Last chapter of the prologue, finally MC starts his adventures. I hope I was able to express all my thoughts clear enough, it's difficult to judge your own story and how understandable it is, so I would appreciate some constructive criticism.

And please, leave reviews if you liked the story so far. Enjoy.

I'm still trying to process what happened. So they killed each other? Why didn't Zenon die from that attack? And what's happening to me now? Oh not this again, darkness... The all too familiar place. I'm still back here.

"Do you hear me this time?" (?)

"What? Who is it?" (me)

"I'm Kaster Merlin, but everyone in my world knows me as the corrupter. But I believe you called me the glider" Said Kaster? chuckling amused by the name.

"Was that your voice I was hearing before? And what was all that I saw? Was it even real? Can you get me out of here?" (me)

"Wow, wow easier. Keep a question at a time. To answer your first question, yes, it was my voice. It seems your soul isn't strong enough to hear me on its own, so I'm projecting my voice directly into your consciousness this time. About all the things I've shown you, it should be obvious at this point, those were all my memories just before I died, so yes, they were more than real." (Kaster)

"Mmmm, so... Can you get me out of this place." (me)

"And aren't you curious as to why was I showing all those memories to you?" (Kaster)

"Well, honestly I would be cautious of a guy, that came and granted me the only thing I can whish for, and especially when I don't have much choice, but after seeing all your memories, even though I've never seen a real magic in my world, it's still obvious to me that no matter how good a mage you are, you wouldn't be able to fake all those emotions I was feeling from you. You chose to stay and fight for the villagers, instead of fleeing, knowing, that it can be a strong enemy, so yeah, even if it's stupid to trust someone who I'm talking to for the first time, I trust you." (me)

"Hahahaha, it seems I wasn't the only one, who was watching emotions and judging the character, good. Now then, to answer your question, yes, I do indeed have the power to take you out of this place, but before that, let me tell you a bit about my family and my past" (Kaster)

Then he told me about his grandfather, their family gift, which is apparently called a soul-mutation, his objectives and what he was trying to accomplish all this time. He really was through a lot, and I can understand why would he like to resurrect his family, instead of living alone in the world, where everyone hates you and thinks of you as the number one enemy of humanity. And demihumanity? ...Enemy of all the people. It looks like he is actually relived to leave all of that behind and reincarnate anew, but still refuses for his family name to remain tainted.

"So those women that you freed from slavery, are criminals then, their statuses were all although a lighter shade, but still red" (me).

"There is a lot of ways to misuse a power, and make people do what they wouldn't in normal circumstances. They were framed, and judged as dangerous, even though they had the most common orange karma. There are a lot of shady organizations in the cities, framing and using their power, to enslave innocents and force them to work for free. Those three women were forced to work in the brothel when I freed them, then in the way out of the city, while we were trying to save others, they were forced to kill some soldiers for self-defense, and became red."

"I see... Yeah, there are always people, who will find a way to misuse most noble things for their own interests." *Sigh*, after a moment of consideration I continued "I understand and sympathies with you, I really do, and the whole empire seem rotten and fucked up, but are you asking me to go against the whole empire with their armies and immortal regenerating lunatics, who everyone think as the purest and kindest people alive? Don't you think it's too much to ask for?" (me)

"I'm not asking you to go ahead of your way and risk your live to accomplish all of this. I'm just making a gamble. You will be a reincarnated soul, a soul with memories of another world. I was impressed by your ability to analyze the situation while you were watching my memories. I'm just asking, that if one day you are strong enough to fight against the imperials, it will be not so hard for you to clean our name, after all knowing your character, soon or later you will have your own reasons to fight against them.

And there is also the fact, that you will need to practice and research to create a suitable body for you." (Kaster)

"Wait, do you mean, Will I be some kind of a ghost without a body?" (me)

"Of course not, only spirits can survive without a body, all other living beings need a core, like I mentioned before, it's only that I'm not able to create a good enough body, all I'll manage to create is a shell with a core using my death magic" (Kaster)

"So I'll be undead? What the hell... How am I supposed to get stronger and even survive in the world of living as undead? I mean knowing your title as necromancer, if I'm an undead everyone will try to hunt me down." (me)

"I'll give you strongest body I'm capable of creating, and you won't necessarily be hunted down, although I would advise you to keep your distance from people as long as possible, until you are strong enough to protect yourself, but you will have a clean soul, and although not a newborn - white, your soul is still green, and as long as you show it in the city, they won't kill you, probably. But if you stumble upon adventurers on the way, they can attack without a warning, karma artifacts are used only in cities after all, and can't be carried around." (Kaster)

"Yeah, that's REALLY reassuring... And how am I supposed to create a body for myself?" (me)

"Although at the time my grandfather was disappointed in people. He still couldn't bear to isolate all his accumulated knowledge from them, hoping that someday someone would use it in for a right cause. After creating the great library with centuries of accumulated knowledge about the world, crafting, and magic theories, he put 4 conditions for those, who wants to enter it.

1) One has to have a pure heart. He used a level advanced artifact than those, that the church of truth uses, which is able to tell not only the karma, but also the intentions. It was the only way he could find to block Pankratius from entering his great library.

