Chapter 32: The Riddle of the Smear Mark, Part I

"Why would the Janaroian priests have a map leading to the birthplace of necromancy?" Flabbergasted, Kaz looked at the map again. "There's no detail anywhere on this map that leads me to believe it's anything else than a map of the swamp."

"That's because you don't know how to read it." Ahriman sighed. Sometimes, I don't know if I should blast his mind into oblivion or to let him ask as he pleases. I welcome the conversation, but the brat asks too many questions.

"Look at the bottom right corner of the parchment. Do you see that small smear?" Bottling up his feelings of annoyance, Ahriman decided against punishing Kaz.

"That smudge? Is that not a sort of....stain? That doesn't look as if it would be of any significance." Frowning, Kaz chanted in a low voice. A moment later, a bright blue ball of magelight materialized near his head. "Mm. Much better. A burning camp's flickering flames tends to not be the best source of light for reading."

Looking at the map once more, Kaz realized that the map was much more detailed than he had realized.

“This smear...it seems like it was intentional?” Kaz’s eyes narrow as he took a closer look. “Why does it feel magical in nature?”

“Because it is, in fact, magical.” Ahriman’s voice started to crack with excitement. “That little thing is what’s known as a ‘smear tile.’ It is a little enchantment based on illusion magic, used to conceal or divert attention away from something else.”

Running his fingers over the smear mark, Kaz started to pick at it.

“How can you even tell it’s magical? I’m trying to inject a some of my magical sense into the smear but none of it is going...oh.” With a jolt, Kaz scrutinized the smear with a feverish gaze.

“Huh, I know I must say this a lot, but you’re not as dumb as I keep expecting you to be.”

“Is that a...rune?” Scrutinizing the smear, Kaz’s breathing started to intensify. “The intricacy of this rune is unbelieveable. How can anybody even construct something this small? How do I break this rune?”

“Break the rune? It would be impossible for someone of your meager skill to break it. At most, I could say that it might be possible for you to unlock the rune. But, that is a low possibility.” Exasperated at Kaz’s misguided ambitions, Ahriman destroyed Kaz’s line of thought.

“Unlock it? So if I managed to construct the corresponding rune-key, or counter-rune, I could unlock the secrets of this smear mark and thus the map?” His eyes lighting up at the challenge, Kaz started to think back on what blood runes he had already learned from the Book of Blood.

With a disgusted noise, Ahriman settled down in Kaz’s mind. This conversation is going to go nowhere for now. All I can do allow the little bastard sate his curiosity before we continue.

Muttering to himself, Kaz looked maniacal as one side of his body was lit up by the burning flames of the camp.

Raising a hand, Kaz’s fingers started to trace runes that he had learned from the Book of Blood. The tips of his fingers pulsing a gentle blood red, Kaz’s runes started to form in the air faster and faster.

The runes that Kaz traced floated outside the reach of his fingers as he traced one after another. After the thirteenth rune formed, it floated up into the air as the rest of the runes started to shudder.

Looking up, Kaz’s anxiety was palpable. “Ahriman, why are the runes shaking like that?”

“Brace yourself.” Ahriman’s reply caused Kaz’s face to pale.

Jumping on his feet, Kaz sprinted towards the nearest tree that was thicker than he was. Behind him, the runes combined into a ring. Clutching the map in his hands, Kaz peeked around the tree to observe that the runes were doing.

The ring of runes started to spin in the air. At first, the ring started to spin faster and faster. After several revolutions, the ring started to get smaller.

“Is...it...working? I’m not sure what I did was correct.” His forehead slick with sweat, Kaz could sense the incredible amount of magical energy contained within the ring.

“It’s not. Watch the ring’s revolutions.”

Wiping his forehead with his left sleeve, Kaz prepared to run at a moment’s notice should anything untoward happen with the undulating ring. Gods, why did I start to play around with the blood runes near the supplies? Water’s not an issue since I’m in the wetlands and I can purify the water, but I’d rather have rations than have to kill the local fauna for sustenance.

With increasing frequency, the red runic ring started to flicker. At first, it was imperceptible, far faster than what Kaz’s eyes could see. The more the runic ring spun, the more common the flickering became.

Sighing, Kaz felt disappointed in his work. “The blood runes are unstable in this combination? I thought that I was on the right track in constructing the counter-rune of the smear mark.”

“It’s your first time trying to unlock a rune-lock with finesse instead of blasting it open. Of course you can’t get it right on the first time.” Ahriman cackled in amusement. “Watch, your little runic ring is going to explode soon.”

As soon as Ahriman’s words rang in Kaz’s ears, the bloody runic ring shattered. With a crisp crack, a wild wave of magical energy flew in all directions. Kaz whipped his head back behind the tree to hide from the energy wave.

The wave of magical energy passed Kaz, but didn’t even shake the leaves or branches of the nearby trees. Even the supplies under where the runic ring shattered were not affected. A numbing feeling passed through Kaz’s mind, but passed within a second.

