In the following two months until Solomon’s first day at his new school, he got to know better his parents, and the other castle’s residents.
He also took some time to study basic force magic together with necromancy.
Today was one of the many days he passed studying and trying to memorize the name of all zombies ‘living’ in his home.
“As you already saw, necromancy has three main paths and myriads of secondary paths. I normally use necromancy as if I am actually using extinct golemancy, the magic that creates automated beings with things called Cores, to create my zombies. I make the body from scratch and then select a suitable soul to live in the body. Tessa is more traditional, she just likes more of just raising the dead bodies with the souls of the people that died, although she can just raise the body without the soul, she prefers in this way.” Jesse explained.
He pointed to Solomon’s hands. “The invisible sigil in your hand is the third main path, in which we focus the negative energy of the dead within ourselves to summon them without creating them and to mimic normal uses of Dark Magic, even if what you are using is pure necromancy, not experts in necromancy will think it is raw Dark Magic which isn’t inherently ‘evil’ by the general opinion’s standards.”
Hours passed with Solomon studying how to make his own undead, summon one from the stash in his house, resurrect someone that just died without all logical facilities, and use blasts of negative energy together with basic force magic which is used to levitate something light.
Solomon’s efforts were commendable and marvelous in Tessa and Jesse’s opinions, totally different from the problem girl, Ibyr, that never studies.
Solomon was even better in their opinion as he despite not totally enjoying the idea of living near or using dead bodies, is willing to at least try and not complain too much.
It makes them wonder how someone like him is neophobic to food and if their definition of neophobic could be used for Solomon, the shock to biscuits when he was younger must have really marked him.
Tessa and Jesse left him to his self-study after explaining theories about what a soul is.
Solomon cracked his neck and was going to continue studying while Bessy was snoring despite not needing to sleep when Asmo’s voice finally sounded in his head. “Those bastards don’t get tired of teaching? They still have living bodies and didn’t become liches, how can they teach for more than ten hours straight?”
“Asmo, stop cursing at my parents. And I still don’t understand why you don’t like talking near them.” Since Solomon came to his new home, Asmo never talked when Solomon was near other people.
“I already told you many times, I don’t like this place at all and don’t want to involve myself with any of the people that live here. Especially that old hag.”
Isabel and the ones in the sealed Dungeon were the only inhabitants of his house that Solomon hasn’t met. Isabel was reclusive in her place and only Monty the Python can go there, Solomon’s parents don’t want him to meet with her for inexplicable reasons.
The ones in the sealed Dungeon disobeyed Isabel and were cast out, the problem was that caused Jord’s right leg to not work properly since he is the incarnation of this whole space and casting off the Dungeon was the same as sealing one of his members.
Jord never let out any trace of his personality to Solomon, only after an incessant inquiry did Solomon discover Jord was a type of spirit that made it possible for this place to exist and be connected through space-time to others places.
Solomon tried to become a friend of Monty the Python but it was hard, the undead was quite easy on the other hand, with Skully, the Bone Dragon, being the easiest with it only showing a false bravado when roaring and quite lovely after that by petting its skull.
He hasn’t met yet Raithe, Tessa’s brother and technically his uncle, he is on a business trip to the underworld at the request of one of the many Light Gods.
The only member remaining was Ibyr and Solomon didn’t know if his relationship with his cousin could be considered good or bad. She was always teasing or provoking him because of his fear of biscuits and snakes, she was quite a bully like the ones he knew, with the exception that she knew her limits and never really hurt him emotionally.
Physically was another story though.
And yet he couldn’t hate her for that, this must be why she was so spoiled. She had a special charm that makes difficult to hate her.
“Sol, let’s play with Skully!” A refreshing voice to everyone that hears it with exception of Solomon sounded beyond the library’s sturdy doors.
“She won’t do that again, will she? Miss Tessa reduced her wager to minus fifty percent on the last time she did that.” Solomon-
The blasted doors flew straight towards him and smashed him to the ground.
On the doors, it was possible to see dented marks of the hands that punched them.
