Harlan took his morning shower at 6 as usual and headed out to the gym for a little bit of exercise before classes.

He ran into Bojana.

“Little Shadow, it has been some time. I heard you dealt with a drake.”

“I got cows for him to eat and we didn’t need to fight. He actually seemed pretty happy that the people came out to see him. Also, funny coincidence, he called me Little Shadow.”

“Such a waste. Did you know the heart of a drake can-”

“Yes, it cures infertility. The brain expands the mind, the lungs give you more endurance. Half of what people say their bodies do is probably a myth used to sell the parts of a gentle and highly intelligent creature for enough money to build a mansion.”

“Don’t be such a bleeding heart. They might be as smart as people but they would eat you and everyone else without a second thought if they got hungry.”

“So? You think people don’t turn to cannibalism when the times get tough?”

“I, and most people, would never do such a thing even if it cost my life.”

“Everyone is a pacifist until they need to kill somebody, nobody is a cannibal when there is bread on the table.”

“Your people haven’t had to live through a famine in a very long time. My father saw many starve, they refused to eat their neighbors. I will not have you slander their names as if the normal person would turn to such things when times become desperate.”

Harlan bowed deeply.

“I am sorry. Sometimes I forget to put on my act.”

Bojana’s curl hitched for a moment as he outright admitted to how he really was.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“I know, it was insensitive.”

“No, I mean ever saying that you put up an act of caring. I know what you mean. But it is easy for others to twist what you’ve said into something worse. People are often not what they seem, but that doesn’t mean they should announce that.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I am pretty sure people have already decided what I am in their minds.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care.”

“I am not apathetic, I have just decided that people can make their own choices. Whether they are noble brats or bastards from Reino, beastkin or undead. I’ll do what I want and they can avoid me or agree with me. That is up to them.”

The gym wasn’t exactly empty, but there weren't a lot of people there and Harlan had offended every one of them.

Bojana just laughed until she couldn’t breathe.

“You would never make a good noble.”

“In 1000 years I’ll still be here and they might not be. We could fracture into dozens of states, civil war could replace the monarchy with something else. A terrible fate could come for us all.”

“Are you growing a bit of an ego after all your hunts?”

“I am the Champion of Darkness, immortality is part of my deal. Unless somebody kills me I’m going to be in my prime for the rest of my life as soon as I reach it.”

There were only a small number of people who knew what he was, but this was the first time that he was clearly declaring it in a public setting.

Suddenly she was not laughing anymore and was hoping he was going to tell her it was just a joke.

Instead he did his exercises and left without more words.

A week passed with most people, even those that he had helped in the past, avoiding him.

He wasn’t shocked of course.

Many books that would’ve been considered restricted before, mainly regarding the gods, were now free to read and after so many months at least a few people outside of beastkin knew about The Darkness.

More accurately, they knew that her messing with people rarely led to anything good.

She wasn’t as bad as Calli who would just give out power and not care about what happened afterwards, but those picked by the Darkness more often than not met a terrible but heroic end.

Two stories that had gained traction were of a man who was turned into a living bomb that decimated an army to save his village, and a woman who was to be sacrificed to a Wyvern having her body turned to poison and slaying the beast.

Within literary circles she was being called a god of tragic heroes.

Harlan of course didn’t mind people not bothering him, he was spending his time working on transformation magic.

He was still digging through the pile of notes that The Darkness had written for him, the immortal slaying ritual was impressive and Sepul remarked as such when Harlan asked questions and even showed him just a few snippets.

He trusted that he wouldn’t do anything bad even if he did have the full spell with explanations, but it was still something that Harlan didn’t understand and he couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t actually far more important than it seemed.

He was beginning to question if the issue wasn’t actually that the subject was rejecting what he was doing, consciously or not.

So he undid the gag and had Sepul flush the sedatives from his system.

This was not being done for the kingdom, so just the two of them were in his dungeon with prisoners from death row who were provided by the king in secret.

This man was one who was on death row for a relatively benign crime compared to the seemingly endless serial killers and rapists.

He had embezzled hundreds of gold and used underhanded methods to acquire farmland which he would then rent to the people he had scammed.

A mayor of any sort had a responsibility to the noble who granted them power, and stealing from them to steal land from farmers was bad business.

Him doing such a thing while being paid a salary by the noble in question made them look cheap even though the real issue was the man trying to live beyond his already quite extravagant means.

One change that Harlan made before waking the man up was putting on a mask to hide his face and disguise his voice as well as switching out his academy robe with a generic white lab coat.

“Do you know where you are?”

The man groggily shook his head and Sepul hit him with an energy spell.

Something like this was considered a bad idea because it was more like taking energy from your future self and abusing it would lead to a coma that was only fixed by sleeping.

Elixirs had the same problem, but were considered safer because their ingredients did actually provide energy beyond making the body feel more awake.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I was sentenced to death, so this is the prison, you want more out of me? I’ve told you everything.”

“What if I could change your sentence? Have you set free with a new face, a new name?”

The man’s eyes brightened for a moment before he realized that a deal which sounded too good to be true probably was.

It was how he tricked people all the time.

“I would need assurances.”

Harlan made a mirror of water for the man who was confused.

