Chapter 40: Chapter 37

I sat under the shade of a tree in the training grounds of the mansion, watching my lady cast her spells. Sweat dripped along her forehead as she struggled to stand on her feet, but her resolute expression said otherwise. She moved her hands in a circle, trying to feel the swirling mana in the air, and grunted in response when she felt none. But her body did absorb mana particles irrespective of the feeling in her hands. It was a subliminal action that occurred whenever her body craved for mana particles like a black hole. Again, subjected to the condition that we defined a black hole as a region of intense gravity in space-time and not a hole black in color.

The sun gleamed, forcing me to squint my eyes as Letitia materialized mana in shades of translucent white that was becoming opaque at a moderate pace. She was learning to have absolute control over the process of casting, which would take considerable effort given the brute force casting she was used to since young. The former involved choosing a particular portion of processed mana in the body for materialization, while the latter was just emptying the giant bucket of mana reserve aimlessly. Though multicasting did mean that one would gain some control over their reserve, it was nothing more than compartmentalization of internal mana reserve. So, there was nothing to control except for clearing every single compartment, simultaneously for multicasting.

That’s why internal casting was a much easier option for toddlers.

I wasn’t particularly fond of spending my time in the training ground. A quiet locale beyond the guard quarters didn’t necessarily mean that I could have a good nap without any worries. It was built for the private army of the Marquis, but my lady had managed to chase everyone away. Well, there was hardly one servant in the manor who dared to look into her eyes, so they ran away should be a more accurate description.

Trees lined around the periphery of the open ground, an elevated plinth at the center, large enough for twenty men to showcase their proficiency with the sword. Enough space spanned on all four sides of the stage that was usually used for jogs by the sturdy men, who weren’t lethargic like my lady and me. Though she had surprised me today by her resilience to grow stronger.

Letitia cast [Ice Shards] repeatedly condensing the translucent shimmering mana before her into almost twenty ice sickles. Her multicasting ability was already on par with Progressive internal casters despite being an Amateur mage, but she lacked plenty compared to other external casters of her tier. However, there was always room for improvement until casting became no different from breathing, and one could sustain a single spell for eternity.

You could say undead set the threshold for mortal mages that they can never hope to breach. In other words, with every single breath, my body is casting [Undead] and collecting life force, though negligible, from everything around me. If my lady lived out her life, she would die a second or two early thanks to my life-stealing ability.

Nevertheless, I am not a life stealer but an undead. That’s a fact which you ought to burn in your memory.

The ice sickles rushed in my direction, and they sizzled in the air before disappearing into vapor in the swirling mass of fire that had materialized thanks to my [Fire Vortex]. It was not as potent as the destructive spell [Explosion] that had claimed the lives of many casters but still good enough for my lady’s ice sickles.

Letitia leaned on her knees and beckoned me to come closer, her training trousers and frock drenched in sweat. The glare of the gossamer winter sun was manageable, but her body hadn’t been used to assimilating impure mana yet. Therefore, it dispelled more sweat, trying to cast away the impurities instead of converting them into mana. Unless she learned to efficiently convert mana particles into a continuous stream, disregarding the nature of the individual particles, even having surplus mana would be useless.

I wiped her face with a towel before moving over to her arms and finally palms.

“Was it any better?” she asked, her breathing still hoarse.

“No, my lady. Your sweat is wasting more mana than your spells. Learn to assimilate mana of all attributes, instead of just using Ice and Fire mana.”

She nodded and leaned on her knees again. “But all I can feel is a stream of allergy­–“

“Energy.”

“Energy swirling throughout my body. How the hell am I distinguishing between different attributes?” she clenced her palms and released them just as fast.

“It’s a subconscious habit of internal casters, my lady,” I said, wringing the towel. “If I give you a bread with burnt crust, wouldn’t you remove it and then eat the fluffy insides?”

“I wouldn’t eat burnt bread in the first place, mongrel,” she paused, lost in thought. “But I get your point. I am channelizing my mana to a continuous stream and leading a portion of it into my internal reserve before using it. So, even though I am assimilating mana and using it immediately, some, or maybe most, of it is always getting purified.”

“Precisely. You are the mana reserve, and the burnt bread is impure mana,” I said as my lady picked up her book on spell casting and jotted down notes in the book that had grown quite thick over the past week. “Then again, you still have infinite­, I mean surplus, mana, but your efficiency is low. You can start learning new spells as you master external casting. Because mastery over casting is an extensive chore that takes more than a few years.”

“And how do external casters learn new spells, mongrel?! You never even gave me a hint!”

“How did you learn [Freeze]?”

“By materializing the processed mana from my body thanks to my prerequisite gen on the spell,” she said with uncertainty. “Isn’t that how all spells work, mongrel?”

