The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 42

Chapter 42 – Breathing

I led the way from the throne room, my two new apprentices following behind me. As I walked, I shifted into my human guise, and changed from my armor into a simple kimono made from enchanted spidersilk. Now that the ceremony was done, I had no interest in pursuing the pointless formalities that many Masters insisted upon, to enhance their egos.

After all, my ego was not so fragile that it needed the bowing and scraping of apprentices to hold it together. I had done more in my time already than most people could accomplish in ten lifetimes. Between the boons provided by the Hero Summoning, and my long time as an undead, there were few fields that I had studied where I would not be counted as a Master. I did not need their supplication to reinforce my power.

“All right,” I said, as we went down some stairs to a large stone room, warded to keep magic in and empty of any other items, save for the magical torches upon the walls giving out smokeless, heatless light. “This is a spellchamber. This room has been warded so that you can practice your magic in here, and anything outside will be safe if you accidentally blow yourself up. I don’t expect you will have any issues with that, until you’ve learned more, and start getting into more complex spellwork, but it is best to establish safe practices at the beginning.”

My apprentices, to their credit, stayed silent, simply nodding and waiting for me to continue their education. They wouldn’t always be like this, of course. Students never were.

Walking to the center of the chamber, I turned, and looked them in the eye. “Before we can truly begin, we must start at the beginning. Take off your CADs, and place them by the door. You will learn to shape magic directly, with your mind alone. But to do that, you must learn to find the magic inside of you. We cannot progress further until you do this.”

The two women set several CADs by the door, and came back to face me. When I kneeled in seiza, they followed my example. “Now, I want you both to close your eyes. Focus on your breathing. Inhale through the nose, hold it, and exhale through the mouth. Slow and steady. Relax your body and your mind.”

This was a basic meditation technique, of course. But it was one of the simpler ways to touch your own mana for the first time. It was different from the technical machines which measured the magicules in your body that people used in this world, something that even the least talented magic user could do.

“Now, visualize with every breath, energy flowing into you. Visualize it pooling inside you, a little at a time. This is the mana of the world around you, flowing into you, and you growing your own mana pool. This is like the channeling you thaumaturges do, but instead of spending the mana as soon as it is gathered, you collect it, pooling it.

“Your mana pool is an essential part of Magick. At the very basest level, it allows you to augment the mana you can channel with the mana you have pooled. This means you can cast stronger spells, for longer, before you need to rest. Even with low channeling ability, consistent work can make it so you are able to cast spells powerful enough to bring down armies, even if it is only once in a fight.”

I paused, looking at the two of them with my mana senses. Their studies as thaumaturges had taught them the basics of using mana, but it was hobbled by the reliance on the machine, and the lack of a mana pool. And yet, their bodies already knew what it was like to channel mana. Already, I could see the mana beginning to flow into them as they breathed. Soon, they would be able to pool their mana.

That was only the first step, of course. It took more than meditation to make a mage, after all. Once you learned to pool the mana, then you had to learn how to use it properly, both actively and passively. And, most importantly, one needed to learn how to gather mana even when they were not meditating, to reach the point where they could refill their pool simply while going about their day, or through the breaths they took while fighting for their lives, making it an instinctual part of their being.

Being able to replenish their pool at an instinctive level, to make it as natural as breathing itself, would further enhance the benefits of having a mana pool. Better yet, it would be like having a muscle constantly working, constantly getting stronger. It would be slow, of course, but, through this method, they would be able to grow their mana pools to the size of lakes, at least.

I didn’t expect them to grow to the point where they had literal oceans of mana, as I did, of course. I was a cheating existence, and I knew it. Still, even without the Hero Summoning, the limiting factors in the size of one’s mana pool was time and effort. If you put in consistent work, both passively and actively, you would grow your pool over time. That was something available to all creatures.

Well, all creatures, except those under some of the nastier curses or seals. The Magebane Curse was not actually something that would kill a mage outright. However, it interdicted the flow of mana to one’s pool, freezing it, so that you could neither grow it or use what was trapped there. For most mages, that curse was fatal the first time they got in a fight after it was laid upon them, and even if they never fought again, it would be like an Olympic athlete becoming a quadruple amputee. Such a fate would break most people.

Then there were those poor souls who had another entity sealed inside them, bound by their souls. This was typically something done to entities that were too powerful to kill, and too dangerous to leave loose. The majority of the individual’s mana pool would be used to seal the entity.

