentice of, but he seems to be doing fine.

I came to know that the head Huntress, a woman named Sylvy, is an old protégée of grandma and also that she was taught how to hunt from grandma herself.

So all the Hunters in our village know at least the basics of [Aura Sensing], [Aura Cushion] and the basic [Healing] spell.

This seems to be the work of grandma as well.

I wonder – is our village rich and more developed than others?

Seeing as how grandma seems to have been improving the whole region for decades I wouldn’t be surprised.

But, returning to Ralphe.

He has joined the Hunters, so he has some spare time when they aren’t hunting – like now, in spring.

So he has been hanging around with us.

And, what to say… it seems he has been looking at Jacen with some eyes.

Some different eyes.

I can see he hasn’t been fooling around with real sex yet, but I guess he discovered some things by himself.

Maybe it’s his adolescence coming by, or maybe his parents finally gave him the talk.

… That is, if there was any need for that.

Sex is something these kids know of. There’s plenty of peeping around and everyone has a tale about their parents, neighbors or siblings having sex somewhere and them seeing it.

It’s just impossible not to know about it if you live in dung world.

Anyhow, Ralphe is looking at Jacen with eyes of wanting.

So, score!

Life is going just as I wanted!

There we go. Ralphe looking at Jacen like that, Elipha is starting to get a bit Jealous but it is useless.

We might have a small fight between siblings but Jacen will probably rather have the brother than the sister.

So Elipha will have to settle for Maurus. Or come after me.

Not that there is a big chance of her getting all worked up for me.

Since Maurus has been protecting her and she protecting him for some time now, both have started to develop a lot of mutual respect and proximity.

All is nice. All is good.

Guess I can relax a little bit.

I know.

Let’s take the day off today.

***

“Hey Alvin, come, the game will start!”

“Go on. I’m fine.”

Under a tree, with a piece of grass in my mouth. Looking at a bunch of dirty kids playing with a cloth ball.

They aren’t playing soccer or football, but a game of this world.

It’s called “well-tag”. To play it you need a cloth ball, a relatively open space, some dirty kids divided in two or more factions and a circle drawn on the ground. You have to kick the ball to the other side of the field, with a maximum of three kicks, without anyone taking it from you. Then you become “it” and can tag someone else inside the circle drawn in the ground or take someone out of it. Of course, the winning condition is for one or more of the factions to lose all of their people. The game itself is pretty brutal, with lots of low kicks on everyone’s legs, but the kids seem to have fun playing it.

Anyhow, today I’m being a lazy bun. And I don’t care.

I have taken the day off, so I will just relax under this tree and see them playing.

It’s no T.V., but still it beats sleeping all day.

So go on little gladiators!

Beat yourselves for my entertainment!

Muawhahahaha!

The ball goes to one side, the ball goes to the other side, it’s more of the same.

Soon everyone is sweaty and panting right at my side.

Yeah, this tree’s shade is nice, isn’t it?

Uuuhm…

Everyone slept.

Guess the game today was one of those tiring ones.

But it’s fine.

The spring breeze will give us a good time. Yeah, it will.

***

I woke up when I felt something getting really close to me.

I can’t keep [Aura Sensing] up at all times, but I can keep just a faint trace of it close to my body. Less than a centimeter beyond my skin.

So I felt the fingers getting close before they touched me for real.

Then I jumped.

“What ?!”

“Run!”

“Hahahaha!”

Goddamit those kids!

What were they doing with..?

Oh.

Everyone has stuff drawn on their faces.

Even Ralphe.

The kids used a piece of charcoal. Probably from some oven left-overs. There are moustaches, horns and other silly stuff drawn on everyone’s faces.

*sigh*

If they wake up like this, won’t they think it was me who…

Too late.

They are up.

“What happened? Why have you screamed?”

And Ralphe was the first to wake up.

I guess being a hunter apprentice is giving him some sense of alertness.

“Oh”

After telling my tale it was time to plan our vengeance.

Guess I can’t get out of this one this time. If I laze around on our vengeance time against the terrible face-defilers who drew stuff on everyone’s faces… well, then I would be a traitor, wouldn’t I?

So let’s go!

For vengeance!

***

Vengeance is nice when it’s just for fun.

But playing with time and space can be very confusing.

What do I mean?

