It took some convincing, but Hellon came along with Harlan to make the body for Balor.

“Do I at least get a hint as for what I am witnessing?”

The room had piles of biological material separated.

Fat, muscle, bone, skin, jars of blood, organs, everything else needed to make a man.

“I hope these aren’t human.”

“Not all of it, the meat is pig actually. They are quite close to humans in composition. Though the organs and skin do come from a man. People who have been put to death can be used for study if one puts requests in through the right channels.”

“Is this going to be necromancy?”

Harlan stopped a moment to think of his answer.

“Technically, no, I don’t think so, but, maybe?”

“You don’t know what the spell is?”

“I know what the spell is, but, I’m not entirely sure about the categorization. Yes, I am giving life back to dead flesh, and I am putting it together into a form that can accept healing magic. But it also works on living flesh.”

Hellon narrowed her eyes, unsure if she should be witnessing this.

“Have you cast this spell before on a human being?”

“I’ve done this to a willing participant. Anyway, please don’t look behind the curtains, they are hiding runes that are going to hurt you to look at.”

“You know about them?”

“Oh, so you also know what they are.”

“I don’t want to say it, because if I am wrong then you will be learning something you shouldn’t.”

“Sigils. Some kind of runes on a higher level, something limited to gods and champions due to the way our minds process the magic contained in them.”

“A mostly accurate description. If you know about them, and more importantly, you are actually using them, well, I won’t say it.”

A month had passed since the incident, Harlan had made various improvements to his methods of making a body.

The first test in which Harlan made a body from a deer and twisted it into human form technically worked, but the lack of organs and flowing blood among its basic nervous system made for an uncomfortable experience once Harlan actually felt the memories from Balor.

If he ever pursued flesh golems again, it would be fine, but for things that knew what living felt like already, it wasn’t ideal.

The sigils activated and filled the room with a sense of dread. While he had been cleared to do this by

The Darkness, what he was doing brushed up against things best left undone.

Red light filled the pieces set around the area and hung in the air within the circle carved into the bunker floor.

Then, nothing.

Harlan had to put the body together by hand now that the process had turned them into putty to be molded into a desired form.

Despite the aura of fear and the red light that lit the room with a sinister atmosphere, he worked as an artist sculpting clay, making a man.

He laid out muscle and fat and nerves and veins and began making a body that would match his before changing it to whatever Balor wanted to look like.

Seeing it turned from offal to a body filled Hellon with an awe she hadn’t felt in some time..

What Harlan had done would change surgery and cosmetic magic in equal measures depending on how it all worked.

Hellon took a step closer and Balor grabbed her forcefully.

“Don’t step inside the circle.”

“Are you kidding me? I need to know what will happen. This is the kind of work that makes archmagi.”

“The circle is to stop outside mana from interfering with the body as it comes to life, we do not want to know what it would do to you.”

Harlan worked in complete silence, veils stopped him from getting any interference in what he was doing.

His hands

The form now looked like a man, he was going for one 20 or so years of age, young, but not a child.

Harlan slotted in the eyes and linked them to a mana gem that itself was linked to a series of blood crystals which would function as the brain when Balor was not in the body.

It would be a shame if something went wrong and the body forgot how to do automatic processes like breathing without Balor inside of it.

The body was almost entirely finished, and mindless but not dead.

He dropped the veils.

“Balor, what else needs to be done. Any changes? Taller? Wider? Sharper nose? Thinner eyes?”

Harlan spoke with the apathy of a man looking over his taxes, not as a shaper of new life.

“Go a little thinner on the chin and bring it out more. The ears could be smaller, shrink the lobes so they don’t hang so much.”

After another few dozen small changes the man on the table was ready to be awoken.

“You don’t need to do this, but, if you want the body, if you want to be here, now is the time.”

He did not hesitate to step inside of the circle and pull himself out of his golem body.

Harlan placed him inside of the spine and grew bone around him to seal the senses of the ring and hopefully make it easier to transition to the senses of the body.

Hellon’s eyes lit up as the body drew its first breath, blinked its eyes, and then tried to speak.

