It's early in the morning but the streets are still shrouded in darkness as the surrounding mountains delay the arrival of the sun. With no one on the road to intercept me, I smoothly make my way to the home of Nomura Takumi. He's Takashi's fifth son and he's responsible for the Nomura clan's magical research and production of enchanted items. Due to his important position, all collected or written spell tomes are pooled at his place, forming a sizable magician's library.

I've been meaning to visit him and ask for a few books, but to my surprise he had left me a letter while I was gone. It's an invitation for an exchange of knowledge, and he would like to see me as soon as I'm free. Well, that being said, I may be a bit early considering most of the villagers are barely awake.

I walk up to his surprisingly small home and give a few knocks on the...

"Welcome Enbos! I've been expecting you!"

"Gaaahhh!!!"

All of a sudden, a slender brown figure with thick leather garments and a multi-focal monocle comes bursting out the doorway. It takes me a few seconds to realise he's the kobold I'm looking for.

"To be graced by your arrival so early in the morning, I see you're just as enthusiastic as I am!"

"How long have you been waiting behind that door!?"

"Only half an hour or so. I've been looking forward to our meeting for quite a while now."

"For quite a while... Have you been doing this every morning since you left that message?"

"Oh, never mind the small details. Please come inside! There is so much I wish to discuss..."

Wait, he didn't deny it? What is with him!? He was nothing like this when I first saw him at the family feast or during Hachirou's recovery. He gave off a quiet and withdrawn impression, but now he's acting the complete opposite.

I follow him inside, but instead of leading me to the living room, he opens a reinforced cellar door and ushers me to go in. Baffled by his actions, I obediently descend a long flight of steps and find myself in a vast space hidden beneath his unassuming home. It looks like a storeroom with hundreds of books and enchanted artefacts lining dozens of shelves, though a good deal of them still lay empty. To the side, I spot an iron cast door with a warning sign, and a wooden one with the words "Workshop" on the front. We make our way to a messy table where he offers me a crate as a seat.

"Please, make yourself at home. Sadly, I seldom have guests so must beg your pardon for my lack of hospitality. Oh, where are my manners. I'm Nomura Takumi. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The pleasure is mine, Takumi. My name is Enbos."

"And your other name?"

"Eh?"

"What is your other name, from your world, I mean."

"Well, it's Tyler Suesa, but I prefer to be called..."

Hearing my original name, his eyes light up in fascination. He springs to his feet and hops about in giddy excitement, before dropping to his knees and prostrating in the next instant. Seriously, I can't keep up this guy!

"Please Enbos, hear me out! For years I have admired your and father's otherworldly knowledge and sought to apply it to Garea's magic. Sadly, my father was never orientated towards sorcery and we, his children, were only taught the basics of your science. For years I have tried to understand your world's wisdom, only to be met with limited success. But now..."

"With my arrival, you want me to teach you everything else in Takashi's place. In return, you plan to share your archive of magical texts to help fill my own void of knowledge. Am I right?"

"Yes, or at least, that was my initial intention, but now I desire something greater! I recently learned that you created two custom spells using ideas from your world, something I have always aspired to do myself. The meaning behind my letter was not only to exchange wisdom, but also to propose a joint venture."

"You want me to work with you on a project?"

"Exactly! It will be mutually beneficial and yield more insight than our individual endeavours. So please Enbos, will you agree to be my partner? I'll even let you dictate our efforts, and freely use any resource at my disposal. There is nothing I want more than to work by your side!"

With those closing words, he presses his head even closer to the floor. I take a few moments to think, but really I'm putting on airs. His dedication is borderline obsessive, and yet I must admit his sincere feelings strike a chord in my... something. Anyway, he's also built a functional magician's abode and probably has his own testing ground. As much as Takumi needs my help, I may also need his.

"Raise your head, Takumi. Partners are supposed to stand as equals."

"D-does that mean..."

"Yes, it does. I look forward to working with you from now on."