Well, you see… the soul world has a much more plastic existence than the physical world.

So, even if it isn’t possible in the physical world, in the soul world time and space can be extended, contracted, even ripped – with just a little bit of energy.

And that’s why grandma is teaching me space-time techniques and spells.

You see, the most basic of them I learned right after going on [Soul Walk] for the first time.

That would be to go to a location by “feeling” it.

If you’re seen by someone from the outside while doing it, it’s just like as if you had disappeared from existence.

And from a certain point of view you indeed have, since all of “you” just transfers immediately to the place you felt.

So this is already a kind of teleport. Soul-teleport.

And the rest is kind of the same.

You can control time and space with spells like [Soul Gate], which creates a portal between two places in the soul world, or [Soul Time Swiftness], which makes time go slower for you, making your soul somewhat faster, living ten minutes for each minute outside the time bubble created by the spell.

Or you can just use [Soul Magic Flexibility: Time and Space] to manipulate that as you like.

And this is my goal for the moment. 

To learn that.

It’s quite useful. Maybe even more useful than [Soul Magic Flexibility: Materialization and Dematerialization] which uses soul energy influenced by your imagination to create or destroy things in the soul world, using as basis for that only your thoughts.

I have to say, this soul world is looking more and more like a fantasy one – even compared to the physical world where things like goblins and dragons exist.

This explained, my Temple will surely get some extra protections now.

After all, so long it had only the [Soul Cushion] spell protecting it. But if I use soul materialization to create a nice and cozy house around the small soul which is gathering in the center, it should be even better protected.

If it will just dissipate with time?

Nice thing about materializing things in the soul world: They will last much longer if you put a lot of energy in the process.

So this soul-energy saturated environment should guarantee my small soul-temple will surely remain strong and beautiful for a long time.

Not that I’m a good architect.

I’m definitely not.

But grandma will be helping, so it will surely have a grandmotherly feeling to it.

Just how my orchard around the temple seems nice and cozy as well.

Since it’s spring, the trees are in full blossom and some bees and butterflies have come to eat the flower’s nectar.

The place is just idyllic. A little paradise in the middle of the woods.

Seen as I haven’t had any more problems with unexpected monstrifications on the trees, I can only have good feelings about this.

Soon I will have nice and juicy fruit out of this. Aura and Soul-Energy filled fruit which will make my own cultivation soar to the heavens.

So let’s pray a bit inside the Temple and wait for my Forest Spirit friend to come to life!

After I’m done learning how to manipulate time and space in the Soul World, that is.

***

I’m losing contact with the family.

On the sense of… not carrying about it anymore.

I just realized it.

You see, I have taken on the habit of skipping a few meals recently.

Sometimes it’s breakfast, sometimes it’s dinner. For lunch I’m usually there.

But I just don’t really care to eat anymore. Or eat with the family for all that matters.

As soon as my orchard gives fruit I shall eat again, but at the present condition… well, I just don’t get enough aura from eating to be worth the work.

Since I don’t feel any hunger or need to eat or drink, I started to skip meals more and more frequently, until I went a full week without eating either breakfast or dinner.

I had noticed mother’s and father’s faces getting gloomier, but it just didn’t occur to me that this could be the reason.

Until tonight, that is.

“Son, could you eat with us tonight?”

“Do I have to mom? I want to go back to training.”

“Are you sure son? It’s been a while now.”

Father was the one to answer me.

 “Did something happen?”

“…no, nothing.”

 “I can eat with you, if you guys want to. It’s just that I wanted to go back sooner. I have a lot to do today.”

“It’s fine, you can go. Have a good training.”

“Thanks.”

Now that I recall it, it’s almost as if I had suddenly turned into an ungrateful teenager. Or an insensitive adult.

The five-years-old semi-independence period is important.

But most kids are still just kids on this period. So they won’t truly cut their bonds to the family.

Not until they get to be fifteen.

I have almost become a totally separated person now. I don’t even eat with them anymore.

Of course they would feel hurt because of that. Maybe they even think it’s because I despise them or something.

I shouldn’t have done this.

Tomorrow I will eat with them. And make sure to be home from the moment they awake to the moment they sleep.

***

It’s working.

I mean, it’s more or less working.

Father’s worries as a town’s militia guardsmen are mostly about how to keep the wall intact and helping the hunters when there are monsters they need to get together to destroy.

