Using Demonic Magic to Refine a Skeleton

"Bryan, at first I didn't believe them when they said you were crazy, but now, I'm beginning to think so." Jack twisted his thick neck, shook his head, and sighed at Bryan's enthusiastic expression as he declared his desire to possess Fanny.

"You wait and see... Huh? But what do we have here?! Aren't these the snacks that Bach was using to woo Lisa? Ha ha, what a stroke of luck! I've never tasted the delicacies that nobles always put in their mouths!"

In his haste to leave, Bach had forgotten his box of snacks. Bryan spotted them immediately and quickly grabbed them as if it was the most natural thing in the world, then started eating the contents without even a second thought.

After taking a couple of bites, he was surprised for a moment by the exquisite taste, so different from what he had tasted so far.

"Mmmm! These are delicious! In the end, this fight was worth it. Here, Jack, you gave me half a loaf of bread before, and now I'm giving you back a whole box of delicious snacks. You can't tell me I'm not generous when I pay interest!"

"But...aren't they by Bach?"

"War booty, my dear friend! I punched that jerk in the face and he left them behind, so now they're mine!"

"..."

Although he was unwilling to admit it, Bryan was also very concerned about his behavior. He was already fully aware that as he progressed in developing the magical powers he learned from Chu Can Lan, his personality was becoming bolder and also his hunger was increasing. With each passing day, he was more prone to try things he would not have dared to do before, and his ambitions were also growing. The problem was that he was afraid he would forever remain a slave or meet a miserable fate if he did not become stronger.

"Hey, you two assholes! You guys should be cleaning the labs right now, but you haven't even finished cleaning this corridor! If you want trouble, you're going to find it!"

While Bryan and Jack were talking about the wonderful taste of the exquisite sandwiches, two slightly older servant errand boys approached them from behind. They were holding mops in their hands, but immediately released them to start harassing the two friends in a rather overbearing manner.

The newcomers were in their early twenties and over 170 cm tall. Their names were Borg and Carey, both of whom were accustomed to using force to abuse the rest of the slaves, especially Bryan and Jack. They would even go so far as to foist some of their own tasks on them without any scruples. An example of this was cleaning the laboratories.

"We're not going!" Bryan pretended not to pay attention to them, but deep down he had decided it was time to get out of that annoying situation. He was feeling physically stronger and having held his own in his recent fight against Bach was boosting his confidence. So he encouraged himself by telling himself that, since he had already eaten his fill, a second fight would help with digestion and he hoped those two idiots would want to give it to him.

"Ahh?! Did you say you're not going? So it's true that you've lost your mind, Bryan. Do you need me to beat some sense into you?" Borg clenched his right hand and let out a cold laugh as he looked at him.

"Ah, my head hurts!" Bryan's body trembled as he crouched on the floor and put his hands to his temples. Jack had been about to head to the labs to start cleaning up, but stopped when he saw that Bryan was going to use the same trick again and gazed at his friend expectantly.

"I don't care if you're crazy or if you're just faking it, I'm going to beat you until you obey!" Carey was the least talkative of the two bullies, but he had the worst temper. He took three big steps forward and threw Bryan a terrible kick.

At that moment Bryan let out a scream as he stood up and moved to the side quickly and immediately afterward doubled over to meet Carey's right foot with his chest. The pain of the impact caused him to scream out in pain, but also gave him the opportunity to grab Carey's foot with his hands to throw it forcefully to the side. Carey let out a scream as he lost his balance and slipped. His lips tried to let out a howl that didn't quite make it as his body slammed against the stone wall and he ran out of air.

Borg smirked at the misfortune of Carey who, after struggling to get up for a while, rushed back to Bryan with the intention of beating him up. He was sure that the slave was now going to get pounded, but to his surprise the two ended up shoving each other again and both ended up on the floor. If Borg had been a little more alert he might have noticed that, although Bryan had also been hit, Carey was the most injured of the two.

"Arrrrg! Bryan, you piece of shit! You dare to fight me! Borg, let's both go together! Today we have to teach him a lesson!" Carey got up for the second time in some pain, as he ran over to Bryan again and called for Borg to join the fight.

