Unfortunately, that seemed to be the only good thing happening for them at the stables. As the final building that still stood and remained undamaged, it was pristine and a welcome sight after all the destruction she had witnessed.

The horse that they needed was very much dead, however. She hoped it hadn't died in pain or fear; she couldn't bear thinking about it suffering needlessly because of what had happened to it.

It had been a beautiful creature once upon a time—a black stallion with a white stripe down its neck and chest as well as a long tail. Now though, the beast lay motionless on the ground. His eyes were open but dulled from death.

That's going to complicate things.

Lucian began to curse heavily, switching from the standard Common Trade Tongue and Elyuism languages of the Celestial Empire. Hearing the familiar languages was soothing in this place far from her home and revealed more about the nature of this world than anything else had so far.

The Celestial Empire was vast and spread out over most of the known worlds. To help govern and guide the natives, and ensure boons to the world and the empire, members of the higher castes were sent to the realms and worlds. With the countless languages and cultures intermixing, a common tongue was needed. And to distinguish themselves from the rabble, a formal or mystical version of the language was developed to set apart members of the same species from the rest of the empire.

Lucian was a mortal, and yet he knew that language.

There was something wrong with that, but she would need to ask him when their relationship strengthened. Or at the very least not now.

Serena crouched down at the side of the horse's head and sought out the only one who could help her.

"Ravana?"

She had the distinct impression he was ignoring her.

"Oh, great and fearless leader who lords over the" Serena began before she was rudely cut off.

"What do you want?" He demanded as if it pained him greatly to speak in her presence. "You're interrupting me." She hadn't expected anything less though, so this didn't bother her much anymore.

"Our getaway ride is dead. What do you recommend I do now?"

"That can be solved with a simple bit of necromancy." His voice dripped venomous sarcasm in its tone. "Surely you could manage that."

Serena smiled awkwardly at the jab. "No offense, but I don't think necromancy is that common a practice. At least I wasn't trained in it." It wouldn't hurt to try, however; they couldn't afford for their escape route to fail them here.

"It's not an uncommon skill to learn," Ravana said slowly. "I'll teach you how to perform basic spells like that."

That was wonderful to hear and Serena felt that her luck was finally turning. At least until he asked what magical symbols, runes, and arrays she knew. That was when she realized she had no idea about any such thing.

It wasn't that she was new to magic, but that she had been trained in a particular way.

Veles had instructed her that channeling the limited amount of mana she had seemingly possessed in a certain fashion would work better. It was more focused on internal energy and mana and using it in near-endless possibilities.

Her beloved brother had told her that everything had mana. Their bodies were constantly generating it and it circulates throughout them at all times.

He trained her in a mixture of physical and spiritual exercises to create more mana within herself. From training with various styles of fighting to learning how to defend herself from many different kinds of attacks, the physical training was one that never ended and was never quite the same. The spiritual exercises were more focused on strengthening her mind and soul than her body. Learning new things and improving on what came before was an important part of it, and furthered her love for knowledge.

Veles was strict in having her master the ability to create, maintain and manipulate her mana even in life-threatening circumstances. As her trial and error discovered, she should only create and use exactly as much mana as she needed for a spell.

If she had tried to cast a technique without using enough mana, then the effects are going to be significantly weaker than desired at best or likely just fail outright. The effect of casting techniques using more mana than needed varied greatly as well in her experimentation.

For offensive and defensive ones, adding more mana will serve to increase their power and scale which is naturally very useful for attacking her enemies or defending herself. The trick is that the more mana she used the more control is required to compensate to ensure that it is all applied to the technique without waste and without making it unstable. However, for support techniques, using more mana can often just be a waste of stamina or cause more harm than good.

The state of the mind and body, Veles informed her, have a significant effect on manipulating mana. Mortals never have a perfectly equal amount of physical and spiritual energy; their bodies and minds can change too easily from moment to moment and over time. But when someone uses mana in this style, they seek to use the same amount for each to balance them together and make it as stable as possible so that it is easier to control and transform.

A relaxed mind and well-rested body is the ideal state to be in for using mana, granting them the best sense of their energies, while stress and fatigue can make their control erratic and difficult to maintain. Powerful emotions are often a useful tool in creating as much mana as possible as quickly as possible by pushing the mind and body beyond their normal limits, but this is more of a situational aid rather than something that can be relied on consistently.

This was the only way of handling mana that she knew, and it was focused on control. She didn't think it would work in this situation.

Serena let Ravana know of her experiences and what he could expect from her though whatever reaction she thought she would get was not what happened.

"You are one of those strange cultivator nutjobs. Or a muscle wizard." He said with an exasperated sigh before continuing. "Of course, I would wind up with one of your lots. Just my luck."