Like a small pack of mad hounds.

Hounds. Just silly hounds.

Eight hounds barely make up for research material for me today, and still the hunters may ask for father’s help to deal with them.

Being worried about them is already far away from my reality.

It feels more of a threat knowing that some of our white pepper got mold on it, as mother told us, but still for everyone else the hounds are more dangerous.

So I need to measure my words and keep my act in check.

That’s pretty hard to do, and why I keep trying to improve my acting.

The family isn’t to blame for me having so many cheats by birth. If their worries feel too mundane and silly for me to care it’s because I’m special and different, not because they are weak or something.

So I shouldn’t let them know how little it matters to me.

Except…

Why again does it matter so little?

Now that I’m here, hearing all of this talking… father could be at danger, right?

He’s not immortal yet.

Besides, if he gets devoured or suffer too much damage, even with all of grandma’s knowledge he wouldn’t be safe.

So it shouldn’t be a trifle matter. It should be serious talk about father facing a life-or-death situation in a few days.

… why do I care so little?

***

My aura control is slipping through my hands. Something is wrong. I feel like I’m sick, even If I’m not.

I can feel it creeping in.

It’s the same as I had in my previous life.

That despair. That depression. That sadness. The burning anger and the endless frustration.

They are coming back.

Someone kill me. Destroy me. Annihilate me. Get it over with. I want to forget. I want to reset back to zero. End this. This game is bad anyway. Just reset and let’s start back from the beginning, so I can do something different.

Mother is calling me. She is saying breakfast is ready.

But I can’t get up from the floor.

I can’t walk. I can’t talk. I want to shout but I’m embarrassed of myself. I want to cry but I believe I’m faking it.

But if I’m faking it, then why am I feeling it?

Am I faking it?

Am I fake?

***

I’m better now.

Grandma is at the door, father has let her in. Mother is holding me. She’s worried. Everyone is worried.

I want to be a baby again. I want to everyone to forget me. I look away and cover my face with my arms. Mother is trying to hug me. I can’t hurt her, but I can still get away if I use just a little force.

I won’t. Please forget me.

Go to work. Go take care of sister. Forget me. I want to go home. Home is where I’m safe in my previous life.

Home is where I have my computer where I can shut myself away from everybody. No one will interrupt me in my computer.

No one will get to me, or talk to me, or look to me. I will be alone, so I will suffer in peace. So I will be myself and no one else, and won’t be faking.

And even if I fake for myself them I’m faking only for me. There’s no blame, there’s no problem. I forgive myself.

I need peace. I need quiet. I need somewhere without humans. My orchard.

There is nice fruit there, and no monsters.

There is nice.

***

“It’s okay. He’s just going through a transition. I will take him with me to a quiet place. You three can rest. We will be back after a while.”

Grandma is talking with mother and father.

We will leave.

That’s good.

***

We have come to my orchard.

Grandma brought me here on foot.

I think it’s the first time she carries me here with her body.

We got out of the village in the middle of the day, but since it’s grandma I’m sure she did something so we won’t be found out.

“Alvin dear…”

I hugged her.

I pressed the side of my head against her belly. She patted my head. I closed my hands and made a little pressure downwards. She’s following along and sitting on the ground, while holding me.

I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to ask. I will do everything slowly, so she will say no if I’m doing something wrong.

But I can’t talk. I can’t endure it now. I just want to feel her, not talk to her.

Talking is so difficult. It takes so much of me.

I put my legs to the side and my head on her lap. She held my body with her arms and I kept myself close to her.

Like this is good.

That’s what I wanted.

Thank you.

***

Grandma is still holding me.

It has been what looks like a long time now. I don’t know how long. But I’m feeling embarrassed.

She’s okay. She’s not trying to make me talk.

But I feel it.

The invisible pressure.

It’s not magic or aura or anything. It’s just me thinking that, if it was me in her place, I would want to know why.

Why am I doing this, why am I so in need of this?

I feel the questions in the air. I need to answer them. I need to justify to them.

I need to feel like there’s no more answers anymore.

***

I’m finally ready for it.

For separating from grandma.

I raised my body and looked around. We are still in the orchard. She’s still not saying anything. She’s not getting up either.

