A week flew by while Lex studied the basics of qi condensation and the theory of qi spirals. It gave him something to do with his time. He slept maybe two hours a day in 10-to-15-minute naps for the other 22 hours he studied. Eating well had filled him out a little, but he still lacked the solid muscle definition he once enjoyed. Another fight was scheduled in few days, and Morgan wasn't talking about it. She'd devoted herself entirely to necromancy research.
She wasn't the only one trying to improve their techniques. Most days, he sat in the corner of her, raising r, oom glaring at the first and most challenging exercise in the book. It felt impossible. Sometimes he almost completed the technique only for it to blow up in his face. After a week, he'd come close but hadn't mastered it in over a hundred hours of practice.
Morgan cursed while the heat increased around her. She pushed her hands on the corpse on her table, but no matter how much qi she pumped into it, the body didn't twitch. Knowing she was having as much trouble made him feel guilty when he progressed. There wasn't much of a chance she'd get it before he mastered the first practice.
Completing the practice was like clapping a wasp in the air without getting stung. It was going to do its best to sting, and Lex knew the trick. Don't worry about the sting. It was that simple, he wasn't allergic, and their sting couldn't do much to him. After a few slaps, the trick became obvious. Slap them from behind, aim for their flanks, and their stinger can't get in position. To get that good, he had to get stung until he wasn't afraid of it.
Lex held out his hands and formed a ball of spiraling qi. While it spiraled, he compressed the ball. As his hands closed, the ball shrank until his hands almost touched. This was it; he'd complete the first exercise in the book. To master the technique, it needed to shrink and remain stable between closed hands. All he had to do was control the spinning no matter how fast it cycled.
Just before his palms touched, the ball leaped out of his control. A horrible backlash cut deep from the spiraling qi ripped trenches through his hands. Long deep wounds opened over his hands, dripping with golden blood.
For a second, he sawbones and muscle through the wounds before his blood rapidly hardened like amber. The demonic skill he learned made his skin more challenging, changed the color of his blood into an almost orange shade of gold, and helped his wounds heal quickly without infection.
Lex sighed at another failure. After a few moments, he tapped against his scabs. They felt more like hard dirt. He opened and closed his hands, testing his movement. It wasn't the first time the practice had stung him. In a few hours, he'd try again. He pulled out a roll of bandages and wrapped his damaged hands.
He had to find something else to do. It was too dangerous to try again, and he wasn't entirely bored enough to tackle the qi condensation text again. Lex had pledged to be more empathetic. Investing himself in other people felt like too much trouble, but maybe he could take a step forward. Unfortunately, Lex didn't have a clue how to start.
Morgan repeatedly chanted some archaic words and poured qi over the undead. Nothing happened. The qi seemed to bounce off the undead. She huffed and puffed while glaring down at the body of the young man.
She raised her head to the heavens. "By Epsilon's big dangling cock, why can't I do it?" Morgan shrieked.
Would his intervention help her? If he could raise the undead for her, would that be any better than what they're already doing? Lex didn't know if his qi would be compatible either. Lex knew the thoughts for what they were, excuses not to help. He felt like he was about to leap into a cold pond. In his experience, the only way to get used to it was to jump in.
Lex went for it. "Can I help you?" He asked. She turned to him, her nostrils flaring and qi roaring around her like a house on fire.
"Sure, if you happen to be a necromancer trained in the art. Are you a necromancer Lex?" Morgan asked coldly. Lex opened his mouth to answer, then she shouted. "No! You're a bum thrown to me because Jonna Weston and his idiot teacher couldn't differentiate the smell of a corpse from your own. You're a peasant who experimented with qi and got lucky. Don't confuse your luck with competence. You don't know the first thing about necromancy." Morgan said.
Lex reached into his pocket and pulled out two peaches. He tossed one to her and took a bite. It was sweet, fuzzy, and spilled juices across his face. They were his favorite fruit. Eating one gave him time to think about the problem. He knew more about Epsilon's big dangling cock than he did about necromancy.
She glared at him for a moment then took a bite as well. They ate in silence.
After one last bite, he spoke. "I don't think your playing to your strengths." Morgan raised her voice, but Lex shut her down. "I'm not done talking." Qi blasted from him, throwing the witch from her feet and tumbling against the nearby wall. He felt her back impact the wall and the phantom pain resulting from it. Hurting her hurt himself, but she needed to know he wasn't subservient to her. From the link, he felt her shock, growing anger, disbelief, and a little fear. Lex sucked in a breath and concentrated on being empathic.
To that end, he softened his voice and tried to project that this was all for her benefit. "Jumping won't ever allow you to fly like a bird, nor will flinging yourself from a cliff. I think you know your qi isn't suitable for necromancy. So, let's play to your strengths. Witches are like diabolists, so how would a diabolist raise the dead?"
She glared and shook him by the shoulders. "We aren't supposed to use anything but necromancy. Anyone found doing anything less than the proper necromantic arts is expelled and quickly found by the inquisition. It's infuriating; we're second-class students even our teachers are considered lesser than the other faculty. Now that I'm here, I can't leave. There are inquisitors stationed in the city and patrolling around it. I'm a hostage." Morgan said.
Lex blinked. "I wasn't expecting that. Any witch could be easily spotting trying to hide their forehead. Can't you fly away on your broomstick?" Lex asked.
"The second I'm in the air, a wizard will scry me, and soon after, I'll be shot down. I've thought about escaping, and I've seen the failures of others. This place was built to keep witches out of sight and mind." Morgan said.
"What happens if you don't complete your work?" Lex asked.
"I'm given poor marks, and my chances of passing decrease. Those who fail out are quickly expelled, and the inquisitors aren't far behind." Morgan said.
