Volume 1

Chapter 12

Jacen, you are an idiot.

Really, the idiotiest of idiots.

Seriously.

Now I’m made to sit in seiza because of you.

“Explain it, Alvin.”

Mother’s eyes are scary. Too scary.

Yes, we have been busted.

Why?

Because Jacen is stupid as fuck.

Dad decided to take a cloth bath that night and he tried to touch him.

From there on he spilled the beans on everything.

He told them about us and sister, and then about what he did to me and that I promised to be with him as long as he asked first.

Mother is beyond furious.

Her eyes are cold. She looks like an angry Buddha.

“I… it felt… good.. so I…”

Ah, she just broke the table we eat on.

With her bare hands.

Mother, please hold your aura back.

You’re expending too much! Just too much!

“EVEN AFTER WHAT WE TOLD YOU!”

Ah, here it comes.

Yep.

A good beating in the butt.

It hurt.

Besides she decided to have Jacen sleep on the room alone… with the door locked. I’m to sleep in the living room or just do as always and don’t sleep at all.

She can’t do much about what we do outside of the house, but she will keep an eye on us while we are here. And since it’s winter this means keeping an eye on Jacen at all times.

I have to say, I sincerely thought she would forbid one of us to go outside… but she seems to think socialization is more important than getting in the way of us committing incest.

Mother has some weird values.

Anyhow, father also said something interesting to me.

“Alvin, don’t you let other know you and Jacen did this. And don’t do it with men. You’re a boy. You should do it only with girls.”

In the end this world indeed sees homo as bad, it seems.

Not that it’s rare, but I guess there’s plenty of “don’t see, don’t talk” policies around.

Or at least that is what I conclude from using [Aura Analysis] and seeing how people behave in the streets.

Yep. There’s a thriving homo and bi society beneath the common life one.

So is life. So it is indeed.

***

So, no more sexiness.

Not that I care, it takes a weight out of my shoulders.

But Jacen is a bit bummed out.

Bah!

Soon he will be good again.

Spring is coming after all.

We will have nice, warm days ahead of us.

And away from mother’s piercing gazes and sighs.

Please get over it.

***

Spring is here!

That’s nice.

Except it happened.

Yes.

It finally happened.

I got lost for the first time.

I was going to return home after night training and noticed I didn’t know how to.

It’s not like I’m bad with finding my way in the woods. The perfect memory I have is indeed one of the most, if not the most, overpowered gift the goddess has given me.

I can remember even things like the amount of leaves in a three – if I take my time to count them, something I won’t do since it’s boring as fuck and useless.

Yes, useless!

Because threes, bushes, and even the forest soil – all of those are constantly changing, even more when it’s spring.

Somewhere along the fifty kilometers which separate my new training grounds from the village something changed more than my ability to compare the previous and actual scenarios allows for.

So, what do I do?

Grandma’s soul is back on the village already… so I can’t just ask her for guidance…

Oh, right, the sky!

I don’t know this world’s constellations, but I do remember how the sky appears when we look at it from my house.

So if I compare the scenery there with the scenery here….

It makes no difference.

Haha.

Right, fifty kilometers is nothing when thinking on the scale of the stars in the sky.

Using the sky to locate yourself is useless unless you have a map and know roughly where you are. I can tell which side is the village located on, but I don’t know how far I’m from it in the other axis.

So if I’m to the west, I know where the east is – but I don’t know how far I am to north or south.

So I could follow in the village’s direction and end up lost anyway.

Uuuhm…

Think Alvin… what can you do…

Maybe [Soul Walk]?

If I use it I should be able to explore the area around faster and losing less energy than if I was trying to do it by foot, right?

Let’s try.

***

Disturbing fact: The soul world doesn’t connect dot-to-dot to the physical world.

I tried following around the forest in the Soul World and got to a lot of different places.

Somehow I found a swamp going in a certain direction, and then when I returned I was in the border of a desert.

Then I tried returning again, and I was face-to-face to a huge mountain.

I came close to my body by just “feeling” where it was and tried to pay attention to the physical world – and then things got even weirder.

