Three months. It's been three damn months since I arrived in this hellish world, something that could only have come from a realm consumed by primordial chaos. The last month had fallen into a routine: learning magic, casting spells, eating, sleeping.
The complete lack of contact with any other conscious being was the worst part. Even though I had always been a loner, I wasn't so antisocial as to not crave hearing another human voice.
I even named the four main cannons: Freedom, Hugs, Caresses, and Good Friendship. Why? Why not?
"God, I sound like a damn lunatic," I told myself while writing in a logbook—my new hobby. The only thing that really kept me sane was the absurd idea that someone out there was reading my journal like a novel.
"Hahaha, ridiculous thought, right?" I said with scorn before jotting that down too.
I hadn't improved the base this time; I just focused on increasing my pure magic and the number of spells I could learn. Now I could cast almost a hundred low-level spells or two mid-level ones, which meant I could practice alchemy all day without having to stop and wait for my magic to recharge.
Even so, I looked into the mage power ranking system. According to it, casting a hundred spells of a given rank granted you that rank. So, yeah—I was barely a low-rank mage. To reach mid-rank, I'd need enough energy to cast a hundred mid-rank spells, and each of those currently cost just over a third of my total reserves. A long road ahead… and that's just for mid-rank.
Now I understood why human mages only reach high rank in rare cases. They simply don't have the time—not just to develop spells, but to expand their own magical energy, especially given their short lifespans compared to demons and angels.
It was a mess, and I had no long-term plan to overcome it. I had a few ideas, but God knows I don't yet know how to make them reality—or if they're even viable.
One of those ideas was to transform myself into what I would consider a god—like the Greek or Norse ones—by merging with a concept through ritual magic. But you know what? I have no idea how, or even if it's possible.
The second idea was to become a dragon—according to their own definition. A crazy idea with no clear path forward. First, I'd need to stop absorbing magic for a while. Second, condense all that magic. Third, separate my consciousness. Fourth, merge that consciousness with the condensed magic. And finally, use Vritra's book as a conceptual allegory, since it was written by a dragon. Last step: fuse everything. Could it work? I think it might? I mean… I don't know. But with magic, it should be possible—even if the chances are slim, right?
Another option was to become a chimera using alchemical and ritual magic. If I used the monsters from this place as a form of currency, I should be able to increase my power—or at least boost my magic reserves, right? I mean, it seems like a fairly reasonable option. Using the law of equivalent exchange, it should be completely doable. I'd just need to figure out how to extract pure magical energy from a being. This path would basically be magical transhumanism.
Of the three, the last one was realistically the only one I could try in the short term.
"So, the path of alchemy it is," I said to myself as I got to work.
…
Two more months had passed since my last entry. Things hadn't changed much. I'd gained more magical energy, but that growth had nearly stopped once I reached the point of casting three mid-level spells—which was a little frustrating.
Anyway, I had to expand the base. I now had a chamber where I kept live creatures for testing my spell versions. Only one of the most recent iterations had been even remotely successful—though "success" might be too optimistic.
This is what I had for now: the spell had to be etched into two main magic circles. One circle handled the transformation of the creature into pure magical energy, while the other absorbed that energy and injected it into me. But then I thought: if it injected the energy into me, couldn't I just absorb ambient magical energy instead?
No. Magic doesn't work like that. You can't gain more magic just by absorbing it, because not all beings are capable of doing so. Some dragons like Vritra could—because their power literally involved draining energy. I think Albion could too. But a human or a demon? No—they can't.
The only way to gain more magic is to use it, and as it refills, it slowly expands. According to my theory, the difference between most races and humans is that others start with a higher base magic capacity, and when they recharge, they gain a much larger percentage increase than humans. That's why they're so powerful.
So, my spell had to do more than just convert the creature into usable magic—it had to bind that magic to my own pool. To achieve this, I had to be directly connected to the spell, which was hard to set up. Even then, I only got about a tenth of the creature's total magical energy. Most of it was used to stabilize the second part of the spell—based on the same principles by which beings naturally gain magic.
The spell couldn't be used in combat, since it required carving runes and keeping the sacrifices immobilized. But it still made me stronger, even if at a snail's pace. Roughly the equivalent of nine low-level spells per day.
Running the numbers and assuming the energy gain stayed constant, and that I performed this ritual every day without fail, then in about a year I'd have enough energy to be mid-rank. In three years, I'd reach high rank—which was already much faster than what most humans could dream of. But it still felt too slow—especially compared to the magic other races gained just by putting in some effort.
"God, this is so inefficient," I muttered with the human magic book in my hands, while the screams of the beasts I used as sacrifices for the dark magic I'd created rang through the air.
I didn't enjoy their screams, but I preferred that over dying to some more powerful beast that might wander by.
"That's it—stronger beasts mean more magic… faster growth. But also more risk… greater chances of dying," I told myself, weighing all the options.
…
"After thinking it over with a clear head, I've decided we'll need to head toward more dangerous lands—where the creatures will likely be able to kill us… but the rewards will be great," I told the four main cannons of my tower.
"Therefore, we'll have to make many improvements if we want to stand a chance," I said, sighing at the overwhelming list of things I still had to do.