Bryan continued the act of grabbing his head and screaming in pain as he thought, 'I wasn't afraid to hit Bach, much less hit these two idiots.' He then began flailing his arms and legs wildly. And although he took a few hits, Carey and Borg weren't much better off.

Bryan was already used to being hit and all the damage he received was repaired very quickly each time the Magic Essence coursed through his body. The Solid Realm training was working in such a way that the mage was getting stronger as he recovered from more injuries. Right now he had no problem withstanding Carey and Borg's punches. On the other hand, the faces of the bullies were beginning to swell in places. Also, although none of the three really knew how to fight, Bryan's enhanced physical strength meant that they were taking the brunt of it.

The three errand servants were fighting fiercely and savagely in the middle of the stone corridor, which fortunately was thick enough not to let sounds travel very far or else some foreman might have discovered them.

As the scuffle progressed, Carey's and Borg's bodies began to ache more and their strength slowly diminished, while Bryan was only in a little pain. Actually, he felt very much at ease. It was as if his energy was inexhaustible and he even started to fight more relaxed. In the end, it was Bryan who went after Carey and Borg giving them a barrage of blows while they ran away with their tails between their legs.

"Haha! What a good fight! Dude Jack, we're not doing Carey and Borg's chores anymore. And if they ever mess with you again, you come to tell me about it. I'll mop the floor with them!"

Chubby Jack, looked at Bryan with admiration as he tugged on his arm. Then he laughed out loud and said, "Bryan, you're amazing! You really kicked Carey and Borg's ass! How did you do it?!"

Bryan pointed to himself and smilingly replied, "I have a brave heart!"

****

Over the next few days, Bryan's head did not hurt even once. For unknown reasons, Bach didn't seem to be planning to get even with him immediately either. Bryan and Jack refused to do Carey and Borg's chores, and the bullies didn't dare do anything to them when they couldn't even beat them in a fight where the numbers were in their favor. So, they ended up quietly resigning themselves to doing the chores they were supposed to do.

Now that Little Skeleton was busy taking out the trash for him in the wee hours of the morning and without Carey and Borg's overwork, Bryan suddenly had a little free time on his hands, but he didn't ask Jack to "borrow" any more magic books for the time being. Instead, he decided to focus all his attention on memorizing "The Fundamentals of Necromancy" to build a firm foundation of knowledge.

After studying the book extensively, Bryan came to understand that his Mental Strength was very weak, so he began to meditate every night after returning to the warehouse. The Little Skeleton was the most insignificant of the dark creatures that inhabited the underworld and its intelligence was so elementary that it could not move if its summoner did not direct it. Bryan had given him the order to stay in the warehouse during the day and only dump the garbage very early in the morning.

That night he was about to immerse himself as usual in his meditation, when he suddenly evoked some new memories that Chu Cang Lan's old man had left in his mind. Among them, he saw mysterious memories related to a process of "Refining Demonic Treasures", which basically consisted of imbuing some magical properties into common objects until they were transformed into magical artifacts. This was not an enchantment, but a transmutation. It then occurred to him that, although the demonic magic he was training in was from a different world than necromancy, the two were essentially black magic and seemed to have quite a bit in common. Would it be possible to merge the two?

Bryan began to seriously examine those memories, then frowned because he discovered that most of the memories that Chu Cang Lan had left inside him seemed incomplete, nebulous, and vague, as if they were covered by a veil of white cloth that prevented him from seeing them in detail.

After some time examining the memories, he gained insight into one of the methods of refining demonic treasures. By this time, Bryan understood that with the short time he had studied necromancy, he wasn't going to be able to summon any creature more powerful than that Little Skeleton, so he decided to experiment with it since he had it on hand.

First of all, the Refinement of Demonic Treasures depended on having the right materials to serve as a catalyst. Since he was experimenting just for fun, Bryan decided to use the Little Skeleton as the focus of his enchantment. In addition, he had some fresh blood from low-level magical creatures that the students would throw into the storage room from time to time, along with other scraps such as bone dust, salamander tails, and so on. All of them could be useful to him for this first attempt at Demonic Treasure Refinement.