It seems I managed to follow the physical world and even found traces of the path I usually take, but on the way the whole environment changed drastically.

From day to night, to a place with many moons in the sky to the interior of a cave.

I followed the threes and the soil, but the space where they are located changes dramatically.

On another words, the souls of the threes and the places where the aura of the soil intersect with the soul world are different, and by following them you go to different places in the soul world – where you can still see shadows of the forest itself, but which you can also explore and then lose yourself on them, leaving the forest behind.

It’s weird and strange.

No wonder grandma said I shouldn’t try and go exploring by myself.

You know what, I will just go back to my body and leave exploration to another day.

I think I will go back to the trail if I walk some hundred meters to the south, so that’s enough exploration for a day.

Yep.

***

So, back in the village.

Back playing with the kids and pretending to be a calm boy.

Back seeing Maurus getting bullied by the townsfolk and Ralphe being the “big brother” of the group.

How did Jacen deal with being together with us?

I guess he forgot everything about sex already.

I think kids are like that? They won’t think on sex unless something wakes this up on them?

I for sure feel a lot less sex drive recently. It was moderately strong until a few months ago, but now it’s gradually fading away.

I suppose Jacen is the same. He stopped looking for me and will probably remain abstinent for a few years yet – at least until he hits adolescence.

Let’s take this as a blessing.

He doesn’t feel much sex drive, I don’t like too much to do it with men, we don’t need it at all and it would be bad if he was to misunderstand stuff and get in love with me, right?

Right.

No more sex brother. I will even avoid hugging you, so you won’t feel my body heat and awake some unexpected need for it.

Uhm?

It seems our group was invited to have lunch on Maurus’s house today.

It will be my first time having lunch on someone else’s house. It will be fun.

***

I’m… confused.

I guess it’s because I’m getting mixed signs here.

Let me count them.

First, this is a noble family, right?

I mean, they surely are not real nobles, but they have surnames… so as noble as an upstart can hope to become in a realistic medieval world.

At least an upstart that hasn’t somehow became extremely powerful, like an accomplished or something.

So, they should have matching living conditions… but they don’t.

They live in a quarter of the town, like everyone else.

The father, Matthew, seems to be just a regular farmer like all others. He is in the fields, as most people are.

And their house is like most houses around. It’s three rooms big, with two bedrooms and one kitchen which also doubles as a living room.

Everything seems pretty normal, if compared to what I can see from our neighbor’s windows.

In fact, if something I would need to say they look a bit poor.

The sheer impression I have from seeing the number of chickens in their backyard is that they have few if compared to other people from the village.

Also the number of kids seems to be smaller.

Maurus seems to have only one brother, who is working in the fields with his father.

The other houses around as well, have just less kids than our neighbors.

Also… they look a little bit sick.

I mean, Maurus’s mother has an unhealthy color with a pale face, yellowed skin and weirdly pale eyes.

So, this is a weird mix of nobility and poverty.

But there are some other signs as well.

Maurus’s mother, which is called Ullma, welcomed us with a smile. She even said.

“So the two of you are Alice’s children. Be welcome!”

But the looks of the people around aren’t so welcoming.

I mean, there is an old man looking angrily at us from his house, and two woman darting us with sharp gazes as well.

Then there’s the meal.

It’s a simple meal of pickled cabbages with eggs and some left-over ham from the winter.

I mean, simple for me.

It surely is a delicacy for everyone else, since the Ham reserves are probably running low.

Maurus is looking at it with hungry eyes.

So, we are being treated nicely, right?

But when it was our turn, me and Jacen got served much less Ham tan Ralphe and Elipha.

In fact, we got almost no Ham at all.

Well, I gave mine to Jacen which looked quite dissatisfied and just ate my pickled cabbage.

What we talked about during lunch?

It was mostly Ullma talking with Ralphe and Elipha while me and Jacen remained silent.

When we talked something she would give us a smile and change the subject. Quite forcibly I have to say.

This woman… is she having us only because Maurus asked?

Or is she doing this because of Ralphe?

