The remainder of Olga's class went about as expected. For those who'd never done it, Olga assisted in butchering the slain animals and instructed the whole party on how to kill beasts for the most yield.
After class, I went through my usual bout of training with the party before retiring for the night. Then woke to resume my mantra of mana-powered meditation until the time came for Doyle's class, where I'd spend the day becoming proficient in elemental combat and go through much the same process that night.
While fun and undoubtedly beneficial, the time spent didn't seem to excite me as much as the prospect of our return to Zeff's class. And Olga's, but Zeff's was first in the line.
"Good morning, everyone! Zeff greeted us with a resounding clap. Then turned over his shoulder to wait for Doyle and his class to relocate to the next dais. "Today is a free day. Meaning, you are free to practice whatever you so choose. So, if there are no questions, gather your equipment and get started."
The party scattered without another word. Some moved straight to the alcoves while the majority went to clutter around the crystals emplaced along the railings. Including me and my team.
"Amun, spar with me."
"No." I snorted without even turning towards the goliath. "I'm out to create some new spells."
With a wave of his massive hand, Slate dismissed himself. Setting his sights on Els, he gave both a dismissive grunt and a welcoming, "Ah!" before stepping off to intrude upon the dwarf's peace.
I, however, retrieved my gear and skipped off to my training room with little more than a wave to Peter and Zakira.
As always, green spores appeared along the threshold. Sprouting thick vines and brambles that grew to seal the towering arched entrance behind a living wall. Leaving me stuck inside an unbelievably expansive half-dome, trapped with dozens of animated wooden dummies and flying targets made more durable and deadly than any I'd seen during the first quarter.
Though, unlike the day before, the wooden creatures weren't the objects of my focus. Instead, I was focused on the five cores in my spiritual body- on my magic. Which ones I used most often. How I used them. Why I used them that way. And what other ways I could use them.
By far, I used Gravity Magic the most. Not only for locomotion, but it was perfect for offense, defense, and utility. Being one of the four fundamental forces of nature, the magical applications of gravity was essentially limitless. With it, I could bend light and distort space. I could create or destroy worlds- worlds, stars, solar systems, black holes, and even galaxies.
'But then, what else could I create with the power of gravity?'
Following such a notion, I replayed my actions during the outing and lifted a small boulder from the ground. Then, I split the well into two chunks and amassed gravitational energy around both of them to condense and compress them into a pair of absurdly dense sticks.
A good start, but I allowed them to float off to the side in favor of sealing in a spell I'd previously thought of while I tried to decide on a name for the new one.
Within ten or so minutes of destroying living wood and compressing stone, the abyssal, white-lined face of my grimoire appeared before my eyes in a black flash of non-radiance.
[Terminal Ferocity - By infusing gravitational energy into your hands and augmenting them with Artificial Wells, both the weight and speed of your punches are increased exponentially.]
[God Craft - Using gravitational energy, you bend and compress materials into ultra-dense simple tools, structures, and shapes.]
Rather than dismiss the black book, I flipped through what little spells I had developed for my gravitational core and felt a small hint of satisfaction outweigh the ever-present frustration. Slowly but surely, my grimoire was getting filled.
More so, I could finally run through my long list of experiments in peace.
As if to facilitate the process, I kept flipping through my grimoire until I came upon the 'chapter' focused on my Electromagnetic Magic. Another affinity I frequently used, albeit not to its full potential- as individual components of the whole but never both, as made evident by my most recent spell.
[Raiden - By giving shape to electricity, you create a humanoid figure capable of discharging explosive arcs of energy as it attacks; or, upon its destruction.]
Due in no small part to my lack of creativity, the spell was based on the Doppelganger technique and thus was subjected to the same tier system as their umbral counterparts. Wherein increasing the mana spent on the clones increased the number of hits the clone was capable of tanking or outputting.
That said, I haven't tried creating a Raiden using a cursed technique. Neither would I on this day, for my sights were aimed much higher.
First, I turned away from the dummies and raised my finger to chest height. Then, I began pulling mana from my Well to guide it through the elongated peach-shaped organ. Skimming it through the border that split the Core along its long axis and out the other side to amass it in my finger.
With enough energy, I began to focus both my eyes and concentration on altering perpendicular waves oscillating from the tip of my finger. With a bit of mental strain, I compressed the waves down the pico scale. Then nearly lost my concentration once an overbearing radiant pressure slammed into the walls, sending flakes of stone and pillars of dust raining down from overhead.
Wary of irradiating the place, I regained my focus and worked to expand the wavelengths. Turning the intense gamma radiation into first X-rays, then to ultraviolet- where I allowed it to stay and sat in awe until the stones and vines started to become bleached and brittle.
Following that was the confirmation of one of my biggest hypotheses- visible light. Which had its uses, but was tame in comparison to the deadliness of gamma radiation.
Still, it was enough to send a wave of elation over me. Beaming wide, I bamfed a smoke from my Pocket and tuned down the frequency of my finger to like my blunt with a burst of infrared radiation. Then continued scaling down the frequency to confirm my control over radio and microwaves before I moved on to the next section.
