Volume 2

Chapter 4

“Is it really that good?”

“Yesh, it’s good.”

In a corner of our house, near the beer barrel but not quite at the kitchen entrance, there are four kids.

Those would be me, Elipha, Maurus and Ralphe. And Maurus is saying it’s good while eating a jewel egg - which is basically an egg and egg yolk mix softly boiled on a sugar and water sauce with just a little tad of vinegar. A type of candy.

It seems Maurus likes soft eggs, but his family has been eating only overcooked eggs recently. It’s a mistery.  

Now, Jacen is in the middle of the room, listening attentively to father and a few other people. They are telling him what each of them do in the village. It’s the first step on the big choice he has to do – that is, who is he going to become an apprentice of.

And there are many possibilities. Not only the chief Huntress of the village and Father, but also Grandfather, our Blacksmith and the village´s Brewmaster – which is the guy who makes everyone’s beer.

All of them seem to be somehow related to grandmother at some level, but I shouldn’t be impressed with the old spider’s skill to make relatively influential people her allies anymore. This is the elite of our village, but since grandma was from such an influential clan back in the times of the Empire, and also know so many and so powerful magic, I’m fairly certain that’s just child’s play for her.

I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if she could do the same thing on a national or maybe international level.

That said, maybe I should be there as well for information gathering purposes, but I have a higher priority.

Oh yes. A higher goal in life.

Alvin never forgets. Alvin never forgives.

I must get revenge.

For all of the candy Jacen stole from me on my fifth birthday!

So that’s what I’m doing now, hhohohohohoh.

I mean, there isn’t much I could learn about those people’s professions. Hunting monsters and learning survival techniques for grandma already taught me the basis of what the hunters do.

Farmers just farm the ground. I don’t know much about this, but I highly doubt I will need this knowledge later in life.

Father is father. I have been listening to his gatekeeper duty reports for literally my whole life so far.

Then there’s the Brewmaster and the Blacksmith. I don’t know much about what they do, but just like with farming, I don’t think I will ever need to.

It may be fun to learn it in the future, but maybe not here on the village. After all, I don’t want to make people believe I will live here forever, or worst, follow the customs and only start learning once I’m ten.  By there I will have gone away. To explore and become an apprentice at a Magic Research Society.

I mean, I’m definitely tired of this village by now. It’s a shame for my [Grow a Little Friend] plan with the [Forest Spirit], but even if I make friends with it, there’s really not much it could teach me.

It will be born without memories after all. I would be more of a teacher than a friend, at least for a few years.

But that’s for the future!

Now me and my crew are plundering on Jacen’s stash of candy.

And what a stash!

There’s candy of all sorts here!  Soft buttersugar candy with ginger, jewel eggs, hard caramel balls, crystalized fruits, dried and fermented cocoa seeds with sugar toping, beewax gum, sweet rice, soft cheese with jam and an assortment of sweet biscuits made with rice flour.

There isn’t much of every kind of candy, but there are many kinds – since all of the ingredients for those things are expensive, people bring small amounts but the variety is up to what everyone can spare. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be wheat around, or we surely would be able to relish on some sweet cakes as well.

Such a shame my older brother won’t see some of this gluttonous glory, right?

After all, there are four hungry kids here. And I ain’t going to stop any of the other three if they go berserk.

Vengeance tastes sweet in my tongue.

***

News! News! Important news!

So, Jacen decided to go with father and become a militia apprentice. Just as expected. Ralphe may have some eyes for him, he may have some admiration for the boy, but, well, it’s “following your father’s footsteps” after all.

Besides, Jacen will also have opportunities to go hunting with Ralphe when the hunters need some help, so it’s fine.

That said, he got really upset when he noticed the unholy damage done to his candy stash.

He even cried a bit, which made me feel a bit ashamed.

I will get some extra honeycomb gun for him when I can. It seems to be the most desired thing amongst the ones we ate, and it isn’t so difficult to get.

You just need to take a honeycomb, open it, put the combs in a pot, smash them, take most of the honey off, and then make small candy shapes with the remaining honey-filled wax.

It makes excellent candy, just like real bubblegum.

Except you can’t make bubbles with it. And you should always spit the wax in a separate pot – it can be sold for high prices, since nobles don’t seem to like regular lard candles or oil lamps, using beeswax candles instead.