“Why were the consequences of the runic ring collapsing more serious? Shouldn’t the broken magical energies devastate anything in its path?” Kaz’s brow furrowed as he thought.

“How can normal runes compare to the ones from the Book of Blood?” His voice heavy with scorn, Ahriman spoke. “When runes are cast in order, their energy is much more focused. None of the finer runic inscriptions would ever release violent magical energies unless the caster designed them that way.”

“But how can that be? That energy must go somewhere. If it disperses in the air, then why does it not affect the surroundings?” Kaz looked at the stars as he sunk deep into thought.

“Not everything can be explained. The mana goes into another place.” Ahriman whispered, as if he was...sentimental. “The origin of mana is not well known. It can be described as saturating the air, the ground, the water, and even a magi’s body. At times, mana seems to disappear and reappear at will.”

“Then, there must be another place that mana travels to once it is exhausted. Runic inscriptions focus the magical energy inwards upon itself and the area of effect.” Looking at the smear mark with renewed interest, Kaz’s eyes grew feverish. “That’s it! The reason my first runic ring collapsed was because I only had it focus in on itself. If I position some of the runes so that they counterbalance this effect, I may be successful in forming the rune-key.”

“Heh, you think you can form a rune-key like that? More talented mages than you have tried and failed even after dozens of attempts. What makes you think you can succeed what they failed?”

Smirking, Kaz’s attitude remained unchanged. “Old man, I never said that I wanted to be successful on my next try. On the contrary, forming the complete rune-key might even take me a hundred tries.”

“What, do you plan on staying here near this burning camp until you manage to crack the smear-mark?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Sitting down on the stump near the crate of supplies, Kaz started to eat some of the dried rations as he studied the smear mark.

“Hmph. I suppose it does not matter at this point. You eliminated the biggest threat to you in this part of the swamp. I do not sense anything that can threaten you for several miles around.”

Hearing Ahriman’s reassurance, Kaz stopped eating. “Several miles? How can you say that? Has your mana sense recovered somewhat?”

“My mana sense is pitiful at this point.” Ahriman sighed. “I cannot compare it with yours. My original mana sense is realms higher than your puny mana sense. It would be like comparing a minnow to a shark, a mouse to a lion, or a…”

“Ugh. Spare me. I do not need to hear you lording it over me with your superior magical attainments.” Rolling his eyes, Kaz continued to munch on a hard stick of flatbread. “I’m going to keep reminding you that I have had no formal training in magic. I cannot consider the injections of knowledge into my brain to be a form of serious mentorship.”

“It’s not as if I ever wanted a student with such tiny potential anyways. I doubt you will ever be much better than a hedge mage. Have fun failing at your attempts to form the rune-key.” With a scoff, Ahriman fell silent.

“Mm. Finally some peace and quiet. Why does everybody have to be so loud?” Kaz looked up at the sky. “Still pitch black? How much time do I have until day...where’s the North Star…”

Frowning, Kaz realized that the swamp tree’s branches were blocking the sight of the sky. With a snap of his fingers, Kaz commanded his surviving bone soldiers to cut down all of the swamp tree’s branches within ten meters of the stump.

“That should take a while, I should do something about these extra souls that I’ve enslaved.” Commanding his enslaved souls to surround him, Kaz became the center of a storm of silently screaming spirits.

Looking at three dozen or so ghosts, Kaz did not know how he planned to deal with them.

Although my mental energy has increased due to me using magic so much lately, it’s quite bothersome to have to keep track of where every spirit is at once. Since I need to wait for my bone soldiers to clear the treeline, I will attempt to fuse some of the spirits.

Waving the three recently acquired magi souls closer, Kaz browsed through the residual memories of each spirit. Looking for anything relevant to combat, Kaz’s eyes flashed with hundred of memories every minute.

Mm. Looks like it’ll be best to stick to the three magi that died at the camp. The magi souls that I acquired from the mages that were following Alessio do not seem to be as magically potent as the ones from the camp.

Motioning for Ezra’s soul to move closer, Kaz started to sign a runic sigil in the air. Upon casting Blood Spirit Formation, a bloody rune formed in front of Kaz’s fingers and he willed it to fuse with the spirit. As soon as the blood rune went into the spirit’s ephemeral body, it shuddered as if it was in pain.

Soon, a small blood-red vortex of magical energy emerged on the spirit where the blood rune sunk in. Smiling, Kaz grabbed a spirit and shoved it into the vortex. With a silent scream, the hapless ghost was devoured by Ezra’s spirit. Ever so slightly, the magi’s spirit became more corporeal and turned pink for a second before reverting to white.

Like before, only this time it took far less time for the vortex to absorb the ghost that I shoved into it. Satisfied with the speed of the spirit’s absorption, Kaz continued to feed the other spirits to it.