Space-Time magic.
Another commonly used magic, but a much more situational one. Due to that and my fascination with the power, it was the first affinity I toiled with to learn its limitations. First and foremost was the inability to send anything to the past. Including myself, though I could revert inanimate things to their past state. A damaged building could be repaired, for example. But the cost in mana rose exponentially with the reverted time, unlike the spell in reverse. Ironically so.
That aside, I learned that I could travel to the future. Though I only jumped forward a few seconds or minutes at a time, it was easy to surmise that I could jump as far forward as I pleased. And while gone, I simply wouldn't exist in this reality. Like I disappeared without a trace until the moment I returned. Due to that, I never developed the spell further.
Rescinding that decision, I dedicated several minutes to gaining proficiency with the spell by sending sticks and stones a few seconds into the future but left the spell unnamed in favor of pondering my other uses with the affinity.
Obviously, there was the Chrono Dial and now, Bamf as well. But aside from that and a few others, that was all the chapter had to offer.
I had a few ideas on how to fill out the pages- mostly centered around the concept of scrying into the past or future, but those and the ones that weren't those had to wait until I found myself in a much more open space.
Naturally, the same line of thinking applied my least-used magic of all. Due in equal parts to its destructive power and to my reluctance to irradiate the immediate environment. In the past, I could only think to use it explosively, as a heat source like an RTG, as a means to initiate fusion, or as a source for nuclear fallout. Thinking further than that, I supposed it could be used to carbon date things. But aside from that, I still couldn't come up with a practical means to use the energy on a regular basis.
A stump that yet again served to make something painfully apparent to me: There were many biases that I had yet to overcome.
Living for almost a century and a half in a universe dictated by cruelty and logic gave me an alibi, I supposed. But still, it was apparent to me that I was logically thinking about magic while ignoring the truth. The essence of magic is doing the otherwise impossible.
And if that was the case, my Sorcery was something entirely different. That was made evident by the one spell I subconsciously made. The Shadow Beholder.
As a whole, my family- the Nox's power revolved around the transference of life energies. But our darkness- being the foundation, was centered around summoning, trapping, and stealth.
Looking back, the first shadow spells I learned proved that was the case without my realization. Spawning my doppelganger for the first time gave me familiarity with summoning. And receiving my first allowance essentially forced my Shadow Pocket open, giving me the means to trap everything from materials to people in a timeless dimension.
Together, a template for my future shadow undead was created along with the means to store them with easy access. Or, that's what I surmised after seeing Grandpa Lich's undead.
But that- raising and commanding undead, wasn't the extent of our necromancy. As Grandpa Lich and Granny Raven stated, death magic was the paragon of magical warfare. Command over poisons- command over fear. Communion with the dead- command over them and reverence from the undead. Those things alone had the capabilities to make an individual's might and knowledge base comparable to that of a modest military or nation.
But still, that was just the tip of our necromantic iceberg. With our power, came an ability to transfer life to wherever there was none- not just the dead. More so, to where it was impossible to exist. Necromentals and the critter I made with Eldritch Emergence all but confirmed that claim. But with that power came a duty to uphold the rules of death.
And above all of them were two laws.
The first stated that, unless the shadow of death has been lifted by the blessing of a deity or the curse of a devil, a mortal whose time has run dry must have their soul reaped. Hence the hostility my family has shown Zorrenor for generations.
As for the second, it implied that mortals were allowed to become liches if they were approved by one of a few entities. One of them being Nergal, who- we all assumed, was our ancestor.
Having never met a lich other than my great-grandfather, however, it was a law I stored in the back of my mind. And so too did I store away the other rule for the time being, along with what I thought I knew about death magic and necromancy as a whole.
With a blank, unbiased mind, I thought back on the claim I'd made to my ancestors and looked over to the weapons I created using God Craft. Two small sticks, a somewhat decent replication of my spear, and a pair of daggers stared back at me. Meanwhile, two words played over and over in my mind.
Curses.
Souls.
Reaching out, I pulled the sticks into an orbit to give them a quick study. While a bit crude, they were absurdly dense and thus extremely heavy. Attributes of an effective weapon, but a weapon unable to be wielded by a vast majority of individuals.
Under normal circumstances, I would've assumed the only way around that flaw was with enchantments. In this case, however, I felt that some cursed techniques combined with my Arcana and maybe even a soul or two were worth a shot.
Considering souls were what gave inanimate objects permanent sentience, I decided to start with the latter and played enime, meenie, miney, mo to decide which type of soul to pick.
Only to wind up picking one of each.
With hands charged with shadow and death, I palmed my chest. Then felt my hands turn incorporeal and fall into my body, where they grasped around to catch a couple of lucky souls and pulled.
From my flesh came two souls, one red and the other off-white, both screaming like newborns in completely opposing pitches. Rather than ordering them to be quiet, I smacked them into each other with a surge of necrotic energy. Not as a form of punishment, but to merge chaos and law into a single entity. A Gray Soul. Humanoid in appearance, yet a featureless ghost that floated before me with its head hung low.