So, that’s a thing.

Now, besides that, there’s definitely no chocolates in this village. Not even grandma knew of the recipe when I said something on the line of “candy made with brown seeds, sugar and milk”.

I wonder if I would be able to do it, but I’m not exactly sure how to do it.

The brown seeds with sugar toping were sweet, but also had a lot of bitterness still. So it’s not just mixing both together.

Besides, they are hard as hell. You need strong teeth to nimble on those.

I mean, I do know I need to make cocoa powder somehow. And then mix with milk and sugar.

But how am I supposed to make the powder in the first place? Should i just grind it on the mortar ? But then how to separate the butter from the powder?

Questions, questions.

I already have a research project going on, so I will leave the cocoa bean investigation on how to make chocolate for later.

Now I should focus on more important things. Like how to create a zombie apocalypse spell and then how to make a counterspell for that.

***

“I believe it’s best darling. Your friend has already developed enough of a soul to hold a mind. It shall awake soon.”

Grandma is giving me advice regarding the [Forest Spirit] creation.

It seems the [Old Man’s Tree] I used as a basis for it has already reached a nice point of maturation and is ready to receive a mind, as soon as one attuned to the feelings I have embedded in the tree’s recently-formed [Soul] gets around.

Ah, that’s how life is. I’m pretty sure it would be lightning fast if I had made it full of my own bad feelings, but minds attuned to only the best feelings one can muster aren’t as common as those with more earthly desires.

My own isn’t, so I should now!

That said, the only thing remaining to be done now is to undo the temple’s structures and collect the many mana pebbles.

Then I need to smash the pebble’s souls, erasing the programming on them and making sure they don’t turn into dungeons.

So, hands to work!

Move a rock here, cast [Soul Dissolution] there…. What is [Soul Dissolution]? Well, it’s a spell which is basically the feeling of “letting go” and “dissipating emotion”.

It makes many kinds of soul energy to just dissipate, as if it had been dematerialized.

It hasn’t. But still, it scathes easily.

Of course, this spell can’t be used with all kinds of soul objects – they are just too malleable to be affected by this – but there’s a hearty amount which can be.

Like the emotional version of the temple’s walls and the many mana pebble’s souls.

So I’m casting those while also removing the rocks.

Aand… done.

Rocks removed, mana pebbles erased.

I wonder what should I do with them?

The rocks are full of residual aura, so I need to take care of this. They may become rock golems which vibrate or even mana pebbles themselves.

Then there’s also the mana pebbles. Their souls have been obliterated, so the things are in a kind of comatose state now.

But as the soul energy first accumulated around them, it’s bound to happen again.

Maybe I should use them making gadgets for my own use. Like my lightning rod. Which I have been keeping stored under my bed recently.

Uhm.

At that times, indeed it would be useful to become a blacksmith’s apprentice, wouldn’t it?

But if I diversify my training too much, then I won’t learn anything to the max of my skills. 

After all, I have already postponed my soul spell and techniques training for far too long.

Yes, I have been making great progress, and learned a bunch of stuff.

But I haven’t mastered necromancy yet. The [Magic Undead Creation] is being really though on me.

I mean, it’s not easy to wire souls to be able to use magic you know?

To do that I need to associate the soul’s existing feelings with small feeling bubbles which are embedded with a certain programming -  the spell I need to use.

Then I need to carefully wire these bubbles to the corpse I’m working with, so the spell is copied and launch at the right way and timing.

And it stops there?

Of course not.

Because damn dumb undead monsters can’t gather aura with their souls alone.

No, they don’t know the freaking technique.

So I need to create a retro-feeding system including feeling bubbles with aura-absorbing programing and the correct wiring to connect all of that aura to a place inside their corpses which can hold all of it. 

Most of the times is the inside of the bones or an artificial core. But it seems to be possible to even use mana pebbles instead, for creating more powerful undead.

Not that I intend to create those. I have enough of corpse digging without needing to imbue cores to them.

I may even try to master the technique if it was just placing the stones there, but damn undead tend to decay unless you create an even more complex wiring to make their corpses constantly sterile.

So it’s useless work.

Which I need to learn how to do in order to get insights on how to work with souls, but still, it’s gruesome.

The smell of monster entrails is so common to me now I don’t even flitch when smelling it.

