The old woman looked at the surprised and frightened Vallynor. After looking at him, and then at the book, she said:

"I see that you are scared. Tell me, how long have you had this book in your hands?"

Vallynor paused, gathered himself, and looked at the old woman. He was puzzled by the fact that she was using mental communication even now when they could see each other. But that was not the point now.

"About five years," he thought. He had been living in this world for more than five years now... How quickly time flies.

"Five years," repeated the old woman. "For five years, it has faithfully served you. One of the most dangerous books... Don't you think your fear is excessive?"

"What do you mean?" Vallynor asked, surprised.

"For five years, this grimoire has served you. And it has never tried to kill you, torture you, or eat you. At least, not while I was watching you. Instead of your fears, you should ask yourself why this terrible book chose you."

Vallynor understood that his emerging fear was unfounded. And, as the old woman said, he should think about why this book chose him. Or, rather, that he found in me the God of Death.

"You said this book is dangerous. As far as I remember, it's harmless. Except for some quests that I'm still waiting for them to activate. Because it says the time has not come yet. Besides, it gives me different knowledge, and it's not always... And it makes me a debtor and mocks me. But I don't remember any danger from it."

The old woman looked at Vallynor for a long time and said, "Let him see for himself," stretching out her right paw. She touched the surprised Vallynor on the forehead with her claw.

Vallynor felt a chill running across his forehead. And then, after a fraction of a second, he was blinded. Then his vision slowly returned, but he no longer saw colors as vividly as before. Now the room looked black and white, like an old television, and only a blue line was noticeable in the surrounding environment. The longer Vallynor looked, the brighter and clearer this blue glow next to the old woman became. A bold idea slowly formed in his head: maybe this was magical energy, or mana.

"Now you see the magical plan of this world, or more precisely, the mana that is in this room... I see, you figured it out. And now look at your book," the old woman said.

Vallynor reflexively lowered his head and looked at his book, which was full of runes and symbols, always moving right, left, up and down. Some symbols disappeared and were replaced by others. But the most terrible thing was how they were written – as if scratched by human claws.

Suddenly, the book shot bright beams of light, blinding Vallynor.

When his vision returned, Vallynor realized that he could see everything as usual. And the old woman held a paw that had touched his forehead, with the other paw, as if she had been wounded.

"Your book is too powerful and dangerous. If it falls into the wrong hands, I cannot guarantee safety. I cannot understand how it came to this world," she said with some concern in her voice.

"You say my grimoire is powerful and dangerous. Can you explain why?" asked Vallynor.

"Of course. Firstly, this grimoire should not have been in this world..." She paused and looked at Vallynor until he nodded to indicate that he was following the conversation. "It should have been in the realm of the dead, or the domain of the dead, as it is also called. There is an analog of this grimoire in this world too. But its author was not God but his heir - Death. Whose grimoire do you think is more powerful? The one written by God of Death in his full power, or the one created from his part of the power - by the son of the God of Death?"

"The grimoire created by the God of Death," Vallynor answered without hesitation.

"You're right. The grimoire written by the God of Death was supposed to remain in his possession. But the grimoire written by Death itself should have belonged to necromancers. Theoretically, it should also have belonged to Death," she explained.

"Are you saying that this book should not be here?" asked Vallynor.

"Yes. Even Baba Yaga couldn't understand how it got here. After all, this world is isolated, and almost nothing can get in. You must be special... taste," the dragon unexpectedly spoke.

"Let's put your book aside. You can stop hiding your pain," the old woman quickly changed the subject.

Vallynor wanted to ask about the strange word, but he realized that he no longer needed to pretend and that his soul no longer hurt. He nodded, knowing that not only his soul hurt, but also his personality was disappearing. It was imperceptible, and he would not have noticed it if Baba Yaga had not told him about this problem.

"Do you know how grimoires are created?" the old woman asked.

"No...and what does this have to do with my soul?" Vallynor asked, although he was interested in the topic of grimoires.

"Stop asking questions and listen," the old woman interrupted. "The creation of a grimoire takes place in several stages. At the first stage, materials for the book need to be collected. It doesn't matter what it looks like, the main thing is that it can store knowledge. So over time, you can see grimoires made of stone, grimoire handles, and so on. A grimoire can be made from papyrus and so on," the old woman paused a little, giving Vallynor time to digest her words and rest a little.