I put my back against the same tree she’s laying against and then waited. Soon her arm was around me, in a different type of hug.

“Sorry”

She’s caressing my face now.

“What happened to you darling?”

“I feel bad. I feel sad.”

“I can feel that. But why? What happened?”

“I don’t know. I’m just like this.”

Grandma stopped caressing my face and touched her head with mine.

“Relax a bit. Let me see something.”

I relaxed and opened my mind to her. The feeling of her mind prodding mine soon manifested.

The sensation of another “processor” inside yours, another “bubble which deals with thoughts” inside your head, this bubble being of someone else.

That’s the sensation.

Grandma’s eyes are sad and worried as well.

“I can feel you’re hurt darling. But I don’t see the memories associated to that. Have you been doing [Mind Walk]? Have you learned by yourself?”

“No. I think it’s because of my memories of the other life.”

“I see.”

It’s pretty clear. I have lived this already in the past. The feeling of a huge wound in your mind. In somewhere deep you can’t reach. No one can reach. Not even grandma’s mind.

“Darling, do you know what this is?”

“No.”

Grandma sighed.

“We call this the Dark Night son. It’s full of sadness. It seems you have it.”

I didn’t answer.

Yeah, it’s depression. I know I have it. Thank you very much for telling me the obvious thing.

“Maybe we should find you a good, obedient wife. So you can do to her what you did to me now.”

 …excuse me?!

Now I’m…

Just…

What?

Grandma’s wry smile is embarrassing.

Besides, I’m only seven!

“What do you think?”

I… I…

I can’t even answer!

We didn’t have any form of sex!

I mean…

We didn’t, right?

“I… grandma, we… we didn’t do couple stuff! That’s not being married!”

What a wry smile.

“Darling, you pushed me down and laid your head in my lap. That’s not ‘couple stuff’ as your mother told you, but it isn’t also something you do with your friends.”

….

It’s not sex, but indeed…

In my previous life, it’s just how I treated my hookers.

I can’t talk while I’m having sex.

I can’t be vocal. I just need to go slow, sure, commanding, waiting and looking at them. Paying attention.

I don’t want to rape anyone, so I need to be attentive. But that’s also the only way I know how to do this. And this brings me peace. I don’t know why. It just does.

“Well, maybe you are too young for marrying. But still, what should we do with you then?”

Even after talking about all of that, grandma’s still hugging me.

It’s embarrassing. But it’s erotic as well.

“It’s… we don’t need to do anything, I will be fine, I think…”

Grandma is caressing my hair.

“Maybe you will. Maybe not. Open your soul a little bit. I will help you feel better.”

“Okay”

I relaxed and allowed for grandma to affect me. Soon feelings of relief and a nimble happiness took me.

I started to cry a silent cry.

I’m not contracting the muscles of my face. I’m not letting the tears flow by my will. My eyes aren’t burning.

They just make their trails on my face.

What weird tears.

“There. Do you feel better?”

“Yes”

“Good. Now relax a bit and come back once you feel like you’re ready to go back to routine.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mind it. I wanted to come here after all.”

Grandma took a peach from one of my trees.

“Those seem tasty. Have you eaten any yet?”

I have taken a couple apples, but the peaches have matured only recently.

The apples at least were very tasty. And aura-loaded to the brim.

“Not the peaches. Are them good?”

“It seems so. Can I take a few with me?”

“Sure.”

“Then I will be going. Have a good day.”

Grandma gave me a last patting in the head and left a peach with me. Then she left.

I’m alone here, so let’s take some time to relax and let my mind settle. Maybe I have just been thinking too much after all.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

***

Well, that’s settled.

I’m better now.

But a weird thing happened.

Autumn came and those tax collectors came back.

You know, the ones which spied on grandma?

Again the same thing. He’s spying on the cracks of her window.

What. A. Weird. Fellow.

I mean, it’s good since grandma is using this opportunity to show me how feelings like [Loyalty to the Death] look like on someone’s soul, but why is a spy who’s loyal to the point of dying for his master doing here?

What it looks like?

Well, it’s a strong pallor which takes most of the person’s soul, while also making it hard like muscle in the head, neck, chest and guts.

Touching it is very weird indeed. Hard pallor.

That said, the most impressive thing was how the man’s soul reacted when I touched his [Loyalty to the Death] with my own soul hand.