Sigh.

Well, back to the temple.

It’s undone, the mana pebbles are at my pockets.

And the small tree stands proudly amidst my orchard.

Damn, it’s a beautiful tree!

A young tree, looking like a ten-years-old oak.

But it’s just perfect!

Bright and lively green leaves, a trunk of remarkable luster, very straight.

Maybe even a bit artificial.

Well, no matter.

It’s still young, but I can feel an amazingly delicious aura of goodwill and happiness exhilarating from it.

~~Aaah.

It soots you down.

I almost feel like this load of work was worth it.

No.

I feel like all of this work was a gift!

Something amazing I had the honor to do.

It’s totally unfair that I get something so good out of so little work. I’m truly blessed by the universe, I’m certain of that.

I mean, it’s obviously because of the tree’s influence, but I feel so good right now.

So good.

Look.

Even grandma’s soul is smiling.

Yeah.

That’s very, very nice.

Now let’s scatter the temple’s rocks around the orchard so it can feed on the aura remnants and go back home to find a place to store these mana pebbles. I don’t trust the bare ground, since they can become dungeons if I put them there.

Maybe the ceiling is a good spot?

***

In the end I have stored the mana pebbles in the ceiling indeed. I know it’s a bit dangerous since they can become dungeons if one of them get too close to the earth, but still, it’s the closest place possible. So I can watch over them and try to be sure that nothing will happen, like they gathering emotional energy or aura by themselves and getting new souls.

And now…

Well, now I have to face it.

My first day playing alone with Elipha and Maurus, without Jacen in our group.

Or do I?

Jacen is right at the village’s gate with father. He’s armed with a spear and looking at our direction.

Will father let him slip out of guarding duty and come to play with us?

….

Nope.

Isn’t happening.

In fact, he just gave us his back and started to stare outside intensively.

That’s a militia guard’s life for you. To look at the outsides while people do other things.

In our case, going to Maurus’s house in order to get a honeycomb.

It’s related to what we did to Jacen at his birthday.

Luckily Maurus’s father, Matthew, seems to have found a honeycomb near his plot of land – which means it’s his for all rights.

Usually they would sell it at the market, but I asked Maurus to see if his mother wouldn’t sell it to us instead. This way I can repay my debt with Jacen for eating all of his beewax gum.

Mother has agreed with me taking a couple fat chickens as payment.

Of course, this do means I need to repay mother one way or another, but it seems she’s happy with me helping on getting wild herbs while I’m in the forest.

There are some which are difficult to get, like the Ika Berries for instance, so she said I must get a few of those for her in exchange for the chickens.

I guess it’s only fair.

Oh, here I come.

“Ma, we’re here!”

Oh.

Maurus’s mother is looking a lot healthier. Even if their house looks even a little bit gloomier than before.

“Right, here it…”

And she stopped while looking at the chickens I’m carrying.

Mother said two should be a very fair amount for a honeycomb, so it shouldn’t be because it’s a small pay.

Maybe she thought we would take it for free?

It’s for her son’s friends, and Maurus ate some of the beewax gum with us, but in the end I was the main gluttonous culprit, so It wouldn’t be fair.

“Aunt Ullma, here, those are for the honey!”

“Oh, right, than.. thank you.”

She’s holding the chickens dearly. It’s a weird scene to see someone holding a couple chickens by their feet while the birds move their necks around, aware and alive.

Like right now. One of the chickens messed with its own feathers, as if it wasn’t upside-down. Isn’t it scared of being eaten?

Animals are weird.

But I’m getting used to it.

Now, the honeycomb….

Thank you very much!

Let’s take this home. The honeyed wax we will use to make gum off, and the excess honey I will ask mother to use as ingredient for some biscuits.

She could make honeyed rice bread as well, but people just don’t use bread here. It’s too much work to grind the seeds in the mortar and pestle, so eating the rice cooked or in porridge is the most common way. And when it’s about making sweets, it seems biscuits are more common than bread. Maybe because they actually get pretty sweet.

Anyway, I don’t care. Bread is just overrated anyway.

***

[Undead Apocalypse] spell and [Turn Into a Slime spell].

Today is test day for the re-designed version of those two. So I’ve come to my old training grounds and did some work around by placing some [Aura Cushion] and [Soul Isolation] around. Just for safety.

