Chương 51: Chapter 50: A Breakthrough

++As much as I would have enjoyed taking the world by storm with my ancient knowledge, the fact that so much was advanced in my absence is what ended up securing my fighting chance against the Gods. So many extra secrets for me to learn. So many extra weapons for me to acquire. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Baron Agrian the Elder had a lot of paperwork to do.

This was something he had spent most of his adult life thinking, but it was only recently that he discovered just how much paperwork actually constituted 'a lot'. It was not an afternoon's work every week, nor even two or three. It was a fortnight's work a week. A month. It was enough work that even cutting corners and missing meals saw it finished only barely ahead of schedule, and left him no time at all before the next batch made itself known to torture him even more.

He lasted eight days before something snapped. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed than the one urging him to simply hurl his desk out the window and start punching walls. Agrian finally caved in and hired a clark. Then another, then two more. There were things they could not do, of course, matters that demanded his attention directly. Indeed, he would argue all of these matters did.

Elizabeth managed to persuade him to compromise however, using that magic way she had of surrendering totally and watching him come around to her way afterwards regardless. Agrian wondered sometimes just how many of his ideas were hers. Too damned many, he'd wager. The Winzorth Institute… He had to admit, that one had proved a wise decision. Agrian had been stubborn and dragged his feet about it, but now that Isabel and Agrian were there he knew it was the best place for them. For them, and for their family.

War with Iruchi would bring a high demand for battlemages, and while Agrian was distinguishing himself in combat, Isabel would become all the more attractive a prize by comparison. It wasn't the most sophisticated plan, he had to admit. Demand and supply. One son to show the world how powerful Vornholt magic could be and make himself one of the most powerful men in the Empire, then the family would be beating suitors away from Isabel with a stick. Maybe Liovicht wouldn't be her husband, in the end.

There were few men more magically gifted, maybe none in the peerage, but certainly those better connected. Then again, better-connected men tended not to want anything to do with magicians. Especially magician wives. A knock rattled his door, and Agrian was on his feet by the time it opened. Elizabeth strolled in uncertainly. Entering his office was the only time she ever looked uncertain, everywhere else the house was hers.

Another field in which his will was apparently not a match for hers—his decorations rarely survived much analysis on her part.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked.

"No," Agrian smiled, feeling as if a weight were lifting from his shoulders as she entered.

"No, you aren't." She was, and she wasn't. He'd been considering a break anyway, her presence was just the excuse he needed. He left his desk and was by her side in an instant, feeling mischievous and moving at something close to full speed. Elizabeth squeaked, took a startled step back, then gently slapped his shoulder.

"Agrian!" she glowered.

"How many times have I told you not to do that?"

"Must have slipped my mind," he grinned, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her in for a kiss.

"Am I to enjoy your company just for the sake of it," he asked after a moment of her returning it.

"Or is there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?" By the way her face stiffened, he already had his answer. Agrian stepped back.

"What's wrong?"

"My father," Elizabeth said after a moment.

"He—" —"that old fuck," Agrian growled. His good mood evaporated like so many others, and he found himself pacing the study a moment later. He had to be careful in here, a lot of delicates. One misplaced foot from a warrior of the third order and furniture would break.

"What does he want?" he asked at last. Elizabeth had taken a step back from him, like she was scared. That only made Agrian angrier as she spoke.

"My father, Agrian, is still my father. I would like you to refrain from speaking about Earl Yilear like that." Agrian got the impression he was being handled, that she was calling the Earl by his official title only to put up the sense of distance between them for his benefit.

"Fine," he sighed, calming himself. He did not like being handled, and complaining about it out loud somehow felt…pathetic. He made himself relax in the hopes that Elizabeth would start speaking like a grown-up. Fortunately, it worked.

"My father has requested either to visit Lachfel, or for us to visit him. He wants to see Agrian and Qaigor." Not Isabel and Victoria, he noted.

"Agrian won't be back from the Winzorth Institute for at least another…" ah.

"It's been almost six months already," Elizabeth reminded him.

