2 The book with the name of fate (2)

He already left the city since two days and increased his pace heading for the next dot on the red line , a place to the north of the city named the abbey of the dead , and as its name implies it belonged to the holy church and it had no living beings there

To reach the abbey , He arrived at a huge mountain called the guardian after another three days , with a silver peak and green steep sides , he travelled around its right side for three hours

Until he saw the intended destination , a green low hill behind the mountain with a sea behind it and another two mountains on both of its side hiding the hill from unwanted wandering guests and giving a solemn feeling to the temporary visitors

an ancient simple building was on the hill's peak , by simple it meant that this building wasn't a church , other than that it wasn't simple at all

It had sides that completed a full circle with tons of a unique kind of engravings on the circular wall , circling around it , arthur didn't find any kind of door or entrance

Nine graves surrounded this building with a silver cross on each , except the one by the sea it had a red cross

The headstones contained no names , instead a sentence on each headstone

"" your life protected a chaotic world from evil , your death shall seal evil away from a peaceful one ""

He picked a hammer from the pouch rita left for him and started making a door for himself , it took him four hours until he made a convenient hole , he lied on the ground for a while until he could breath normally

the wall wasn't that thick to take four hours , but he wasn't that strong , he took alot of breaks and nearly finished his water to make the hole

It was near sunset already , so he had to get in before the light of the day disappear

He took the pouch with him , and as he entered the building , the astonishing thing in the building was that there was nothing astonishing at all , there wasn't any type of walls , furniture or rooms enclosed by the circular wall , there was a roof above his head keeping the lights of the sun away

And in this empty space inside this circular wall , soil was there , few scattered bones , darkness and suffocating air as the fresh breathable one was kept outside for years

He walked until he reached the middle of the space and sat then he opened the pouch and picked a bunch of red herbs from inside and looked at it as if looking at the grim reaper himself

The next sentences of the book of fate resonated in his mind again

"" the first place you should visit to raise your power is called the abbey of the dead , it was a tomb built since hundred of years to keep the evil aura of several ancient necromancers as the holy church claims , you should make a hole in the wall by a hammer then enter the ancient necromancers' tomb

Here is a glimpse of truth little Arthur , necromancer are not natural evil and impure souls as the holy church says , you definitely are not evil my little boy , so don't worry about your soul being impured or polluted while sitting in the middle of this tomb

I already told you before that your power is meant to borrow the mana of the dead , and that is true , but your circumstance is very weird , to be able to borrow and store the power of the dead , you should have an inner realm my boy

And to have an inner realm , you should be at least at ' lord ' the third power level , but you still at the first level and from I observed through the last three years

your meridian can't cultivate because it somehow grew dependant on your unique power * absorption * to replenish itself

So in order to open an inner realm, you should eat this herb arthur , it is called * dry painful death * , yes it is a poison little arthur , a very stronger one indeed , I heard it can kill anyone with power level below sages

There is no antidote and no one can survive it , but you can arthur

The poison in this plant works by opening the inner realm in people below the level of lord and widening it in the people above it

You might think that this is a nice gift for anyone who need to increase his power , but it is not , it is a fu*ckin' catastrophe , a real death level one , when an inner realm open suddenly in people , it act like a damned cyclone , it suck the mana from theb meridian and the power of life from the body to fill itself leaving nothing for the body to live with , Also , The process is very painful as it pull the power of life from the root

And the same thing is applied to widening the inner realm of someone as this devilish herb widens the realm twice its size

My point is after you eat the herb and open your inner realm forcefully , specifically when the great pain starts , you have to bear it and absorb the dark mana around you with all of your mightiness as if your life depends on it , because it really does , this way you can fill your realm to avoid death and increase your power in the same time , and believe me when I say it , it is the only way to be stronger little Arthur , .... ""

His hands were trembling as he was holding the red herbs , his lips were twitching , he was not a coward, but who would not be facing death and pain