Bessy groaned in annoyance while Ibyr strolled until she reached the almost dying Solomon, bleeding to death, and threw the enormous black doors away from him easily. “Cousin, you are so weak. Why you are always almost dying every time I meet you?” She touched and transferred her overflowing life force to him, curing all his injuries and making him even healthier than he was before she came.
The fact Solomon can lift heavier weights, it was all thanks to Ibyr’s life force which strengthened his weak body.
Ibyr was a female ghoul, a type of undead, with an overflowing life force and capable of absorbing and sharing it. She also has other powers like shapeshifting but beyond that and her super strength, Solomon never saw them.
She had black fur sparsely covering her naked fleshy slender form, and her head resembled a canine shape with hollow eyes. She had sharp claws to end the life of her enemies and rarely walked uprightly when not doing something with Solomon.
Apparently, Ibyr was only one year older than Solomon and will be in the second year of the Imperial School, he had already seen the human form she uses to go to school and she was quite beautiful. Despite having such a beautiful form, Ibyr likes more of her ghoul form and hates to go to her human form when not necessary.
“You know that your wager will go full negative when Miss Tessa discovers this, right?” Solomon unsteadily stood up and dusted off his black-blue clothes.
“Who cares about money? I can have a lot of that when Father comes back but I won’t have much time to play with you when school begins again.” Ibyr picked Solomon like he weighed nothing and put him on her shoulders like he was a sugar packet that can be bought anywhere.
To anyone else, it would be humiliating to be carried in this way but Solomon knew this was just the awkward way of Ibyr being regardful to his current situation after being healed since receiving life force wasn’t enough to immediately end all his problems, he was still weak in the legs after almost dying and being cured.
Though if she really was regardful towards Solomon, she wouldn’t throw doors at him.
“Ibyr, let me ask you. Don’t you have other friends to play with on your vacation besides me? I don’t hate being with you but I thought girls at your age liked going out to parties with female friends or something like that.” Solomon asked while reassuring Bessy that he was fine.
“I don’t have friends that aren’t from our house and the humans are all too boring, always caring about appearances and pride. I hate them.”
“You know when you say that you hate humans, you are including me, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Ibyr stopped right before Skully’s place. “Sol, you aren’t human. You are my cousin, Sol.” She said with the most innocent tone that Solomon ever heard in his life.
He couldn’t bear destroying her pure image of the world’s view despite finding it to be a wrong image, and she will need to one day socialize with the rest of the world, how did she expect to marry if she doesn’t give a chance to other people outside from here anyway?
From what Solomon remembers, the normal undead doesn’t have reproductive abilities and there wasn’t another ghoul here besides Ibyr.
“I’ll always play with you from now on, I will put it on my schedule but can you stop destroying doors? It is bad for Jord to replace them and is also bad for my health.” Solomon pleaded as he got off Ibyr’s shoulders.
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“Serious?! You promise?” Ibyr receiving Solomon’s nod spun him in the air in happiness. “My vacations without Father are always so boring, thank you, Sol.”
“Let me down to show your gratitude!” Solomon shouted and was about to puke.
Skully appeared from its lair full of bones and the trio began to play ‘catch the Devil’ which Solomon always lost, how could his weak physique be compared to a ghoul and a Skull Dragon? He was always the ‘Devil’ and couldn’t catch anyone until the time ended.
But one of the best things in those plays was when Skully gives him a ride on its back and soars through the sky to see how long it could fly without using magic, though bones aren’t exactly aerodynamic in his opinion.
Ibyr had one hand on the spine’s bones and the other hugging Solomon to not let him fall down.
She had many times flown with Skully and never fell from it.
Bessy and Asmo for some reason felt like they were the third wheel and maintained silence through the whole process.
Solomon felt the breeze going against him and saw the total splendor of his home through the high skies.
The dark green moon seemed so close like he could just touch it and the zombies beneath him were small as ants.
This experience would for sure mark Solomon’s life as one of the most wonderful experiences he had, the feelings of freedom - despite being held at the waist by a ghoul - and power high up in the sky were intoxicating.
When the ride was ending, Solomon turning around was able to see the tallest tower of his house, and there he saw the most beautiful eyes he had already seen in his life despite the distance between them.