After half or so of the remaining spirits were devoured, the bloody vortex closed. Kaz scrutinized the now blood-red spirit.

As expected, it took about the same number of spirits to bring about the evolution of a normal ghost into a blood spirit. However, the process was much faster this time because I’m much more familiar with blood magic this time around.

The blood spirit opened its eyes, and a bloody glow lit up the surroundings. Slowly, the glow faded and a glowing blood spirit was floating in the air in front of Kaz. Smiling in triumph, Kaz recalled the other blood spirit towards him.

The older blood spirit stopped next to the new blood spirit. Compared to the new one, the older blood spirit was a darker shade of crimson. In addition, the older blood spirit’s claws were both longer and sharper.

With a wave of his hand, Kaz split the blood energies inside the older blood spirit into two. Pulling the magical energies out, Kaz infused the blood energy into the newer blood spirit.

What I need right now are consistent and reliable minions. Two blood spirits of equal strength will be able to handle more opponents than one strong and one weak blood spirit. Time I don’t have to spend bailing the weaker one out is time I could be spending managing my other minions or casting spells.

After this infusion, the newer blood spirit turned a darker shade of crimson while the older one lightened up until the two were the same shade of blood-red. Nodding in satisfaction, Kaz sent to two of them to patrol the surrounding areas of the swamp for signs of beasts or humans.

Looking at the remaining spirits, Kaz brought the spirits of Diana and Bjorn to the fore. Raising both of his hands, Kaz formed the spirit rune for ‘blade’ in the air with each hand. Seeing two identical spirit runes floating in the air, Kaz infused one into each of the two battlemage spirits in front of him.

Like before, a vortex of magical energy opened up in the middle of the spirits. Unlike before, the vortexes this time were not a deep crimson. Instead, they were a light sky blue.

Sending one spirit after another into the ravenous vortexes, Kaz’s back started to sweat as his supply of spirits decreased at an astronomical rate.

If these spirits do not manage to transform in time, will the forced evolution fail? My supply of weaker spirits is being consumed too fast for comfort…

The right hands of the two magi spirits started to glow, and the glow increased in intensity as more and more spirits were fed to each vortex. Kaz sharply inhaled as he sent the last two ghosts into the vortexes.

After a split second, the vortexes remained open. The glow on the magi spirit’s hands were blazing, lighting up the nearby foliage a light cyan.

His back covered with cold sweat at this point, Kaz’s mind blazed through the information he had read to find a solution to his problem.

Devils below! Why did I not try to evolve one of them at a time? This would not have happened if I was more careful at overstepping the bounds of my resources. I need more spirits, but I have used up the free ones that I have available….that’s it!

Moving his mana sense towards the bone soldiers that were busy cutting down branches nearby, Kaz immediately ripped all the spirits from his physical minions. With an influx of six new spirits to work with, Kaz started to feed them to the vortexes before they closed.

After the vortexes absorbed two spirits each, they flashed bright cyan and closed. A silvery hood grew on the appearances of the magi’s spirits. The cyan glow in their right hands elongated and sharpened into mana swords as Kaz watched in fascination.

A moment passed, and two new reaper spirits floated in front of Kaz. Jumping up from his stump, Kaz wanted to shout his joy out loud. Heh, I did it! That was too close for comfort. I don’t want to imagine what the consequences would have been if the vortexes failed to absorb enough spirits and collapsed by themselves.

Stopping for a moment, Kaz summoned his first reaper spirit back to him from its patrolling task. The three reaper spirits floated in the air in front of Kaz, baleful cyan glows shining from their eyes.

Mm. I never go the chance to observe them in such detail before. I was always running from one place to another or hiding my spirit minions out of sight.

Observing his the reaper spirits, Kaz saw that they were skeletal figures dressed in robes with a hood covering most of their heads. The only sign that the reaper spirits had eyes was the cyan glow that permeated throughout the inside of the hood and spilled out around the edges.

The older reaper spirit had a larger mana sword, but Kaz knew from watching it fight that its mana sword was much more powerful than before.

It seems that reaper spirits get stronger through battle experience. This is different from the blood spirits since all those spirits need is a constant supply of blood to improve. I guess I’m going to involve myself in more violent confrontations in the future if I want to improve the quality of my spirit minions.

Musing on his gains this time, Kaz’s eyes grew wide as he realized how much soul power he had at his disposal. It was approximately four times as much as before!

I know that the quality of my spirit minions determined how much soul power I have available, but I never realized that using evolved magi spirits would make such a difference.

Sucking in air through his teeth, Kaz lamented that he had already fed the weaker magi spirits to the new blood spirit and new reaper spirits. Sighing, Kaz sat back down on the stump.

Previously, my soul power drained too fast when trying to form the rune-key for the smear mark. I should have enough soul power to finish casting the completed rune-key now, or at least enough soul power to try multiple times before I exhaust myself.

Raising one hand in the air, Kaz drew the first blood rune.