No, it makes no sense…

Ralphe’s father is a farmer as well, and his mother is a housewife just like Ullma.

So she must have no ulterior reasons for having us over.

Then, is this because of us being who we are?

Is she discriminating on us?

But why would she do this?

Let’s ask father and mother about this once dinner time comes.

Until there I have a lot of running around with kids to catch up to.

All the while training my qigong and my ability to absorb energy from above.

***

“I think they don’t like us.”

It’s dinner time. Mother and father asked us about our day first thing after our plates got served.

The abundant rice with thick ham and plenty of peas covered in spicy sauce surely makes the lunch we had today pale in comparison.

Anyhow.

I told mother and father all that happened, and Jacen even agreed that they didn’t gave us much ham.

“Fu… hahah.”

Mother let out a sigh and then gave a small laugh.

Jacen is looking at her with an inquisitive face. But I’m curious as well.

“Well, don’t worry then. If it happens again you come back home and I will cook something for you to eat, okay?”

“Okay ma!”

“Okay. But why were them angry at us?”

Yeah, I know, my weird questions in their weird moments. Mother is looking at me with a face which is a mix of wry smile and silly secret holding from children.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s just something from long ago.”

“You think we should invite them to eat here as well?”

Uuhm. Now that father brings it up, indeed, it probably would be a good idea.

Except mother looks a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Really?”

Jacen, you voice betray your emotions too clearly. You want to have your friends over, don’t you?

Besides, how will they eat here if mother can’t go out and they can’t come in? Will they put a table in the front yard or something?

“Really. You can invite them tomorrow, how about it?”

“Yay!”

So, we will have people coming over tomorrow. Nice.

But my question remains unanswered.

So let’s ask grandma tonight.

***

“Matthew Dorian got his title by denouncing my existence to the local lord. Me and your grandfather had to drink the monster concoction and almost died.”

…

I think I want to kill that man.

“Don’t make this kind of face. You saw how they are treated by others. Me and your grandfather surviving was a surprise for most, and in the end the Dorians lost all support. They live like that now.”

“But grandma, they almost killed you.”

“Wrong. They gave me a way to convince this people I’m not a monster. Or at least that I’m not totally a monster. Most believe I’m half-monster or something. But they still call me when people get sick or need help with labor. So the Dorians have no way of doing anything against us. Not without putting in risk their lives in the village.”

“Because of the people you saved?”

Grandmother’s soul smiled to me.

“One life saved is one life owned darling. We can never demand the person give it to us or we become tyrants and someday get their anger and ingratitude. But as long as we don’t overstep our bonds, the ones we save will always want to repay their debt to us. Now, go back to your training.”

Well, this is some tricky rationalization.

I mean, there’s plenty of ingrate people in the world. Some won’t ever become prone to obey you just because you saved them. They may even try to use you or destroy you instead.

But this simple folk of the masses… I bet there is quite a few of them who truly believe grandma saved their lives and would at least think twice before doing anything against her.

Not that they can do anything.

Except bullying Maurus and cast the Dorians away from living in community.

“Oh, darling. You said your Dorian friend will come tomorrow to have lunch, right?”

“Yes”

“Then you serve his plate, and give him the biggest piece of meat, okay?”

Uuh?

Oh, I see.

“So I make him my friend?”

Grandma’s smile is frightening.

You old spider, creating webs all around you.

“That is right.”

Well, let’s make the best possible use of this opportunity then.

“Is this so he helps us if his father ever does something bad again?”

“Don’t worry about his father darling. He can barely keep living in the village now, and Lord Emilian already trusts me far more than him.”

Well, there goes MY diabolical little plan.

“Then why?”

“… Alvin, dear, why should we have them hating us if we can have them as friends? Our old enemies or not, they are still people of our village. Wouldn’t it be better if they were to live with us as friends?”

I won’t fall for that. There is no way Your Mischievousness doesn’t plan to use them in any other way.

“Grandma is lying to me. Why have friends? We don’t need them!”

“Darling, we don’t have friends because we need them. We have friends because life is easier and funnier with them. Doesn’t you have fun while playing with the kids?”