2) One has to be at least a master level mage in one of the spirit magic.

3) One has to be at least a master level mage in one of the material magic.

4) One has to be at least a master level mage in runic magic.

For the 2nd, 3rd and 4th conditions, if someone isn't at least at that level, they won't be able to understand anything inside the library

You'll have to reach a master level in all 3 of those fields and enter the library, which is in the Great Forest if you want to create a new body for yourself" (Kaster)

"And what the master level is supposed to mean?" (me)

"Ah, right you can't know about it can you. There are ranks for every mages and magic spells. When the mage is able to comprehend and use the magic of a certain rank, he becomes a mage of that rank. Ranks go like this

Beginner -> Intermediate -> Advanced -> Expert -> Master -> Grandmaster -> Sage.

The first three is quite easy to comprehend, and pretty much anyone with at least an ounce of talent and hard work can make their way to Advanced. But after that is bottleneck, which not anyone can pass. It all depends on natural talent and comprehension. Being an Expert is enough to get a high status in army and live a relaxed life, if you decide to join one of the empires.

And Masters are even rarer. They are so few, that any of empires are ready to give a Master a noble status with a castle and some land. You can imagine how hard it is to reach a Master lvl.

I and Zenon, whose fight you were watching were both Grandmasters, and although our power is more obvious in large scale battles, when any Grandmaster can turn the flow of the battle, you still should already have some kind of understanding of the power this level." (Kaster)

"And what about Sages?" I was getting quite excited at this point with all the magic and being able to live in such a world.

"In all of the known history, there were quite a large number of Grandmasters, but a lot less Sages, they were so few you can count them in two hands. The only living sage is the current human Emperor, and also the first of the Pankratius. And the other in the last century was my grandfather." (Kaster)

"I already guessed that the lifespan of people in your world is quite long, but how old is that emperor guy." (me)

"We don't have much time to idle talk, I have a limited amount of mana and I still need to create a body for you. Oh, I nearly forgot, the reason i even came to these village was mainly because I was searching for the great spirit, my grandfather's friend, who helped him quite a bit in his artifact creation. Maybe you will want to see him, Spirits are most ancient and knowledgeable createres after the Gods. But they don't concern themselves with mortal matters, if they want to you will be able to find them, and if they don't wish to see you, you will be circling around their place for a hundreds of years without being able to meet them. Go to the north from the village, and hope that you will pique his interest. I think that's all, so if you don't have any important thing to ask..." (Kaster)

"Ok, I'll defenetly remember it. One last question. I'm really curious, if you can come to this void place, and resurrect a chosen soul, why can't you just resurrect yourself?" (me)

Shooking his head Kaster answers with a regretful sigh "For a spell to work, it needs a constant flow of mana from the start to finish. I'm dying, it means my soul is leaving my core. There is no way to stop the process when it is already started, and once my soul leaves my core, I will lose the control over my mana pool, and my spell will be interrupted before I can put my soul back into a core and create a body. Although there is a way to do it using runic magic, I'm not as adept in it as my grandfather was, and I stopped researching resurrecting once I knew that I won't be able to get back my family." (Kaster)

"Even though I know I'm being too unreasonable, I have to know, is there a way to resurrect me in my previous world?" (me) Honestly speaking I wasn't very fond of my previous life, and I was always dreaming about getting into a magic world, becoming a hero, but after the time spent inside the void, in loneliness, I started to appreciate my loved ones more, so I have to know.

"No, I am actually confident, that even grandfather with all of his knowledge wouldn't be able to get you back to your world, as I said, soul needs a core, and the only way I am able to resurrect you is to melt my own core into a liquid and attach your soul into it, unfortunately at that point I won't be able to assist you, so you'll have to manage it on your own." (Kaster)

Then, with a concerned voice he continued "I'll have to warn you, I don't know how Zenon managed to survive my attack, he should be dead, but he managed to kill me after that. I'm not even entirely sure is he dead himself, he can still be laying there. Fortunately for us, as I said before in this place time flows differently, so after you will be resurrected, it will be only a couple of second after our last exchange, so you should have a lot of time to do something. But if he is still alive, don't even try to kill him, you won't be able to with your powers. The only thing you can do is run as fast as you can and hope, that he didn't notice you." (Kaster)

"Yeah, that's even more reassuring" (me)

"Well then, we don't have much time. Farewell... Now that I think about it I don't even know your name" (Kaster)

"My name was one of my first memories I lost here. So I don't know it either" (me)

"If you are ready to bear the most shameful name from my world, then you can pick Merlin as your last name, you have to figure something with your first name yourself." (Kaster)

"Thank you Kaster, it's an honor to have such a noble name, I really mean it. In my world there..." (me)

I even wanted to tell him about a legendary mage from my world with the same name, but before I could finish, I felt darkness enveloping my consciousness once again. Once more that familiar sensation. His mana must have depleted already, than it means...

Farewell Kaster Merlin. One of the most noble people world even knew.

And with those last thoughts, I lost my consciousness.