"At the second stage, you need to decide what information the grimoire will contain, for example, like your grimoire. It has two types of knowledge. The main one is everything related to death and necromancy, and the second is what its owner wants, i.e., all the information related to magic that he himself collects," the old woman explained.

Thinking back, Vallynor remembered how he received this book along with the book of basic magic. He replied then that there was an evil spirit in the book, but he was not sure if it was in the book or if the book gave it to him for use. The real reason, as he understood it, was the collection of information. The book loves souls and wants to trade knowledge that must be obtained for souls anyway. However, he had not yet seen this, perhaps because he was a debtor. But soon he would fully pay off his debt, and then, perhaps, the book would show its fat trading face. Let these be scary thoughts, and that's all.

"The third and most important thing is the formation of the soul. There are two ways to do this. The first is the longest and easiest. Once the created book is fully written, it must exist for centuries. But that's not all, it must fall into the hands of strong people, filled with emotions and passion for what is written in the book. That's why it will become valuable. Slowly, but surely, it will be filled with different types of energy and thoughts. Over tens of thousands of years, or maybe less, a soul is born that will believe and follow the thoughts that touched it the most. For this to happen, not one or two beings must believe it, but thousands. For example, if the book is written about magic, over the centuries it will fall into the hands of different people, and every other person will believe that magic is boundless and powerful. That's why they wanted to study it more and more. These thoughts and emotions will be recorded in its essence, and the spirit of the book will want to learn something new about magic..." Suddenly the old woman fell silent, as if lost in thought.

"And the second way?" Vallynor, tired of waiting after a few minutes, asked.

"The second is to take the soul of a living creature and transform it... For example, the soul of your book is made up of thousands of pieces of different souls," explained the Lord of Darkness.

"What?!" A new wave of shock enveloped Vallynor.

"And I want to teach you how to create this soul first," continued the Lord of Darkness.

"Why?" whispered Vallynor, barely audible with surprise. He had not yet recovered from the previous shock, and now a new wave was already washing over him. It almost threw him off balance, and he lost control of his emotions.

"The process of creating a soul for a grimoire is very similar to the process of merging souls. When you learn this process, you will be able to merge my soul with yours. After this process, your soul will be almost completely healed," explained the Lord of Darkness.

"Ohh!" Vallynor realized why he had come to the old woman and why he needed this grimoire.

"I'm falling... Dying. So, I want to give you a gift, like Baba Yaga gave you her grimoire," said the Lord of Darkness.

Vallynor was stunned, and various questions swirled in his head. He could not believe that this was really happening, and the main question that tormented him was, "What the hell is happening here?!"

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Vallynor pondered on what the old woman had said. What gift did he receive from her? When did he receive the grimoire? Why did the old woman want to help? And why was she giving her soul, even if she died? He asked the old woman, "Why do you want to help me by giving your soul?"

The old woman looked at the man in front of her and pondered. Then she said, "You interest me, and I want to help you. But I would like to ask for a favor, like Baba Yaga did. You see, we have all been sitting in this cursed world for too long, and our souls are filled with dirt, making us endure. I won't live much longer, but I have unfinished business, and I've been here for centuries." She raised her paw, showing one of the chains that held her.

"What is it?" Vallynor asked.

"Not now. Let's start your lesson. The grimoire's soul is created artificially, usually from two or more souls that had similar qualities in life."

"Wait, wait," Vallynor interrupted the old woman, quickly adding, "Can you tell me what grimoire Baba Yaga gave me?" Learning about the other grimoire, he became curious.

"Hmm," the old woman replied, turning her perceptive gaze to Vallynor, "That flying eye you made your pet is the grimoire. I recommend that you make it accept you as the owner, not just a pet. This book is filled with kargoi wisdom. Don't interrupt me again; I won't answer any more questions."

Vallynor was left with an open mouth and nodded, thinking about what he had heard from the old woman.

"To create an artificial soul, you must have many souls of rational beings. After that, you need to cut off the part of the soul that is most filled with the thoughts you need. If you need a soul without any thoughts or impurities, you can process the soul using an inefficient technique I used to heal my soul."

"You speak of the time when I molded recycling souls like clay into a crack. But when I thought everything was ready, energy flowed through the cracks. As it does now, but not as critically as before."

