It took half a day for Lyns to regain consciousness. He felt nauseous looking at all the gore things around him, there were the decapitated cold dead body of Tim, the Demon and some of his own ripped tendons from his left arm. When he noticed that his sword was still in his hand, he instantly threw it away. The sword hit the stone walls and with a loud bang it dropped to the ground. He still had a trauma because Tim. He stood up and jumped off the wagon.

Lyns cautiously observed his surroundings. The room which they were inside seemed to be the hall. There was a ramp going up ending in a hole, that was big enough to let two carriages through going side by side. The hole was covered by a layer of grey mist which upon close observation seemed to mimic the grey dirt of the desolate plane above them. Everything inside was made from dark grey bricks.

The two horses which were left alive stood leashed to a wall covered, by dry blood. It seemed the left wall in the hall was used to be the place where the demon tortured its prisoners. At the right side there was a door opened which led to a small storage room, inside all kind of riding equipment and common tools were stored. Opposite to the ramp there was a bigger door and it led to a room similar to a laboratory. The inside of the laboratory looked amazing to Lyns, the walls were covered by bookshelves, meanwhile there was a huge workbench in the middle with a lot of test tubes and machineries on it. ‘If I were to tell anyone that demons are living in such places, with a ton of knowledge, I bet people would call me a drug abuser again.’ he felt like a great explorer who people would call liar, because no one has seen things like that before. Lyns didn’t really recognize the use of anything inside the laboratory, but this was the first time he had seen any books. ‘I think I am all alone, and I just inherited a demon’s den, which is probably the first good thing to happen since I woke up on that mysterious place.’ thought Lyns, anticipating the knowledge held inside the books.

Exploring the lair was really exciting, but Lyns quickly got hungry and all his and the merchants food reserves were on the wagon, where the dead bodies were. Lyns had to bury Tim and the demon, which was a big task, physically and mentally too. After gathering all his courage, he climbed on the wagon. The disgusting smell of corpses attacked his nose, it was so bad Lyns would have puked if his belly wasn’t already empty, so he just gaged. He grabbed the rigid body of Tim by the leg and started to pull it up on the ramp, next he pulled up the demon too. He searched for a shovel inside the small storage room. He grabbed Tim’s remains and went outside, he had no sense of direction and the entrance was well hidden, so he marked his every step with the shovel. After getting at least fifty meters far from the lair he started to dig. The dry upper layer of the grey dirt made it hard to dig, but after about three candles time he dug a hole big enough for the corpses to fit. The digging made him reevaluate his views on life and death, because any moment can be the last, so he should use every candle’s time to live his fullest. Life was a very quick thing and when it ended, everything went down the same way for everyone you could be a demon, human or anything else. He brought the other corpse over and buried both. The cracking noises that the bodies made under the weight of dirt were bone chilling.

After he finished the unpleasant task, he hid his markings and footprints, so if by chance anyone would come here the stealthy entrance would remain hidden. He went back to the lair and brought out some food, which he heated on something resembling a fireplace inside the laboratory.

From the laboratory two more room opened, a bigger storage with every kind of ingredient, a room which consisted out of one big bed. Lyns was creeped out by the thought of sleeping on the same sheets that the demon used, so he threw it inside to the hall, and put a sleeping bag from the packages on the bed. There were still a lot of time until the night, so he started to clean, and organize the things in the hall.

He gave food and water to the horses, and after spraying the bloody wall with cologne, he nailed a huge fabric on it, so the gruesome sight turned into a wall covered in tapestry.

Lyns took a deep breath and picked up his mysterious sword from the corner, the sword gave him a reassuring feeling, like he had returned to home. He was creeped out by thinking about what this feeling could imply.

He went to the bedroom and sat on his bed, after getting comfortable, he started to concentrate on his sword again, it had a much more imposing aura than before. He was concentrating on the red vial when something new happened. A small and a smaller ethereal head came out from the vial and they went circles around the sword, they were bound to the sword by an ethereal blood red chain which came from the vial, they let out angry shrills at Lyns. Lyns were scared witless because he could recognize some features of the heads, the big one seemed to be the demon’s head, the smaller one seemed to be Tim’s.

Lyns once again proceeded to violently throw the sword while screaming “What the hell!!!”.

The demonic sword impaled the bedroom’s wall like it was tofu. Lyns couldn’t believe how it was possible, but he decided to leave the blade there until he knew what it was. A day has passed so he decided it was time for a good sleep, a lot of things had happened, and he needed time to sort out his thoughts on what to do next.

Everything looked the same after his nap, the soft lighting of the lair never changed, glowing, orange-colored stones illuminated everything, it was pleasant to Lyns’s eyes. He felt refreshed and he was full of energy and determination to go through the books inside the laboratory.

After a short breakfast, Lyns started to skim through the titles of books. Soon he found a book called The Fundamentals of Magic. On the first page of the book the following were written:

‘Dear Karo, my loved nephew

Since young age you were filled with great ambitions and now that you turned fifteen, I am willing to give you a chance to walk on the path of mages. It needs great patience and talent, and of course the opportunity to get your hand on an inheritance like the one I share with you. Remember the inheritance of a mage is their families most sacred secret which they only hand to their most loved family members. I don’t have my own children and my lifespan is about to end in a year, I have a lot of things left to do until then, so I sent these twelve books to you, which is our family’s Shadow inheritance.

This is the first book which will teach you how to start your cultivation. The other books contain our family’s research through centuries and our cultivation techniques to higher levels.

With a lot of love your Uncle Hemor

PS:

If you have the audacity to share our family’s knowledge with an outsider like your long-lost brother did, I will come back from the grave and make you regret that you were born. I know you are smart, don’t tarnish our family’s heritage.’

Lyns felt joy reading this little letter because it showed how big the treasure he had just obtained was. He had gigantic hopes for magic, and firmly believed, if he learned magic, he would be able to dissolve the mysteries around his past.

Those who want to practice magic should awaken their soul. Awakened souls can absorb and influence the world’s energies around them. These are the very basic principles of all specialization of magic. In this first book we will concentrate on the first layer magic, which every mage can use after soul awakening. These techniques will be your foundation for advanced methods, and they are the most useful set of skills for a mage’s everyday life.

The first page of the book mesmerized Lyns, he felt endless possibilities for the future, and he couldn’t wait to awaken his soul.