Grandma is also present in case she has some insight on what can I do to make it better.

So, here’s how I have reworked the spell design:

For the [Undead Apocalypse] spell I will make a design alteration where I cast the [Skeleton Creation] into the subjects flesh instead of just jamming it inside the [Toxic Wind Needle].

On another words, I will make a more complex algorithm than last time.

It will be launched like this on the [Toxic Wind Needle]:

                                          < cast [Aura Gathering]>

                                                                       < replicate [Undead Apocalipse] into the aura>

The replication function is the trickiest part. I needed to concentrate really hard in order to sort out what was the feeling of “writing down this spell on aura” and then add it to the spell… only to need to expend even more time to get a grip on the feeling of writing this spell on aura with the self-replication part added to it.

That said, this is a virus.

A nice, cozy virus to cause an undead apocalypse, muawhahahaha!

Let’s try it out.

First, hit the giant spider in front of me.

It’s dying. The [Toxic Wind Needle] seems to have scathed inside it’s body already, but the spell is half-soul and half-aura made, so it should keep being active…

It is!

But no reaction…

Why hasn’t it worked?

The aura remnants still have the spell written on them. If you look with [Soul Analysis] the little bubbles of emotional energy are clearly all around the spider’s body.

Let’s see… none of them is triggering.

If none is triggering...

Oh.

The indicator.

I used the feeling of being in contact with flesh, like when I touch fleshy things with [Aura Sensing].

The feeling of the spider’s body is just a bit different because it has a little bit of a insectoid twist to it.

Let’s try to…

Here.

I have adjusted the feeling to match insect meat as well.

Let’s try it again and…

That’s it!

It’s alive! Alive!

And it obeys simple emotional commands, just as it should be expected form the [Skeleton Creation] spell!

Now, let’s see if it’s self-replicating properly. [Aura Analysis] and… there it is. The corpse is gathering aura as expected.

The only problem seems to be that it’s not accumulating it. It just gathers aura from the environment, pass it around it’s body and it soon leaks out.

It’s kind of freaky since it creates a toxic aura around the undead spider, but it makes the spell ever more fun to use.

Now, in terms of emotional energy, it seems to be the same…

And there we go.

It’s working properly.

And if the aura around the undead gets in contact with flesh, it will automatically trigger the chain of events, making it so the ones affected get not only some of their aura drained, but also the spell inscribed on them themselves and, if they die, they become undead as well. It will dissipate with time, but around the undead It is pretty sure to work with 100% accuracy or something.

So it’s like a movie zombie virus. You get infected from just being in contact with it. It can make you weak. And it can turn you into an undead if you die.

Self-replicating undead creation algorithm. And it seems to be pretty durable as well. It can replicate as long as there’s aura to replicate into, so if you cast this on people you won’t be able to get rid of the spell until either there’s no more aura or someone cleanses it with [Soul Release], [Soul Cleanse] or a similar spell capable of destroying the algorithm and/or the feelings associated to it.

Thinking well, someone with just the right kind of feelings on its soul would be immune to this spell, hum?

Well, no matter.

I just created this spell to have some fun with the whole [Zombie Apocalypse] thing. I can adapt it to create any kind of undead, but it isn’t like I want to do it.

So it’s [Soul Cleansing] time.

The spell has spread quite far, hasn’t it?

I can see little bubbles of the soul energy and the algorithm-duplicated aura filling the inside of the [Aura Cushion] and [Soul Isolation] bubbles I have set around the place. It should decay and disappear from the aura eventually as the feeling bubbles scathe, but it has a nice reach. At least five meters of undead creation on all sides.

Well, it’s bleaching time.

So let’s just cast [Soul Release] and [Soul Cleanse] on everything and eliminate the feeling part of the algorithms.

This will destroy the influence of the [Feeling] into the [Aura], therefore destroying the whole of the algorithm.

And done.

With this spell, that is.

I would test the other one as well, but I have no more test subjects available. Maybe I have over-hunted the monsters in the forest a little bit. 

***

We are at Maurus’s tenth birthday party.

Me, mother, father, Jacen and grandma.

His father has invited all of us, so we’re at his doorstep. 

Not that we intend to stay. It would be too much to pretend to like them.

But still we have come. That’s grandma’s good neighborhood policy.

