A Jaded Life

Chapter 1342

A part of me wanted to cackle loudly, to preen and gloat as I monologued about my own genius, like some super-villain who had just captured their personal nemesis and had to wait for the plot to catch up, so said nemesis could pull out a stunning upset. Not that I was a super-villain, at least not most of the time, or that I would consider Joshua my nemesis, and he was my only prisoner at the moment, but still, the urge was there.

Shaking my head, while chuckling under my breath, I marvelled at my creation. It had come together in a night of frenzied magic, born from a possibly unhinged dream brought about by a distinct lack of sleep and over-indulgence of snow-berries. Those were a delicacy I had picked up when exploring the area near the giants. Small, white berries, filled with a curious mixture of Astral Power and a lot of sugar, making them excellent snacks, if you had the endurance to handle them. I had a feeling that anyone with a lesser constitution would suffer severely for daring to consume them, but to me, they were just a delicious treat. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all of them, but they were just too tasty to put down.

Now, though, after coming down from my slight over-indulgence, I was feeling both energised and tired at the same time, giddy and exhausted to the point I started to giggle uncontrollably, inspecting the thing I had made. Some might call it an abomination against the Gods, Nature and everything in between, but I couldn’t call it anything but fascinating.

Last night, when I had started to munch on the berries, I had been trying to figure out a way to have Waylon use my Astral Power, just not in a direct way. I had no interest in hanging around the guy to act as a battery, so another solution was needed, though I hadn’t been certain what that solution could look like.

Then, I started to consider things. The solution needed to be able to draw Astral Power from the Astral River, but only the Ice Astral Power. Otherwise, Waylon would undoubtedly be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of power; he didn’t have my attributes or the various traits I had to deal with the depth of my power. No, he needed a somewhat limited solution, to say nothing of the fact that I wasn’t about to give out my hard-earned power without a good return on investment. Even the Ice I was willing to bestow on him would come with strings attached, I just wasn’t sure what those strings would be. Maybe a compulsion to keep him from ever rejecting my demands, or a hook into his soul, so I could do something interesting with it if he ever reneged on the deal we made.

The result of my frenzied, somewhat frantic and frazzled night of creation was just that. A, for lack of a better term, symbiote, made from my blood, my magic, and even infused with a bit of my soul. It was somewhat similar to the way the two towers I had built carried a part of me within them, allowing them to draw power from the Astral River to fuel the numerous enchantments woven into their structure. Just that the symbiote wasn’t channelling the power it drew from the Astral River into enchantments, but into its bearer. Or wearer, however you wanted to call it.

The thing itself wasn’t all that spectacular, an amorphous blob of shining silver about the size of my fist, radiating an unearthly chill to the point that its surroundings were slightly misty. Now, I only had to integrate the thing into Waylon, then we could see about teaching him some Ice Magic, or at least a fairly close approximation of it. I doubted he would ever be able to fully understand what he was doing; his magical aptitude was simply too low, but if this worked as I expected, he would be able to do things. To cast magic beyond his innate ability, and it wouldn’t cost me anything beyond the magic I had used to create the symbiote.

Well, nothing beyond the magic and some of my blood, though that could become a problem. As the symbiote was, in many ways, an independent part of my body, it could be used to create a magical link between it and my body, introducing a potential vulnerability. I wasn’t sure how critical a vulnerability it would be or whether I could add a self-destruct, but it might become an issue in the future.

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However, for now, the symbiote was nothing but an advantage, allowing me to empower those I wished to and keep them loyal. Waylon’s soul would, quite literally, belong to me, and unless he managed to gain stronger magic than I had, that wouldn’t change. Ever, maybe not even in death, as the symbiote wouldn’t die with him, it would still retain its hooks in his soul, possibly allowing me all sorts of shenanigans. From resurrecting him with relative ease to a few more interesting and esoteric possibilities.

Stepping through the shadows, I reappeared in Jademoon Tower, stumbling a moment when the exhaustion of a long night of spellcasting caught up with me. As the entire tower was suffused with my magic, I could easily find my students. They were engaging in their individual magical pursuits, be it reading, meditating, or quietly experimenting with their magic.

Waylon was alone in the library, as he often was, likely frustrated by his lack of progress. By now, the others had noticed that he hadn’t been able to make any magic happen, though they hadn’t mocked him for it, at least not to my knowledge. Which meant quite a bit. While I wasn’t omniscient within my tower, I could keep an eye on the four with relative ease, at least as long as I was somewhere within the old quarry. Still, it couldn’t be easy to fall behind as he did.

“Waylon,” I spoke up as I entered the library. His eyes immediately shot up, and he almost dropped the text he was holding, making me take a closer look. It was one of the texts I had written, using up some of the precious paper we had saved after the change. A theory of souls, if I recalled correctly, nothing definitive, just ideas and ways to further my understanding, but he seemed to be engrossed by it.

“I believe I have found a way to let you use magic,” I told him, causing his entire being to focus on me with a laser-like intensity, as if there was nothing but me within his world. There was a hunger in his eyes that reminded me of the Shattered, desperately seeking something that they couldn’t find just yet. It took quite a bit of self-control not to take a step back, but I managed.

“What do I need to do?” he instantly asked, his voice making it obvious that there were a few things he wasn’t willing to do. For a moment, I wondered if I was doing the right thing; the hunger was so similar to the one I had found so disturbing when displayed by Joshua, but with Waylon, I wasn’t too worried. Maybe because he would never be able to become a threat to me, not with the symbiote I was planning to give him. He would always be bound to my will, never able to resist my commands. That was a fairly sturdy safety net, which might be what was setting me at ease.

“You just need to accept,” I told him. When he instantly nodded, I gestured over to a door, opening into one of the chambers I had set aside for rituals. Not that the symbiote required a ritual, but I wanted a bit of pageantry and formality here.

“Kneel,” I ordered, gesturing towards the middle of the room. He instantly obeyed, no hesitation, no question, making me wonder just how far this obedience went now, and how much further it would go once he was implanted with the symbiote. Would there be anything left of Waylon, or would it just be a second body, commandeered by my instincts and desires? I wasn’t sure, but it would be interesting to find out.

Stepping around him, I drew my knife, gently placing the tip against the back of his head. It would be trivial to stab forward, impaling his spine and killing or crippling him instantly, but he barely even twitched when the cold metal touched his skin. Nor did he move when the knife pierced his skin, drawing a line of blood along his spine, no sounds, no complaints, nothing but stoic acceptance.

Placing the symbiote against the bloody wound, I stepped around him again.

“Waylon, you are offered a deal. You gain the ability to wield Ice Magic and, in exchange, you swear to obey me. Do you accept the deal?” I asked, pitching my voice in a sombre manner. He looked up, meeting my eyes for a second, before he replied just as solemnly.

“I will obey, Mistress.”

With his words, I activated the symbiote, sensing how it followed the blood into Waylon’s body, spreading out into tiny tendrils as it burrowed into his skull, wrapping around his spine and infusing his entire body.

Moments later, the only visible change was to his physical appearance. His eyes, previously a fairly normal, somewhat boring, brown, were now different. His iris was a familiar shade of silvery-blue, and his eyes glowed, much like mine did when I used Overflow.

Fascinating.