"Yes, I… sorry my love, work has been… difficult." There were really only so many opportunities to capitalize on the warning he'd been given by Rodrick about the leyline. Agrian had been selling off company assets pre-emptively to anticipate the reduction in productivity, and so far he'd managed to save himself a lot of losses. But he hadn't made anything, yet. That was still to come. When the war started turning things back around, he would take his savings and purchase all he'd sold off and more.

Get the Lachfel Trading Company started and hit the ground running. Battle couldn't come soon enough.

"When is the Earl coming?" he sighed.

"The day after Isabel and Agrian arrive, and not a day sooner," Elizabeth placed a comforting hand on his chest.

"Thank you for this. I want my children to know their grandparents."

"Your mother will be there, too, then?" She winced.

"No, mother is still sick I fear." Elizabeth's mother had been sick for, it seemed, decades straight. Agrian sometimes wondered what was afflicting her, an Earl of his standing could surely call on divine healing from any ten local Godtouched if his wife needed it. Perhaps even a Demigod, calling on the right favours. Still, it at least meant fewer strangers in his house. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I wish they could have met my father and mother," Agrian sighed.

"But you're right, they need to know their family beyond us and Edwin. Isabel hasn't even met him, now that I think about it." That was probably for the best. Isabel was weird enough as it was without his damned brother infecting her with his damned ideas.

"I appreciate this," Elizabeth smiled.

"I really do. You're still on break?" Agrian realised what she was suggesting as she leaned back and did something with her shoulders that seemed to almost telekinetically shift her cleavage upwards. Suddenly it was rather hard to remember what he'd just been working on.

Paula was a good sparring partner, better than Agrian even. The three of us began meeting semi-regularly just as we had said, with my brother being even more enthusiastic about the matches than he usually was.

"You think she is that skilled?" I asked him, after our second bout with her.

"I do not get the impression she is particularly better for our training than the Professor. Why are you so excited for these sessions?" Agrian's face went beet red, and he mumbled something incoherent. I was not sure what his actual motive was, and since I also did not remotely care, I left it at that. What really mattered was the results we were seeing, and I cared for those very much. Paula had a deft-handedness with magic that I could tell came from the combination of long training and great talent.

She lacked only in raw power. As she had said, her magical education started terribly late. Though she had more worldly experience than any other student I had met, her time spent training and strengthening her Vessel was far smaller. Sheer genius granted her two thousand vis, despite that, but I could not help but notice how feeble her attacks were compared to my own. Two thousand vis was the same as my own maximum output by the age of eight.

To some extent, she could train harder and longer to compensate for this. A lifetime of neglecting her Vessel would have left it with more tolerance for strain, at least for the first few years of her training. But there would be no regaining her lost years. Fortunately, I had already regained mine. Though while my raw power growing over time was certainly good, it would not let me actually fight the Gods. Not on my own. That was why I experimented as well as sparred.

A few weeks after first gaining access to my captive warrior, I had started to learn much about him. My mundane studies—in fields of biology and chemistry—were all fascinating stuff, but I had not yet mastered them enough to gain any insight into the warrior, and I suspected that nothing I could be taught would give me that. If it could, then surely the magicians of this era would already have learned whatever I hoped to. No, in the end it was inevitable that my natural vision gave me the answers I looked for.

"You," I turned to the warrior and took the gag from his face.

"I have ques—" —"HELP!" he screamed.

"OH GODS, HELP, THIS- THERE'S THIS FREAK HERE, SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME, SHE KEEPS TAKING PIECES OF ME TO STUDY, SHE'S A DEMON—OR A NECROMANCER OR—" I decided to take the opportunity to test my new and improved illusion spell, forcibly activating his pain receptors and watching the effects. My mana output was far greater than when I had used it on Agrian's idiot bully, and my technique used that raw power much more efficiently, but the warrior proved a difficult target all the same.

That I had included an effect to paralyze his vocal chords only complicated things. His pain response was muted, though strong enough to stifle more speech. He started sweating and wheezing as he writhed before me. Once he fell silent again, I spoke.

"This room is muted with magic," I informed him.

"If you attempt to call out again, you will only irritate me. Do you want to irritate me?" There it was. That look, the one I had gone so long without seeing. The mix of fear and horror, of questioning the very humanity of what he stared at. The look of a person who was encountering something so beyond his experience that he simply had no frame of reference.

