Chapter 156

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A golem is a magical doll. There is no other definition I can think of. It is created with the help of transfiguration. Although the textbooks say that you can't create a magic object by the transfiguration, no one prevents you from creating an object with rune outlines etched inside or outside in advance - that's how the restriction is circumvented. During the creation of a golem, when setting its program of actions, mechanics of movements, and other subtleties, the wizard's own knowledge and understanding of such concepts as mechanics and the like has a significant impact on the result. A master of transfiguration can create quite interesting golems: from animals to all sorts of knights. A master of transfiguration and chimerology – can create incredible monsters, effective and logical in their structure and manner of action. A master of transfiguration, chimerology and healing can create monstrous death machines that can move efficiently and kill extremely effectively, with little vulnerability to the golems themselves. It's all about knowledge.

Need I mention that Delphine is a bloody death machine in terms of magical skills and knowledge? If, at first, there were occasional thoughts in my head about what a gorgeous woman she was, after a couple of days, there was no trace of those thoughts - I just didn't care about it. I was being chased through the woods almost to death by such monstrous golems that only Fiendfyre could take them, and even then, I wasn't sure that they will die. Every single day, from morning to night, I went through one circle of hell after another. With a break for lunch, of course. Besides golems, Delphine can arrange a trap at any moment, in which I can easily lose limbs, get a lot of injuries, experience hellish pain, and so on and so forth. Anyway, the daily routine is as follows.

Waking up. Surviving in the woods against an ever-growing number of golems. At the same time, their abilities improve, along with a decreasing range of vulnerabilities. As a result, no matter how much I improve in spells and counter-tactics at the reflex level, I'm consistently almost dead by lunchtime. Literally.

Before lunch, Delphine throws me into a bath of various potions and herbs, and half an hour later, I'm whole, peppy, and hungry again. After lunch, two hours of theory on various disciplines. Very concise, quickly, at the limit of perception. Transfiguration, Vitamisterium, Human Anatomy, and everybody else you can meet, the basics of Chimerology, the basics of Dark Magic, based on negative emotions and causing harm, torment, and death to an opponent.

After theory - practice until death. Practice is not about practicing spells, no. Delphine is trying to kill me, and I'm trying to avoid it by applying existing or learned knowledge. The motivator for success is extremely simple - in case of failure, I got pain, injury, mutilation. Pride and self-respect scattered in the ashes to the wind. The first few days, I ended up in the recovery bath too quickly, in just half an hour. By the end of the month, I wasn't there at all, just a couple of restorative potions.

After the "Live or Die" training, there was dinner, and after it - "Live or Die 2: Dark Forest". Now I was being chased by Delphine in addition to the golems. She moved through the forest like a shadow, and any spell could come at me at any moment — even Avada. Also, no one will let me die - Soul Catcher, reanimation of the body, re-entry, and forward! To the barricades! Bloody necromancer! She knows that I know that she uses necromancy. She also knows that I myself used it along with other disciplines to cure lycanthropy - you can't hide scars, and Delphine is not only a mentor but also a doctor, no matter how you look at it. Anyway, she laughed for a long time at my story and said it was the most ingenious and insane act. According to her speculation, my method of disintegrating my body not only did not get rid of lycanthropy but fixed it in my soul. However, the very essence of the wolf, along with the mental settings and the semblance of schizophrenia, disintegrated. She promised me that if I could endure this month and she would take me as an apprentice, she would deal with my werewolf form and how to accept it at all because this mechanism was literally inscribed in my soul and body. But in general, she praised such a solution to the problem. Because the problem itself disappeared - the loss of control and transformation by a trigger. Yes, and I am not contagious - checked by some special diagnostics.

Sleep doesn't mean "rest." Anything can happen at any moment of the night - any kind of trap can be triggered, from the likeness of the Cruciatus to various blades or fire. I got burnt once, reeking of smoked flesh all over the house. Sometimes Delphine herself would burst into the room and start casting all kinds of spells on me.

Only on weekends, when Delphine was out of the house on her own business, could I sleep in peace. But that didn't make the day's training any softer because my task was to survive and defeat the golems in the woods.

On the thirtieth of July, the last day of training, Delphine almost finally rolled me into the ground. As if nothing special happened, and in general, I now can hardly be surprised, but by the evening, I was thoroughly ground into mincemeat by the joint efforts of Delphine and her golems. I was ground up and sent to sleep.