Book 4 Chapter 3: Evolution

++Mana cannot be used to cultivate human tissue. Outside of healing magic, which instead works to strengthen and empower the natural processes of a body, such things are barbaric, immoral and heathenous. Worse, they are dangerous and inevitably doomed to create mutation and destruction.++

- A cautionary report on the dangers of Biomancy, archived at the Velforn Institute. 1,862 A.E.

Before departing for Garamon, I had one last detail to see to. It was perhaps the most important thing I would have done since setting foot on Poloira. More important than founding my refinery, more important than fending off the Vorets as they attacked it, more important than anything.

And I needed Sethira for it.

This last fact left me on edge. Sethira was, as of the attack, an unknown quantity. I did not trust her and knew I could not fully rely on her. On the other hand, I also knew she was a generally rational creature whose goals largely overlapped with my own, at least for the time being.

It was always going to be a delicate balance, working with her. On the one hand I needed power to eventually overthrow the Gods. On the other hand, Sethira was keeping as close an eye on me as I was on her. If she thought I was going to become as great a problem as the Gods themselves, she may make a move against me before we had even destroyed them. The closer the Gods grew to defeat, the greater this risk became.

But for now, that risk was essentially non-existent. Sethira had nothing to gain and very much to lose by costing herself our alliance. What I was about to show her may well change that, which was why I headed down to the leyline cavern with no small amount of wariness.

Sethira, having received my summons while I still oversaw Alira’s duties, was already waiting for me as I entered. She looked up with an irritated expression.

“My time is important, you know,” she told me. Which, for her, could have meant I had interrupted a magical breakthrough, a banquet or an orgy. Possibly all three. Regardless of what it was, I was entirely sure my own work here was more important.

I was, after all, about to make history.

“It will be worth it,” I assured her. “You are going to help me achieve a great advantage against the Gods. Or rather, reduce one advantage they have always enjoyed over us.” That certainly piqued her interest.

“We’re going to blow up the sun?” she asked.

“What?” I frowned. “No, I am going to—what? Blow up the sun? Are you an idiot?” She just shrugged. “We are…” I sighed. “Just follow me, it will be easier to show you.”

My newfound wealth meant that my security procedures had been able to get far more extensive and large in scale since the Vorets attacked. This was good in general, but it did not make an iota of difference for my leyline laboratory. That, after all, was sectioned off from physical space anyway.

Sethira became Sakhent and I became Dread and we both entered into my pocket space to gaze upon my new breakthrough.

Nu’chista did not so much as react to our presence, which was good because it would have been very annoying if he had continued mewling and whimpering. We walked past him and trekked to the distant point a good mile away, far enough to be well beyond his sight. The odds of him escaping were effectively zero, but “effectively zero” was not the same as “truly zero”, and I did not want the fruits of several months’ labour to be destroyed by one gibbering, semi-indestructible monkey.

Sakhent became Sethira again as she laid eyes on the equipment set out before her, and I became Isabel Vornholt to match.

I actually preferred it like this, it let me more fully appreciate the look of awe upon Sethira’s mortal face.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked as she eyed the large tank in front of us. More specifically, the body floating in the fluid within, now fully formed and ready for use. It had jet black hair, and were its eyes open they would be emerald-green. It was tall and lean and young, just on the cusp of adulthood. A perfect match for mine.

“That is the vessel I will be inhabiting soon,” I told her.

Sethira was just staring at it, and I wondered how keen her magical senses were. Certainly better than a normal human, even if they were not the equal of mine. I imagined she already picked up on the fact that the body had trickles of mana running through its skin, bones and muscles, despite the fully formed core ready to house a magician’s Vessel.

It was the impossible idea, warrior and magician and neither one needing to sacrifice any power to make room for the other. I patiently awaited Sethira’s response.

“Your breasts are amazing,” she told me as she stared at the body. The naked body, floating in the fluids needed to cultivate its tissue.

“Is it in fact possible for you to notice something that is not in some way pertinent to the relationship between your fingers and your genitals?” I asked her.

Sethira grinned, and as usual I could tell she was more delighted to have gotten under my skin than by anything else. “Who knows?” she asked me. I just stared until she finally gave in. “Okay, focusing on the body…This is a warrior-magician hybrid, right?”

My temper was still fraying and it took me a few moments to muster up a proper response. “Yes,” I confirmed.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“No sacrifice to magical power?”

“None.”

“And the physical potential, what’s that like?”

“I cannot know for sure yet,” I sighed. “It is still untested.”

“But your guess?” Sethira pressed.

“In theory, it should be every bit as great as if I had become a pure warrior instead of a magician.”

Sethira was serious now, looking at the body with an expression best compared to a woman dying of thirst in the desert and trying to figure out if it was a mirage or an oasis resting before her.

Eventually she snapped out of her reverie, then she was back to business.

“Can you make me a body like this?” She asked, pausing a moment later. “Can you make all magicians one?!”