“No! I do it only because grandma asked me to!”

“Then don’t you have fun when we have parties and talk? Or when we tell each other stories in the winter?"

And now there’s a sword in my shoulder.

“Pay more attention to your training. Do you need to talk at other time?”

I cut off the scythe arm of the Giant Grasshopper in front of me. This is a rare kind of monster for these parts, towering two meters tall and with scythes in place of his front grasshopper legs.

But it’s a nice opponent for the current me which can’t be bothered by treants and golems anymore.

“… yes, it was fun, but we are family. Family is like that.”

“But you don’t need us to survive. You never did, since you are immortal.”

“I won’t ever have fun with Maurus. Or with any Dorian.”

“Maybe not. But his children or grandchildren may be good friends. Maybe they will discover something you may want to know or become friends with the next Lord. Don’t make enemies of people you can make friends of. It’s the way of the [Long Lived Race], as well as the way of the [Immortals] Clan and the [Reminder’s] Clan.”

Bullshit. Only power matters.

If I have power, I don’t need friends!

…I obviously won’t say such a thing.

It surely must be more beneficial for people who live long to have friends instead of enemies.

Not to mention it becomes more of their strength as much time passes.

Even if people envy us they will be forced to recoil themselves and remain silent because everyone else is grateful to us.

Is that how it goes?

Won’t people try to make us into their possessions?

Like grandma.

The only reason someone like Matthew Dorian can’t make her a slave and demand she heals his wife sickness is because she is stronger and smarter than him.

If she wasn’t she would have died on his hands when people made her drink the Monster’s Concoction.

Then again, we could be just like the Dorians, wasn’t if due to grandma’s connections and charity.

We are one of the richest, if not the richest, families in our village. Father is a man who lives on the militia’s share of food, so a public servant. He literally lives of people’s taxes.

Mother is seen as a monster or half-monster.

And still we remain rich, free and welcome.

Mother still has her friends, we can buy and sell as much as we want, I can even get sugar in the market when I ask for it.

Isn’t this because grandmother made herself as the great helper of this village?

The one who saves the lives of pregnant woman whose labor is risky? The one who prevents people dying from sickness?

… I can’t weight the value of those things, but I do think they are fairly good.

“Okay.”

“Good. Now try this.”

Today I killed a Giant Grasshopper and then finished learning the magic which allow for me to manipulate the solid things around me. It’s a very versatile magic, but difficult to master since it uses a lot of energy.

[Magic Flexibility: Earth] acquired!

It can be used to manipulate soil, dirt, rocks, minerals and even metals to some extent.

However, it can’t be used to manipulate crystals or living things. Anyhow this reduces the list of magic I need to master before being able to say I have true control over things.

Grandma already said she will teach me at least five other categories of magic flexibility.

Crystals, Healing, Plants, Detoxification and Flesh.

Those are interesting but also a bit disturbing.

Crystals involve spells which are used to accelerate or change somehow the crystallization process of things. It seems those kind of spells are used by some jewel makers to polish the jewels and cut them, as well as to repair small pieces which become destroyed when they make a wrong cut.

Healing just involves healing spells in general. Grandmother knows them to the advanced level, which means she knows spells capable of growing body parts and organs, and also reverting gangrene. She says above this level there are rumored spells which would allow for things like growing someone’s body again from just a piece of their flesh and things like that, but isn’t this the same as growing body parts?

Maybe not. I shall test it latter, but those spells make no sense to me. If they can grow body parts, why not growing a whole body?

As long as you are able to secure the person’s soul you should be able to bring someone back from the dead by growing a new body to them.

Well, this is the problem with a world where people know spells but now how magic works: You just have the results, not the knowledge about how and why things work.

Plant spells are capable of interfering with how plants grow and which forms they take.

Detoxification spells are capable of curing diseases, poisons and various conditions. Grandmother also knows them to the advanced level, meaning she can cure magical diseases as well – things like the first stages of a person’s transformation into monster when they force their way through the aura aggregate limit. Only the first stages though.

