The Undying Magician - Book 2 - Chapter 35 - Experiments
Added 2023-01-24 03:14:29 +0000 UTC Nathan
Year 2849 | Month 10 | Day 24
Is this the vampirism? Or something else?
I know that vampirism drains the life force out of whatever living creature you eat and enhances your body with it temporarily, but since when did it convert the food itself into miasma? Not to mention that having death mana in your stomach doesn’t sound very safe.
My lips purse as I ponder over the situation, but after a few seconds I grab another fish from the river, killing it the instant I grab it. Then I stuff it into my mouth and eat it before checking my stomach again with my magic senses.
Vampirism should only work on living things, since there isn’t any life force in a dead animal. So if what I have is vampirism then…
I stare with my magic senses as the fish in my stomach is dissolved, following which miasma is spread throughout my body, making me feel just a tiny bit stronger. But at the same time, the strength from my previous snacks begin to fade, bringing my strength back down a little bit.
Interesting. Does this mean that I have a variant of vampirism then?
I know that people suffering from vampirism have a desire to eat dead flesh and blood as well, but I also know that it shouldn’t affect them in the slightest. Because vampirism was never an intended effect in the first place. It was always a side effect of experiments. Something discovered on accident, and never on purpose outside of monsters.
Although, there hasn’t been much if any experiments on giving humans vampirism. Or at least, no public ones that I could’ve heard about.
After all, experimenting on humans to give them vampirism is illegal, for obvious reasons.
I frown at the thought before shaking my head.
Whatever it is that’s wrong with me, I’ll just have to figure it out myself.
Maybe I can learn more from watching the process a few more times? Then I can focus on learning to control myself.
I continue fishing with a determined look on my face.
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The Barren Pass
Year 2849 | Month 10 | Day 28
Julie and Jason Fox both stop working on the robots they were assembling the moment the bell rings in the room. They then get up and begin walking out of the workshop together.
Ever since being kidnapped and brought to the doctor’s lab, both of Nathan’s parents were left alone and told to do what they wanted within a few rooms. So they started fiddling with the spare parts within the room.
“How long do you think we’ll be held here?” Julie asks as they walk out into the hallway before heading towards one of the three other rooms in the blocked off section of the laboratory they’re in.
Jason doesn’t answer until they get near the door for the mess hall, making it open automatically to reveal a large and empty hall filled with dozens of tables, along with a small cafeteria stocked with food that is replaced every week. “I don’t know.”
His wife sends him a glance at that before they both silently walk over to the cafeteria where they begin to cook their dinner.
Neither of them say anything during the entire process, only speaking again after they finish eating nearly an hour later.
“Do you think the doctor forgot about us?” Julie asks with a frown.
Jason looks up from the dishes he was cleaning as he answers, “Doubt it. He probably just doesn’t care about us until we’re actually of use to him.”
Nathan’s mom puts her head down on the counter between the cafeteria and the mess hall with a groan.
“But we’ve been here for weeks now, and he hasn’t even said a word to us since bringing us here!” she says in a muffled tone through her sleeves.
Several seconds pass in silence, with the only sound being that of the dishes being washed and put back on the rack before he eventually mutters, “Yeah…”
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At the same time, in another place within the laboratory
Doctor Leodmir Archeron stands in silence with his hands in his coat pockets as he watches a large screen in front of him from the center of a large room filled with various different terminals on the counters and walls. One showing the image of a man using a black and red magic to eliminate any and all spells coming towards him from the mercenaries hired by the Class S magicians used as grunts in their plans. Each and every spell simply vanishes the moment it comes into contact with the red and black sphere around the man, with a light bolt of red and black lightning shooting out from the man’s body into the sphere each time.
The doctor continues watching the screen for several minutes, just examining the Chairman of the Republic of Arcania as he fights without pause.
‘He isn’t directly attacking them with his magic, only using a spell to block any and all spells and weapons used against him as he kills each of them with a simple pistol,’ the doctor thinks with a frown, only to narrow his eyes on the bullets being shot from the pistol. ‘Not a simple pistol. One whose bullets are infused with anti-magic.’
After making that observation, the doctor turns his attention to the few magicians who are at the back of the building that the Chairman is attacking all by himself. None of the magicians seem all that happy about being there, but none of them are showing any hesitation either. Each of them has a barrier put up of their own mana with either a blade in hand or a gun.
“Attack,” the doctor orders through the earpiece hooked on his ear, making the four magicians immediately rush in to attack the Chairman.
The Chairman doesn’t waste a single arc of mana more than he needs to as he fires several bullets of anti-magic that pierce straight through the barriers and into the magician’s bodies, filling them with holes right away. But one of them manages to hide behind a wall right before he open fired, and as soon as he hears the shots stop, he rushes out with his sword to find the Chairman reloading his pistol.
“Precharged bullets?” the doctor mutters with a slight frown. ‘That’s not a common practice. It’s too wasteful.’
The magician doesn’t stop at the sight of the pistol turning to face him and instead raises his sword while coating it in fire mana before bringing it down and striking the sphere of anti-magic. But the mana coating the blade simply fizzles out, and the blade itself shatters after touching the sphere, sending the magician flying back right as the Chairman shoots his pistol at him again, killing him.
A few seconds pass while the doctor watches the Chairman close his eyes and send a pulse of mana out to scan the surroundings, only for the man to focus directly on the camera hanging from the roof and grin directly at it. He then snaps his fingers, making the pulse of anti-magic mana crush the camera, cutting off the feed.
“Interesting,” the doctor mutters before pressing a button on the terminal built into the counter in front of him and saying, “Experiment One results. The subject is either arrogant, showing his capabilities without any care for how I use the knowledge, or is plotting against us with this information in mind. He is able to cancel out mana using his own mana as a fuel in a 1 to 1 ratio, is skilled with a single pistol, and often uses precharged bullets in combat. Bullets that have been charged with mana prior to the battle’s start, saving time during the battle, but costing a larger quantity of mana in the process of doing it personally and not through a gun.”
The doctor then pushes the button again, ending the recording.
‘More experiments are necessary before the strike,’ Leodmir sends in a message to the other Class S magicians through an encrypted channel.
He then turns around and begins leaving the room while pulling up the terminal attached to his wrist to show an image of the Kingdom of the Fallen. One that has a very small area of it filled in with the number 0.2% in the filled in area.
‘At this rate, it’ll take nearly ten years to scan the entire continent…’ Leodmir thinks to himself with a frown before shaking his head and continuing down the hall.
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