A special sort of hatred could be seen within Morticous’s black flame eyes. He was incensed, absolutely mad, something almost nothing could accomplish. Tying his soul to a demon certainly could.

“You little demented cripple, how could you…”

Morticous stopped and cast a teleportation spell. He didn’t snap his fingers. He was not in the mood for that. The space around them changed in an instant. They were standing within the crypt, and for the first time Alexander realised how isolated he was. He was completely within Morticous’s palm, stuck. It did not sit well with him.

“Bind a fucking demon to yourself!”

“It’s a demon?” Alexander said, taken completely off guard. “I thought it was just a magical tattoo.”

“Magical tattoos are demons you fucking clown! Being a necromancer’s bad enough. Being associated with me is worse, but now you’re carrying an entity strictly forbidden on tower grounds.”

Morticous waved his hands around as he stomped around the crypt. His attention was focused on the demon, yet he moved through the crypt quickly and smoothly. It could almost be described as dancing, the fluency of which he moved between the caskets with, avoiding all pebbles, shifting speed and tempo.

“Good one kid!” Icarus shouted, before black lightning hit him. The flames making Icarus’s eyes flickering down to a smoulder. Morticous had cast his favourite sleep spell on him. It was called temporary death.

“My fucking soul is tied to a fucking demon! No. Get over here. I’m pulling it out of you.”

The tattoo, which had been resting on Alexander’s chest, sprinted through his neck, and into his tongue, seizing control of Alexander’s speech. He could still move his body, and gesture with hands and eyes, yet his mouth spoke at the demon’s command.

“Burn in hellfire old lich. You’re not pulling me out without destroying this kid's soul.”

“It can speak. Of fucking course it can speak.”

“I was instructed to say that Luca Di Primo sends his regard.”

“It seems I have somebody to kill.“

Morticous vanished out of the room, leaving Alexander alone. He tried to speak but his tongue wouldn’t obey him. It was an experience he’d never had before. He could still taste the saliva in his mouth and feel the cold air being sucked down his throat, yet he could not control any of it.

Give me back my mouth.

“La-la-la I can’t hear you.”

I’m not speaking.

“Listen here cripple, do you know of my age?”

No? Don’t tell me, you're ancient?

“Do I really sound that old? You really are special, through and through. I haven’t been born yet.”

What! But you’re speaking!

“Unlike you pathetic mortals, the superior, no, superiorist species is given information upon birth, and the older we get, the more information we get. Technically, I’m still in the womb!”

Get out.

“You’ve already tried telling me. How did that work?”

I’ll kill you.

“How thick are you? We’re connected. Co-nnec-ted. Stupid. Killing me would kill you. That will be the case until I decide to seperate myself from you, and to be honest, with how you’re acting, you probably won’t survive until that point.

Alexander’s hands reached out to snatch his tongue. It went numb as his dirty palms clenched. His mouth bit into his hands, hurting like hell. He was like that for maybe thirty seconds before he realised how futile it is to fight with your own tongue.

“Be glad, you piece of crippled shit. Be glad you get to carry me around. It has made your worth has go up exponentially.”

Get out of my body and we’ll see who’s crippled.

The demon bit down on Alexander's tongue, making him shriek. The taste of copper blood filled his mouth. He felt himself grow dizzy. If he had been standing, he’d collapse from the dizziness, but instead he limply rested against the wheelchair.

“Weak. I would have bit off your tongue but that’s probably going to kill us.”

Fucking parasite. I swear I’ll figure out a way to get you out of my body.

“The death realm!” Icarus shouted when he woke up. “It’s nice being somewhere else for a change. This scenery is getting a little bit boring. Hey kid, are you there? I can’t see you.”

“Turn around then? Oh wait, you can’t.”

“What was that?”

That wasn’t me.

“Such a big ego, for such a tiny skull. I mean what are you going to do? Shout a little bit lou-”

All of a sudden the words stopped coming out. Alexander tried to move his mouth and found that he could. It seemed the demon had a time limit for how long it could take over his mouth. It had been about two minutes.

“That wasn’t me,” Alexander quickly added. “The demon said all of that.”

“Parasitic dick-less entity!” Icarus once again shouted. It seemed the fury in his voice had simply disappeared

Alexander rested his head on the back of his wheelchair. His dizziness stopped, the small wound on his tongue closed, yet it had grown to such a terrible point that the darkness in the room seemed to bend in circles. A headache built up, coming from the back of his head like boiling water.

For ten minutes the headache plagued him, but then it slowly started getting better. This was what a small wound on his tongue would do. This alone would be enough to incapacitate him in a fight. If the wound had just been a tiny bit larger he’d go unconscious, and a tiny bit larger than that, he’d die.

The change hadn’t made his body more frail. That wasn’t the case. It seemed he had much less blood to bleed, and it also seemed that any injury would persist for much longer than what it would have originally.