He waited for a while until he could regain his composure then he threw half the bunch in his mouth , then reluctantly chewed it and forcefully gulped it

he sat waiting for the pain for full twenty minutes that sounded like a full solid year

the pain didn't appear first , instead a feeling of getting very thirsty in one minute as if he didn't drink any water for several days , he guessed this is the reason why it is called *dry*

Then another feeling also appeared different from pain and thirst , he felt being drained like a glass of water as he was being sucked dry by ton of mosquitoes , the mana in his body was fading , and when this happened weaknesses flooded his body and confusion attacked his mind fiercely

His Confusion continued for five minutes , his ears buzzed , his eyes blurred and he was about to get unconscious

Suddenly pain attacked his body like the ominous roar of the drums of war , and the real suffering began pulling him to a painful burning flame of hell instead of the merciful shade of confusion

He felt as his flesh was being stripped away of his bones , not to the outside but to the inside to the verge of crushing his inner organs , he felt life being sucked to the inside slowly , like his soul was ignited and started burning his senses and organs

After a full five minutes of suffering , he finally controlled his aching senses and started absorbing

absorbing because his life depended on it , suddenly a dark gloomy atmosphere dominated the tomb

Several small Ethernet dark bluish spheres rose from the ground of the tomb against the gravity and continued to rise until they surpassed the level of his head then ceased rising

They increased in number quickly until they were thirty in number implying the number of the dead necromancers in this tomb

then flows of dark mana began to fly in the air from the gloomy spheres , they rushed towards Arthur's body

Arthur felt terrified for a moment as these cold currents of mana penetrated his body , it added a sensation of freezing on top of the pain

But as these cold current travelled through his meridian , the pain and the freezing sensation vanished both and were replaced by a cool refreshing feeling

Arthur who didn't cry from pain and bore it , teared because the pain vanished finally

The refreshing feeling was great and it continued for twenty minutes it made Arthur feeling invincible

but the gloomy spheres reduced in size and the dark current thinned , the thin current wasn't enough to satisfy the appetite of the inner realm and it started pulling the power of his life so pain struck him again

When Arthur experienced the damned pain again , he used his power to the maximum overstraining his body to absorb more mana

Tiredness flooded his body after ten minutes with no sign of relieving the agonizing pain and he was about to collapse , he was about to surrender to his tiredness and pain

But as his suffering continued in the inside , something magical happened outside the building , the nine graves outside the tomb shone as if there were fragment of the shiny moon that fell and settled around the building

Then a golden white sphere rose from each grave , eight of them were the same size of the gloomy ones inside , except the last golden sphere which was twice the size of any of the other spheres , rose slowly unlike the others from the grave with the red cross by the sea

Flows of golden mana travelled penetrating the wall heading towards Arthur's body

If a priest saw this he would pray and kowtow and wish that the saint mana of his honorable ancestors would successfully exterminate the ancient evil that tried to reveal its fangs to the world

The currents of the dark and the golden mana mixed in the air as they approached Arthur's body more , the gloomy power and the saint power didn't exterminate each other

Instead they travelled around each other as the day and night on earth

When both finally penetrated his body , the pain stopped again and another type of feeling accompanied the cool refreshing one , it was a warm blooming one , both the feelings finally ceased after an hour when all the spheres were consumed and mild bearable pain was the only remaining feeling

He didn't mind the mild pain and slept on the spot in the middle of the tomb

He woke up in the morning of the next day , mild pain and slight headache accompanied him during the rich breakfast , he was so hungry and so thirsty that he consumed all the food and water he carried for the long journey

He rode the horse fast wishing he would reach the nearest kingdom on the map in less than a day to buy supplies for the expected long journey and rest for the night on a comfy bed

He reached the city named *elesia* at night , he paid a brass coin at the gate asked the guards for the cheapest taverns here then he thanked them and left

He headed to the west of the city where the cheapest taverns were , it was the poor side of this city as the other one he settled before with rita , with less carbage and no extremely poor people like the previous city , here the people wore cleaner and tidier clothes , the air was healthier and the houses weren't wrecked or on the verge of collapsing