Naturally, in Chu Can Lan's memories, it was quite clear that even the simplest Demonic Treasure required him to employ a highly complex list of very specific magical elements, many of which were found in remote locations in his mysterious home world. Hundreds of Demon Mages would lose their lives trying to gather the ingredients needed to manufacture these treasures. But that was in the place where Chu Can Lan came from. Now he was inside Bryan's body and in a completely unknown world - Bryan didn't even know if these elements had a different name on the Vathýs continent or if they even existed! But he still wanted to try this experiment. So he gathered a bunch of random materials from the trash in his storage room and then snuck into one of the labs to grab a wooden bucket that no one used along with several necromancy ingredients left over from classes. Bryan had no idea what they might be or what they were used for.

After collecting everything he found useful, he crept back to his storeroom and locked the door as best he could. He then picked up his Little Skeleton to place it inside the bucket, trying to get it as close to the center as possible. Then he simply randomly threw up all the low-level creature blood, bone dust, salamander tail, and other materials, mixing it all with water until the bucket was full. Now the bucket was overflowing with a foul brownish-colored liquid with a set of... things floating in it. Only the skeleton's head was recognizable as it was above the level of the liquid, completely unaware of what was happening.

Bryan pondered for a moment as he closed his eyes and refocused on Chu Cang Lan's memories. Apart from a variety of ingredients, it was necessary to draw a Matrix or a diagram made of magic symbols.

Matrices were also widely used in this world. In fact, they were the first way to use magic and there was a theory that all spells and incantations could be performed using only these mysterious symbols arranged in the correct way. Of course, this was extremely cumbersome, so arrays were usually used when they wanted to perform magic too powerful to be contained in a single body. And it is that the advantage of a Magic Matrix was that the power flowed inside it for a long time, allowing a single magician to unleash powers that he could not on his own. The downside was its complexity. The Matrices were essentially circuits and it was enough for a single symbol to be misplaced for it to not work at all.

This matrix in Chu Can Lan's memories was very similar to the matrices of this world in concept, with one exception: The user also needed to imbue his Magical Essence into the array using a special method for several days or even months. Some particularly powerful demonic treasures required the user to engage in refinement for years.

Of course, right now Bryan could not and did not intend to accomplish anything so complex. He simply chose the simplest method of refinement. First, he extracted seven all-white bone spikes from who-knows-what magical creature and inserted them carefully into the bucket vertically. If one were to join all the tines using straight lines one would be creating a heptagram or seven-pointed star.

This was the first step in constructing "The Matrix Dark Concentration Magic" which was, as the name suggested, an incantation that extracted the power of darkness from any element within it and then concentrated it on the designated object, until it was transformed into something new with all the attributes of the ingredients. The next step was much more difficult: Drawing four concentric circles around the bucket, something that took him several attempts until he finally got it right.

The original method required first creating seven "Dark Demons ", powerful creatures that could, among other things, control the Dark Concentration Matrix. Once the refiner poured in his own Magic Essence, the demons' powers would begin to circulate, slowly dissolving all the ingredients and leaching their characteristics into the main object. The demonic treasure would finally be complete after 36 days of being refined.

To refine a Dark Demon, a Gul had to be obtained first. A Gul was a minor necrophagous demon formed from the soul of an innocent person who had been unjustly executed and subsequently buried in a wasteland. Only if the soul was unwilling to depart to the other world was there a chance that it could be transformed into a Gul. Special methods were needed to refine the guls into Dark Demons, something Bryan could not accomplish at the moment.

So he placed the seven bone spikes as a stand-in for the Dark Demons and then squatted down next to the cube while concentrating his Magical Essence on the tip of his index finger. He then swiped his finger swiftly across the center of each of the seven erected bone spikes. And although they were a poor replacement for the demons, the spikes had been placed correctly, so that they were able to gradually absorb his power.

After who knows how long, seven small eddies abruptly formed on the surface of the water with the bone barbs as their center.

When he saw the eddies Bryan smirked. He knew that, even though he had improvised most of the process, he had somehow succeeded in activating a matrix. And although he couldn't imagine what the Little Skeleton would end up becoming, he felt quite optimistic and drifted into a deep sleep after a little meditation.