“Are the vocal cords not working yet? Just give it a little time, your soul is going to diffuse throughout the body and make more small corrections than I ever could.”

Harlan turned off the ritual and broke the sigils, yet kept the circle active.

“Hellon, you can step inside now.”

She cast many diagnostic spells, she could see every little shift that happened as the soul went through the body.

Nerves and veins shifted positions, causing a great deal of pain to Balor who simply needed to bear this.

It hurt Harlan to know this, but he could only make an approximation of the entire workings of a body.

He was not a god, and he could not match the knowledge that was just naturally inside of a soul, a thing that simply knew what Balor was deep down, and corrected the body to something closer to that human nature.

After an hour Balor could barely speak.

“It… worked… I… feel it.”

Hellon used spells to directly feed him tonics through his bloodstream and give the body more than just the energy from his soul to move and heal him.

“Harlan, how did you make this? This is… it is incredible. We might beat death, we could remake the bodies back to their youth. We could make the short man big, we could turn an ugly man into a prince.”

“This can’t beat death, though it might extend life if I touch the right part, resetting the clock, so to speak.”

“You can’t know that yet, we just don’t have the data for that yet.”

“I don’t need an example. I already got a warning that if I made immortality magic or new viable species, then I am the enemy of the gods.”

“Fucking bastards. Is there a limit? Can you extend lifespans? What really is ‘immortality?’ if you gave someone another 10 years, it really wouldn’t count as a violation, right?”

Harlan’s eyes went black for minutes as rules and the loopholes that are known regarding immortality were explained to him. The important takeaway was that those loopholes didn’t technically break the rules, but the rules are made up and if he violated the spirit of them there would be problems.

“10 to 20 years, and I shouldn’t draw any attention. Past that, I need to argue with the gods to make that person live any longer. The limited lifespan is part of what is called a prime race, which is to say here is humans, on Aine they called themselves something else, but they filled the same role.”

“What role is that?”

“I don’t think I should really get into the higher purpose of human life. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Do you think I’m just going to let that go? Please, I’m going to just ask plainly, I want to live longer, I want to know more. What deal do I need to make with you?”

“Get a hold of yourself, you can’t be more than 30.”

“I’m going to be 63 in 5 months. If I wait too much longer, I’ll just lose time.”

Harlan looked over her face and body.

She looked younger than his mother and didn’t believe that her words were anything but a bid to get what she wanted.

“One year. Once my first subject has lived in his new body for a year I will consider it.

Now, I brought you here so you can tell other people that this isn’t a stolen body, that I didn’t do anything heinous to make Balor’s body, and that everything was above board. This isn’t going to end up being a problem between us, is it?”

“No, of course not. Even if I took my word back later, they would need to prove that I lied in the first place and that your magic isn’t what I said it was. In that case, you would be able to show them what you’ve shown me. How long has the first subject been in a new form?”

“Since not long before the end of the first year of academy. I’d need to check the specific day. But for now, just think of it as being when the academy closes for summer.”

“You mean you’ve had this for months and didn’t tell anyone?”

“Considering how you are acting, I don’t think I was wrong to do that.”

“You don’t understand what this could do. Think of everyone who retired when their bodies failed their other abilities. You could bring archmagi out of retirement, you could give them the chance at a second life, even if it isn’t immortality.”

Harlan thought it over and decided that it could never get out that he had this ability, he even contemplated killing Hellon for a moment. He should’ve just lied to her about being allowed to extend lives for a time.

“Don’t say a word about this. If people know that I can reset someone to a younger, more ideal age, then I’m either going to end up locked away for my safety, or I’ll have powerful people looking for me to fix them, and when I don’t they are going to force me.”

She lost some of that almost childish glimmer as she understood exactly what his fears were.

He was not Sepul, he didn’t have a near inexhaustible power that made him a nation in and of himself, he didn’t have the friends in politics or the favors needed to hold back what it could unleash and even Sepul, in all of his glory, could not protect everyone all the time.

“You could be an archmage, one of the youngest in history, with just one spell.”

