The book rose to waist level and opened, revealing white pages with text appearing on them. "You can collect souls and repay your debt in several ways. 1) When you are in your body, simply bring a soul within 0.5 meters of you. Once you release it, it will automatically be captured and added to your balance. Only powerful souls taken by special criteria will be counted separately. 2) Bring a soul within 0.5 meters of me and release it."

When Vallynor finished reading, he brought one soul within 0.5 meters of the book and released it. The soul quickly entered the book, and a blue panel appeared in front of him, which read: "Balance: -999,999 souls."

Then the panel disappeared, and another one appeared, which said: "Congratulations on completing the task of learning the first spell! As a reward, you receive a Low-Quality Magic Stone and 100 souls."

The next panel showed: "Balance: -999,899 souls." Everything happened so fast that it took Vallynor a few minutes to understand what had happened. He gestured with his finger and remembered that he had received three quests at some point. But he recalled that the first quest was related to an attacking spell, and the Soul Hand spell was a supporting one. No matter what purpose it was created for, the main thing was to use unorthodox methods. It's like using a shield for an attack instead of defense. That's the point. And now:

"Show me the quest panels," said the hero. "What will happen? Oh, right," he thought as the blue panel disappeared from his balance. He quickly died, and the last digit "9" changed to "8."

A new blue panel with three windows appeared in front of him. The second and third windows remained unchanged, still showing the tasks for creating weapons and slaves.

However, the first window was empty, with only "???" written in the middle. Not understanding what the question mark meant, the hero turned to the book and asked, "What does this symbol mean? And why didn't a new task appear?"

The book showed him a blank piece of paper, on which words quickly appeared. "When you complete one of the tasks to receive a new one, you must fulfill one of the following conditions: 1) complete all remaining tasks, after which a new one will appear; 2) complete one of the conditions, such as killing someone or finding an object with some value, which will automatically add a new task; 3) wait for the randomly chosen time to expire. The question marks indicate the activation conditions. It also takes time for a new task to start."

"So, if I want a new task, I need to complete all the others first, or wait for it to appear on its own. It could happen in an hour, a day, a week, a month, or even a year, which mostly depends on luck. I'm not even considering the third option," thought the hero.

Understanding how the tasks worked, he wanted to return to the array of full monsters. But he turned to the book, which was closing and ready to fall to the ground, and asked, "If I complete all three tasks, will I get some reward?" with full hope.

The book stopped for a few seconds and did nothing, but it felt like it said, "What? Couldn't you have asked earlier? You're already getting on my nerves." Opening to blank pages, it said, "Yes..." Upon reading the first word, he became happy, but quickly read on, "...you will receive three new tasks as a reward." After that, the book closed and quickly entered him, becoming a part of the tattoo on his left hand.

Having finished reading, all hopes were shattered. He wanted to ask again, but quickly changed his mind when he saw the book disappear. Nothing remained but to return to his training.

Arriving at the entrance, he sat down on the floor and watched as most of the monsters sat waiting or fought amongst themselves. Some attacked others, while others jumped on him to kill.

With difficulty, he created a circle of five runes inside and uttered "Manibus umbraticis," feeling two invisible hands connected to his soul appear. They attacked the enemies.

Having caught the first two enemies and handed over the book, Vallynor was ready to attack again as soon as new thoughts appeared to him. Canceling the spell, he created the circle again and spoke the words. Then two hands appeared from the circle and attacked the enemies. After catching them, Vallynor finished the spell and began creating the hands again.

He did this every time, again and again. He felt the Mana gradually being spent, which could be lacking in battle if he didn't at least save some necroenergy. Sometimes he stopped to practice gathering energy emitted by corpses. And all the collected energy he put into the book.

"Hmm, where is Annino?" Training, Vallynor realized that he hadn't seen his wolf pup for a long time. He was too focused on mastering his first spell and eventually even forgot about him. True, where is he?

Inspecting the whole room, he noticed Annino sleeping in the corner. His black fur was a little tangled and longer than usual. It seemed like winter had come and animals were changing their summer fur to winter fur. But then why wasn't it white? Stop, my reasoning may be wrong in another world.