“I can see that you don’t trust me, good. What I want is for you to understand that I am going to cast a spell that can change your face, your height, anything really. But, you must accept it or the spell doesn’t work. Would showing that I can cast a proper surgery spell, not just a temporary smooth skin or straightened nose spell make you more confident in your chances of getting out of here?”

“I would like to be given a lawyer.”

“I could also try to force the spell on you and turn you into a disfigured mutant. Understand this, I am giving you a gift, this is not being done out of the goodness of my heart and you will see no lawyers because this is not a prison. Officially you are already dead. You are subject 14, and I am a researcher. Now, I’m going to give you 15 minutes to make a choice, meanwhile, I will go to subject 15 with the same offer, and if they accept, you will not be given another chance.”

Harlan was only a few steps from the door when the man frantically begged to live.

“Thank you for your willing participation in this trial.”

Harlan had explained in painful detail how things were likely to go and that even if the spell didn’t work, he would be free to go.

He even gave him a glass of whiskey to calm his nerves before he started.

The man was now excited about the prospects and they had a long talk about what he wanted to be.

He wouldn’t really be called ugly, but his nose was a little too large for his face, he was below average in height at 5’5, and he would rather have blonde hair and bright green eyes.

“Are you ready now?”

“As I will ever be.” The man slightly slurred his words.

The real reason for the whiskey was before this was to dull his senses.

Even when completely numb, people would sometimes have a phantom feeling if the other subjects were anything to go by.

There was also only so much that could be done to avoid pain as it was partly directed at the soul itself.

As soon as Harlan activated the sigils in his mind and the ones carved into the walls and floor itself he made contact with the man; it was like plunging his hand into clay.

He pulled and stretched and used the bodies of the expired subjects he added to the man.

He screamed until he couldn’t any longer, but it was working.

Harlan was feeling a little queasy over the whole thing, even Sepul thought that it was terrible to look at.

What was worse was the implications of what he could do if he intended to make someone into a form that was painful to live in.

Once this was set in stone, the soul would be irrevocably changed and healing magic would believe that to be the baseline.

After an hour the man was resting and having tonic fed to him, it was not as hard on the body as Harlan expected it to be, but he was now 7 inches taller and he had a lot more mass to him which was made from preserved dead flesh.

“So, you finally did it.”

“Not exactly what I wanted, but it is a start. He is still entirely human, but, you are right, I did it. Now I just need to repeat until I am completely sure that I can do it without harming Adina. At least her only issue is her eyes, so it will hurt, but it won’t be like this man.”

“You know, such a spell could be very useful for spies. Assuming that it does function as you claim it should there should be no means of revealing it, unlike illusions or other cosmetic magics.”

“Once this man has lived for a few months, maybe longer, I’ll consider seeing if it can be translated to normal magic. I don’t understand this sigils entirely and I’m not sure how they would effect normal people.”

“Do you intend to keep him here?”

“No, I was actually thinking about Tole. He would be close enough that I could keep tabs on him easily and Tole has been growing enough that they wouldn’t notice someone new settling in the village.”

“A man shouldn’t bury those he kills in his own garden. Do you understand?”

“Of course I understand, but the other option would be sending him to the frontier and having a spy of mine report back to me about him. I can’t trust that he would understand what is happening to him and if he is in Tole I can stop by the village myself without it seeming too strange. I know this was somewhat spur of the moment, and I didn’t actually plan on letting him leave at first. But I think this is the best option for me.”

“So long as you understand the risks involved, that is all I ask.“

The man finally woke up and found that he could barely move his body.

“I can’t…”

“Your nervous system is probably trying to move your smaller 5’5 frame and doesn’t know how to move the new you. Just keep trying, I’ve scanned your body plenty while you were under and you are physically perfectly healthy.”

Harlan kept his fear low to avoid him doing anything stupid and damaging himself.

He handed the man a cane shaped out of ice with cloth on top to prevent him from getting frostbite as he found the man did not yet have a proper sense of touch yet.

It was incredible to him how well it seemed to be working, he expected the man would be in full control of his body in a month, maybe two.

The issue was both physical and not.

While his body needed to learn that it was not the same, the soul also needed to understand this, and it was the far more malleable of the two.

The soul did not understand why it wasn’t the same, and it couldn’t, all it could do was change how it processed commands so they fit the new body.

Once that was done the body would quickly catch up.

After just an hour he was able to slowly and carefully move without the cane.

“Good, now, it seems I am going to need to keep you somewhere while you recover from the operation. I assume the kingdom seized all of your assets and you don’t really have a bunker in the woods that you can stay in.”

“No, I don’t have any assets left. Why can’t I stay here?”

“Because this is not my home and I will be returning elsewhere. Don’t worry, I will find a place for you to stay. Please sedate the subject again.”

Before the man could object he was out cold.

They strapped him to a table and then left to speak about what he would be doing.

It was decided that they would just keep him sedated and since Harlan was choosing to return tomorrow by carriage he would stuff the man inside a chest and bring him down to the bunker until it was time for him to move along.

Harlan actually liked this idea since it let him speak with the man and ascertain if he would be fine to be released or if his old habits would die hard and Harlan would need to find a new subject who would not disrupt public order.

While he found the experiment important, he could not justify letting a dangerous man free.

In another time, another place, it could’ve been his parents being bled for money by his schemes.