"Yes, I am referring to that technique. I will teach you a more efficient technique. And for that, you will use this..." the old woman said, plunging her paw into the mountain of precious stones. She took out several stones and threw them into Vallynor's hands, who caught them all.

"These are magical stones filled with life energy. You must perform the same soul-cleansing process, but first the soul must be in the stone. You must observe the process," explained the old woman.

Vallynor sat down on the floor and picked up the stone. But where to get the souls? Looking at the old woman, he understood that she knew what he was thinking about. And she plunged her paw into the mountain again, taking a shining object in the shape of an oil lamp that shone with some birch color.

This time, the old woman did not throw the lamp like she did the stones before, but carefully, using wind magic, placed it in front of Vallynor, saying, "The Animus Lamp..."

"The Anima lamp?" Vallynor asked in surprise.

"No, the lamp is called Anima. And do not interrupt me. It belonged to one of the powerful necromancers nicknamed Experavit. This lamp contains thousands of souls. Do not think well of them, they are all criminals from different worlds, completely covered in the blood of the innocent."

Vallynor reached out to the lamp and felt a lot of souls in it. Each soul asked for forgiveness and prayed for mercy and help. Vallynor was pleasantly surprised. The Anima lamp was not only a storage for souls but also a prison. Studying the lamp, he was able to slightly feel the strange energy of despair, but it quickly disappeared. When he pulled out one soul, he felt different emotions run through him. After all, he used to collect souls, you could say, insanely.

If an ordinary person felt anxiety and fear, Vallynor felt these feelings fleetingly, after which they were replaced by a feeling of power and strength. He thought it would not be bad to have such a storage, but first, he had to check the storage of the book. Because, by his feelings, it destroys the soul's mind, turning it into a piece of meat.

When he tried to throw the praying soul onto the stone, the Necronomicon appeared and sucked the soul, opening up and showing a counter with the word "debt" written on top, and the number below decreasing by one, going from 231555 to 231554.

"Damn book," muttered Vallynor.

"Tss!" exclaimed the old woman, reading the book's title, and clicked her tongue disapprovingly. She looked angrily at the book and Vallynor, annoyed that he had not been able to fully pay off his debt in these five years. Now it was being used by him as he pleased.

"Return to me my souls from the Lamp of Anima to pay off the debt," the old woman spoke, barely hiding her anger. "These souls are useless to me," she added, gritting her teeth and overcoming her greed, which had been forming in her for many centuries and had only intensified during her fall.

Vallynor happily reached for the lamp to pull out the souls, but noticed a change in the book's page from the corner of his eye. He was surprised by what he saw... The debt counter had increased?

He remembered that the book had said "231554," but now he saw "281554." He couldn't believe the debt had increased by 50,000. This did not go unnoticed by the queen, her cold gaze expressing annoyance and hatred towards the greedy book and its owner, who was careless in paying off the debt. She wanted to scream, but held back to avoid causing a storm.

Vallynor was also annoyed, but he remained silent so as not to accidentally increase the debt. He knew that no swearing or cursing would change anything, except to increase the debt. He had seen many such scenes in books and movies, and he understood that the debt had to be paid off quickly.

Pulling out bundles of souls from the lamp, he began to return them to the book, rejoicing at how the debt was decreasing.

In more than ten minutes, he extracted one quarter or even one third of the souls from the lamp. Finally, the debt was paid off, and now he could experiment with souls. Pondering, he pulled out one soul that he had once ripped from a girl and thrown into the stone. Entering the stone, Vallynor immediately began the process of transformation.

During the purification of the soul from impurities and even from its consciousness, which begged for mercy and then cursed him, the life energy began to influence the soul, as if keeping its consciousness from disappearing, to turn the soul into a common material for souls.

The hatchling didn't try to destroy consciousness to complete the soul processing, but no matter how hard he tried, nothing worked. The old woman, who hid her eyes so as not to see Vallynor throwing thousands of souls into nothingness, was greatly annoyed. She had to endure all the suffering caused by the presence of everything that contained the energy of death, even if it was Vallynor.

"Don't destroy consciousness. On the contrary, you need to protect and preserve the thoughts and ideas you need. But for the first time, he's good," the old woman said.