The tavern itself was more luxurious than the one before despite sharing the same prices , he asked for a spare room to sleep in and when he got the key , he ordered meat broth and a black bread and sat on one of the table and started eating

Three men with swords tied to thier backs entered the tavern laughing and sat on a nearby table , asked for beer and started chattering

The oldest burly one with white beard spoke proudly " so that what means to have a sage emperor , we can work as a mercenaries in the surrounding empires , while our empire is safe , no internal wars , no external wars , no shit of any kind "

The youngest one shouted " hail empror Darius , hail Toronto empire "

The other people in the tavern repeated his shouting , laughed and offered toasts to each other

The third and the tallest of them " where should we head next , Ashfield empire or Atlanta empire , I heard that both of them became squares of wars "

" I only heard about ' Ashfield ' empire , they are fighting a little rising empire to the north called ' crystalsword ' , they already won two successful wars and raised their flags on five kingdoms , so what about Atlanta empire " the youngest one replied , that was the same question that resonated in the listener Arthur's mind

The oldest said " there is no any actual internal war in Atlanta empire but I heard that all the subsidiary kingdoms are increasing their military capacity , since several middle grade kingdoms started a full war against only two adjacent kingdoms , one low grade kingdom called ' Hampton ' and one middle grade kingdom called ' the furious bear ' "

The thin added " they say that the war was only directed against ' the furious bear ' and they attacked Hampton out of fun " in that moment Arthur was stunned , he finally realized what rita said about his revenge , he was angry , terrified and shocked , he didn't believe that his peaceful little kingdom suddenly experienced a war , alot of questions resonated in his head ' what happened to my older sister '

' what happened to my father '

' what happened to my kingdom '

' what did rita mean when she said that I have a revenge to seek '

'what about our army , what about the people '

' what did rita mean when she said the rest of the kingdom '

Arthur suddenly stood and was about to leave heading to his kingdom , but he sat after remembering Rita's sentences ""you have to get stronger Arthur , or you won't be able to survive , you won't be able to make the rest of you kingdom survive ,... ""

Instead he listened carefully to the three men , he might know something about his kingdom's situation

"Hahaha , Atlanta's emperor is weak after all " the young one laughed

The old man said sternly " I wouldn't underestimate that old fox Constantine like you do , his empire atlanta is only middle grade empire, yet all the nonhuman races respect him , I heard that even the haughty elves sent envoy to congratulate him on his first born prince's marriage , despite he is only an empror level warrior , I dare to say that our genius emperor is inferior to him , our emperor is only twenty-five years old after all "

The thin man nodded " I can't agree more , Constantine is indeed an old fox "

They completed their chatter about Ashfield empire , Arthur stood and went to his room broken , shambling like a crippled old man , if someone nudged him , he might fall to the ground , he had to sleep and rest to prepare for the next part of his journey to become stronger

The next three days , Arthur overstrained his horse on the road during the day , and overstrained himself during the night , he only slept two or three hours and spent the whole night cultivating as rita advised

"" I'm sure the tomb will have at least ten corpse of necromancers , if you survived the devilish herb , and absorbed their mana inside your newly found inner realm

You should cultivate to create a deep connection between your meridian and inner realm , or you won't be able to control the power you gained in the proper time and accomplish the last step of your journey

The normal time to make a connection is one hour , but Since you can't cultivate properly , you will take alot of time than usual

To make a fast connection between the two , you can use the dangerous way or the easy way , for you the easy way will requires four weeks and you don't have that time , and the dangerous way won't affect your body and faster and easier , but if someone caught or sensed you .. you would be burnt , the scroll in the pouch is a way to cultivate the pure gloomy mana during the night

And during the day you can also absorb the unrefined one to fasten the process and this is the easy way

When you finally make the connection, start acknowledging your inner realm and circulate its mana in your dark mana through your meridian ,... ""

Because of that , Arthur overstrained his horse during the day as he won't be able to travel during the night