They were piercing scarlet, even more than blood, eyes that had vertical slits as pupils and had the ability to see through his entire soul.
The owner of such eyes didn’t seem to have a body and was only a black sludge of shadows with a fine silver line in the middle of them to act like it was smirking while also looking at Solomon.
Skully began to descend and cut Solomon off from the mesmerizing state he was in while looking at those scarlet eyes.
Was that Isabel, the landowner of this space? Why do Mister Jesse and Asmo keep calling her of hag while she seems to be only a shadow beast?
***
In a secluded place within the slums of the Imperial Magic City, there a once handsome man was mangled and without any hair because of the tortures he suffered, and yet he was still alive only because his torturers had other uses for him.
“Please! End this! I promise I won’t tell Holy Mother about this!” The 11th Imperial Prince disgracefully begged, all his arrogance and pride had disappeared in the third nail they retired from him which was a record in the torturers’ book, retiring someone’s nail was just something they did for tradition and to soften their victim, they never expected someone would begin to break with something so basic in their arsenal of tortures.
Actually, they felt even shame in the thought of retiring nails would be in someone’s arsenal.
It should have a limit to someone being so weak-willed, no wonder they received this job.
Because of the prince’s feebleness, the torturers never reached impalement, neck torture, iron maiden, thumbscrew, rack, resurrected cockroaches torture, and their favorite, scaphism, but that was currently impossible to occur anyways because of how they don’t want their child to discover what they are doing in the river of their home.
The tortures were, of course, Jesse and Tessa, Solomon’s parents.
Their eyes were completely devoid of the warmth they have when near Solomon and their expressions were hardy, Solomon maybe wouldn’t even recognize his parents in their current professional state.
“You know that is easy to see through you, right? You will for sure tell the Dragon Empress about this.” Tessa retired another nail for spite and the prince screamed more. “We were waiting to tell you this later to break you even more but you are so weak that we lost our interest.”
Jesse opened an envelope and made Perite read it if not he would receive another shot to his crotch with Jesse’s handgun. “I, the Holy Dragon Empress, contract the Dark Magic users, old friends of mine Jesse and Tessa, to give a lesson to my weakest son, the 11th Imperial Prince. The specifics are to you two discuss and come with the best method to it, torture is acceptable and actually recommendable to straight out that useless son I hoped to never had given birth to.”
Perite in disbelief looked down at the envelope to see the sacred symbol that only his Holy Mother can produce, making this document be completely true no matter how he wanted to negate the reality and how his Holy Mother discarded him.
“Now that you know we are above any scheme you can come with, how about you obey us for some lifelong orders and we will let you go without any of your injuries?” Jesse shook a bottle full of ghoul’s life force that can rejuvenate and cure Perite’s wounds, even his hair.
“Okay, just get this over with already.” The light on Perite’s eyes faded and he knew he went above the limits his Holy Mother could accept, he never should have tried to have his way with the 15th Imperial Princess just because she was reeking with succubus’ fluids.
He was probably still alive only because his Imperial Father begged for him not to die to the Dragon Empress.
Jesse branded Perite’s soul to the prince never disobey him or hurt his son, these kinds of branding in living beings only work when they are willing and exhausted. “I want you to highly recommend my son, Solomon, to the school and not have us pay for his expenses while ensuring he enters a class with the best teachers there. I’m sure you can do that, you are a teacher there.” Jesse threw the bottle to Perite and teleported the prince out of the slums with a picture of his son.
The reason for them accepting the job to torture and kidnap the prince was revealed, they just wanted to make sure Solomon’s school life would be good.
They had money to put him in the Imperial Magic school and would do that, but at this rate, Solomon would need to pass a test to enter, and while they were certain their son had a good chance of passing it, they didn’t want to risk it.
So they were already planning to kidnap a teacher from there to make Solomon have high recommendations and not need to pass the test.
They coincidently received a request from the Dragon Empress and took advantage of their luck to make an even bigger background to Solomon not suffer much there since the recent ‘incident’ by the prince isn’t known by the others.
But…
“Isn’t this a little too much coincidental?” Tessa frowned. “Just when we were thinking of kidnapping a teacher, the best one we could ask for actually came in a mission.”
