Chapter 100: False Wisdom and True Wisdom

The next morning, Jess collected six bottles of mana potion from The Slaughtered Lamb. Then he decided to practice two new spells with Saeno: Arcane Intellect and the weakening spell he'd copied from the naga.

In a quiet grove beside Mirror Lake outside Stormwind, he found a clearing and told the imp to stand across from him.

"What are you planning to do to me, Master?" Saeno asked, straightening his back.

Jess looked at the little creature, flames dancing over its body, and held out a hand.

"Come here. You're going to be my test subject."

The grin vanished from the imp's face. "No, no, no... Master, that's not right! I mean, I can do it, but wouldn't you feel sorry if I got hurt? Could you at least tell me what kind of magic you want to test?"

"You're afraid of pain?" Jess asked. "I just want to try that weakening spell the naga used on me. After she cast it, I could barely lift my arms or legs. I couldn't walk. But I remembered the words."

"Anuniji, Durzala, Kana."

Jess pointed at the imp with exactly the same gesture he used for Fear. Saeno gave a frightened squeal, but nothing happened.

"Kana isn't Demonic, Master! That doesn't sound like Demonic at all!" the imp said. "If I'm guessing correctly, the shadow magic naga use comes from Shath'Yar, the language of the Void. It's a curse in Shath'Yar! The sound fits, too!"

"Shath'Yar?" Jess hesitated. He'd heard of that language, but only in his previous life.

Shath'Yar was the language used by the Old Gods that had infested Azeroth in ancient times and their dark followers. Very few NPCs in the game could speak it.

In this world, Jess had never heard anyone mention it, and there were certainly no textbooks for it in the library. Of course there weren't. So how was he supposed to work out the pronunciation?

"If you know so much about it, can you speak Shath'Yar?" Jess asked.

"If I could, I'd be finished!" Saeno jumped as he answered. "Only creatures made entirely of shadow, the dark flesh born from those parasites, or... shadow worshipers with enormous shadow power know Shath'Yar! I'm just a weak, pitiful little thing! Nobody would teach me that language, and I don't have the power to master it!"

Without a teacher, how could Jess correct the pronunciation?

He stared at the lake, remembering the naga's voice while picking up stones and skipping them across the water.

He repeated "Anuniji, Durzala, Kana" over and over, changing the sounds, pauses, and stressed syllables. After who knew how many attempts, he finished one version and felt that something had changed.

Even the imp turned to look at him.

Had shadow energy gathered?

Jess fixed that particular pronunciation in his mind.

"Saeno, go stand over there!"

The imp bounced back to his original spot and shouted excitedly, "I'm ready!"

Only then did he remember he was standing there as a target for some painful spell. His expression changed from excitement to misery.

"Try not to say it too correctly, Master."

"How could I possibly pronounce Shath'Yar perfectly?"

Jess teased him, then tried the version of the incantation that had seemed to interact with shadow energy. He copied the naga sea witch's gestures from memory—well, the gestures made with one pair of her hands—and pointed at the imp.

"Anuniji, Durzala, Kana."

Shadow energy flowed inside him, leaving his arm tingling. He watched the imp's expression change. Saeno stopped hopping around, and his legs began to shake.

"This... this is..." The imp barely had the strength to mutter.

Jess, however, felt wonderful. The imp's sudden weakness gave him a thrill of superiority, the pleasure of standing above someone weaker and making them suffer.

A note for curious readers: is where the author publishes this chapter, which was copied here without permission.

He was already the one with all the power in this relationship. He was the master, and the imp... the imp was a servant, a minion, a tool that did exactly what he ordered.

Then his reason returned, pulling him out of that feeling of enjoyment. The shadow energy that had made his arm tingle quickly faded.

Jess was no longer surprised by the side effects of shadow magic.

At least he was doing much better than when he'd first encountered it. Now he could tell which parts of his emotions came from dark power and which were his own.

"It worked... cough, cough!" Even standing was difficult for Saeno now. "It's a shadow curse, Master. A Curse of Weakness."

"I know." Jess took out the paper and pen he'd prepared and wrote down the pronunciation he'd finally found, using Common letters.

He planned to teach the Curse of Weakness to the warlocks at The Slaughtered Lamb. Gakin and Gardes must have other spells they hadn't revealed.

The warlocks had contact with Dark Iron dwarves who practiced dark magic. There was no way Fear was the only spell they'd heard about.

On Jess's first visit to that basement, Erlan and Surena had used Curse of Agony on him. Come to think of it, he still hadn't learned that incantation himself.