And the part of the day when his horse had to rest , he spent cultivating also

After another two days of hard work , he finally gained the fruit of his cultivating , he didn't how when but he suddenly felt that his cultivation's speed increased , he realized what rita meant when she said that his meridian grow dependant on * absorption *

When the connection stabilized , he could feel every path of energy in his meridian , when he cultivated , his energy paths didn't keep the mana , instead most of the mana radiated then perished

he could finally feel his inner realm , his newly constructed inner realm was the cause that his cultivating speed increased as it started absorbing the cultivated man

His inner realm was spherical , it had an inner core consisted of cold gloomy mana , the core sends several dark pillars which connect the core to the outer wall of the sphere

Outer the core and around the pillars there was another type of mana , warm and blooming one

The warm mana surprised him alot , rita never mention that type , beside the warm type of mana looked as the antagonist of the dark mana , but they actually coexisted with each other in his inner realm

Arthur remembered that the warm mana was the one that helped him during his pain , he thought then that the warmth was a result of increasing the rate of absorption , but it seems like another type of mana he absorbed , he wasn't sure where it came from , he had guesses and they all seemed possible

He decided to rest for the night and start the next step of his training tomorrow night

"" another glimpse of truth little Arthur , necromancer aren't angels that fell from the sky , and that's why the holy church can make people hate us , we can kill a warrior without causing any visible external or internal damage , some of us can summon creatures named *dulahans * , one of them can exterminate an entire army without getting harmed , you yourself can absorb and borrow the power of the dead , and all of these techniques are not normal and not acceptable for normal people

But the most important thing about us necromancers that our dark mana can raise the dead

Since you can't cultivate , yes you still can't cultivate despite having a newly constructed inner realm after all that pain , because once it gets filled you will need to face the devilish herb again , bahahaha

I couldn't keep myself from laughing the whole day after I wrote that part and I told you then I had a bug tickling my foot , bahahahaha hahahahaha ,... ""

Arthur was about to to tear the book apart , but he constrained himself and smiled knowing that there was another side of his master's personality

"" so since you can't cultivate and get stronger without absorbing , you need very powerful warriors under your comand

There are two ways to do that , the first is to increase the power of soldiers under your command in your kingdom , you should trust theses people first , but you should figure it yourself as a prince of your kingdom because I don't know any ways

The second way is to use the dark mana you absorbed before to raise dead warriors , you will be the only commander and the only master for these warriors and you don't need them to trust you

You have another three scrolls in the pouch , not for cultivating like the first one that aim to increase the mana capacity , but original technique scrolls that aim to make benefit of the mana , unlike other type of warriors who can create hundreds and thousands technique scrolls from the same element type like air or fire type mana , we necromancers only have ten techniques or less , that's why they are called original techniques

Despite the low numbers of techniques , they are scary and strong enough to make other types of warriors begrudge and hate us

Those original technique scrolls will be the start of the easy things in your journey as you already the essence of dead necromancers

I heard that if a necromancer acquired absorption and sucked someone essence , he would be able to learn the technique they used only by training for one night

And that's fantastic little arthur , I already learned one technique scroll and it took me three years to do it and for the two remaining , I didn't have the natural ability to cultivate them

Because those three techniques , need a different natural ability to cultivate each one of them , even a necromancer sage would be able to cultivate only one technique

But you absorbed the essences of at least ten necromancers and that means , I hope , you acquired the three natural abilities to cultivate them ""

The sentences Arthur read , gave him joy especially the word "" easy "" , as he continued travelling , he started cultivating the technique scrolls , as rita mentioned , they were so easy to learn , the first scroll took one night , even the second and third one took only one night

After another two days of travelling and hunting rabbits and foxes , he finally arrived at his destination , a wide white desert called * the city of silence *

He had to travel for about half a day across the desert with no trees , water or grass around to provide rest for the horse or him

he had to share his potatoes with his horse

Then when he arrived at a place in the desert where alot of rocks of different sizes and shapes were scattered around a rocky hill