Then Flesh spells are just plainly weird.

Grandma says they are spells to manipulate people’s and animals body, like stopping blood flow. I know they can be used in offensive form, but from what she says the main use is to help when you’re casting healing spells.

I wonder.

Like if someone loses both legs and one arm, you cast this and then go on growing back one at a time?

Or maybe it’s for cases like when someone has their neck cut and you need to stop the blood flow until you recover their bodies.

What?

You won’t suffer irreparable damage to your brain until three minutes have passed, you know?

Besides, healing spells can cure brain damage as well. If they can grow back an arm they obviously can grow back a piece of grey or white matter. And since the information about things you have learned and so on is in your mind, not in your brain, you come back just as new.

So cutting someone’s head may be a problem if three minutes or more go by, but besides that it’s fine. You just need an intermediary-level spell like [Deep Healing] and both the head and the person’s body.

Of course, if they lose their entire body then there is nothing you can do.

You theoretically could regrow just the head in case the person lost it and the body was fine, but to do it you would need to keep the rest of the body alive without a head – which will require to cast simultaneously one of the advanced spells of the [Flesh] kind and the advanced spell [Divine Healing] from the [Healing] kind.

What happens if you take someone who’s head has been cut, heal the person, and then try to grow a new body out of the old head?

Grandma say it will just fail. If the person’s soul isn’t connected to the piece of flesh you’re trying to make grow back again the spell won’t work.

Oh, right, this is the defining factor. You need to have a big enough piece of the person’s body intact to use this spell. Basically one of the six vital organs. That is, the person’s brain, heart, kidneys, lungs, liver or pancreas. If you don’t have at least one of those intact, you just can’t regrow the person’s body back. That’s the difference from the advanced healing spells to the so called saint spell which can grow someone a new body from just a piece of their flesh. Or the divine spell which can grow someone a new body from their souls alone.

Doesn’t this mean the [healing] spells actually use someone’s soul as the basis for how they work?

Or at least the advanced version of those spells?

That’s the only answer I can come with. Traditional Chinese Medicine says there are “souls” living inside those organs, so that must be why at least one of them must be intact.

Well, someday I may find out. For now, I just learn what techniques grandma has to teach me.

When will I start learning soul spells?

Maybe when I’m done with my breakthrough. Grandma said I’ve completed the process around one third of the way in, so I guess at least six more months until I’m finished.

And tomorrow I have to pretend to like a five-years-old kid I couldn’t care less about. Because this grandma of mine who can make someone grow a whole body out of his beheaded remains is demanding me to.

Life is crazy as fuck.

***

In the end it was anticlimactic as ever. We got the children in front of our house and mother gave everyone bows to eat on the doorstep.

They didn’t get inside; mother didn’t go outside. She just gave them the bowls through the window.

So there will be no complains about she being a bad mother, right?

Well, even if there are little sister definitely won’t suffer an inch from it. She’s a strong and healthy baby, and so far she has gotten sick only once or twice – and at that time I was more than able to use basic detoxification magic to heal her.

So she isn’t getting the short end of the stick so soon.

Maurus?

Well, I gave him the big bow with a lot of ham just like grandmother said I should. I managed to do it by asking mother to give him the bigger one and going like:

“Give Maurus the bigger one! Because he invited us yesterday!”

And things went smoothly.

He’s a small kid in the end, so I don’t expect for this to impact him heavily. But I get grandmother’s intent.

Become friendly to the kid, but not overfriendly. I don’t want him to think I’m afraid of him or something. I will get clean on the details tonight.

This is just for the sake of having one less enemy in a few decades.

A little bit of lip service isn’t going to weight much in my side of the scales when that time comes. But it may weight a fair amount on his.

***

Well, it seems grandma has plans for me.

Our training has changed. She said I should quit the physical training time and concentrate on learning other things, like spells and survival skills.

She says I must be ready to make my way in life as a Magic Researcher.

What that means?

Well, there are Adventurers. They work for money, which is given by the kingdom, or for fame and the possibility of becoming an Accomplished.