I wonder if something happened between grandmother and the Dorians?

Maurus’s father is avoiding grandma’s sight. Maurus is at his father’s side.

“Welcome, Marie, Alice, John.”

“No problem Matthew. It’s your youngness’s birthday and he’s Jacen’s and Alvin’s friend after all.”

“Yes.”

Ah, here it comes. The awkward silence.

“I believe that would be it.”

And then grandma said goodbye, just like that.

“Yes. Thank you for coming.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

That was quick.

That was fucking quick!

I couldn’t even congratulate Maurus!

And we’re back home now.

Well, something as serious as attempted murder can’t be solved so easily after all.

There’s a heavy mood around us.

Fuuh. What a tense night.

***

It’s me and Elipha.

And I don’t know what to do.

So we are both just hanging around a tree.

“I’m bored.”

She’s holding her knees.

“Uhm.”

“I wish Maurus was here.”

I bet you do Elipha, I bet you do.

But the kid just left with his father this morning. To go and learn how to work the fields past the village’s gate.

Oh, she’s gone.

…

Probably going to find herself another children group.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She’s a bit older than me, so she still has a few months before needing to discover what she wants to be.

Probably a farmer like her father.

Then, after some time working on the fields she will find a boy for herself and start getting intimate with him.

And this is when she and the boy start building a house for themselves at the outskirts of the village.

After a year or two the house will be ready and they will move in, starting a new family. And then she won’t work on the fields anymore, but rather stay as a housewife.

That or she may become a huntress or just never marry.

Still, it would be difficult for her to work on the fields after having the first child. Since the mother need to take care of the child until it’s five years old.

And then, since she will be home for a while, she will also probably have another child within this five-years period and become like the Hags at mother’s house.

That is, she will expend her days making clothing and such, until she stops having children.

Then and only then, she may go back to working on the fields.

Well, at least she won’t have trouble getting a job. There’s enough uncultivated land here for everyone to plow.

No laws forbidding woman to work either. Instead, it’s almost impossible for them not to work at least on spring and autumn.

So go on Elipha!

Enjoy your last months of carefree life amongst the village children.

I will sleep a bit and dream of nice spells. Maybe I should check on Older Sister as well?

I’m sure there’s some interesting stuff to see going on with her. It’s like having a T.V.

Today’s channels are “village children monkeying around” or “iron will sister hardcore training”.

Let’s zap a bit.

***

“So the souls would get entangled if you try to do it this way darling. It isn’t a good spell because of that.”

Grandma is criticizing my new [Undead Apocalypse] spell.

Sigh.

It’s not that I didn’t expect for her to do it, but the truth is, I’m bored with it already.

And she, of course, can feel this much from my soul.

I definitely need to improve my [Soul Isolation] technique.

“All, darling, if you really want to create something new, then you have to take your time to do it right. If you used this spell of yours it would bound countless souls to the undead, and his flesh will become a grounding place for others. I know you tried your best, but this one is useless.”

Urgh!

I know, I know, ok?!

I’m just dead tired of working in this thing!

Grandma smiled on my direction.

“Here, do you want to go and check on Ann? She’s close to having her breakthrough, so we may be able to see it. You haven’t ever seen one of those before, right?”

Uhm.

That’s true.

Let’s leave this spell for another time. I won’t be able to focus on it with so much pent-up frustration anyway.

“Okay. Let’s go!”

“Good, follow me then.”

Ann’s room in the dojo is just a 3x3m space with a straw mattress in the ground, a barrel of water for her own use, a bucket and a chest where she can keep her clothes.

Still, there’s a faint light here, and it isn’t coming from any candle or oil lamp.

It’s Ann.

She’s producing just a small light around her body. A halo half a centimeter thick.

That said, I can see that her skin is all cracked and shedding. It’s a weird image, seeing Ann’s skin evaporating as if it was small pieces of silk paper leaving the surface of her body.

Underneath it was a smooth, beautiful new layer of skin.

“We came just in time.”

“It’s pretty.”

“Yes. But your sister should have waited a little bit more before doing this. The master won’t believe easily if he doesn’t see the process himself. It may take her months to accumulate enough aura in order to convince him.”

“Shouldn’t we help then?”