It squirmed, contracted, and released a small lightning on me. It hurt a bit, but grandmother said it’s natural.

You see, when someone’s soul has very strong emotions it will react when touched. Sometimes even violently. It’s like a self-protection reflex.

That said, oh…

The man has fallen to the ground.

Aaaaaand… he just soiled his pants.

What a weeeird thing.

I just lightly touched his soul’s guts with my soul hand, and he reacted so violently in the physical world.

Is this a psychosomatic effect?

“The stronger are a person’s feelings, the stronger they will be affected in their bodies when you change those feelings darling.”

Yep.

Psychosomatic effect. Thanks for explaining grandma.

So, I made this guy get bloody diarrhea by touching his feeling of loyalty to his master.

Why simply touching?

Well, my own soul is made of emotions. So when I touched his feeling of loyalty the emotions I’m made of interacted with the feeling of loyalty in his guts and apparently changed it somehow.

That doesn’t happen always, since not all forms of emotion interact with one another, like how grandma patted my head many times, but this time my emotions seem to have interacted with his.

What am I feeling?

Well, just the regular I guess. A mix of curiosity and well-being. I’m kind of chilling ‘round.

I guess this reacts pretty bad with feelings like loyalty to the death. It makes sense. ´chillers be no killers.

Tough luck, spiy the friendly spy.

But don’t worry.

It was just a light touch. Look, you’re up on your feet again already!

With soiled pants, sure, but up on your feet and good to go to the river and take a freezing bath in the middle of the night!

Or to sleep on your own feces. Your choice.

***

And winter has come again.

But this time we aren’t so leisurely telling stories by the fire.

Nope.

Me, Jacen and Father are sewing with mother. It’s around the fire as well and there are some stories being told, but we aren’t idle as always.

Why are we sewing?

That would be because Jacen’s birthday is coming in a few months.

His tenth birthday.

But that doesn’t explain much, does it?

No, it doesn’t.

What explains a lot is knowing that Ann started to train for real once she was ten years old. That’s when mother stopped requiring that she tried to socialize with the kids from the village and allowed her to train all day long inside the house.

So her old clothes clearly won’t fit Jacen. They don’t even exist anymore. They have been so worn-out the cloth has come undone.

And that’s why the whole family is making new clothes for him.

Even he himself is helping making his clothes. The only unoccupied hands in the house, indeed, would be little sister’s.

She’s only two years old and not an “Alvin”, so the most she does is get entangled on the yarn.

It’s kind of cute in a way.

I still feel some reservations for finding her cute, but it has become much weaker after that breakdown I had the other day.

Aaah~~ to think I would be so fragile in my heart yet. Shouldn’t I have a strong soul with unmovable feelings?

After all, I made a man who had the resolve to die for his lord to doubt that by just touching his soul.

But I guess the world is bigger than that.

This said, I haven’t knitted in a long while, so it’s a refreshing feeling.

And, who would guess, Jacen became better at this. He can’t compare to my speed and accuracy, but he’s somewhat faster and more accurate than mother.

I wonder if this doesn’t fit in the category of “let’s not make our family feel less than they are”?

…

No.

Mother can do a thing neither I or Jacen can. She can produce more brothers and sisters for us.

There is no way for me to take this from her, even If my [Metamorph] powers manifest. She’s our mother and that’s it. Even if we knit a little better than her.

Besides, she doesn’t seem sad in the slightest. On the contrary, I think I never saw mother so motivated.

Maybe we lit a little fuse in her?

A little friendly competition with her children?

That would be fun.

Mother is a [Genius] as well, after all. Even if she doesn’t have the [Aura Control] talent, she has skill above average.

So let’s compete!

***

I went to inspect my temple again.

Of course, I don’t just inspect it outside. I have a whole inspection routine. Most of it is based on expanding my [Aura Analysis] as far as I can, and looking at every single piece of this place.

I take special attention to the underground, since there’s always the risk of the aura-rich ash I have been using as fertilizer infiltrating the soil and creating wild dungeons underground.

But it seems so far I need not to worry.

The temple’s mana pebbles are sucking the underground dry, and since it doesn’t have a way of replenishing itself, there’s no traces of life there.

It’s a totally barren soil beyond my fertilizer’s reach.

