Black Magus

After a good night's meditation followed by a hearty breakfast, I attended Urda’s alchemy class to learn of a rather fascinating potion that greatly increased one's lung capacity, allowing for hours of underwater exploration with a single dose. Though we didn’t make it, the recipe required only a relatively common type of seaweed paired with the gills of an aquatic creature. Both were to be mixed and processed through several steps before the resulting syrup was simmered for twelve hours, turning it into a pale blue concoction that would last up to six hours.

Following class, I spent lunch making my rounds. The library, the tinkerers, then to the 53rd floor; wherein I found Toril and the other two toiling with the landscape in the furthest reaches of the vast enclosure. Their construction project was going along quite nicely, I had to admit. Though the reason for my visit revolved around other things and so I quickly got down to business.

“How did the briefing go, Toril?” Though I’d long since heard the students’ ramblings in the halls, it was necessary for me to gauge Toril’s feelings on the matter for myself.

Though his tall posture belied his true feelings, they were made apparent by his head dipping to the side as he muttered. “It… it could’ve gone better.”

“Just remember that with failure, comes an opportunity to learn,” I told him. “It is better to struggle now, in training, compared to in the future, when lives are on the line. Practice makes perfect, Toril.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” He resignedly bowed. Then brought his cobalt-blue eyes back up to mine with newfound resolve. “Forgive my presumptuousness, but I’ll be needing your help to accomplish this task, Your Grace.”

“I’m aware.” I quickly waved the matter aside. “I planned to be in attendance from the start. But only to supervise and assist.”

“Understood. “He bowed. “I plan to break up the students into rotating groups. One hour per station. and have them rotate between stations on one-hour rotations. We begin tomorrow.”

“I assume you’ll be needing some doppelgangers, then?” I assumed, to which Toril nodded in approval. “Very well, I’ll see you then.”

Waving over my shoulder, I disappeared through the shadows to continue my usual schedule of practicing spells and tinkering with raw mana until the sun set below the Mortal Plane, prompting the countless death matches with Grandpa Lich to begin. With the passing of midnight, I once again followed him into his office for a closing lesson on necrotic poison before he began his lectures on necrotic decay- the rot that could be made to mimic anything from spores and roots to gas and liquid. Though much like the night prior, we were in an unsuitable environment to practice such techniques; and so they remained as mere theories or concepts to be practiced at a later time.

Much the same routine continued today: I woke up, attended Urda’s class for part two of the Rich Lungs Potion, checked on my vassals during lunchtime, then lost myself in training for the rest of the day. The only difference was that my therapeutic practice ceased with the caws of the bell. Wherein I retreated to my ‘room’ to eat and freshen up before descending to the 53rd floor to find drastic changes. An array of pillars and waist-high walls broke up the space into modules no less than a hundred meters to each side. Roughly a hundred twenty meters of open space stretched between them- the stations, set in a star pattern around a stone dais and filled with around two company's worth of students, lying or sitting or standing idly. Meanwhile, my three vassals muttered amongst themselves atop the dais.

With my appearing from above in the form of a Semi-Wraith, each and every head craned or turned to give me its undivided attention. Some stared in awe at the sight, others, amusingly looked on in fear. I on the other hand, wordlessly took on my physical form before my kneeling vassals and quickly told them to rise from such a demeaning position. Then, I turned to face the sea of students, asking. “How many are here?”

“Five-hundred-fifty-six.” Came Toril’s blunt reply. “One-hundred-eleven per station. Give or take.”

I slowly turned to him, brows raised in disbelief as I asked. “All of them are here?”

Toril nodded solemnly and silently in shared disbelief. Or more likely as if he were daunted by the difficulty of the task I gave him. Though I couldn’t exactly blame him. I was- without a doubt, throwing him to the wolves, for it was one of the simplest and most efficient teaching methods in existence. Sink or swim. Trial by fire. The number of idioms used to describe it proved as much. Cruel as it may seem to some. Nyctophobia could be cured by locking someone or oneself in a dark closet; many learned to swim by being thrown in the water by someone older than them; and most commonly of all, kids are thrown into the literal wolves den and are forced to learn how to socialize on top of absorbing lesson after lesson in their school lives.

Just like Grandpa Lich threw me before the students just a few days ago, I'll do the same to Toril; and to the others as well. And like the countless kind-hearted sadists who came before, I’d be there to stand watch and aid them through their struggles. All for the sake of them and their potential. A potential that needed to be reached by the time we graduated from the academy. For there were no brakes on this train.

The task I now had, however, seemed similarly daunting: 556 students; 556 doppelgangers.

In my 10 years of living the life, I’ve only ever spawned four of them. From memory, spawning three at the same time required almost no mana at all. Like a single grain of sand compared to the countless galaxies, stars, planets, and moons I saw in Telin's hand. An insignificant shard off the mass that was my mana well. I was fully aware that my well was not only of the highest density but also abnormally large for a human. How that compared to the average or what that meant in terms of power was currently beyond me, but I at least felt that spawning this many doppelgangers at once would be a fairly accurate measure to gauge just how powerful I truly was.

I took a moment to study the students surrounding me before I withdrew any mana. With the segregated floors of the school facing the western coast, the sun’s rays came in through the windows at an off angle, indirectly illuminating the voluminous space in tandem with the enchantments embedded into the ceiling. Leaving a twilight-esque environment that beautifully met the conditions for the Wraith Forms. Yet it made horrendous conditions for a small battalion of shadows. Thus I ordered over my shoulder. “Give me light."