And no, this world doesn’t have an Adventurer’s Association or anything. The Adventurer’s Guild is a branch of government and Adventurers are civil servants. The elimination of monsters, gathering of special ingredients and the exploration of dungeons is a governmental monopoly.

Which is just obvious. No country in its right mind would allow for a private entrepreneur to delve into dungeons where they can achieve power equal to a small army.

So, exploring dungeons without governmental license is a heavy crime.

The first and easiest way to attain such license is by becoming a ranked adventurer. They have access to any dungeons appropriate for their rank into the association, which is measured with basis on their past achievements.

Adventurers must always give everything they find in the dungeons to the government and are paid accordingly.

Then the second way is to buy an exploration license from the government and become owner of a dungeon for a period of time. This is a heavily expensive method, but some very rich nobles sometimes do it in order to explore dungeons in ways which are different from most.

For example, the Magic Associations explore dungeons for secrets lying within.

Since the formation of [Dungeon Cores] is based on a large amount of aura gathering on rocks, dungeons form naturally in places which accumulate a lot of aura – like old cities which have been taken by disaster, old places of cult and the most variated ruins.

Places where precious information and insights on magic can be gathered.

Be from old books, stone murals and inscriptions or even the eventual ghosts of powerful necromancers who managed to retain their souls alive after death – all of those are research materials which increase the repertoire of known spells for nobles who are searching for an edge above others.

This is the path grandmother wants for me to take.

Oh, the ghost thing?

Yes, souls usually scathe after death in this world. But some necromancers seem to have developed means of immortality which are… less comfortable.

Talking plainly, undeads exist and can even have intelligence.

In the case of ghosts, they bound their souls to a certain physical space. This means they can’t go very far from that place, but they can interact with the physical world and avoid scathing.

In the case of Liches, they bound their souls to a crystal, very much like a dungeon [core].

And other undead types usually bound their souls to mortal remains, like bones or decaying meat.

It seems I will learn how to do it once grandmother starts teaching me soul magic, but this is the kind of thing which is used only as a last resort.

Most undeads have very boring lives after all.

Regardless.

Grandmother wants for me to be a Magic Researcher.

It’s a good way to get knowledge and I can come up with excuses for my eternal youth by saying I was hit by some weird thing in a dungeon or something like that.

I don’t think that’s a bad idea.

I mean, becoming an [accomplished] is something I don’t want to.

That would be stupid.

If I can increase my body’s power infinitely, why would I want to fuse with a dungeon core and have my soul transformed in the process?

Besides, working as a civil servant looks problematic. I would be conscripted in case of war and I do better avoiding that.

Not to mention all the general lack of privacy on the civil servant career path. Having nobles kicking you in the balls every step of the way is a bad thing as well.

So, Magic Researcher.

But I could do other things as well.

I could become a farmer. Or a fisherman. Or a hunter. Or I could become a criminal who explores dungeons without license and then sells the materials to shady people.

Just by hiding myself and living in a small cottage home without any worries or ambitions.

As if.

I dislike appearing in public, but I do like the rush of making people do meaningful stuff and changing the world around me you know?

The only other real option would be to become a member of some of the other researching societies like the Historians Society or the Society for Research on Monsters, Plants and Animals.

Truth be told, the Magic Research Society seems to be the only one which really align to my goals.

I want to discover immortality so I can make grandfather and father immortals.

So I obviously should choose to be a Magic Researcher and follow on this lead. And if something happens like the Society constraining me…

Then becoming a smuggler may not be so bad after all.

It’s set.

Grandma will teach me the survival skills of this world. I do know quite a bit already due to our training, like how to hunt and how to build improvised shelter like in the training grounds, but there are things like botanic knowledge and geography lessons which I must take.

Delving into caves and dungeons is dangerous. You never know when one of them might cave in and, even if I’m immortal and know earth magic my provable companions would still suffer and die without air to breath.

And in research a powerful mind might be useful, but numbers make the blunt work a lot easier.

So let’s learn how to keep possible future companions alive and also some spells to bring them back to life in case they happen to die.