“Uhm. It may disrupt her cultivation, but I believe she’s already beyond the point where it would bring any trouble. Why don’t you take this as a chance to test your chantless magic skills out of the body darling? Use [Aura Hammer] to produce a loud noise in front of the room.”

“Okay.”

I concentrated myself and started to accumulate some aura from the environment. However, it was excruciatingly hard.

“Grandma, I’m not getting enough aura.”

“Yes, cities have very little of it in the air. There are too many people, so they breath in all of the surface energy. You will need to take it from the ground underneath.”

Oh.

Well, that makes sense, I guess.

There’s a lot of people, and aura is gathered mainly by eating and breathing. So in a place like this the air will naturally become poor in aura.

The only bad side is that aura from deep underground is very heavy. Literally. When someone tries to lift it with their souls it’s like moving rocks around.

So when my [Aura Hammer] hit the ground outside of Ann’s room, it did so with a sloppy and heavy sound, like the one of an obese man tripping on his feet.

Soon people were at the door, mainly young boys with bodies which clearly needed more training.

Still, amongst them was a man in his mid-forties, exhibiting a nice, round, belly, bulging muscles all around and bald head.

It’s Ann’s master, and was it not by the clearly above-the-normal amount of aura emanating from his body one could be deceived by the appearance of an old uncle who should quit drinking and taking steroids at the same time.

He opened Ann’s door while asking in his deep voice:

“Hound, what happened in front of your door?”

Still, soon he stopped in his tracks.

That because Ann hadn’t bulged an inch from her previous position, and kept training even still now.

Breakthroughs really take some time for regular people hum…

That said, now this bald man is sitting in front of Ann and analyzing what’s happening to her.

Let’s stick around and see what happens.

***

In the end Ann just went through the rest of the process and exchanged a few words with the dojo’s master.

He reprehended her for training beyond what he instructed, but commended her for getting a fast breakthrough.

For a moment I was scared that Ann would accept his offer of remaining in the Dojo as his adopted daughter, but she thanked and said she pretended to win the tournament in the kingdom’s capital.

It was pretty standard, I guess.

Besides, now I know she will be returning home before going there. This way she can see us for the last time in a long while, since the trip to the capital usually takes over a year on foot and knights don’t get long vacations.

Even if she serves for just ten years, which is the usual period of enlistment in the army, it’s still ten years away from us.

So it’s good that she’s coming back. Not to mention she has developed into a beauty.

She’s not quite like mother and grandmother, but still, I think that I may feel a little too incestuous if she asks for us to have a little ~intimacy~ again.

Not that I would deny her.

Ah, grandma just looked at me with a terrible face.

That’s it.

I’m perfecting [Soul Isolation], and I’m doing it TODAY!

***

And now I have a new group of children friends.

I don’t know exactly how, since all I remember is she getting to our typical spot with three other kids – two girls and one boy – and then starting to include me in everything.

I guess this is the previous leader’s small sister. She’s just this proactive.

Still, I remain as the second older in the group. The girls have both seven years, and the boy is their little brother, at six. Yes, they are twins.

Tila, Tima and Ysim. Those would be this three.

Well, they are Elipha’s group, not mine to care, right?

So let’s play around with them for a while like always.

Yeah, marbles, then running around and getting into little gang wars and stuff.

Just the usual, I guess.

***

So, [Undead Apocalypse].

Let’s make it happen. I have a nice, rectangular shaped stone and some coal. So let’s write it down to try and visualize better.

And let’s do it in Cryptic language, so I can train a bit my writing skills after such a long time. 

That said, my current problems are:

1 – It may bound more than one soul to the same body.

2 – The undead can’t accumulate aura and creates a toxic field around itself instead. So it won’t grow more powerful, just in numbers.

How should I solve this?

Maybe add a second check before making things get grounded?

                                                         < cast [Aura Gathering]>

                                                                                     < replicate [Undead Apocalipse]>

Uuuhm… no, no.

If I do this I won’t be able to assure that the soon-to-be-undead soul doesn’t scape at the moment of death.

Since it would need to get away from the body first.

Maybe if I change the order of things?

                                          < replicate [Undead Apocalipse]>

Uuuhm… this is dangerous.

Fucking dangerous.

Even if the attack fails to ground a soul to the body, it would still keep accumulating aura and emotional energy.

Some kind of monster or even wild undead is bound to be born from this thing.

Too dangerous. Let’s scrape this one.