This place was called * the shattered mountain " on the map , Arthur heared about it before as alot of warriors came here to settle their fights or grudges as this place was the square of a great ancient war , so warriors come here to benefit from the residual scattered mana of the ancient war

" you have to hunt alot of rabbits and foxes

When you reach the shattered mountain , you will finally realize the goal of this journey , you will raise dead warriors

I guess you already noticed that the black scroll is enough to raise the dead and the other two scrolls aren't necessary , but to raise a dead warrior that people won't be able to differentiate from a living one , and so that you won't end brunt on a pillar in the middle of your kingdom's square with the rest of your family

You need to use the other two scrolls to do this

Normally using the three techniques to make one dead undetected warrior need three factors ; the first , alot of luck and one miracle , the second , three sage leveled necromancers with three different natural abilities , the third , several years

But with little arthur who absorbed several necromancers essences and abilities , there is no need for the three factors , only you are needed

Don't start with the technique named * rise *

start with the technique named *condense * in the red scroll

Secondly the technique named *obey* in the black scroll

Then the technique named * rise * in the black scroll also

Then the technique named * devour * in the white scroll

Lastly the technique named * bloom * in the white scroll ""

Arthur was very nervous then , he was afraid that he won't meet his master's expectations , afraid that he won't be able to gain the power to protect his kingdom, he felt pessimistic for a while

Then when he finally regained his composure he started activating the techniques

He kneeled and put his right palm on the ground and said " condense " , a current of dark mana rolled around his arms and descended penetrating the ground forming several branches that spread around beneath the ground

After a while , the ground shone like a rainbow and several spheres rose from the ground , deferent in colours , sizes , density and transparency

Arthur stood and looked around to the spheres that continued to rise , they were about forty spheres

Arthur closed his eyes and sensed them , he chose the most densest and the largest spheres and they were nine spheres out of the forty

Arthur pulled them towards him and opened his eyes , he chose four of them , the first was a white mana sphere that was the densest and the largest of the all nine spheres , it had a noble presence and cold feeling like his cold mana

The second was a red mana sphere , it had a furious presence and a warm feeling like fire

The third was an azure sphere , it had a calm presence and cool feeling , it was the second rank in both size and density after the white sphere

The forth was a yellow sphere , it had a furious presence like the red one and a stinging feeling

Arthur opened his palm and said " obey" , four dark currents circled around his arms then condensed into four extremely little dark spheres they floated in the air , pierced the four spheres Arthur chose and settled inside of them

The four spheres trembled for a bit then settled again

Arthur smiled and said " rise "

The four spheres rushed each to different direction except the red one and the yellow one , they both rushed in the same direction

As the four spheres penetrated the ground , the white sand vibrated around

Bony arms pierced the sand then full four bony skeletons climbed out of the ground from where the four spheres penetrated the ground

The skeleton rose from where the azure sphere penetrated the ground , was simply huge with broad shoulders , he wore a full silver armor that had alot of dents , holes and chips

The two skeletons , the red and yellow spheres , was both tall but less taller than the huge Skeleton , one wore a black armor that experienced melting in several sites , the other skeleton wore a red armor with a huge hole in the middle of the chest

The last skeleton was small and beautiful compared to the other three skeleton , it had the same tallness as arthur and wore a light blue armor with no external damage , the skeleton had a bulge in the site of the chest and thin around the waist

Few dark blue roses were painted on the body of the armor , revealing that the skeleton was a woman

The four kneeled with squeaking sounds infort of arthur , Arthur smiled again

He walked to his horse and brought the foxes and rabbits he hunted and threw them infront of them

Arthur's whole eyes turned to black even the whiteness of his eyes while using the next technique , he said " devour "

Every time one of the four skeletons touched a rabbit or a fox , the animal corpse's flesh decayed and muscles , organs and skin appeared on the skeletons' bodies

all the corpses decayed , yet their bodies' parts wasn't complete , there was no skin on their faces as the muscles clearly appeared beneath , no eyes , no ears and most of the limbs didn't have flesh

Arthur was about to throw up but something unexpected happened , the four skeletons rushed towards the horse in the same time and touched the horse in the same time

