*Julian Gandr*

“Lucas…” Julian was aghast at the preparations that Lucas was making, “you are setting up ritual magic? When did you even learn about the subject?”

“I didn’t,” Lucas replied as he drew runes on the floor in chalk. “This is not really ritual magic, it has nothing to do with priestly magic at all. Actually, I would not be remotely surprised if this was blasphemous in the end.”

Julian frowned, which he felt was a natural reaction when someone said that their actions were likely blasphemy… However, Lucas had carte blanche from the Church, so it should be fine. Still, he had been shocked when Lucas had asked for criminals waiting for execution- even among ritual magic, very few required sacrifices and none that Julian could think of required multiple.

“And you will not explain what you are doing?” Julian asked again, not really able to accept the answer.

“Julian,” Lucas sighed in exasperation and looked up from his work. “If there is one thing I know, it is that if it is possible to exploit, someone will. The best result for this world is if I fail.”

“That does not make me feel better…” Julian muttered.

“Well we are just about done,” Lucas replied. “So would you mind putting them in their positions?”

Julian sighed and did as he was asked, thinking that Lucas had grown to understand magic far faster than Julian had begun to understand ‘science.’ Despite not having a large mana pool, Lucas seemed to be a prodigy in terms of learning. Though when he said this to Lucas the man just laughed. Julian still remembered what he had said at that time.

“It isn’t that I am especially talented in magic Julian,” Lucas had said. “But that learning begets learning. The more you are educated and the more you learn the easier it is for you to learn other things and incorporate them into your knowledge. While I am light on the specifics, it has a lot to do with the structure of the human brain. In short, I am not a prodigy, I just have the benefit of growing up in an educated country.”

Along the same lines, Lucas was often quite critical of the society around him. He claimed that it impeded progress to a large degree, and seeing the runes in front of him, Julian was inclined to agree. It was hard to tell what the circle Lucas had drawn was even for, and according to Lucas only part of the magic was inscribed and the rest was reliant on him constructing it.

At four points in the circle where criminals destined for the gallows. They had been bound and beaten until they could no longer move, and while Lucas had not said as much, Julian was certain that they would not be surviving this ritual.

“Well then,” Lucas straightened up. “Let us begin.”

Julian watched with rapt attention as Lucas began to assemble the construct he had seen weeks ago. It was an incredible piece of magic by itself, but when it began to interact with the runes… Suddenly, the four criminals began to cry out and writhe and the power in the construct began glow brightly. Based on the gasps of Lady Almistraus, the glow was even visible to non-mages, incredible…

The four criminals stopped moving, but the radiance of the construct only increased- and then it began to compress. Lucas almost seemed to be… Absorbing it…

*Lucas Jaeger*

Evil. It is a funny word. Throughout the history of Lucas’s world, there had been many different interpretations of the concept. If Lucas were to go to a wise person from each culture and ask them to appraise the morality of his current actions, the answer would likely be unanimous condemnation.

Lucas would have scoffed at them though, he knew enough about the cultures of the world to realize that they were hypocrites more often than not. He was secure in his ethics, at least on the theoretical side of things- in practice, he was far from perfect. However, Lucas could not think of a reason to care about what he was doing to these four criminals. They were already dead, Lucas was just letting them be useful in death.

Lucas had attempted to create a magical generator before, and it did not work. The magical construct he used to substitute for a soul simply did not work well, and unfortunately, Lucas still was unsure what was wrong with it. Well, if that was how things had to be, Lucas would just skip the substitute and use the original.

The generator functioned- which meant that aside from the problems with the soul substitute, the other parts of it were working as designed. And the ‘shell’ of the generator was designed to contain a soul.

So Lucas would take these criminals souls and use them to drive the generator!

The first step had already been completed, the criminals were dead and their souls had entered the magical construct. The second step was for Lucas to ‘absorb’ the whole thing- to make it part of him.

After all, it would be useless if he had to take all of this effort just to maintain the structure. Lucas would not be able to do anything else! So it had to become part of his own system, and the process was… Painful.

Lucas grit his teeth and continued regardless, wishing he had a better understanding of the system than he did. The best way to describe his current action was like grafting a plant, scraping away part of both him and the system and then tying them together so that they functioned as one.

It took a few minutes, but the glowing structure was subsumed into Lucas- and Lucas felt an incredible burst of power.

“It is finished,” Lucas sat down suddenly. He had not realised how exhausted he was… “It worked just as planned.”

Lucas wiped the sweat from his brow and muttered, “though I did not expect it to be so difficult.”

“Lucas…” Almistraus who had been watching with wide eyes found her voice, “what did you do!?”

“He stole their souls…” It was Julian who replied. “He stole their fucking souls!”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Lucas did not deny it, “why do you think I said they absolutely had to be prisoners that were going to be executed? They were murderers correct? Who cares what happens to them?”

Lucas certainly did not care. He found it quite amusing actually, which did worry him a bit. Amusement is not a very good emotion to have when consuming human souls, even if they do deserve it. Well, regardless, he still had to test it- there was a reason for all of this after all.

Lucas stood up, took a deep breath, and focused. Lucas’s knowledge of computer engineering was minimal, and he was regretting that now because he was having to reinvent the wheel. The goal was simple, to create replacements for the technological tools of his world in magic. After some experimentation, Lucas found the limitations of his magic- or rather, the limitations of his intellect, or perhaps education.

He could replicate the machines he desired, but most of the work had to be done in his head. Well, at least it was possible to do now, he thought. Speaking of a thought, Lucas realized there were certain things that magic could do that the tools could not… At this point, Lucas could understand how the demons had modified other species- if they had power like this, it would not be difficult at all. In fact, Lucas could do a better job.

It would be fairly easy to just make a few changes in a couple of places. Normally, genetic modification on adult organism is difficult bordering on impossible. The reasons for this are numerous, and each reasons is enough by itself to shut down the attempt generally. But many of those problems were eliminated by magic- he could modify every cell he needed to individually and make those changes with one hundred percent accuracy!

Lucas could not help but laugh, to think that this world had magic and had accomplished so little. From this point Lucas could see the summit of what magic could do, it was the same destination that could be reached by the apex of science. A point no mortal could ever hope to reach in their lifetime, but that society as a whole might reach through the combined efforts of humankind over millenia.

“I do not know what else to say but this,” Lucas laughed. “Thank you for bringing me to this world! I owe you one for that, and I plan to pay that debt back in full!”

Meanwhile, Terrasin and Julian were looking on with worried expressions as Lucas continued to laugh hysterically.