“I have to be careful.” Instead of thinking, Alexander spoke out loud, mainly because he could and the demon couldn’t. “I can’t take any damage whatsoever. Especially not by sharp objects. One touch, and I’m dead. I have to think of myself as a king in chess. No enemy pieces gets to touch me… and if they do, it's checkmate.”

A few moments later, Morticous appeared. The form he had taken when they reached floor 0 was gone. He was a skeleton with a heavy wool cloak on top now. His eyes seemed calmer now, yet that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t angry, just that he wasn’t showing it.

“That fucking rat Luca Di Primo won't scurry out of his hiding spot, I’ve told some of my associates to search for him, and hopefully, I’ll be able to produce some sort of spell in order to deal with the demon in your body. For the moment, and I want the fucking parasite in your body to listen to this, don’t let anybody know you have one.”

“If anybody spots it, and reports that to the admins, you’ll be killed. Under no circumstances whatsoever do you tell anybody that there’s a demon inside of you.”

“Floor 1 is opening in three hours, and it’s time for me to teach you two spells. I’ll only teach you these two spells, as they’re going to be your lifeline. Practice and use them as much as you can.”

Alexander quickly moved forward to the open space Morticous was standing on. He realised that a skeleton laid on the ground. The bones were placed in an orderly manner, fitting the form a skeleton should take. He eagerly turned to Morticous, and listened.

“The first spell is called mana bolt. There’s nothing special about this spell. It’s simply accumulating mana in your hand, condensing it, and throwing it. Do that and the tower will take over the rest of the learning experience.”

“Mana at it’s pure form will do very little damage, but it can act as a distraction. Also, the tower has the unique property of being able to evolve skills and spells. Use this enough and it will evolve into a strong spell. The evolution happens at level 20. I need you to reach that before the end of the floor.”

“Okay, how do I summon the mana bolt?”

Morticous placed the palm of his hand on Alexander’s head. A spike of pain hit him, but then he felt something he’d never felt before. It was a strange sensation, all around him in the air, and a tiny bit of it in his stomach, which hurt as if it was being stretched, it was cold, but not temperature wise. It tasted cold.

“That’s mana, now try willing it to your hand.”

He pulled at it with his mind, and it followed, stopping occasionally. He felt pangs of pain when the mana stopped. It did not travel as he wished it to, taking a strange route through his body.

It moved slowly, and he realised

that the core was being refilled quicker than the mana was moving. When the strand of mana reached his shoulders it hurt like mad. He screamed from all of the pain.

“Keep pushing.”

A part of his mind desperately begged him to stop, but he persevered. The shoulders were the worst part. The strand of mana stopped many times, and many times he heard pops which were accompanied by a load of pain. Eventually, it travelled into his arms, and forearms and then into the palm of his hand. Then, it stopped.

“Now cup your hands like this, and let the mana flow out. Don’t press it, just let it go in that direction by itself.”

He held his hand as if there was a vase in between them. He tried listening to Morticous’s advice of not willing his mana forward, but it didn’t do anything. It was stuck at the top of his palm, not moving at all.

“It’s not doing anything.”

“That’s because subconsciously you’ve created a shape to and of your body. In your head there’s no hole in your palms. Close your eyes and imagine that your skin stretches outward in the middle.”

Alexander closed his eyes. His heart thumped. He couldn’t believe that he was about to do magic. It had always been one of his dreams, and now he was about to do what he thought as impossible mere days ago. He imagined a small hole forming on his palms, and without pressing the mana, it streamed out.

He saw blue mist quickly fill his cupped hands and then continue filling them. Was he doing something wrong? He quickly glanced up at Morticous with panic shooting through his head.

“That’s the mana regeneration that’s coming from the demon. You’ve effectively turned your heart into a mana pumping machine with that deal you made. Anyhow, that was the difficult part, close your hands like this.

Alexander formed an air ball with his hands, ceiling the mana between them. He noticed that the mana which escaped faded into the air after some time. It tickled as it danced around his fingers.

“Press down.”

He did as Morticous asked and the feeling of coldness grew. He continued pressing down until there was barely any space left. The mana within his hands was so cold now that it hurt, and not matter how much he pushed, his palms wouldn’t come any closer to each other.

“Open your hands up.”

He did so, and he found a blue marble staring at him.

The spell [Mana bolt] has been learnt.

“You should have learnt the spell now. From now on you can just think of the spell and the tower will create a mana bolt in your hand without any conscious effort from your part.”“Oh, that’s cool,” Alexander said and formed another mana bolt beside the one he had formed. It looked exactly the same.

“Try throwing them against the wall.”

“How hard?” Alexander asked, his voice tinged with excitement.

“As hard as you can.”

Alexander threw the balls with all the effort he could muster. They left his hand, flew through the air, and slammed against the wall. No noise was made, but the balls turned into small blue clouds before fading.

“That’s magic for you.”

Alexander laughed for the first time since coming here.