If people in my world cannot fly, then in this world, using magic, it is possible. Although I haven't seen it, I'm sure they can. After all, Mana is connected to the soul, and in novels, it's magic that is encountered almost until the end of the book.

"Hmm, remembering that many of the books I have read talk about soul magic and about the soul itself as something mysterious, something that not even God knows about. I don't know for sure," the hero thought.

Approaching the approaching wolf, the hero touched its fur and realized that it had grown 2 centimeters longer, making the wolf look like a bear in winter. However, the little wolf was not as fat and did not have a normal figure. Caressing the wolf's fur, the hero felt its ribs and realized that the wolf was not eating enough.

Looking at his reflection, the hero saw only skin and bones. He wondered if he could eat these monsters. And if he could, could Anni also eat them? After all, he was afraid that the wolf would die of hunger, and he needed the wolf alive. He began to wonder if the wolf could die at all. Too many questions and too few answers.

Caressing the wolf's head, the hero pondered what he should do next. The first task was done, and when the next one would appear, only the book knew. So he needed to create weapons and powerful servants. He had to search for more information in the book.

I also want to start the path of mind and body. If the path of the soul takes several months of work, then I'm afraid the two remaining paths will also take that much time. Now I understand why mages choose only one path, not two or three.

He didn't know what happened to the wolf, and the book didn't even respond to his call. Which could explain that Anni was okay. Maybe I just made it all up in my head. After all, I don't know when he fell asleep. But when he wakes up, I need to figure out how to feed him.

Leaving Anni alone, Vallynor returned to the entrance of the forest where more than a dozen bodies were already sitting. And before continuing, he said, "Balance." A blue panel appeared in front of him, which read, "-999.786 Souls."

"Not bad. But still not enough," he didn't get upset that he still needed to collect a lot of souls, but became motivated. While he collects souls, he becomes stronger, or he will die.

"This time I created three hands instead of two," he thought, creating a circle, and noticed that the time to create had decreased by several seconds, but still required more than a minute, which was unforgivable in battle.

When three hands appeared, he felt discomfort, like an itch that irritated his soul. But after a few minutes of practice, that feeling disappeared.

The appearance of the third hand caused a sense of suffering. He tried to control it, and it was difficult and easy at the same time because controlling the third hand was no different from controlling the other two, but it was hard to make the third hand obey his orders or will. After spending some time practicing, he mastered the control of the third hand and resumed collecting souls.

Three invisible hands, armed with weapons, attacked animals of all kinds.

They sat waiting, like a hunter patiently waiting for their prey. However, when the hands approached, they became scared and tried to run away, but the hands were faster and caught their victims.

After collecting the souls, he recited a spell and began to contemplate everything he felt. After careful consideration, he began to create new hands and collect souls again. And when he canceled the spell, he collected necroenergy.

So he trained for days, adding new hands when he felt he could control the third hand like his own. In addition, with each new hand, he reduced the time it took to create the circle by several seconds.

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Thus, he repeated this process until he was able to control 16 hands, and creating the circle took no more than a minute and a half.

One day, during training, Vallynor heard a crunch. He turned in the direction of the sound and saw Anino rising from the ground. Every movement he made was accompanied by a crunch, as if his bones were breaking. But after a few minutes, he became weaker and disappeared.

Anino looked at himself and began to examine himself, realizing that something was wrong with him. His fur had lost its color, turning gray, and he fell to the ground. But soon, new fur grew where the gray fur had been, and it was blacker than before.

Vallynor stood up and approached to stroke his back. Anino grew a little, becoming bigger than an ordinary wolf.

Anino felt his owner's hand and happily wagged his tail. When the owner stopped, he approached her and began to lick her like a puppy.

"Aninno, can you eat the bodies of these animals?" unexpectedly heard the question from her owner. After thinking for a moment, she confirmed with gestures that she could.

"Then, if you want to eat them, go ahead, don't wait for my command," the owner said. Aninno turned her head and began to consider the order. She didn't feel like eating the bodies of her prey, only their souls. But if her owner said so, she should at least try.

The owner dragged one of the bodies into the room and took a bite. Aninno began to devour it greedily, feeling pleasure and new sensations that she experienced when eating souls. She became satiated, but not for long.