“Could be the Dragon Empress preemptively discovered we got a son and contracted us? I mean, calling us to torture the 11th Imperial Prince seems kind of excessive, she could just throw him in any random dungeon to punish him instead of calling us, we have good stealth abilities to kidnap others but it isn’t like this is our specialty. There are other people more adequate for this job.” Jesse said.
“Maybe she has a spy between us?”
“In our house? It’s impossible, Isabel would… was Isabel that told the Dragon Empress we got a son and orchestrated all of this? I was suspicious of something fishy since I heard a succubus was involved.”
Jesse called Jord and turned to the old spirit. “Did that old hag see Sol besides the time we came home for the first time with him?”
“Yes, Mistress had seen the young master Solomon when he rode Skully with Ibyr, he saw her true form quite easily despite the distance.” Jord appeared from underneath the earth with his walking stick.
“‘Young master’? Since when you are so formal with Sol?”
“Mistress requested me to address him in this way.” Jord bowed and went back to his home.
“She, unfortunately, took a liking to Sol and want to toy with him. You know how psychotic and solitary she became after that man disappeared before the Dark Ages. She probably also saw the talking shadow behind Sol and is having some kind of delusion, I also thought the same of her at first, but that shadow is only a high-ranked demon Sol’s biological parents bonded to his soul to him have talent with Dark Magic.” Tessa said imagining a snake demon she heard about that fitted with the shadow’s sinful aura.
“This is why I didn’t want to her properly meet him, I just hope that old hag doesn’t cause problems when we aren’t looking. We didn’t adopt him to Isabel have her delusions.” Jesse sighed while somberly looking at his handgun.
They could just rent a normal home and alternatively go to the castle without their child but that would go against their teacher’s wishes and benefits existing in that space, and they themselves didn’t want to lie to their child or live away from Solomon.
***
“A handful of lapis lazuli, a high-quality rare magic book, the blood of a young maiden in love, seven parts of seven different powerful and intelligent beings, and magic power enough to summon the Mythical.” Those were the requirements to summon the 71st Pillar, Dantalian, on the Lemegeton.
Solomon had already everything with exception of the high-quality rare magic book and the blood of someone in love. Not even the library in his house had a book good enough to summon this Mythical.
On the other hand, the other requirements were quite easy. He just needed to ask for the lapis lazuli and the seven parts to his parents.
With how rich they are, and since this place is full of zombies, finding parts of someone powerful and intelligent was simple because Tessa carefully chooses who she will zombify.
Solomon accidentally put one of the requirements near Lemegeton and discovered he didn’t need to always have all of them and that the book would absorb the requirements to be used later. So he already put everything in the grimoire.
The magic power he had now was enough to summon Dantalian since his parents used that strange spell formation to increase so much of his magic that he could also use the magic from My Key - although he won’t probably use them, they are mostly not offensive but quite nasty in nature, like a pure mind control magic - and learned advanced force magic to do things like making a blast of magic to make someone get away from him.
“I wanted to summon the 20th Pillar, Purson, since with him I will for sure find what I want but Dantalian’s power will do, it will just take more time and he is the only one I can summon for now, anyway.” Solomon’s eyes bulged out when he saw the requirements for the All-Knowing Purson, the massive quantity of them made that even if he became an Emperor he wouldn’t still be able to summon the 20th Mythical.
Now that he had a family, he only had one thing he wanted to do, he wanted to meet the person that brought him to the orphanage and thank them for it. This is the simple last wish he has, and the only way to do it without any clue is by using Dantalian’s powers or Purson’s omniscient knowledge.
The merchant dream can wait, for now, school is more important.
Solomon had another Mythical that was quite easy to summon in relation to the others but he really didn’t want to summon the 9th Pillar, Paimon. From what he read she was quite clingy and crazy.
He wondered why she was that easy even though she is probably the 2nd strongest Pillar.
“I can try to get the book at the school since no book Miss Tessa or Mister Jesse has is good enough or in an auction, but how will I get the blood of a young maiden in love? Will I have to stalk a random girl or wait until Ibyr loves someone?”
He gave up on thinking about it and went to sleep.