Evil Sorcerer System 7 (Patreon)

I spent the next week living and sleeping with Aia. I used that time to begin crafting and shaping the mana channels the grimoire described.

I was nervous about how far we'd taken things, but Aia seemed more than content with where we'd ended up.

I felt a little bad for Jandon, who kept getting sent to stay with a friend so his mother and I could have the house to ourselves.

Their home was scarcely more than a shed, and at first I was convinced I could build something better in my free time. But this wasn't the world I came from, where I could buy finished lumber cut to size. In this world, if you wanted to build a house, you had to turn trees into logs, then logs into planks, before you could even begin. Even making a single plank would require hours of back-breaking work.

Thankfully, I had something nearly as good. Money.

I asked around the hamlet, and a few handy men nearby were more than willing to expand the tiny shack for a bit of silver.

With a couple of them on the job, Aia and Jandon would no longer have the smallest hut in the hamlet. As I suspected, it had been an old barn belonging to one of the local farmers before Aia and Jandon bought it and started using it as their home. As a single mother, she'd had quite limited funds.

When everything was done, the house would have two hearths and a separate, thick-walled room, so we wouldn't keep Jandon up at night and so Aia could cook indoors instead of over a fire outside.

I also helped the kid directly while his mother was out hunting.

"What does this mean, Mister Reed?" Jandon asked. He was reading from one of the books I'd given him while I read from my grimoire.

I set my hefty, sinister book of magic down on Jandon's pile and glanced over at the mathematics book he was reading.

"The essence of mathematics is defining the relationships foundational to the natural world. It is the language of the heavens, and even gods learn to speak it." I read the passage aloud, as I had many times before.

The kid was a quick learner, but most of these books had been way over his head. They were scholarly works meant for grown noblemen, not for young boys, even one brighter than most.

"Sounds important," Jandon said.

"The author of this math book thought he was a far better writer than he was. Ignore the purple prose. He's just saying math is important and you should learn it. Let me show you what the first chapter is about. Here's how addition works." I collected a dozen rocks and had Jandon count them as I added more or took some away.

Aia returned from another hunt with a rabbit in one hand and a pheasant in the other. She watched with a silent smile as I taught her son, cooking over an open fire all the while, since the house wasn't done yet. The food was ready, but she let us keep at it until it was starting to get cold.

"I think your mother wants to eat, Jandon. Let's finish reading later." I stood and put an end to our lesson. Aia smiled at me as I sat down.

"What are you so happy about?" I asked.

"Nothing." Aia smirked, then gave a real answer. "It's just... you make a good father. I think I got very lucky running into you that day."

I chuckled, though in my gut I had a sinking feeling. I was growing comfortable here.

***

I woke next to Aia with an aching body. Creating those mana channels the grimoire described wasn't easy under the best of circumstances. Combining that with the nightly workout Aia was giving me meant I was really putting my body through its paces.

Thankfully I was able to speed my recovery by helping Aia hunt. Soul Absorption brought me back to peak condition every time I cast it. Without my spells I was a poor hunter, but I cheated a few times and used my Hex of Slowness to make up for my lousy archery. To Aia, it just looked like I was consistently lucky with my shots.

Quests completed! +800 evil points.

I got the soul absorption quest again on one of those days and spent extra time hunting. I wasn't quite as effective as usual, since Aia wanted us to walk together most of the time. They were still good points, though, and would earn me another spell or item. I was compiling a wish list for myself and would revise it as I ran through various scenarios in my head.

Before I could decide how to spend more points, I finally got the teaching quest I'd been waiting for, and it was time to meet with Master Theragrim and his apprentices.

***

Master Theragrim had abandoned the barn I'd met him in, but Isolda was lurking nearby, keeping an eye on the place and waiting for me to show up.

"Master Alden, are you here to meet with my master?" Isolda asked.

I frowned at the girl, whom I'd spotted leaning against the barn, looking suspicious.

"You know, you should really learn an invisibility spell or something. I imagine hanging around in the open like this is how you got caught last time?" I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

She twirled her hair between her fingers as she looked away from me.

"A spell like that would probably get me out of a bind if I could learn it..." Isolda's voice trailed off.

I chuckled and beckoned her to walk with me. "I will teach you the basics while we walk. I assume you are here to take me to your master?"

Isolda nodded, and I lectured her while we walked deeper into the forest.

Quest completed! +100 evil points.

I managed to complete the quest once before Isolda finally led me to Master Theragrim and the rest of his apprentices. They had shovels and were digging in the dirt for corpses.

"I see you're already hard at work, Master Theragrim," I said in greeting.

The old man stroked his beard and put down the shovel. He'd been using it more as a pointing stick to direct his apprentices than as an actual tool.

"Master Alden! You're just in time. We've nearly exhumed this skeleton. Based on the records, he was a formidable warrior in life and should make an excellent skeletal soldier. Care to demonstrate your abilities?" Master Theragrim looked at me expectantly.

I walked up to the pit and glanced down at the ancient, yellowed bones beneath me. Then I followed the instructions from the spell I'd bought and focused.

Memories of running my fingers over corpses both fresh and old came to mind as I did something new to me that nonetheless felt as familiar as if I'd done it every day since childhood.

The yellowed bones beneath me twitched and clattered. Shadowy dark energy gathered in the eye sockets and wrapped around the bones. This magical sinew would serve as flesh and muscle, controlling the undead soldier like a puppet.