“Probably yes, eventually. But for now the process still demands long effort and focus on my part. This body took weeks even after I developed the techniques, the next one will probably be even longer due to dealing with magic not my own.”

“I’d be much more useful with a body like that,” Sethira pointed out.

“You would be, and I will make you one. But first you must aid me in switching my consciousness into this one.”

I saw the understanding dawn in her eyes all at once.

“So you need my expertise in soul magic,” she grinned. “Fine, you’ll have them. Provided I get your word that you’ll craft a body like this for me to inhabit once you’re done.”

“You have my word,” I told her. This was actually exactly how I had planned the interaction to go. The best way to ensure Sethira’s loyalty was to give her an incentive to remain on my side. Provided she needed me to empower her, I could rely on self-interest to keep her from turning on me.

Probably.

“Then let’s get started,” Sethira smiled.

Putting my life—even my very existence—fully in the hands of another was not a pleasing sensation, not even after I insisted on receiving Sethira’s word that she would not betray me. It just does not come naturally to trust others in our line of work.

But in this case I did not have a choice in the matter. I had continued to learn about Sethira’s necromantic practices, but I was ultimately unable to match her because what she knew had been accumulated over long millennia, and so far I had had only months to master it.

“Get yourself ready and relax,” Sethira told me. Her voice was oddly soft, almost soothing. “This will be fast, but if you brace yourself it will only cause resistance.” She stepped around behind me, hands coming down gently on my face, my neck, my shoulders. I forced myself to relax and lean into the caress.

And then she cut my throat.

It took a few more moments of instinctive gasping and struggling before the blood finished fountaining out of my carotid, and then I moved on out of my body to drift into the air.

Being a disembodied spirit is an interesting sensation. There is no semblance of sight or sound or feeling, unlike what many would guess. Why would there be? Sight comes from the eyes, sound from the ears, feeling from the skin and nerves and muscles. I did not have any of that. Indeed, were I an ordinary mortal I would not even have had a consciousness. That comes from the brain, an uncountable multitude of microscopic connections interlinked and firing off in sequence. Souls are not intelligent beings, they do not have personalities or thoughts or considerations.

But I was a lich, and the pattern of my consciousness had long since survived the physical death of the brain it was once based on. Sometimes I wondered whether I was the same entity that had been born from my long-dead mother all those millennia ago. Usually, I would get bored by the existentialism and start thinking about more productive matters shortly into this wondering.

Today I had nothing to do but wait, and that was more unpleasant and violating than any other sensation.

For a few moments I did nothing but exist. The only experience I could compare to it was my time in the Depths. No sensory input, no stimuli at all. Just my mind continuing to work, proving its own existence through observation but doing nothing with it.

And then I felt. I felt liquid on my skin, burning light in my eyes, lungs and throat muscles spasming, limbs thrashing, the world distorted into a smear of colour and sound, panic as my feet and hands hit something hard. Intellectually, I knew I was in the tank of my new body, knew that it was entirely safe, but my instincts did not know that, and they were in no mood to listen.

Finally the tank opened up and I was dumped unceremoniously out into the void atop a wave of cultivation fluid, coughing and spluttering. It was not especially bright in my personal space, but my fledgling body’s eyes took a few moments to adjust all the same. They had, after all, never been opened before.

Eventually I looked up to see Sethira standing before me with a look of total fascination. The void stretched out endlessly behind and ahead of her. The not-ground under me was solid and unblemished as always, save for the pooling fluid, and of course my original body still lay where it had been messily killed.

Slowly, my panic receded and I got back up to my feet.

I moved my arms around and tested their strength, but of course I felt no lighter than before. This new body was a warrior in potential, but I still needed to train to unlock that potential. Another thing I would have to start spending my time on.

“How do you feel?” Sethira asked eagerly.

“No different than before,” I sighed. “I…Stop ogling me” I told her.

“No,” she replied.

I was forced to delay the conversation in order to strip down my old body and cover myself with its clothing. Then, as an afterthought, I placed the old vessel back in my new one’s cultivation chamber for preservation. There would be a lot to learn from it, I wagered. I had, after all, never quite understood how my reincarnation had worked, let alone the restoration of my Vessel.

“The clothes fit you perfectly,” Sethira noted.

“Of course they do. I made this body to be an identical copy of my old one, on the outside. I still need to blend in with Garamon. In the future I intend to make a more suitable one for my means. Seven feet tall, with a good deal more muscle mass. Are you paying attention?”

Sethira seemed to have become rather unfocused at that for some reason, but she snapped back into the moment with a grin. “Yes,” she said. “I’m looking forward to mine then.”

“You can look forward to it after I have tested this one out,” I sighed. “It will take some time to verify that its physical prowess is that of a true warrior.” I played with mana as I thought, and was reassured to see that my arcane powers were wholly intact.

So far, so good. If all went well, this may well be the first step into a new era.