"T-thank you, Enbos! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise you will not come to regret this!"

With renewed excitement, he runs off to fetch an enchanted parchment and a magical bottle of...

"Oi, oi, oi, are you writing a magically binding contract!? You're already giving me second thoughts!"

"Oh it's nothing... pernament, I assure you. Just a small formality. By the way Enbos, as agreed you'll have full direction over our research, but I'm already curious as to what you have in mind."

"Hrmm, let me see... Have you ever experimented with gravity?"

Two weeks have passed and my partnership with Takumi is already bearing fruit. Actually, I'd be more surprised if nothing became of it considering how hard he works. I almost believe he has Nullify Fatigue, considering he works alongside me for long periods of time without so much as a pause!

According to Takumi, the easiest way to create a skill is to modify an existing one, much like how I derived from . However, this process erases the signature of the skill before it, which is why the World Stream will not recognise both skills. This effect applies not only to Custom Skills, but to all skills acquired in this fashion. It's the reason why I can no longer use after it changed to , and then to . Well, they're technically still usable, but they won't be empowered by the World Stream unless I reacquire them.

Using this method we managed to transform my into a Custom Skill. It's called and it allows me to freely change the force of gravity within a radius at a marked point. Takumi was ecstatic seeing as he has only created a handful of Custom Skills over his entire career. While I was certainly happy with this result, our association was far from over.

The second method to create a Custom Skill is to make it from scratch. It goes without saying that it's far more difficult, and often results in low level skills. is an example of this process, conjuring a small static field for a minute at best. In order to improve the skill, it needs to be augmented with incantations and spell circles, which is the nature of our next objective.

"A magic symbol does not correspond to just one effect. In fact, its interpretation is constantly in flux as time passes. What is important is the intention behind the sigils and letters, much like the name of a recipe when given a list of ingredients. This holds true for all magic, even prearranged enchantments as it relies on the creator's intent."

Following his words, we poured countless hours researching mystic circles, words of power and magic symbols to compile the "ingredients" for . In time, I hope to use the same findings to complete my skill. Takumi was especially excited after I taught him for this project. He even suffocated himself out of simple curiosity before setting to work! I wonder, is he the reason why Takashi was so worried about my spells backfiring in my face?

Anyway, bringing things to the present, we're now in the early stages of designing the magic circles. While I silently sketch the outline of our latest designs in the workshop, Takumi appears before me holding a metal key in his hand.

"Hello Takumi, did you discover something we could use?"

"No, I'm not here for the experiment. I've come to you with a different matter at hand."

"Well that's a scary thought. What could possibly divert your attention? Pardon me for saying this, but you tend to have a one-track mind."

"Something I'll gladly interpret as the ability to concentrate, but I digress. Enbos, this is a matter that greatly concerns you. Please, follow me."

As I tag along with my partner and leave the workshop, I soon realise we're approaching the iron cast door; the door with the danger sign and bulky lock. He inserts the key and gives it a simple twist, but I sense mutilple high level security spells deactivating behind the scene. The door swings open to reveal the other side, which to my surprise is a small room with a few cabinets. However, the items on display are ominous and filled with pitch black energies. On the inner surface of the door I recognise the gigantic anti-detection circle etched into metal, and spy a myriad of interlocking enchantments lining the frame.

"W-what is this room, Takumi? There's so much dark magic that it seems to be sucking in the light!"

"This is the quarantine room, Enbos. Besides the forbidden vault at the Nomura clan house, it contains the most dangerous items recovered by our kind. I brought you here today because I thought you might want to learn more about yourself. You see, ever since my father told me about your circumstances, I've considered letting you study some of the tomes stowed in this very place."

"Ah, I figured Takashi would have told you. To be honest, I was tempted to direct our efforts to researching my condition instead of developing Custom Skills like you wanted."

"I wouldn't have minded either way. Your very presence inspires innovation and progress!"

"But are you sure about this? Are you really asking me to learn necromancy?"