In a few minutes, she had eaten the entire body of the monkey, while Vallynor watched her. He wanted to know if he could eat animals himself. When he saw Aninno eating, he wanted to try it too. But the thought of eating raw meat, which could be full of parasites, repelled him. He returned to training and began a spell related to fire. He repeated it to calm himself.

Then he sat on the floor and quickly summoned 16 hands. One of the hands dragged a body resembling a shark, and the other 15 hands took one soul each, turning it into undead. He gave orders for the undead to bring all the bodies from the array, avoid others, and many other things. All the commands were simple, and the creator paid attention to him.

Because Vallynor controlled the undead, he could not easily control 16 hands like before. But he didn't give up. He saw this situation as an opportunity to do two things at once - create spells and control undead.

In the meantime, Aninno had already eaten more than seven corpses, but her hunger still persisted. If before, when he was a trading pawn, bones could be felt, now a small layer of fat appeared, and muscles added weight to him.

Some time passed, and Aninno began to grow every day. His appearance changed - from a stray dog, he turned into a real dog, who had a good owner. When the hunger receded, he realized that he had become stronger and grown several centimeters. However, he became fat like a pig, which made him lose speed. Frightened, he left everything and ran away to hunt.

Showing that he ate, the owner asked him to bring a new batch of monsters when he finished his meal because the supply was starting to run out. This would be a good reason to run again, lose weight, and turn most of the fat into muscles.

At the same time, yellow eyes were watching. Sometimes the owner intervened, talked to Vallynor and even once gave the wolf advice, which completely shocked and pleased him. The owner was not ill.

Several more weeks passed. During that time, Vallynor accumulated almost 5,000 souls, including that cursed soul, but he did not use it right away. And there were several reasons for this.

The first reason was the choice of runes. From the book, he chose four runes: the first one collected energy, the second one passively healed his wounds, both physical and spiritual, the third one strengthened the spell, and the fourth one increased the amount of mana to sustain the spell.

The second reason was what the old woman, whom he called the voice of the land, had said. She said that the foundation of his soul was not yet finished and that the soul had to get used to this foundation like a newly forged sword. He had to wait until the foundation cooled down, as he had already exhausted his soul. Therefore, he postponed using the soul for later.

During this time, the old woman became more talkative. At first, she gave one or two pieces of advice, and then she disappeared. But over time, they began to talk more and more, yet her voice always carried sadness.

Anni grew twice as tall during this time and reached chest height.

During this time, Vallynor brought so much prey that they had collected many corpses. Even if Anni ate the corpses, there were still many left. Therefore, Vallynor stopped his practice with the Soul Hand spell once every few days to collect all the bodies in a circle, which he then handed over to the Lion.

One day, as usual, Vallynor created a circle in almost ten seconds. When the spell was over, 47, almost 50 hands came out of the sulfur and rushed at the enemies, then took their souls. The bodies fell to the ground, and there was not a single soul left in the array.

Five walking corpses were included in the group. Slowly, they each took one corpse and dragged them outside. Three of them were monkey-like, one looked like a mutated elf, and the other like a tiger. When they finished, they gathered in a line against the wall.

Gathering all the bodies in a circle, Vallynor, as usual, took the red book. Recently, he had some free time and wanted to learn a new spell. But he couldn't, as it turned out that when creating a spell, he had to use his own mana, not the book's energy. Most spells use soul energy, but his soul was currently injured. Thank God, there was no new wave of pain. That's why one of the runes he was considering was associated with increasing the volume of energy. He could use energy from the book, but it had to flow through him. How could he create a spell that requires a water bottle when all he had was a glass?

So he began training with the sword until Anino had enough victims. Vallynor waved the sword, feeling each time how his closeness to the weapon became stronger.

When he realized that his closeness to the sword was no longer increasing, he left the sword and took the spear. After several hours of training, he realized that his closeness to the weapon no longer grows. It was so small that Vallynor thanked fate that he had never had to fight any monsters in the past.

Leaving the spear, Vallynor took up axes and began training. As with the spear, his closeness to the weapon was negligible. Leaving them, he began to take one weapon at a time and train according to the book. But he changed them every few hours.

At the same time, Anino approached the group and, directing his shadow inward, brought out dozens of animals. Anino learned about this ability when the old woman gave him advice.

