Chapter 9

It was already a year ago since the advent of magic, a lot has happened. First, we have the area around the temple were now stands a huge metropole but the place is only getting creepier as 99% of the buildings are empty. The city was constructed for 50 million but is inhabited by just 500,000 people. However, the ruler of this young city, called the capital, were not distraught. No, they were planning far ahead. They want to build a city of research and development and for this they already build multiple universities but those were all closed as they were still looking for promising researchers to teach the students and further reach for new achievements in the science of magic.

While all over the world the mood was crazy. In one week, nobody thinks about it as just nothing changed. In the other week first reports and speculations of leeks from the capital or the UN R&D department came and every media turned upside down. At the end of the week everything was debunked as a lie. On the web people started gathering with conspiracy theories if the world was already taken over by some mad prodigy of magic.

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While if you truly looked at the capital you could see the government themselves being very nervous as they were thinking about doing some shady businesses with someone from the UN research team.

The same happened all around the globe. This just shows that the oh so tight security of the Complex in the Caribbean wasn't that tight. Close to all researchers had discovered some secrets about magic and with these they wanted to trade for their and their family's future and safety.

Alexander was no exception. Over the last halve year he was able to communicate with the animals and was able to overcome the shyness of the reptile. In the end it was just a young and it felt insecure nothing more. While having friendly conversations with the reptile he wasn't all that friendly with the others. He tried to find out how things may change if he inflicts Change onto the physical body of animals and the soul body. He experimented and at the same time trained himself in the art of the soul. While doing his experiments he requested repeatedly new animals who were infused with mana by Grimaldi. These animals proofed to have stronger resistances on the soul level while their physical body didn't change much.

At the end of another half year of research he came to some frightening conclusions.

During communications and experiments with the soul he found out that the avatar of the soul does not adapt with the physical form. While a change in the avatar is followed by a change in the physical body.

He also found out that as Grimaldi told him that he is for now something unique as his talent of being able to work with souls is something that needs abnormal amounts of mana. His soul somehow compensates it with burning his essence. He noticed it by feeling the weakening of his soul's aura after a year. Through observation and calculation, he found out that he has a bit more than 5 years to live if he wants to further his research on the level of souls with the same tempo he is doing now.

His latest discovery was that he found out he can partially absorb the stress of energy from the soul he is interacting with. With this he could put his life expectancy up to 7 years.

7 years and no more. He was determined to carry on with this self-sacrifice because he found out at the same time that when you absorb another's being's soul you get to keep some perks from that being. Be it a better sense of smell from a dog or a little thicker then normal skin because of lizards.

However, the more he tries to absorb a soul of another creature the more their passive defense goes up and it costs more energy. For this reason, he couldn't test what happens if he completely absorbs a soul. Another problem was no matter how much he absorbed it didn't fill up his soul's essence. While his essence was used up, he couldn't research it.

For a special-order Grimaldi infused a few long living animals which mostly consisted of different turtle species, over already 3/4 a year. Within the Genus Aldabra giant tortoises, which is the species that has the oldest recorded living members, a mutation happened. A few of the younger and middle-aged tortoises had a growth spurt that they looked like their old representatives.

While he tried to absorb one of the tortoises, he noticed how his essence that felt like a hot point in his stomach area normally during procedures, cooled down a bit. Because one of the tortoises had developed a better conciseness, he gained one more partner he could talk to except the reptile.

When he came home, he always found his daughter being happy, which gave him further energy to research. Because after 1.5 years he noticed that every form of live has his live shortened if it comes into contact with densities of mana its under developed body and soul cant handle. Some mutate like him and gain special abilities some not. However, in the end everybody gets their soul damaged. This follows into a shortened life expectancy. On the other hand, if the soul is brought to higher magic density slowly enough the general trend is the growth of life expectancy. How slow it has to be is decided by the vitality of the soul.

He found out that what cooled his essence was a tiny amount of vitality he absorbed from a tortoise.

He was determined he had to find a way to connect the souls of his daughter with one of the tortoises in a way that it was symbiotic. The tortoise should give his daughter some of its high vitality trait, which was even furthermore strengthened because of the mutation and his daughter who would give the tortoise a better development in its aspect of soul and better control over its own soul.

Alexander was also able to determine that the control over one's own soul his what enables a human to control mana, while his gift was that he already has a feeling for the control and that he could use mana directly within the fifth dimension.

To realize his plan hen needed help and because he already knew he was going to die early he brought his good friend into the boat. His college and friend, Lothar, researched how he can change the human body with magic. Here alexanders results were of great help. He also started giving some of his knowledge to Grimaldi, who he made a little paranoid over the possible negative side effects to guarantee his help.

He had a deal with him that Grimaldi would look after Lothar's family, who again would look after Julia.