"I will take your shivering as agreement," I smiled.

"Now then, I am going to undo the magic keeping you silent. Scream again and the pain will be back." I ungagged him, and to my pleasant surprise he did not scream. It normally takes two or even three installments of discipline before a prisoner learns to stop resisting, this one was either quite intelligent or quite stupid.

"How did you feel when you began your training as a warrior?" I missed the Baron. Or rather, I missed having easy access to direct sources for questions like these. This warrior filled in acceptably though.

"I…don't know. I felt stronger over time, like I was…I don't know!"

"If you do not give me more detail than that, you will hurt again." He practically sobbed out his answers from there, and I had to compare them with what I knew. He would not have been very useful on his own of course—torture is a terribly unreliable way of getting answers, which is why I try to avoid it when possible—but I fortunately did not have to rely on just him. Others had been curious about the nature of warriors, naturally, and had written their curiosities down. I read about them now.

Warriors were not biologically different from common humanity, save that their basic bodily functions seemed to have an easier time happening. Like something was… helping them along. I had heard that before, of course. The same effect happened with Godtouched, and even more with Demigods. That was where my hypothesis that this effect was an arcane version of the divine magic they boasted came from. Different types of energy used to achieve the same result.

As usual, however, the hypothesis was harder to prove than it was to form. And harder still to do anything with.

"I want to make you an offer," I told the warrior. He shrank back from me, which was, once again, rather satisfying. I missed being feared.

"First I shall ungag you again, once more, if you scream, you will suffer for it, and worse still, you will be delaying our business and keeping yourself here that much longer. Understood?" he nodded frantically. I removed the gag and stepped back. He was still bound and immobile of course, so with the muting spells in play there was still effectively no risk here.

"W…What's your offer?" he asked at last.

"I would like you to stay here and be studied by me," I told him. He flinched as if he had just been hit.

"I…Please just let me go."

"I might, one day, but I need you still to help me learn about how warriors work." He started sobbing.

"Stop that," I snapped. He stopped. Fear is such an excellent motivator sometimes.

"What… what would I need to do?" he croaked. I explained, but I did not yet put him to work. I needed time to do that. The Grandmaster sped things along fortunately, when I next saw him he was reluctantly willing to create the device I needed—a wrist band that would instantly kill the warrior if he left the dungeon. Even with the Grandmaster's power, and the relatively weak target, it took the better part of a week to make.

By then I had finished exhausting all the alternative routes I knew of to explore this topic further.

"You just want me to lift weights?" the captive warrior asked.

"A lot of them," I assured him.

"And to recover well. I wish to watch your muscles grow." He shivered at that, and I did not care enough to ask why. What mattered was that, bound with the enchanted band as he was, he had no choice but to do as instructed and work, and he knew it. I watched his exercise, then watched more intently still as his muscles got to work afterwards. Magic works in predictable patterns. The only difference between a fireball and a healing spell is the structure of the mana.

There is no difference between mana aside from that, and of course how densely packed it is. With that in mind, my ability to see mana is perhaps the greatest advantage any caster could possibly have. It was what allowed me to mimic spells with such ease, and in this case it allowed me to emulate exactly what was happening to this man's body. A form of natural enchantment, done by his own mana without his own will even consciously driving it to.

The act of exercising and letting his stressed muscles heal and rebuild themselves saw the mana of his body sinking into the flesh and bones in ways that left those materials stronger. Like steel beams running through stone as reinforcement. And now I had seen it happen, studied it in-depth. My father's training had never given me the opportunity for this because I had never been able to observe his recovery periods so closely, nor prodded and probed it to see how the mana behaved differently.

With unfettered access to this subject, however, I was able to see all the tiny ways in which his power was working, and, eventually, start to replicate them. But not perfectly, not yet at least. Like all sensible scholars, I knew I had a lot of experimentation ahead of me before I could risk putting my new theories to the test on something I actually cared about. It was fortunate, I noted, that I had begun training in enchantment with so much extra fervor of late.

It was the missing piece from my repertoire, if I wanted to go about creating my own warriors. Creating them, and then, perhaps, reanimating them as thralls. My undead armies had not yet even begun to be re-assembled, and already they were looking stronger than ever.