Cultivator? What is that? Serena thought, puzzled at the notion. Wasn't it the same thing as using mana for martial arts training to increase speed and power?

"Thankfully, you seem capable of learning other methods. Starting with a rune to ground the spell would be best." Ravana explained as if he were speaking to a child. It seemed to be his preferred method for teaching new magic users who weren't already trained to do so themselves, or for those too weak to use their techniques correctly.

The idea that someone might need help controlling their abilities made her feel embarrassed but also relieved; there was nothing wrong with needing to learn things properly. That wasn't a weakness—it just meant they needed time and practice to become proficient in their craft. She nodded in understanding, though she couldn't see how grounding anything could have any effect on her spells. The only thing she had ever been taught was about mana manipulation, not runes. She didn't even know what she was supposed to do.

Ravana sent her a mental image of a rune.

"This is a basic necromancy rune that is used to ground the spell. That means it serves as some kind of stabilization to reduce chances of terrible outcomes," Ravana instructed as if he were talking to an idiot child rather than a girl who knew more mana control theory than he did himself. "I will show you once you get the hang of it."

"And how shall I draw the rune?"

"Do I have to do everything?" Ravana countered. "You might as well try out blood magic as well."

That was a good point, Serena thought as she went back to the wagon after standing back up. She had seen a few cooking knives that would help with cutting herself to get the blood for the ritual. It might be better to go ahead and use them for this since she'd probably need several cuts before she got enough, and she doubted she could cut herself with magic unless she wanted to make a mess everywhere and risk hurting others in the process. She pulled one from a knife holder, before returning outside.

She hesitated slightly before running the blade over her open palm. She winced at first but soon grew accustomed to it and found that it wasn't too painful—it just stung like any other wound when it started bleeding.

The next part was harder: using the blood to make the shape of the rune without making it look sloppy. This required more care because it needed to be precise so that the spell wouldn't fail. Her hands trembled as she tried again and then finally succeeded; her second attempt looked much cleaner than hers had previously. Ravana seemed satisfied as he voiced his approval. That was good enough for Serena.

"Now channel mana into it. As this is the first time you are attempting necromancy, I will be performing the actual spell." He instructed in a detached manner. "It's best not to do anything yourself until I have demonstrated how it should go. Otherwise, we'll end up with a mess."

"Of course," Serena agreed, though she didn't feel like arguing about it right now. She focused on sending the energy within her, and within the world around her, into the rune. She could feel that it was being absorbed into the blood-soaked earth that she used for the rune and noticed how it began to glow. After a few more seconds of sending mana into it at a steady speed, Serena cut it off.

Ravana gave a mental command, and there appeared small inky darkness in the middle of the dead horses' bodies. It began growing larger as she watched before suddenly consuming the horse entirely. The blackness spread out from its center as if searching for something else to consume as well.

Serena couldn't help but shiver as they waited to see what would happen next. When nothing did after several moments, Ravana spoke again in his calm voice.

"Well done! You've successfully created your first spell!" He sounded almost bored by his praise as he continued without missing a beat. "I have honestly no idea what that is but it's fascinating."

"What do you mean?" Serena questioned in alarm. "Wasn't this the result you wanted?"

"No," he replied calmly again, "this was merely an experiment. I expected some sort of zombie or perhaps even a skeletal creature." He paused thoughtfully. "It seems we will need more practice until you can create useful spells. However, it does seem that your necromancy has potential; it just needs more work and refinement."

That was all very interesting information to Serena who had been expecting much worse results than she received. She nodded excitedly and opened her mouth to speak when an unholy whinny made her refocus on the shadow-covered corpse. It seemed to be trying to move despite being completely dead. As she watched, she saw it start to twitch and shake before it finally stood up.

The limbs were shaky as if it was a colt trying to stand for the first time. The shadows retreated and vanished, but they had forever changed the creature. Its body appeared almost normal with the occasional wisp of black smoke coming off its skin like steam from a kettle. The coat resembled solid shadows, with tufts of black smoke or fog around his hooves, mane, and tail. The original white parts of the horse's coat were now ridges of reinforced bones that protected the creature. Its eyes were a hellish red, but there was fear in them as if it was aware that something was wrong.

There was also no longer any trace of the horrid stench that it emitted earlier either which pleased Serena immensely. When Ravana spoke again after several seconds though, her excitement died down somewhat.

"This is not what I expected," he stated calmly as she watched the shadow-horse struggle to stay upright. "I suppose this means we will need more practice." He sighed softly as if resigned to their fate.

The sound of countless notifications was all the warning she had before she was bombarded with that blue screen once more. The more she looked at it, the more confused she became.