Immediately, Toril raised both arms high and produced a roaring torch that nearly licked the ceiling, splaying the hundreds of anxious and expectant faces in harsh light. Consequently, I began focusing on the many shadows flickering across the ground and started withdrawing mana. Like oceanic waves chipping away the coast that was my mana well, shards of the crystalline energy broke off and sublimed into the rushing stream of energy. Into my core, it funneled. From the other side, it emerged as an umbral river gushing up and out of my eyes to settle within the umbral pits cast by Toril’s light. Only after they darkened and began amassing into a solid shape did I avert my gaze elsewhere. Yet shard after shard of mana broke off from my well and collapsed towards my affinity core until the number of bodies in the room had veritably doubled.

Much to my dismay, however, only a fraction of mana had been lost from my reserves. If I had to estimate, the mass spawn required maybe… not even 1/200th of my total mana capacity. Which meant that it’d be a long time before I could test the full extent of my power.

Lest I wished to impose a day of darkness on the Empire.

Or kill every living thing in Deapou.

Or send the entire island to the void.

Frustratingly enough.

With a now soured mood, I gave a wave over my shoulder to Toril. Signaling for him to take over while I floated overhead to observe.

He took the center with little hesitation, and after a quick briefing, the students began. Essentially, the briefing was to say their combat training would be indirectly supervised. With the doppelgangers in place, shamming would be virtually impossible. Spell development would be much the same, with the exception being that the students born without an affinity core were essentially allowed to train in whatever they so pleased. That left the other three stations to be instructed by each of my vassals. Who each quickly got to work corralling the students.

Within the passing hours, I unsurprisingly realized that the vast majority of them were absolutely awful at elemental manipulation. Though a few had an innate knack for it, Grandpa Lich was a lousy teacher. More so, it seemed some of his teachers were as well; Urda aside. Toril, on the other hand, was doing remarkably well with teaching them. Though he seemed to grow visibly frustrated whenever a student just wasn’t getting it. The sparring sessions went far better, however. Though I couldn’t observe much due to my doppelgangers’ constant assault, many of the students were holding their own against their umbral selves. Even after they picked up their training weapons.

Following that, the physical training station was rather fascinating. Not by the wide range of physical fitness levels the students displayed, but by Jaimess’ ‘lead by example’ method of teaching. Each exercise was not only properly demonstrated and spot-corrected, but Jaimess would also complete each exercise alongside each and every group. If only for fun. Much to my amusement, the fifth and final station was both a mystery and an object of fascination for many students. Naturally, most of each hour was spent with Jonet explaining the obstacles presented before them and how to properly traverse them. As expected, they were as clumsy as anyone running an obstacle course for the first time. So much so, that I lost count of how many students tripped in the raised tire-like pits or burned their hands on the rope climb. There had to be dozens of them who were caught heaving for breath under the low crawl wires or repeatedly failing to vault over low walls and rails.

What was unexpected, however, was Jonet’s smirk of satisfaction at watching the students struggle. More than once I caught her with a pleasurable grin as she stared at the students climbing Jacob’s Ladder; a building-sized ladder with rungs increasingly spaced apart in a direct proportion to a rise in height. Looking at them all fail and thinking of them all seamlessly running the course in record times birthed within me the desire to run the course myself. Though the sea of eyes still somewhat focused on me and the many types of magic being flung about in the last station made me think otherwise. There were the many types of magic that I expected to see: standard or more complex elemental affinities like fire or obsidian; as well as more specific affinities like string or ash or even wax.

Naturally; or not, looking at them go made me start thinking about my own spells. Since I was still struggling with developing new ones, I’d been devoting most of my training time to advancing my proficiency in my known spells in the hopes that one of them would evolve. Or if not that, I hoped becoming more practiced with the mana around me would give me some insight. While I had many theories on how to apply my dormant cores, I practically had no spells for both death and void magic. After a little self-reflection, however, I realized I’d been thinking of my affinities in the same way as elemental manipulation. Where it was about guiding the elements into doing what they’d naturally do on their own. Thus bringing about the linear nature of my spells. They did what they were meant to do. Blind. Kill. Destroy. Nothing more.

What both the literal definition and my most-used spell suggested, however, was that magic allowed the force in question to do the impossible. Which meant my avenues of thinking were simply too narrow.

In other words, I was magically ignorant.

Operating under such assumptions, I began to ponder on a spell similar to Leech Hand, only the intent would be to have it drain mana instead of vitality or stamina; though I was confident that such line of thinking was simply me reaching for long-dead stars. However, that did bring to light something I’ve been overlooking this entire time: my lack of spells cast from raw mana. As a half-drow, I was in tune with the energy in a way that no other human could ever hope to achieve. And according to the words of my mother, I could directly cast with the stuff. What that entailed or how that even looked was beyond me. But I assumed it was the first or perhaps second step in one day learning how to mana forge. On top of that were the mysteries of how to raise undead and how the anomaly that was void magic could be applied. As far as I knew, the void completely destroyed everything it touched; much like Grandpa Lich stated years ago. But if was anything like the immense voids found throughout the cosmos, I was certain it'd take considerable time to figure out how that related to my magic.

And then, there was the matter of my dreams. The dragon of darkness that swallowed the stars.

In all, I had only a few basic attack and defense spells in my grimoire and naught a clue as to how to unlock the full potential of my magic. Worse, I had naught an option to find said potential unless I toiled and trained and tested to an obsessive- a maddened degree. I needed to learn more. To do more. Thus I found a quiet place on the guest floor to search and search and search until the sun set below the Mortal Plane. At which time I moved up to my Grandfather’s office to train the night away in earnest.