Tomely Feeling

It's been a couple days since Harry has woken up, and much to Kali's chagrin, he'd spent almost the entirety of it reading both of his new books. Other than getting himself back in shape and occasionally training, he'd done little to nothing but read them.

Both Tomes were larger than any phonebook you might find, so even with days of going through them, he hadn't completed either yet. Indeed, he hadn't even reached the halfway point.

This wasn't to say he hadn't learned anything, however, as such a statement would be demonstrably untrue. The first one he'd delved into had been the Necronomicon, which had both illuminated and rebuffed many ideas Harry had developed on the topic of Necromancy and Death Magic in general.

Death Magic was the school that housed most dark paths with bad reputations. Necromancy was a subset of it, as was Blight magic and Soul magic.

The book first explained the many things that counted as Necromancy and those that did not... For example, raising the dead. Now, depending on the method you used to go about it, raising the dead could very well count as Death Magic or Necromancy, but most people in recent times(recent times meaning long ago when the book was written.) had begun to develop 'short-cuts' in this path.

Some replaced granting the dead life with simple puppetry, creatures like the Inferius were but weak facsimiles of the true potential of the school of magic. While the corpses lingering resentment and other dark emotions were used in their creation, they lacked what truly made an 'Undead', souls.

Souls were integral to Necromancy, while not all undead possessed souls, all undead were created through the use of souls, be it their sacrifice, modification, or corruption. Indeed, one could just ritualistically force a bunch of souls into a pile of corpses to create an Amalgam, which is just many random corpses joined together with little care.

Harry got the distinct impression that Amaranth was just lamenting the gradual degradation of magic in some of the diatribes scrawled into the book. It was good information regardless, if a little hard to read and digest.

The next part of the book went on to explain the function and use of emotions in Death Magic. Emotions, specifically the darker ones, were used in almost every kind of Death Magic. Things like resentment allowed you to more easily raise the dead, hatred granting more power and increased lethality, anger increasing the power and making it more chaotic, and even sadness, which would lend itself well to creating certain kinds of undead and forming certain kinds of spells.

All of which Harry now had an abundance of, thanks to Kali's help in storing the tens of thousands of voices' emotions in that blood gem within his mindscape. He hadn't yet attempted to use it, as he was worried about passing out again, but as soon as he'd improved his mental abilities and reinforced his mindscape, he'd try to practise with it.

There were other things he'd learned from the Necronomicon, but Harry was waiting to finish the rest of the book before he went ahead and tried anything out... Not educating himself fully on the magic before trying it would earn him a verbal lashing from Kali, who'd sometimes been acting like a hen-mother at random intervals.

Anyway, onto the topic of the Consortium of Druidic Spells. The first few hundred pages were all about the traditions, history, and ways of the druids of old. Kind of boring but he pulled through long enough to reach the interesting bits.

Harry had always been good with plants, this was the main reason his aunt had been forcing him to tend to her garden. After that, he'd quickly learned how to manipulate plants via magic, which was how he'd so easily constructed his and Kali's treehouse. So, picking up some druidic spells felt quite natural to him, though, he got a niggling feeling in the back of his mind whenever he did so... As if part of himself was rejecting his choice to not dominate and completely subvert the will of the plant he was manipulating.

He himself knew from personal experience that simply giving plants a gently push towards what you wanted was the best way to go. This was only reinforced by the contents of the Consortium, which loudly and voraciously proclaimed all nature sacred, and to be treated as one would their dearest kin.

Harry was reminded of Grass-Type Pokemon when he looked over the spells he'd memorized from the book. Summoning roots to bind your enemy, causes nearby plants to release acidic spores that'd eat through metal, blessing something to grow faster or in a way he preferred, or even simply reinforcing plant matter so it'd better serve as weaponry or armour...

For example, Harry could now turn leaves into lethal knives, vines into brutal whips, or even make wooden armour as strong as steel. He hadn't found much use for it at the moment, outside of the obvious, but he was sure it could be made something far more interesting.

That was about all he'd gotten from the Tomes thus far, but he was excited to learn the nitty-gritty bits that made the books truly valuable to the now-dead Lich... Unfortunately, Kali had decided that it was time to start educating him on society, socialising, and other things he'd not cared for before... Actually, Harry didn't think Kali cared either, now only using this as an excuse to keep him from adventuring or doing something dangerous again... Or stupid? Or dangerously stupid?

This is how Harry found himself wandering alone through the streets of New York City with Kali sitting on his shoulder in bat form, invisible to everyone else of course.