"If you were to serve a new master, what type of person would you want that individual to be?" I asked it.
In response, a period of silence seemed to stretch on for minutes and ended with a ghostly wail of inhaled air. "One who seeks to master themselves, before they master another. One who is unhesitant to shed blood. Be it for retribution. Or mercy."
"Very well." I grasped the sticks in my free hand and simultaneously gathered death mana in my throat. "You will be blessed with new life in the form of this weapon. In this state, you will catalyze the power I'm to give you. In turn, you will seek to bond with a worthy peer of mine and bless them with your power."
"At your command, my liege." The soul began and finished in an ethereal groan of whispers and screams before it was pulled into the pair of sticks.
As I held them, I felt a… warmness emanating from them. Yet, there was something more. A feeling of anticipation. Of expectation. Of hope. The soul was eager to see what power I'd bless it with.
Conversely, I was eager to see who the soul would pick. But I knew being hasty would only yield a failed experiment, so I reaffirmed all I wanted it to do and prepared by funneling shadow mana into my throat. "An unbreakable phantom chain shall make your two parts whole."
Pausing, I exchanged my shadow mana with temporal mana. "The loop imposed on your body shall give you permanence."
Then again with spatial mana. "The energy flowing within your bones shall provide you with shelter."
"The foulness of your skin shall give your master strength," I said in the voice of the reaper.
Then changed it up for the voice that summoned Susanoo. "While your volatile touch keeps his enemies at bay."
"With your legs, you shall be free to both search for your master and plant your feet firmly for those who are unworthy." With a final pause to disperse the gravity mana in my throat, I blended every ounce of arcana I had into my voice just before I released the sticks from my grasp. "With this body. You are the Cursed Nunchaku: Zankoku!"
The declaration of its name invoked a vortex that pulled on the dense mass of arcana gathered into my voice and sent it pouring into the weapon in the blink of an eye. Not only infusing it with great energy but reworking the surface into the image of the soul imbued within it.
As the seconds ticked on, bits of stone began to fall away or condense to smooth and polish the rough surfaces into a set of almost glistening cylinders. Soon after, more bits of stone began falling away to form concentric rings around the pommels. Followed by more and more stone breaking away to reveal deep chasms that glowed with the same blue-green light as the arcana within my Well.
Eventually, the cascade of falling stone ceased. Revealing a stencil of ostentatious calligraphy that spelled 'Mercy' and 'Reprisal' across a set of polished stone handles, connected by a thick chain of amorphous darkness.
While it didn't say anything, I could sense one sensation- one feeling radiating from its being.
Gratitude.
And once it knew I'd registered it, Zankoku disappeared into his pocket dimension.
Leaving me to wallow in my own sense of satisfaction. Up until the moment I noticed my grimoire still floating in front of me.
Bringing my thoughts back to my last magical affinity- The Void.
Which, in itself, was many things. But also nothing. It was indiscriminate destruction. Which made for the ultimate sword and shield. No material in existence could've halted its progression by even a millimeter; but, I wondered if its true nature was to simply destroy.
In astrophysical terms, voids were vast regions of space containing a distribution of atoms even sparser than in intergalactic space. A region where between one and a few atoms could be found within a cubic meter of space, filled otherwise with energy.
In esoteric terms, the void was what existed before creation and what would exist after entropy had claimed the universe. But not just this universe. Any of them
After putting that into the context of magic, I approached the training dummy with a hypothesis running through my mind and a hand full of void mana that was swept over the wooden being. And without slowing in my stride, I stepped inside the bubbled that'd swallowed the dummy whole.
Just like the other times I stepped into the void, my body became… detached from everything. I both felt as if I were both a single particle trapped in a vast emptiness and the emptiness itself. I was omnipresent in this void I created. Everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Except for one place.
Except for the space occupied by the wooden training dummy- a crude humanoid figure made of bark and vines.
"I think finally understand." I gasped to myself. Sending deep echoes that rippled through the limitedly endless space and came back to me in the form of ideas and formulas and hypotheses and experiments.
The void was the potential for creation. All universes- all realms, started and ended as voids.
I- a sorcerer of the void, could create them where none existed- pockets of potential. The Shadowfell- and perhaps the Darkworld and Underworld, all began as voids. They were all products of the Void. Of the Nox.
Now, I realized. The Void- along with spatial magic, temporal magic and gravity, and nuclear and electromagnetic magic, was the answer to the biggest question I've asked myself since deciding my purpose: How would I protect my friends, family, and allies from a realm away while I explored?
The answer was simple. They'd live in a place where none could travel. In a paradise, housed in the center of a void.
Regrettably, though, the creation of such a paradise or even the development of the necessary spell had to wait. For there was one other attribute I had yet to experiment with.
Mana.
However.
"Alright, that's it!" Zeff's claps came echoing throughout my dome. "Lunchtime!"