One hand at a time, the skeletal warrior placed its bony fingers on the edges of the hole and hauled itself from the grave. When it was free, it loomed over all of us. Clearly, the warrior these bones had once belonged to had been a giant of a man.

"Marvelous, simply marvelous!" Master Theragrim clapped, and his apprentices followed suit.

I smiled at them. "Now who's ready to learn?"

I spent the entire day giving instruction, and by the end of it, Master Theragrim was the only one who had made any significant progress. From my implanted memories, I knew that wasn't uncommon. New necromancer apprentices would take at least a month to learn to cast this spell.

Given the quality of the memories I received, I could probably teach someone to do it much faster. But there was no point in rushing. I was paid by the hour, not by how quickly they learned. As far as I was concerned, the more time I could spend training Master Theragrim and his apprentices, the better off I'd be.

I taught from dawn to midnight that day. With six students and fourteen hours of lecturing, I returned with an impressive haul.

Quests completed! +8,400 evil points.

"Wait, Master Alden, do you think you could stay and answer a few questions? Or remain with us here at camp and continue in the morning?" Master Theragrim asked.

I waved him off and shook my head.

"Unfortunately I have matters to attend to. I will return and continue these lessons soon," I said.

"Forgive me, but when is soon?" Master Theragrim asked.

"Soon. I can't say more than that. Remember to practice what you've learned." I waved goodbye and departed, already flipping through System menus again.

I used my invisibility spell to fade from sight and slipped away down the road, unseen, before making my way back toward Aia's hut.

I browsed my menus as I walked and decided to splurge on the way home.

Purchased Traveling Nobleman Disguise. -800 evil points.

Soon, an elegant cloak wrapped around my body, shrouding me in well-dyed wool as black as night. The inside was silk and felt downright comfortable, which was a first for clothes from this world. The trousers, boots, and shirt were all a little too nice for the road.

The real reason I'd bought the disguise was for the coin pouch that came with it, though. Once again, it came already filled with gold. The house I was building for Aia hadn't been cheap, and I already had a few ideas about what to buy next.

That plan of mine to marry a village girl and build an inn might work out after all. I'd been skeptical for a while, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like it might really happen.

I stopped by the home of a farmer who lived nearby and bought some good food. Aia and Jandon might not know what we were celebrating, but I would treat them anyway.

***

Several more days passed like this. The house was still under construction, but enough of it was finished that Aia and I could move our bed in, giving Jandon the old shed until his own room was ready.

My main focus was working on the grimoire's first chapter. I'd read enough to start applying what I'd learned and begin building the channels mana would flow through.

I was lucky I'd picked up Flesh Sculpting as an early spell. Most initiates would spend years on this first chapter alone, and much of that time went toward acquiring a spell like Flesh Sculpting just to get started. Learning the spell alone should have taken me months.

As for the other skills needed to make this work...

Purchased Spirit Sight. -2,000 evil points. Purchased Visualize Self. -1,500 evil points.

Thankfully, the grimoire listed some spells that would be extremely useful in designing and crafting these mana channels. I was able to search for the System's top recommendations and obtain the spells immediately, skipping right over the months or years of tedious study.

I decided to follow one of the simpler diagrams meant for people just getting started. Once I got the hang of things, I could switch to something more complex and fine-tuned to carry me into the next chapter.

With Spirit Sight, I could visualize the parts of my soul the mana flowed from. And with Visualize Self, I could see the channels I was making with Flesh Sculpting. Without those three abilities, this would have been quite a challenge, but with them it was easy enough, albeit painful.

By the time I rolled the Soul Absorption quest again, my spells were coming out faster than ever. I could conjure a Fireball in moments or shoot a Dark Bolt fast enough that I didn't even need to cast Hex of Slowness to hit my target. As soon as I saw a rabbit or squirrel, it was dead.

Quests Completed! +1,200 evil points.

"We caught quite a bit today. I'm not sure we'll be able to carry it all back," Aia said as she walked through the forest beside me.

"We can leave some of it," I suggested.

"You must have a grudge against squirrels. Let's just leave those. There's hardly any meat on them compared to the deer, birds, and rabbits."

I agreed with Aia. We'd tried squirrel meat once or twice since I'd been killing so many. I would eat it if I was hungry, but I was pretty well fed these days.

"You seem happy. Back when I first met you, you had this whole grim aura around you." Aia nudged my elbow as we walked.

"This life has been good to me so far. Thank you for allowing me to accompany you."

Aia's cheeks flushed crimson. Fortunately, we'd returned home, and Jandon's presence kept things from getting too mushy. We ate, I helped Jandon with his studies, and I continued working on my mana channels.

This day had been a good one, and I was content. If I were to live like this, day after day and year after year, I would die satisfied with my life.

But try as I might to relax and enjoy things, I couldn't shake the feeling that these happy days wouldn't last forever.

<Note>

Total points: 8,410 (yes, the same as in chapter 5, weirdly enough.)

I'll probably have to do a little timeskip next chapter to finish things up with Master Theragrim and get to my planned ending point for this story. Ordinarily I would use this time to set up a bit more stuff, but as I'm discovery writing this I don't know what I would be setting up. So onward it is. My main worry right now is that the points are accumulating faster than planned, but I'll figure out something to sink a lot of points into soon. Hopefully.