Hearing the old woman's voice, Vallynor stopped and pulled the soul out of the stone. Holding the processing soul in one of his hands, he began to examine it carefully. He wanted to find the differences.

Examining the soul carefully and comparing it with those that had been processed long ago, Vallynor noticed one difference: this soul was more alive than the others. It didn't sit like a piece of meat. It seemed that this soul was like a newborn baby who was exploring everything around. Or that's how Vallynor felt, watching the soul trying to break free and twisting around.

"You tried to destroy its consciousness, turning the soul into a cripple. If it had ended up in the river, it would have taken decades to recover. You destroyed its mind and memories. If you were more experienced, you could have used those memories to create goals for the soul. For example, you could have preserved memories of love affairs and given the soul a body that would become a top-notch whore, thinking only about love. That way, you could create yourself a harem."

"I'll think about it," Vallynor replied.

"You don't need them now, considering your little friend who is always sleeping," the old woman said.

Vallynor immediately understood what the old woman was talking about. She had been watching him and had seen him trying to masturbate. But no matter how hard he tried, his little friend always slept.

"What do I do now?" Vallynor asked.

"Let's try again, but this time, don't completely destroy consciousness," the old woman suggested.

"And how will I know which thoughts and memories to keep and which to destroy? And besides, how do you know more about this than me, Queen of the Forest? I thought you knew more about nature and life, not about souls," Vallynor asked.

"Since our world was sealed, we lost the essence of our existence. Some of us devoted ourselves to studying, spending all our resources. Others tried to break the seal. Some indulged in their desires: laziness, lust, gluttony, and the like. And I began to study everything that came under my paw, even necromancy. Of course, my knowledge is superficial compared to the specialists in this field of magic, but I have long been thinking about creating a living grimoire with a soul that could create a soul for itself without a seal on the world. That's why I know so much about this process. Let's begin, and I'll take a nap for now," the old woman explained, lowering her head onto her paws and closing her eyes.

Vallynor pondered as he processed the soul. He wondered where the old woman had obtained so much knowledge. At first, it seemed strange to him, but with new information, Vallynor began to worry and various guesses emerged.

After learning the truth, he calmed down, but still had questions. Where did she get the knowledge and the lamp she used for her experiments? Doesn't this seem suspicious?

Taking a new soul in his hands, Vallynor threw the processed one into the grimoire, which immediately took it, and the value "Balance: +1" appeared on the paper.

"Well, I'm starting to get rich little by little," Vallynor thought.

Looking at the screaming soul in his hand, Vallynor felt nothing else. No fear, no conscience that could console him. Lowering the soul into the stone, he began the purification process, using various types of energy, including the energy of the soul, which he took in a drop from his own soul. Sometimes his soul moaned in pain.

After some time, Vallynor felt how the energy of the stone protected the soul. This time, he began to analyze what exactly this energy was doing and what it was protecting.

It turned out that she was protecting not the energy or the vessel, but the small fragments that were within that energy. These particles were very numerous and each had its own shape and size. Without much thought, Vallynor realized that these were fragments of memories and thoughts, what made a person unique.

The more Vallynor studied and worked with souls, the more he learned about them and the more amazed he became. The soul consists of a vessel, energy, and memories.

The vessel is like skin, it protects and keeps all parts of the soul together. It can be called a shield, a vase, or a jug. Energy is like water, which does not let the soul and consciousness die. It is similar to food and drink, but it is consumed very slowly. For example, if a person lived in my world and was immortal, there would be enough energy for several centuries. This is because this energy is restored more slowly than it is spent.

But in this world, energy is not restored, it can only be spent. And now he understood that in this energy float pieces of memories and thoughts.

Lost in thought, Vallynor tried to somehow touch one of the pieces of memories. But how? Without much thought, he tried to insert the hand of his soul into the victim's soul. But he realized that he could not do this, only touch and push away. It was like a child's attempt to pass through a wall at Hogwarts, but Vallynor hit his head on the wall and broke his nose.

Thinking, he tried to physically touch the soul. This time he passed through it, but nothing happened.

Vallynor began to try different ideas that came to his mind to somehow touch the pieces. He even cut the soul in half and was able to touch the pieces, but it was short-lived - the soul collapsed, and the energy leaked out like water from an hourglass, not allowing him to understand how to work with particles of memories and thoughts.