"Sigh, as reluctant as I am, it may be a necessary evil. For years I've contained these powerful artefacts in my basement, and not once have I ever wanted to study them myself. Given the nature of your problem, however, it's inevitable you must familiarise yourself with these necromantic writings. My hope is that you will use them to overcome your unfortunate curse... and nothing else."

He takes a dark leather bound book from the nearest cabinet and drops it in my open hands. The weight of the item is trivial compared to the invisible burden on my shoulders.

"Th-thank you, Takumi... This is more important to me than you ever realise."

"While I would be hesitant of myself if I were in your place, I have faith you won't misuse this knowledge.

Besides, even if you wanted to learn necromancy, it would take months of prior study to even fathom its contents. After all, it's not like you've been secretly practising black magic behind everybody's backs!"

Night has fallen and I'm sneaking out of the village to secretly practise black magic behind everybody's backs. I cross the wall using and slip past the outposts with with methodical care. Upon entering a nearby grove, I walk up to a hollow tree and reach into its cavity.

"Where are you... Ah, there you are Mr Bonny."

Sure enough, I take out the undead rabbit and undo its command to remain still. However, due to the lack of nearby life, it still doesn't budge a dry muscle. I drop Mr Bonny into my lap and immediately set to programming its mind.

It has been several days since Takumi lent me his necronomicon, and every time I come here I wholeheartedly apologise for abusing his trust. The new book is similar to my own, likely once the belonging of another cultist, but its contents do differ enough to expand my understanding. Right now, I'm studying the way necromancers connect the soul to the body, and I've been using Mr Bonny as a guinea pig.

You see, the body and soul are intricately entwined with one another, and upon death those links break and neither can function like before. The art of necromancy is to identify and reconnect, or fabricate, those links to animate the vessel. It's like trying to reconnect broken synapses and it's about as complex as the analogy sounds. Resurrecting a person would require fixing thousands, if not tens of thousands, of connections to their respective positions, before making sure the actual spell is permanent or even possible. My magic skill relies heavily on the processing done by the World Stream, and even then it doesn't account for half the potential links. I've also come to realise that each additional conection increases the mana consumption and shortens the lifespan of the risen.

Facing these problems, I found a way to experiment to my heart's content: Mr Bonny. Since it's a forsaken undead, I can rearrange its spirit synapses without creating surrogate connections. After each adjustment, I test for any changes through trial and error by using . My ultimate goal is to restore Mr Bonny's conscience. If it can respond to its name without me using a skill, I'll be one step closer to reassembling the fragmented memories of a deceased soul! Sadly, this lofty achievement won't be happening tonight.

I stop my session of making Mr Bonny twitch and spasm, realign its spirit synapses and command it to hold still until my next arrival. After I plop him back inside the tree, I sit against its base and begin transcribing parts of the second tome into my own. The ink and pen I'm using are borrowed from Takumi's workshop, so the magic potency is assured.

While I silently copy its contents, the alarm I set up with Crest starts ringing in my head: it's time to leave. As I pack up my things and prepare to depart, I look back at the tree hollow and wallow in the sheer magnitude of my undertaking.

How many weeks, if not months, will it take before I succeed with Mr Bonny? Would it be easier to find other black tomes rather than study on my own? Will I even last long enough to save Helena? Should I focus on my oncoming doom rather than her eventual resurrection?

There are so many things to think about that it's pulling me in every direction. I wish there was someone who could sympathise with my struggles, and yet I'm all too aware my path sets me against the rest of this world.

"Oh Helena, what must I do to bring you back?"

"For a start, you'll need 35 L of water, 20 kg of carbon, 4 L of ammonia, 1.5 kg of lime, 800 g of phosphorous, 250 g of salt, 100 g of saltpeter, 80 g of fluorine, 5 g of iron, 3 g of silicon and trace amounts of fifteen other elements."

I almost jump in sudden horror, but quickly resign myself before the end of his list, as I turn around to face the only kobold who could recite that famous line... Nomura Takashi.