Some of those seals were even hereditary. Those types came in two flavors. One simply passed the seal to the new generation when they had a child, and the newborn child would not be able to develop their mana until they had a kid and passed on the ‘curse’. If they didn’t pass on the curse, well, the entity would be free when they died.

For the most powerful sealed entities, however, the entire bloodline was cursed, their mana sealing the entity for as long as the bloodline lasted. In the other world, there was only one being that had been subjected to such a severe seal. A former summoned hero that had gone rogue (which was part of the reason Athelia had slave collars on hand to deal with my class when we were summoned). Fortunately, the Sealing Bloodline was based in Uthdar, one of the client states of Haerth. The last of that bloodline would be dead by now. She was kept in a prison of magic just outside the capital when I performed the returning ritual. If the explosion didn’t kill her, then the feral undead kept back only by the barrier I’d put up certainly would have.

Either way, I left a copy of the Returning Ritual inside the Tomb of the Seal, just outside the Seal, along with a letter explaining what I had done. The Hand of Justice, as that Hero had been called, would get to decide whether he would just return to his world, or not. Either way, I wished him the best of luck.

Seriously, that world deserved everything I did to it.

I refocused my mind on my apprentices, to keep myself from doing anything rash. Being undead left many of my emotions muted, but rage is one that still filtered through unchecked. And when you had as much power as I did, then it was easy to accidentally lash out and level a building without even thinking about it. Control was mandatory when you had my kind of power.

The two women were still going through their exercises, but I could see the magic beginning to become more than just a mere trickle. Aeko, the young necromancer, even had the beginnings of a pool forming. It was small, barely more than a thimbleful, but it was forming all the same. And I could already see it becoming aspected towards Death magic.

Dai, on the other hand, was having a little more trouble. Not due to lack of talent, but because her mind was more regimented, and walled off, than Aeko’s had been. That made sense, considering that she had trained as a spy, but it made these initial steps more difficult for her. Still, I could see the mana trickling into her, so I knew she would get it, in time.

I nodded to myself. They were doing well, so far. I took a brief look at my watch, and saw that it was now just after noon, now. I would allow them to continue training until it was time for the evening meal, and see how far they managed to get in that time.

A twinge in the wards caught my attention. There was another vehicle approaching my home. Obviously, it couldn’t be the two apprentices I had commanded to show up today, since they were already here. That made me very curious as to who would show up at my door unannounced.

My eyes focused on my pupils, as I rose to my feet. “You are both doing well. Continue breathing, and pooling your mana. I will send servants to get you, when it is time to take a break. I expect both of you to have a stable pool by the time that happens.”

Neither one of them spoke. They just bowed their heads, their eyes still closed. I smiled, as I walked out of the spellchamber. They would be most attentive students, indeed.

As the door closed behind me, I let that happy thought fade, and turned my focus outward. The driver of the car was leisurely in his pace. Whether that was due to the fact that he was trying to appear relaxed, or because he noticed the undead on the walls taking note of him, I could not say. Still, I respected his composure, at the least.

I watched as the car drove up, and stopped twenty meters from my gate. The driver turned off the car. Immediately, I was surprised to see that Kinjo-dono, the head priest who had led the purification ritual for me after I had returned, was the one driving. And he had a passenger!

Both were dressed in traditional clothes, rather than modern wear, but they were not the ceremonial robes of the shrine, so this wasn’t something ‘official’. Which made me even more interested in Kinjo’s passenger, who looked to be in his early twenties. The most interesting thing about him was that he was carrying a katana, which he slid into his sash in the traditional manner.

Had this old priest really brought a young would-be samurai to my door?

I had to smirk at that thought, and decided that I would engage in a bit of pageantry to meet this young man, since clearly Kinjo thought him worth my time enough to bring him all the way out here. With a thought, I opened my dimensional pocked, and pulled out the wakizashi I had used against the oni, and slid it into my obi. If this newcomer wished to carry a sword to my gates, I would at least do him the courtesy of meeting him with a sword of my own.

That done, I summoned my personal steed, a skeletal Pegasus, whose wings surrounded themselves in necrotic energies, allowing it to fly as it did in life. This was Shinotsubasa, Death’s Wings, and it was armored accordingly with plate mail made from corrupted mithril. With practiced ease from long campaigns, I swung myself up onto his back, riding side-saddle, as I did when not in armor.

The sound of enchanted horseshoes striking the stone roadway resounded in the midday stillness, as I rode to the gate. When it opened, I smiled at the old priest. Always best to speak to the elder guest first, even if they were uninvited.

“Well, Kinjo-dono, what brings you to my humble home this day?”