Seeing how his master waved the club, Anino approached and watched how he moved. Sometimes Anino watched as his master trained, and sometimes he thought about what he would do if he was attacked with such technique.

Vallynor dropped his club and picked up another one. Seeing Annino watching him, he thought about fighting him a few times. But he didn't have any weapon that wasn't sharp, and he didn't want to hurt him. Besides, he didn't even know what weapon he would have to fight with in the future. So first, he had to find his weapon. Taking a scythe in his hands, he began to read and study all the instructions on how to fight with a scythe. Half an hour of training with the weapon helped him achieve almost the same proficiency as with a sword. This surprised and pleased him. He always liked the scythe as a weapon. But he didn't know why his proficiency had increased so quickly.

"Maybe because I played with my grandpa's scythe when I was a child. Not only did I help him, but I also secretly played with the scythe, even carving various Chinese or Japanese characters on the handle with a knife. The scythe remained with me as a memory after my grandpa died.

"Yes, I even killed a rooster with it. Not a person, but a rooster. He always attacked me, and grandpa said I should cut off his head. But I, a young boy, ran after the rooster with a scythe and eventually stabbed him in the chest, but not too hard. The rooster slowly died, and when grandpa found out, he quickly took the dying rooster and cut off his head. That's what my childhood was like."

I practiced with the scythe for several hours, but then I left it and took another weapon. But first, you need to know what level of mastery you have with each type of weapon. So far, I only know how to use a sword and a scythe.

Annino watched me, but then lost interest and left the house. He had long been accustomed to hunting, running, eating, and, recently, torturing his prey a little.

"Training again?" I asked, not taking my eyes off my knife training.

"What can I do? I don't want to be weak. I don't want to leave my future to chance," I replied.

"You're right, from your stories, it's clear that you're not from this world. And there's no point in trying to hide it. We all know each other, and someone already has an impure soul. Such a person cannot be from this world. Until recently, you were too weak and had a soul untouched by life, but now you're starting to show yourself," the old woman mysteriously replied.

"Old woman, can you tell me about this world and how you know everyone who lives in it?" Vallynor asked again, hearing the woman's voice.

"Sorry, but right now this could harm your future. And don't call me an old hag, call me a grandmother. I'm not a witch. For now, leave behind your history and think about what's in front of you. Oh, your mana pool has finally reached enough. So, you can begin your path of the mind. Little necromancer fool," she said gleefully.

She began calling me that ever since she found out how I create undead. When she learned about it, she laughed for over three hours, calling me a joke among all necromancers. And if one of the 999 great necromancers finds out about it, they will do everything possible to appear before me and beat me to death.

Since then, she has been calling me Little Fool Necromancer or Little Necromancer Fool, as well as a disgrace and a laughingstock among all necromancers, when she's angry at me. So, I started calling her an old hag or a witch, or both, and as it turned out, it worked. She doesn't like that nickname either.

Entering the center of the mana pool, which was slightly improved with the advice of my grandmother, Vallynor finally began his journey as a mage of the mind. Until this moment, he couldn't start his journey for one reason - there wasn't enough mana. To begin the path of the mind, one needed to have a lot of mana, not necro-energy or something similar, but specifically mana. As Vallynor found out, mana is a universal resource, and necro-energy is just a part of it. It's like air in water. Water is made up of many elements, just like mana.

On the soul's journey, it doesn't matter what type of energy is used because the main resource is the energy of the soul. However, the path of the mind requires the use of mana, as a mage of the mind must use all types of spells, not just fire or air. They cannot create a water-based spell using only one type of energy. As it turns out, most mages choose the path of the mind as their foundation and the path of the body to avoid dying from stray arrows.

Vallynor chose the path of the mind, not the body, because most necromancer spells are related to it. Additionally, he needs meat for the path of the body, but he doesn't want to eat it raw. He also remembered that terrible scene when he saw the larvae inside the wolf's body.

Closing his eyes, Vallynor gathered mana into his body. Each droplet penetrated him and was directed to his head. His head filled with mana with each passing second, but he didn't stop and continued to accumulate it, causing more and more pain. Nevertheless, this pain could not compare to the wounded soul and memories of the summoning of "Sist... or Sta...". It's better not to think about it because it could trigger these memories, and I don't need them.