“Do you have a husband? Children? Siblings? I’m not trying to insult you, but I just don’t care about having my name in a book. Ask Sepul, would he rather have a title or his family? We both know what he would choose.”

“Fine, but you don’t even need to share it, having an example of what you can do and my word as a witness should be enough.”

Harlan missed over 2 weeks of classes while he helped Balor get used to having a human body.

Unlike Dagian where it was an entirely alien feeling to have a body that was just somewhat off, Balor had moved into bodies of different shapes and sizes in preparation for the eventuality of being flesh and bone, well, mostly flesh and bone.

Another spoon was turned to an art piece as Balor’s strength went into effect.

“Damnit.”

Another chair turned to splinters as his emotions spiked.

“It’s alright. You’re getting used to it.”

He huffed and puffed, nobody had expected the moodswings to be so hard to control.

When he was a ring, his emotions were blunted by not being beholden to the hormones of a human body thus he had never learned to control himself well as a result.

“I know, I’ve just got to cool off for a little bit.”

“Are you tired? Maybe a nap would help?”

“Yes. Maybe that will help.”

Dagian also ended up sleeping far more than normal until he was used to his new form.

Another week of missed classes.

Though on this day, Hirum himself visited.

“Sir Formoria.”

“Headmaster Selvis. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Hellon reported what you have done and put forward a request that you be granted the title of archmage.”

“I asked that she not put forward such a request.”

“It came up in regards to your failure to arrive to classes or keep up your duties as a teaching assistant. You know, Lady Charlotte could use you around, not for classes, but for dealing with loss.”

“I have been handling a family situation, I am unsure when I will be returning.”

“I am aware. But there is a limit, perhaps I could put you in contact with people who could help care for your brother.”

“He is dangerous at the moment, he is at least as strong as I am but without the years of being me, he cannot control that strength well yet. I’ve only just gotten him to the point where I can safely let him get his own food and eat by himself. Humans are too… squishy, to handle him.”

“What about a Minos?”

“If you could find one with experience in physical rehabilitation and healing and they also understand the risk, then maybe. I will ask him his own opinion.”

“I have already contacted candidates beforehand. If your brother agrees, I could have them here within the hour.”

Harlan brought Balor to the living room and they talked it over, agreeing to at least meet them.

“Thank you for your understanding, it is important to us at the academy that Harlan returns.”

“Headmaster Selvis, what is it that you are really worried about? Harlan surely has no real bearing on the operation of your academy.”

“I simply don’t want him to miss out on learning. Despite our differences, I am still looking out for his best interests. Also, honestly, I would like to induct him as a private archmage. Publicly nothing would change, but I would like him to be put on the record.”

“I don’t want to be on any record.”

“This is, within the magical community, the highest honor one could be granted, it would open a lot of doors for you.”

“It would be a mark on my back. Do you actually know what I’ve done and the implications of it?

Aria never gave up her secret, she is just known to be able to do what she does. But if I did the same thing I’d never get another day of sleep as I am hounded by any old fool with money or a beautiful daughter or land or just power. And then when I refuse, they don’t have much to lose, they are already waiting on death. You can sit in your ivory tower guarded by archmagi and an army of golems, not to mention whatever artifacts you own, but I intend to live a life.”

“Archmagi protect one another, you would have the best defenses that money could never buy.”

“I’m not becoming an archmage, I don’t care what arguments you have, I don’t care about the benefits.

If it really does mean so much, then I will decide when I feel it is right. That is my final answer.”

“The topic will be considered settled for the moment. Would you at least like to hear your title?”

“I’m not a child who is going to be swayed by a fancy name.”

“Lifesculptor.”

Harlan scoffed.

“More like Changeling.”

“I’ll put that down as your name.”

They went back and forth for nearly an hour before Hirum said he had another appointment, and that Harlan would be added to a list, though without a description of how he came upon the title.

Once he chose to take the title formally, the rest would be filled in, making him a sort of half-archmage as Hirum called it.

Harlan spent a day shadowing the caretaker, making sure that it wasn’t going to be a problem, then he finally returned to the academy.