Which actually worries me a bit.

I mean, the [Old Man Tree] seedling I have planted will fixate its roots deep on the soil later on.

So by doing this, aren’t I making it harder for the seedling to grow later on?

I guess I will need to give some nutrition to it once it has developed enough of a soul to understand me.

It won’t be long now.

The seedling is already one-meter-tall, and it has a nice soul-light around itself.

As soon as this light condensate on a form with boundaries and separate itself from the environment around it will be a new soul.

I guess it will be roughly at the same time as Jacen’s birthday at this rate?

That will be nice.

***

I’m a bit thoughtful today.

That’s because I just happened to go by my old training camp.

I have been hunting monsters non-stop in an ever-increasing radius. That’s both to get more monster ash as also as mean to be sure my [Forest Spirit] won’t be attacked by anything.

And not my hunting radius has finally cached up to my last training grounds location.

Everything is here still.

Everything is covered in vines due to the aura saturation of the place, but there’s no signal of monsters being born here.

Still, these remains evoke some emotions in me.

You see, I just discovered that, even though I remember everything that has ever happened to me, from a while ago I have been treating my memories in a different way.

I don’t forget them, but I let them on the background.

For instance, my memories about slime experiments, or the creation of the [Toxic Wind Needle].

Haven’t I got lost in my way?

The last experiment I did was with the little brown peas and the mana pebbles. That was around one year ago.

In this one year I learned a lot of new soul spells, but I just didn’t had any bright ideas regarding them.

I wonder why?

I mean, I could mess with them a bit, but…

Oh, no, I know why…

Because they only affect the soul.

I haven’t really tried messing with thing’s souls besides my experiment with creating a [Forest Spirit], right?

Actually, I haven’t done much soul stuff. The closest I have come to do something was when grandma was teaching me the basics of necromancy.

Maybe I should return to my experiments?

After all, I have some alone time since grandma isn’t training with me all night and experiments are fun to do. Besides, I have developed things with them not even she knew where possible.

Like the Toxic Wind Needle.

After all, she may know a lot, but she doesn’t seem like the most creative of persons. She’s more of a “play safe, do what you know how to do” type of person.

Yeah.

Oh, right, what if I use the [Toxic Wind Needle] alongside the necromantic [Create Lower Undead] spell? I can bound both by using a small soul object like a piece of soul rock as a bomb to contain the spell’s [Feeling], which will trigger once the soul rock dissipates.

With this, shouldn’t I be able to kill and then transform the killed thing into a lesser undead as soon as the soul rock scathes? I can even control how long it will be after the thing dies if I use [Soul Materialization] to create the soul rock myself and then control how much energy it has – meaning I will be able to control how long will pass until it scathes.

Oh, better yet!

I could program the big bacteria inside the [Toxic Wind Needle] to be able to cast the [Soul Grounding] spell by themselves. As long as they have even the tiniest of souls I should be able to insert a small algorithm there. 

This way they would be able to ground the affected thing’s soul to themselves and maybe become intelligent slimes!

Or even something totally different!

Ha!

Have I just cracked the way to turn people into slimes? After all, if I ground the person’s soul to some bacteria which has no completely formed soul but only small remains of it, then it would be the same as the person getting itself turned into a slime!

Hahahah, that’s a spell I have got to try!

But later.

Now I have some horned habbits to hunt.

Damn things are cute but fuck and reproduce like horny rabbits!

Which they are, so it makes sense.

I’m digressing again.

To the hunt!

***

Uhm.

Interesting results arose from my previous question.

First, it seems my idea wasn’t so original after all. Since [feeling] can be used to manipulate Aura, there’s a simpler way to make things become undead after killed – and that would be to just create my regular physical spells with the undead creation embedded in them.

I mean, it’s quite the complicated process, and it definitely can’t be done without the use of chantless magic.

Not only undead creation requires chantless casting itself, the mixing of two spells isn’t a simple matter of mixing the singing sounds of each. If you try do it then you may have unpredictable results.

Still, it is possible to create an [Aura and Soul Weapon], for example, which has embedded in itself the [Undead Creation] spell.

This way I can create an Aura Sword, for example, and either have it be able to destroy both body and soul or, instead, act as an activator.