“Yes, the course of processing mana is like kneading flour for bread. Initially, the mana inside your body is just a clump of flour, or particles, and your body kneads it until frost or fire or lightning materializes when you release it. The ability to knead is precisely your attribute, but the number of attributes is a psychological barrier. It’s like my preference for bread, but it certainly doesn’t mean I can’t eat anything else.” I crumpled the towel before her, trying to show the process of casting.

 “So I can use [Heal] too?” she asked, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Certainly,” I smiled at her. “If you manage to live for a few centuries and practice.”

A punch was hardly a surprise, but it was a weak one. She placed the book on the edge of the platform and motioned me to join her on the platform.

“We’ll spar, mongrel,” she said, taking a couple of deep breaths.

“Sure, my lady,” I removed my overcoat and placed it over her book after folding it neatly. Heat pressing could help me get rid of the creases, but I wasn’t fond of creating more work for myself. Lethargic I was, but one with reasons. I removed my cuffs and placed them in my pocket before folding the arms of my white shirt.

“Don’t go easy on me, mongrel!” she said, her mouth parched for some reason.

I laughed. “When you spar with an undead, you should be ready to die. I won’t use any spells, for my excitement might kill you, my lady.”

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She returned my smile and raised her hands in front of her. All the Academy students knew hand-to-hand combat because it entailed most of their first-year courses. Nevertheless, my lady’s skills were rusty, for she was too busy chasing butterflies during her first year in the Academy.

She cast freeze on my legs and charged for a roundhouse kick, her frock interrupting the fluid motion of her left leg. I blocked it, but we stopped. She was about to tear the gown in rage when I held her hand.

“You already tore one yesterday, my lady!” I shouted in alarm, for my bread expenses were at stake here.

“These damn dresses won’t stop me from punching you, mongrel!” she glared at me.

“It’s all right, my lady. I’ll sew some shirts for you next time, so you can train more until we face off again. Or you can wear a shorter one with your training pants.”

“Don’t tell me you can’t even win against me?!” she taunted me, but I knew better.

I sighed and removed her hand from the frock before letting it flow freely to the ground.

“I don’t fall for taunts, my lady. So you need to do better,” I said and unrolled my sleeves. Disappointment flashed across her eyes, and I wondered if she thought I was belittling her.

We undead don’t belittle anyone, for we just don’t care about anything other than our amusement and bread. The latter, I’m not very sure if it’s true in general, but for the former, I can bet a hundred loaves.

I cuffed my sleeves, glad to have the spar interrupted, and wore my coat again. She was drenched in sweat again when I was done, and I noticed my lady was casting freeze on the platform and had frozen half of it already.

If that didn’t sound surprising, then you don’t really know about magic. It’s an apprentice-level spell, and my lady was multicasting it over an entire area. Filling up a hundred unit square with two units freeze spell is a difficult task for mages in general. It was as daunting as painting a house with an art brush.

“Faster, my lady,” I said, and she froze my lips in annoyance.

“If you say faster one more time, I am going eat your lips!”

That hardly sounded like a threat, but I shut up and took a seat on the corner of the dais, my legs dangling below. I read her notes for a while, and they were surprisingly accurate. I smiled involuntarily when I noticed descriptions about magic using bread as an anecdote. There were many, not just one, and even my words were quoted word by word.

My lady was amusing in every way you could imagine. When I first transmigrated to this world, I had really felt hopeless about her situation, but we undead always finish our jobs no matter how hard. Even if Marquis hadn’t killed her mother, I would have killed her, for Letitia didn’t need parents. She didn’t need a family, for they would make her weak. And I came here to stop her from becoming just that.

You can call me despicable, but we undead will do anything for our amusemet. My apparent apathy shouldn’t surprise you anymore.

“Hey, mongrel,” my lady called out, and I stared at the frozen platform.

“It took you too long, my lady,” I said and melted the entire platform instantly and froze it back again. The frost spread around her but skipped her shoes and a semicircle around me.

“Damn you, bastard!” she cursed, but there was unconcealed admiration in her eyes.

She settled down beside me and leaned on my shoulder as she grabbed the book from my hands. Her sweat was on my suit, and I wiped her face with a sigh. The laundry was becoming increasingly painful each passing day.

“You need to have a bath, my lady,” I said, and she just hummed, placing her slick hair in the crook of my neck.

“And so do you, mongrel,” she smiled in amusement, watching my aggravated expression.

“I’ll go to the gallows first and then have one,” I said, pulling my neck away. “Some corpses are always better than none.”

“I’m fine,” she said in annoyance, though I hadn’t implied anything in my words. “You don’t need to test me every other second. You don’t have to worry either.”

“I’m not worried, my lady,” I shrugged. “Even if you did mind, I would kill him. Your feelings toward me don’t matter much if you can become a ruthless person.”

She leaned out and glanced at me. “Aren’t you too heartless?”

“That I am, my lady.”

She smiled and propped her head on my shoulders again.

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