The reason he'd never been interested in Curse of Agony was that he'd assumed Surena had picked it up from some unreliable source.

Without an accurate original incantation to check against during study, a spell would only become more distorted as it was passed on. This Curse of Weakness was a perfect example. Jess didn't know the actual Shath'Yar words or how they should sound. All he had was a poor imitation.

When the naga used it on him, he couldn't even stay standing. He'd collapsed to the ground, and simply taking a potion bottle out of his bag had been painfully difficult.

Yet the imp was the physically weakest creature Jess had ever met, and he couldn't even make Saeno fall down. That showed just how much weaker the spell had become between the naga's casting and his own.

Either the words were wrong, the gestures were wrong, or some other condition was missing.

Jess suspected naga might have special advantages in casting shadow magic because they served the Old Gods. But he didn't know what those advantages were.

Whatever the case, this secondhand Curse of Weakness could be the first step toward raising his standing in the underground group.

When Gakin invited Jess to join, one condition had been that he should be able to stand up to the physically powerful Erlan. A curse that weakened the body was exactly the sort of magic Gakin would want.

"Next, the second spell, Saeno." Jess put away the note and took out the book Marin had given him, Felix—An Introduction to Arcane Spellcasting. He opened it to the chapter on Arcane Intellect.

He flipped through a few more pages and discovered just how many versions of Arcane Intellect existed. Dozens of pages described variations with different durations and effects. There were even offensive versions that disrupted the mind by flooding it with so much information that the victim's consciousness collapsed.

Marin had taught him the most common version, a beginner's spell originally used by elves and later improved in Dalaran.

"There's a second spell?" The imp's legs were still shaking as he cried, "Please spare me, Master!"

Jess turned and pointed at Saeno.

"Mistis, Yuperi, Xininge!"

A mass of arcane energy instantly surrounded the imp. He jumped in fright, but before he could run away or do anything more complicated, the energy dispersed.

The same problem again. Jess couldn't find the feeling of turning free-flowing mana into energy that strengthened something.

"What kind of magic is that, Master?" Saeno asked.

"Arcane Intellect."

"Ah... Arcane Intellect! I know that spell!" the imp said. "You're doing it all wrong!"

"Right, you can use Blood Pact Seal," Jess said. "Tell me how to turn magical energy into a strengthening effect."

"I was born knowing how! How am I supposed to teach you?" Saeno said helplessly. "But I do know Arcane Intellect shouldn't be that difficult!"

The imp was right. Arcane Intellect was an introductory spell, or it wouldn't be in Felix.

Jess felt that chasing Mage Armor as soon as he'd learned Light was rushing things. He kept wanting shortcuts, believing he might learn faster by following his own understanding.

But arcane magic wasn't like shadow magic. He had no special talent for it. Following the proper steps was probably the better choice.

He opened Felix again and carefully compared his pronunciation and gestures with the book's instructions for the basic version of Arcane Intellect. Then he repeated the spell over and over, searching for the right feeling.

By now he was getting tired.

Perhaps practicing Curse of Weakness had drained some energy, and the failed Arcane Intellect had wasted more.

Should he drink a mana potion?

Those potions had been hard to obtain. Unless he was truly exhausted, he'd rather save them.

Jess stood, put aside as much of what he'd learned from practicing Light as he could, and tried to clear his mind of every stray thought. He assumed the proper stance and cast Arcane Intellect exactly as instructed.

As he finished the gestures, he suddenly heard a clear ringing of arcane energy beside his ears. A strange experience began.

His field of vision seemed wider, almost as if he could see at a broader angle.

But that was an illusion, and he knew it. He had simply become better at recognizing things in his vision. Instead of focusing on a small circle at the center of what he saw, his attention spread outward. His powers of observation had improved.

Wind moving through leaves. Ripples in the lake. Birds calling...

No, that wasn't precise enough.

It was the call of a black swallow-finch.

Jess remembered perfectly. While casually looking through a geography book in Marin's study, he'd noticed a description of this bird, common in Elwynn.

The book had said that three singing notes, descending from high to low, were the characteristic call of the black swallow-finch.

How could he remember a detail like that?

Was this the power of Arcane Intellect? Could it even pull hidden, overlooked information out of his memory?

When he felt his memory and perception rise so far beyond their normal state, Jess finally understood what Marin had meant. If someone abused Arcane Intellect, they could quickly develop a divided personality and gradually come to hate their slower, real self.