If the [Soul] part of the Aura and Soul Sword isn’t harmful to souls, being mostly empty space with just a modified version of [Soul Cushion] around it, it can hold the [Undead Creation] soul spell’s [Feeling] like a bubble, acting as an activator as well – once the [Soul Cushion] detects the presence of a certain amount of aura, it activates the [Undead Creation] part of itself and creates an Undead by directing the spell to the right target.

So the person has the spell cast on its foes every time they are cut by the sword. Otherwise, if I tried to just ground the [Undead Creation] spell to a sword itself, then the sword would become an Undead, and not those hit by it.

Then again, it may require for the weapon holder to keep it inside the person as she dies, so it’s not the best of the best weapons.

Or is my [Toxic Wind Undead Creator Needle].

If I follow the initial design, then the soul rock would need to be precisely tuned to scathe right after the person dies.

So both options for undead creation have small chance of success.

The idea of giving bacteria small soul programming also doesn’t work.

Since bacteria apparently have a number of Titan souls mixed in it.

You know, the guys who have massive souls but weak bodies?

For some reason they seem to be very common amongst bacteria, so it would be utterly dangerous to mess around with bacteria souls.

So!

The solution is to mix everything and come with two new designs.

For the [Toxic Wind Undead Creator Needle] I will first create the usual [Toxic Wind Needle] and then add a [Soul Cushion] around it. Then I will use [Soul Grounding] to ground the [Soul Cushion] to the [Toxic Wind Needle] and proceed to write the algorithm inside the [Soul Cushion] spell, by making it feel like this:

And since the [Soul Cushion] will be grounded in the aura around the [Toxic Wind Needle], it should remain for quite a bit of time.

Why can’t I just program the Algorithm to recognize when it’s in contact with a soul?

Because it’s the fucking soul world. Everything there is souls. Even the air is soul-air. So I need to recognize a target by it being a certain concentration of soul energy, which is enough to be recognized as a soul. 

This way I can have my [Toxic Wind Undead Creator Needle]. And for the [Turn Into a Slime!] spell, well, in this case I just need to ground the [Soul Cushion] to one of the superbacteria inside the [Toxic Wind Needle], instead of grounding it to the Needle’s aura.

Or that’s the plan!

Let’s test it!

A couple of horned rabbits have been caught in some of my hunting traps. I guess this much should be enough for testing, right?

Right, right.

Let’s get one of them here, tie his leg to a branch of a tree aaand… done!

Sorry little one, but please become a nice undead skeleton for me!

Let’s cast the [Toxic Wind Undead Creator Needle] and…

It has pierced the little rabbit, it’s killing it and… yes!

The flesh is falling from it!

The skeleton is moving!

I can see the soul wiring!

Oh, wait…

Why is the ground twitching?

…

Shit.

I hurried to destroy the [Soul Cushion] part of the spell, as well as the soul wiring. The rabbit’s soul vanished away soon after.

So.

Damage assertion.

It seems my grounding of the spell on the aura part of the [Toxic Wind Needle] wasn’t a good idea.

I thought it would disappear once it scathed, but instead the [Soul Cushion] remained grounded to the aura itself, so when it scathed inside the rabbit’s flesh it became a contaminating agent.

Everything touched by the rabbit’s flesh has started to decay and become [Undead] too. Including the leaves on the ground. That’s why they were twitching. That was the rabbit’s soul being grounded to them.

Now, fun thing about the [Undead Creation] spell. It only affects physical things which doesn’t have souls attached to them, so it can be dead or just inorganic. Which means if I cast this [Toxic Wind Undead Creator Needle] into something I will not only create an undead of the thing I kill with it, but also contaminate the soil and other things around.

And since the [Soul Cushion] part of the spell remains active while glued to the scathing aura, things that die while in contact with it may have it’s souls grounded to the whole of the infected area. 

On another words, I have created a chaotic, tormenting and terribly confusing undead plague. How lovely. I bet the poor souls trapped to this would not only be in suffering but also incapable of having basic control of the undead area around themselves.  

The wiring would be messed up, so the undead crew could have parts of itself not only on bones but also mixed with plant fiber or dust particles. Not to mention all of them would be connected to everything.

It’s a useless spell. It can’t even be used to torment people, since the undeads created like this wouldn’t even be able to move themselves with precision. Unless they decided to act as a big group and went for a long time trying to figure out how to move themselves.