Uuuhm.

Let’s rethink this… maybe I have got it wrong from the beginning?

What do I want?

I want to kill someone. And then cast the [Undead Creation: Skeleton] spell on the corpse, so the soul gets entangled to the corpse.

Then I want to be able to replicate this on the undead’s attacks, and maybe even give it some kind of evolution power.

…I’m being too ambitious here.

I haven’t even succeeded in the first step, which is to create undeads with aura weapons, and I’m already trying to make them able to create other undeads in the process.

Let’s downgrade my spell a bit.

Let’s go back to something like [Undead Aura Weapon].

A weapon capable of binding the person’s soul to their body.

If I make [Aura Javelins] then I can create a bubble of feeling with the feeling of the [Undead Creation: Skeleton] and attach this bubble of feeling to the aura javelin.

It will, however, deform the aura javelin and destroy its purpose.

So I need a control. I need something which avoids the javelin from deforming until it’s inside the corpse.

That’s an important point. A limitation of design.

I need to make sure the javelin is in contact with flesh and also that it’s capable of casting the spell multiple times, in order to guarantee that the person die and become an undead after dying.

I know that the aura will become small particles inside the body of the prey, and that each of those will keep casting the [Undead Creation] spell for a while. Seeing as how strong I’m making these feeling bubbles, maybe three hours.

Then I need to make sure only one soul is in contact with the body.

Oh, that’s it.

There’s just a simple thing I can do. And I can use the old design as well, just perfecting it a bit.

                                                         < cast [Aura Gathering]>

                                                                                     < replicate [Undead Apocalipse]>

I just needed to add a numerical limit, hum.

This way I will be able to cast continuously the spell and guarantee that only a single soul inhabit every body, since if more than one soul gets in contact with the same flesh, it won’t be grounded.

It may also create things like undeads made of pieces of flesh instead of corpses, but I can’t differentiate very well the feeling of a whole corpse and a piece of flesh. Not without losing the ability to include monster bodies in the mix.

Maybe if I concentrate the spell for a single type of target, that is, humans or spiders or mad hounds, then I should be able to produce such feeling.

But I don’t intend to use it on humans and creating undead monsters may have been useful for training for a while, but I don’t know which kind of effect would the [Undead Creation] spell have on a [Immortal] like me, so I won’t be using THIS self-replicating spell of doom while making enemies to fight with.

And that’s how I just made it.

[Undead Apocalypse] spell, I declare you ready and done!

Oh, right, and to destroy you…. I guess just [Soul Dissolution], [Holy Guard] and the such would be enough.

Or maybe using the replication process to create a [Holy Guard] replication algorithm. That’s bound to make a [Holy Infection] or something.

The [Undead Creation] series of spells is entirely based on bad emotions and feelings after all.

To be able to create undeads based in feelings of happiness and goodwill I would need to crack the code on what exactly constitutes the principles of this spell.

So no doing that for now.

Indeed, let’s forget this spell exists at all. Poor souls shouldn’t be bounded by such a lame spell.

Even if it’s to start the zombie apocalypse.

Oh, right…

What about [Turn Into a Slime] ?!

Can I adapt something from this algorithm?

Let’s see…

I need to have contact with flesh, and then… yeah, pretty much the same things, except it doesn’t need to include the self-replication part.

…

Oh hell, I can just make slimes which make you turn into a slime if they manage to kill you!

Or even if they happen to start eating your flesh after you were killed, if your soul stands too close to your body after you died!

Oh, wait, no…

I need to get a way to make the slime inhabitable first…

Uuhm..

Maybe if I wait… no, I can’t wait until the slime has formed itself to only then cast the spell. Damn things take an eternity to develop by themselves.

Unless I make it so a single cell gets a lot of energy all out of a sudden and then becomes a slime in a pop.

But then the aura consumption of this spell would be ridiculously high. Too much for a simple joke.

Uuuhm…

I need to think more on this one.

Let’s wash this rock and come back other day. My small vacation due to grandma having to go to the orc’s village is near it’s end anyhow, so I should go back to my training of soul techniques.

I’m getting better at this. 

***

Jacen is at the gate today, with father.

I usually don’t stick around for too long, even when father is there.

Maybe for a few minutes in order to listen to one of his stories or something like this, but today is special.

