Supreme Magus

Thanks to all the merits he had racked during the past year, Lith had been granted access to the Royal Library. It was the biggest and most complete library in the Griffon Kingdom, covering all the subjects known to mages, including the forbidden ones.

The library was comprised of many floors, one for each element. Normal books could be checked out freely, whereas to consult forbidden books it was necessary to spend merits and receive a recommendation letter from someone with a high clearance level.

In Lith’s case, both Professor Marth and Vastor had vouched for him along with his commanding officer. Lith was now sitting behind at a hardwood table, surrounded by fellow mages in search of knowledge.

The city of Valeron, the capitol of the Griffon Kingdom, was surrounded by all kinds of protective arrays and because of them, Lith couldn’t put the valuable tomes inside Soluspedia to read them all in a single moment.

Dimensional magic would allow spies and thieves to freely Warp, so it had been sealed. Lith and Solus had spent the last few hours reading tomes about Necromancy, to see if among the undead species there was one suitable for Lith’s tastes.

Unfortunately, despite having even checked the legendary creatures’ section, their quest had ended up in failure.

’Sigh, why real vampires suck so bad? They have so many limitations that now I can understand why despite becoming a vampire is relatively safe and easy no mage wants to be turned into one.’ Lith thought.

’Please, if there was such a thing as an immortal and eternally young species that had no weakness at all, outside becoming a disco ball under the sunlight, they would have ruled Mogar for millennia.’ Solus said, yet despite her mockery, she was dejected as well.

As long as Lith was human and with a cracked life force at that, he was bound to die sooner or later. Solus had no intention of letting that happen, but just like Lith, she was now clutching at straws.

According to the tomes of the Royal Library, there was a way for Lith to safely become an undead and retain all of his memories.

Unlike Necromancy, that worked on corpses that no longer had a working brain and mana core, many species of undead could slowly turn a living being into one of their own.

In such a case, the subject would never really die. A blood core would take form inside their bodies and grow over time, replacing their mana core the moment their heart ceased to beat.

The problem was that there was no undead specie without absurd or crippling limitations. Most of them were unable to even move during the day, trapped in a forced slumber no matter the danger they were in or how deep below the earth they hid.

Others, like the Banshees, couldn’t cross water and would die if they fell into a river or a lake. Yet their biggest weakness was their inability to use light magic. For someone like Lith, who had spent countless hours to become a Healer, it was an unacceptable trade.

To make matters worse, light magic wasn’t just needed to heal others. Without it, Lith would also be unable to Forgemaster truly powerful artifacts and even to use dimensional magic as freely as he had always done.

Blink, one of his bread and butter spells during fights, required light magic and so did Switch. Undead weren’t completely unable to use light magic, but since their blood core was unable to assimilate it from its surroundings, they had to consume their own life force in order to produce light energy.

It meant that if Lith decided to turn into an undead, just to Forgemaster a single item he would need to consume the equivalent of a pigpen of food. Some undead were picky about who they could feed upon and of course, their victim had to be alive.

Lith couldn’t store living humans inside his pocket dimension and he couldn’t bear the thought of traveling with a caravan of slaves. He would have to feed and care for them every day just to murder them later.

’I can be morally flexible, sure, but where the heck do I keep so many people at all times without being found out and hunted down? Liches have no such problems, but after reading a lot about them, I don’t think it’s something I’d like to become.

’First, there is no sure fire way to become one. I would need to spend years to find a way suitable for my unique mana core and life force, just for a measly 10% success rate, with no do-overs. My luck always sucked, so I don’t feel like playing with dice.

’Also, the phylactery is a huge weak point. It cannot be stored in a dimensional item and it can’t be too far. On top of that, after meeting Zolgrish, I discovered another weak point Liches have.

’If I can seal space with an array and I cut them off from the link with their phylactery, both their physical and magical strength will be halved, plus they would become unable to recover their mana.’ Lith thought, not knowing he had just discovered the principle underlying Leegaain’s anti Lich spell.

’Unless they bring it with them.’ Solus pointed out.

’That’s too risky. Life Vision, your mana sense, Scarlett’s pince-nez. There are countless ways to spot such a powerful object and even if the Lich might somehow cloak it, the constant stream of mana and life force would betray its position.’

Lith was right, yet most ancient Liches would rather bring their phylactery around with them while fighting a truly dangerous opponent than being one-shotted.

’I can definitely discard becoming an undead as an option, unless I’m either desperate of I discover a new species with acceptable limits. Creating a new race all by myself might as well take all the lifespan I’ve left and I would have no certainty of success.’ He thought.

’I don’t like the idea of turning into an Abomination either. They may be immortal, but so far all the ones I met seemed to be mad, miserable, or both. My best shot is to research ways to improve my life force to prolong my existence while I search for the blueprints of a soul binding artifact.’

After copying everything he might need to improve his true Necromancy, Lith left the Royal Library. Both of his communication amulets were silent, but in his experience, no news were good news.

If the army kept not bothering him Lith could keep exploring the Lost Cities of the Kellar region for clues, whereas not hearing from both his family and Kamila meant that Fallmug had yet to try anything funny.

Lith would have loved to stop torturing him and take him out of the picture once and for all, but he had to play it smart so that no one would suspect him. Thanks to the Tower Warp, he had never left his prey alone for long.

Lith let those morbid thoughts slide and used the capitol’s Gate to return to the north. Despite all of its flaws, the army was still the perfect cover to spend a long time away, performing his research night and day.

Among his most recent pet projects, there was crafting with the eyes of the Balor a magical staff that could mimic General Vorgh’s, improving the power of the lesser undead he was able to create at will and raid the lost city of Huryole.

Unlike the other ruins he had visited, Huryole was almost perfectly preserved. Gold, jewels, magic books, there were countless things up for the taking. Unluckily, the creatures inhabiting the city made every raid extremely difficult.