He didn't like any of it. There were so many questions he had. So, he asked them, and she answered them each in turn. Soon she painted a picture of her situation and the institute's purpose for witches.
Potions were made and sold by the institute. Spirit binding was used to empower weapons, giving them the capabilities to devour the qi of the fallen and evolve. Once a weapon is created, it is given to the Institute to sell or bribe others. Zombies raised by the witches can be drafted at any time to fill a warring lord's levies for a price paid to the institute. Each witch was born only a red-ranked students' stipend, even the teachers. Only by selling their products to the institute could a witch improve their purse. Of course, the institute set the price. If Morgan was expelled or if they ran away, the inquisitors would quickly hunt them down. Those who harbor a witch have a place on their pyre.
They were hostages against other nobles and treated as serfs. Wasn't he missing something? "What about Halley and her brothers turned undead? Why would Duke Weston imprison one of his daughters?" Lex asked.
Morgan smiled. "Halley is a braggart, a gossip, and unusually powerful in necromancy. She claimed that she cursed her father with paranoia and ambition. His sons were both talented wizards and core realm cultivators of the tang standard. In a fit of cursed fueled insanity, he killed both of his sons before exiling his daughter here. She raised both and tested them on her youngest brother. That's what earned her the exile." Lex heard the words and didn't like them at all.
He waved his hand at the body on the table. "If I raised it, could you control it?" She raised an eyebrow. No, he had no idea how he'd raise it. Lex was confident she could sense that, but he could try. Instead of repeatedly jumping, expecting to take off like a bird, maybe they could try something else.
"What about you? You've done nothing but fail at first exorcise in the book. That means your control isn't much better than your understanding." Morrigan said.
Lex shook his head. "You haven't paid attention then. I've progressed by leaps and bounds." The first day he took a head-sized spiraling ball and condensed it down to the size of a peach stone. Over the rest of the week, his progress slowed to a few millimeters every attempt. Unfortunately, as he progressed, his failures tore him apart ever more violently. On his last effort, the backlash cut him to the bone.
Morgan wasn't the same. "Either your qi rejects the corpse, or the corpse rejects your qi. Either way, you will fail at your current rate." A tear trailed down her face. From here, he felt sorrow at her inevitable fate. They wouldn't let her kill herself, they'd make an example of her, and he couldn't allow that.
Lex walked up to her and shook her like a rag doll.
Anger quickly exploded across the link with the metaphysical stinging cheek. Black fly materialized and shot after him. The massive demonic fly promptly broke up into thousands of tiny biting insects. Lex shot back in retreat, clapping his hands together, killing them a few at a time. Still, they bit at him, and golden blood pooled across his skin. A green ball slammed into his chest and the robe he wore melted along with the skin on his stomach. Golden ichor gushed from the wound as magic circles appeared around her.
She clutched her eyes suddenly shot open as the pain transferred over. "Why the hell did you do that?" Black fly formed up in front of him. The demon held back from continuing its assault.
Lex pressured the wound on his gut while his blood quickly pooled and congealed. "You were giving up. If two routes might lead to the same place, then take the path of least resistance. If you use another means of raising the dead, the institute might expel you, but if you don't continue to raise the dead, they definitely will. Play to your strengths." Lex said.
"And once they draft you, I'll need another undead. Because you failed to capture even one." The pain she felt through the link hadn't helped her temper.
Lex walked over to the corpse. Not even a speck of heat radiated from the carcass. He didn't know the ins and outs of necromancy, but the corpse needed qi to rise. "Could a ritual do the job?" Lex asked.
She glared at him. "Of course, it could. All I'd have to do is ask the right demon, carve a few binding runes into the vessel, and bind the entity into the corpse. But if I'm found out, they'll expel me for sure. The bronze gates aren't for show. No demon bound to a corpse could pass through them unscathed." Morgan said.
"So, demons are out. Are summoning and binding demons all rituals are good for?" Lex asked. He'd heard tales of covens of witches pulling power from the land for great works. Sometimes the stories there were of witches summoning demons, causing widespread plagues, or bonding powerful familiars. Witches were known to deal with all manner of harmful creatures, not just monsters.
"Trust me when I say that any manner of creature I summon with a ritual will be found out. Binding one as a simple familiar isn't allowed in the institute. I bound black fly before coming here." Morgan said.
Lex didn't know enough even to begin to solve Morgan's problem. She might as well be stranded on a desert island. What she had couldn't be used and what she needed was far away. He'd only last until something killed him or he was drafted. Necromancy was probably more complicated than shoving qi into a corpse. To that end, what could he do?
The thought of running away with her sounded good until he learned they didn't have a chance in hell. So, what could he do? An idea came to mind, but it seemed apparent.
"Can a ritual change the nature of the qi being used?" Lex asked.
Morgan laughed. "Rituals can manipulate qi to do nearly anything. They can even affect the raw raja in the air. None can beg the gods and demons like we witches." She snorted. "I'll just open my ritual textbook and change the energy." Morgan snarked.
"So, it's possible we need to fiddle around with the ritual and locate the right gods or demons. What could go wrong?" Lex said and plastered a smile on his face. No, he didn't want to fiddle with tedious rituals for hours, but this was an investment. He'd been so numb to fear that even a demon of fear couldn't shake him. It took one look at him and gave up. There was something wrong with him, and if helping his witch friend fixed him, then that's what he'd do.
"I know you're trying to help. This could cause demons, eldritch things, and all manner of creature to appear. Are you sure you want to try this?" Morgan asked. He knew she had been holding back on how much trouble they could get into. When he didn't show a shred of doubt, she sighed. "Alright, we'll roll the dice and see what comes to kill us."