I want to see how big brother is going.

He has serious eyes and is holding his spear with firm hands. That’s nice.

“Hi Pa. Hi Jacen. Hi Filli.”

Filli is one of father’s man. He’s a the kind of guy which just doesn’t care to stand around all day, so he’s usually easy-going, even when he’s at guarding duty.

“Morning son. Do you need something?”

“I got a cooked apple from Matilda today. Want a bite?”

“Sure.”

I gave the small apple to father, which took quite a bite and then gave it to Jacen. He took a bite as well, and then gave it to Filli.

Well, Jacen has been disciplined to share with his fellows already.

The army is really a frightful thing.

“Thank your brother son.”

“Thanks All.”

“Right, thanks boy.”

Jacen and Filli thanked me, while father gave me a nod.

“Pa, can I stay here with you for a bit?”

Father just raised an eyebrow.

“Why? Doesn’t you want to play with your friends? You and Timber’s kids were playing nicely, weren’t you?”

I can’t say I don’t have new people to play with, but still… I don’t want to make them my friends in the first place.

I mean, technically I can say I am friends with most of the children of the village, as marble tournaments and bigger games which needed more people to be played where a thing we did together.

But still, I’m just sick of having to pretend so much.

It’s been three years already. Can’t I get a break?

You know what, I will just answer sincerely.

“No.”

“Then why don’t you get a gift for Anna’s third birthday?”

Uhm.

That… that may be a nice way of passing my time, right?

“Anna? What should I give her?”

She’s only three after all. And not a reincarnated person. Otherwise she wouldn’t have tried to drink mother’s lye just to get emergency detoxification spell casted on her. Twice.

“Whatever you think you should.”

“Pa, should I give her something too?”

Jacen just asked, a little concerned.

“If that’s what you want.”

“Hey, why don’t ya kids make carvings and give her?”

So Filli is one of the guys who made me small monster statues as birthday presents, hum.

“That’s right. You’re quite good at this Filli. What do you two think? Do you want to learn how to carve with a knife?”

Well, it’s something to do which isn’t playing around with the kids, so…

“Yes.”

“Yes!”

In the end we expended the rest of the day learning how to carve figures into wood. It isn’t easy, but it’s also not quite wrong. You just need to get the right mindset to be able to do it and accept what you’re doing. Almost as if you’re letting yourself be the wood and carve it with following the flow of your ideas.

Eventually Elipha and the other kids joined us, so the gate got quite lively for a while.

Such a shame my sculptures could be summed up as abstract art at best. But Jacen is quite good at this. His carving is recognizable as a human from the first try.

Sometimes I wish I had been born with the [World Treasure] talent. But I clearly am not.

It’s life.

I’m still pretty good at creating zombie apocalypses though. So I won’t complain much.

***

Well, little sister’s birthday has come and passed by. It wasn’t so big since it’s just hers third birthday, but it was still interesting.

What about my present?

Well… I just got a honeycomb from the woods and said I got it from a place near the river. Since the village people do know about father training me in aura control since a young age they didn’t had such a hard time believing I was able to grab the comb and jump into the river in time to avoid being stung to death by the bees.

Instead it became one of those small folk tales about a boy who wanted to make a birthday gift for his sister but couldn’t, so he stole a honeycomb and had to jump into the river to avoid the angry bees.

Sigh.

What won’t I do for my family, right?

I mean, at least little sister looks happy munching on the beeswax.

It’s life. It’s family.

It’s me having the pleasure of seeing Jacen showing some animosity to little sister for the first time in our lives.

Oh yes, look at the honey with envy-filled eyes poop-brother. Look at it as if you wanted to rob it all for yourself.

She deserves your hate!

…

Flying spaghetti monster’s grace, she’s just a baby Alvin!

Well, I guess I’m still a little bothered about not being the center of attention after all.

Let’s work to stop this by furiously craving the attention of others when I grow up. Not that I have an option!

Hahaha.

That’s definitely something I’m not carrying from this life alone, is it?

Let’s just hope my [Metamorph] talent has shown itself until there. Then I will be able to do it without ruining my family and loved one’s lives.

Manifest thyself, [Metamorph] talent! Manifest thyself so I can be sure that all the flashiness and adoration I desire won’t bring me real life consequences!

Yeah. Manifest thyself.

***