Argh..

Let’s redesign this project later.

Maybe if I redesign the Algorithm. Something like once it recognizes a certain concentration of Soul Energy, fire the spell a couple times?

This way at least I would reduce the chance of getting other souls trapped in it.

Oh, right, I can program the soul cushion to stop acting once the Aura Needle scathes, right?

This way I can guarantee at least some undead integrity.

But I would lose the infecting power.

You know, this infecting power seems wonderful.

Terrible for the poor things affected, but there’s some mischievousness into creating a undead which can replicate itself.

Maybe I should make this algorithm a little bit more complex indeed?

You know, I CAN make it to be a self-replicating algorithm. Maybe I can make it move the scathed aura needle to the extremities of the undead and make it’s claws capable of transmitting the undeadfication?

Oooh, better yet.

I can make it so the Aura Needle scathed parts absorb aura from the environment around and condensate while also replicating the undeadfication part of the spell.

This way I can make it so the undead’s attacks as a whole become extremely poisonous to human flesh.

They will inflict petrification where the person is hit, because of environmental aura poisoning. And will also propagate the disease.

What a delightfully evil spell!

MUAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I’m an evil genius!

Just kidding.

I should test those things latter, but I won’t use them. It’s just a curiosity. Besides, I need to develop a counter-spell in case someone discover how to use this. After all, if I have discovered how then someone can discover by themselves as well and try to use it against others.

It would be pretty bad, specially seen as undeads created by the [Create Undead] series of spells obey the one who created them unconditionally.

It has to do with a certain emotional wiring in the spell, which makes the affected soul to feel extreme loyalty to the master who casted the spell.

The bad news is that if the soul you’re trying to imprison is stronger than the amount of strength you have used in the spell, then they may break it or jam your ruling powers.

It’s a typical “the strong-willed hero kills the bad necromancer after being turned into an undead” scenario.

Better not to mess with this.

That said, I shall concentrate on redesigning this spell later.

Now, to the light of the party!

The [Turn Into a Slime!] spell.

I’m quite excited with it.

Okay, it’s just grounding someone’s soul to a slime, so I could do it with a simple [Soul Grounding] spell and a slime present.

But isn’t it much more fun to think on something you shoot out of your hands and then use to turn the person into a slime from inside out?

It must be so fun.

I will definitely cast this on some mad hounds later.

So, let’s test it.

Using the data from the latter experiment, I should rework the algorithm to be a little more like this, I believe:

This should do it, right?

Even If I’m casting the spell into the bacteria, which shouldn’t break into pieces, I need to be sure it will be just the bacteria itself.

Let’s try.

Prepare [Toxic Wind Needle], cast [Soul Cushion] on the aura around engorged bacteria I can see while using [Aura Analysis], write down the Algorithm on the [Soul Cushion]…

It’s done!

The [Turn Into a Slime!] spell/technique mix!

Go! [Turn Into a Slime!] !

…

Oh.

Right.

I’m stupid.

I understood it the moment the aura needle hit the rabbit. It released the toxic bacteria inside and killed the rabbit. Then the rabbit’s soul got attached to the bacteria I had casted the [Soul Cushion] on.

The problem is, even though this time I don’t have the problem of needing to take care for the scathing aura of the [Needle] part of the spell, the rabbit’s soul has been stuck to the bacteria… and rabbits apparently don’t make good bacteria.

It gotten itself eaten by another blimp of light right the next moment and then disappeared.

The soul has scathed again.

*Sigh*

Right.

Rabbits don’t know how to be good bacteria. And I should have studied slime formation more in dept.

Now that I look at it up close, it’s clear that the bacteria are eating each other. That explains why they become slimes only after some time has gone by – they need to eat each other to get the aura not only from the meat they are infecting but of each other as well.

That’s the only way for small bacteria to become huge slimes. By consuming a lot of aura.

Let’s burn this rabbit and try again latter.

Two spell technique mixes in urgent need of redesign in the oven sir!

I will think about how to make it work later. Now it’s almost morning already.

So let’s go chop some wood and carry water buckets back home. Then play with children until night comes again.

One can’t be an Evil Genius from an Advanced Civilization of Another Planet all the time. You got to be a childish kid worrying over your friend’s sexuality and relationships as well.