The horse snickered as his flesh decayed , Arthur wanted to stop them , but it was too late , the horse already lost half of its body so he did not stop them

The horse became a full skeleton then the four warriors rushed towards Arthur and kneeled infront of him again

The four said in the same time " Master "

The huge warrior with the silver armor had a short black hair and light brown eyes , short green beard , long nose , his muscles were bulging under his armor and despite his huge body , he was quite hansome

The warrior in the red armor had a red long hair and wide black eyes , he was also quite handsome and had a strong body

The warrior in black armor was very handsome with green eyes and tall black hair , his body was thin but his muscles were tense

The female warrior had a white natural hair and blue eyes , very beautiful face that made Arthur blushed , her skin was snow white and her hands were very delicate and beautiful , simply she was so beautiful that even women themselves would blush infront of her and not only men

Arthur spent a moment blushing because of the female warrior who called him master then his eyes became black again and said " bloom "

Thin like threads currents of golden mana began to form and travel in the air from Arthur's body and entered their bodies , also thinner currents of golden mana also was created from nothing in the middle of the air and entered their bodies

After a few minutes , the currents stopped and arthur felt tired

He sat on the ground and the four of them sat also , he realized that both the techniques * devour* and * bloom * couldn't be used anymore then he wouldn't be able to make more warriors

He looked with sorrow at the horse's skeleton then realized that he need to find another way to reach his kingdom

Arthur thought for a while then asked "can any one of you somehow fly "

Arthur was astonished when the huge warrior raised his hand

"I can also fly , master " the red haired warrior raised his hand

"I can fly faster , my master " the handsome

The red haired warrior frowned and said " do you want to compete , bastard " , the handsome snorted

Arthur parted his lips figuring something then asked " did you guys kill each other "

"I killed him master " the red haired said

The handsome sneered at him " and you was sleeping your nap and forgot to wake up all these years , right " then looked at Arthur "we were rivals , and we killed each other, master "

Arthur nodded , but he was surprised that the grudge between them continued even after being undead warriors who had no emotions

"I'm prince Arthur from Hampton , what are your names "

" peter , master " The red haired said

"Bast , your majesty " the handsome said

"Victoria , master " the white haired female said while blushing and lowering her head

'What , did she blushed , was she shy , and the other two expressed hate , are not they undead warriors who have no emotions ' Arthur thought

"Roland , master " the huge warrior said quietly

He thought for a moment then circulated the golden white energy from his realm to his meridian experiencing the warm blooming feeling again

The female warrior and the huge warrior both frowned while the other two were a little surprised ' expressing emotions again ! , what is the matter , why did they frowned '

"Do you know guys what is this mana " Arthur asked

"Yes master , it is the mana of the golden knights in the holy church , it is called the golden saint mana " peter the red haired said

Arthur nodded and realized the reason of their frowning ' the saint mana and the gloomy mana are rivals and their practitioners are enemies , they perhaps thought that I was not their master '

He looked around at the rest of the floating spheres , then he absorbed them , the spheres entered his body infront of the four warriors without dissociating into currents like before , so the absorption process only required one minute

Relief appeared on Victoria and roland while additional surprise appeared on the other two

Arthur nodded and stood then brought the pouch , there were several grey hoods , he gave one to each warrior to cover their broken shields and to bring attention and said " roland will carry Victoria and me , you guys follow us , we have to reach my kingdom fast , but we should avoid flying above cities "

"Hahaha , let's compete " peter laughed

"Alright , loser " bast sneered

Roland the huge warrior shook his head then he blew the air with the back of his hand as currents of air surrounded each one of the five of them , circulated visibly around their bodies , with faint blue colour mana as the core of each current , they circuled around their waists, chests , hands , knees , and the pouch , Arthur didn't see that coming

"The map? , master " roland asked , arthur gave it to him after showing him what direction should they go and where they need to stop

The huge man nodded , the five of them floated in the air , with peter frowning , then they dashed through the air aiming for Hampton