A Bored Lich

'At least I have this,' Doevm thought as he flipped to the second page of the advanced healing book. By now, he had reached the bottom of the mountain, and his feet were wrapped in a thick coating of mud. Cold rain droplets pattered against his wilting leaf umbrella.

He circled around the side of the mountain and sighed, his feet dragging. He hadn't walked for long before stares drilling into him. He glanced up at Draken Capital's front gate, and the squadron of guards around it.

"We need to search through your things for the inspection," one said as he reached for the advanced healing book.

"Let me through," Doevm said with a bit of soulmana. "And forget I was here." The guards stood straight up with a vacant look in their eye, before opening the massive gate. Doevm threw his make-shift umbrella away as he stepped from the dark, quiet night to the bright, noisy city.

He quickly found a secluded place in the red-light district, where he changed back into his regular clothes and took off his mask. While most of the Resistance was likely still at the Black Market, he couldn't be careless, not again. His gaze never left the advanced healing book's pages.

Even as he jostled through the crowd, receiving elbows and shoves, he kept reading. He scanned through dozens of detailed diagrams and notes, drawings and theories. His shaking fingers flipped through the many pages, trying not to tear them in his rush. His heartbeat and his pace increased. His body was left to its own devices as his mind absorbed the contents.

Contents, which included the secrets of the human body. 'Tendons, similarities to other species, layers of tissue, what is this?' The words went from blurry blobs, barely recognizable, to clear characters. The world regained its color. The pain in his chest flared only to be muffled as he got lost in thought.

'Composition of the body, reforming limbs, the body's many systems, what am I reading? There are so many terms I have never heard of before such as this thing called a muscle system.' By the time he had made it back to the commoners' quarters, he was on the second to last chapter, staring at a term without a proper definition: "Cells"

"This is unbelievable," Doevm unconsciously said aloud, as if he was back in his library. "The human body is made up of mostly liquid. Blood is made up of tiny little disks. How far have humans come with their studies of the body? This isn't even magic anymore. It's something else entirely."

Before he could get to the last section, he looked at the commoners' quarters, where he had been unwittingly pacing in front of for several minutes now. 'I guess while the Underground may change its buildings and people, this place never does - thanks to those stubborn royals.' He looked over to the nobles' quarters. 'I guess I better show up for the appointment. If I can get her to tell me where she learned to fight, I can escape there before the Resistance reaches the tenth floor. Once they acquire the single item stored there, they'll take over the country with it. That is a guarantee.'

He put on his cracked mask and walked through the front of the nobles' quarters. He was stopped by several servants along the way, but he just used soulmana to get directions and make them forget he was ever there. As he got closer to the room, something fell out of the advanced healing book. 'What's this?' He thought as he picked up the small booklet which had fallen out.

It read: "Before concluding, one must understand what catalyzed the process of these recent discoveries, why so much interest was put into exploring the living body, and how advanced healing magic came to be.

Previously, healing magic was sorted into basic, intermediate, and advanced magic books. This is still true today, but with different information put into different books. Old advanced healing magic and intermediate healing magic became one book, intermediate healing magic, and the recent discoveries were put into the new version of advanced healing magic. This happened because an individual known as Sir Marble received the help of the Goddess of Good. On the day when the most powerful Undead ever known, a Lich by the name of Doevm, was slain by the hero, Arthur, Sir Marble was there."

…

Sir Marble stood in front of the library which had been engulfed in blue fire. His bucket was heavy with water, but compared to the flames, it seemed light. The contents evaporated before they even touched the blaze. "Goddess of Good help us," he said.

"Come," a gentle voice rang out, softer than a windchime.

The blue flames parted before Sir Marble, forming a path inside the burning library. "W-What's going on?" he asked as he scanned the flames, finding no one in sight. His legs trembled, unwilling to run back or down the path which had opened before him. From the fires, rose a girl in a simple white dress.

Her white hair glowed like her smile. She danced around the blazes as if she were in a flower field. "Come, Sir Marble," she said. "Listen to my voice, for I am the Goddess of Good." She skipped inside the library, her feet barely touching the charred floor.

Sir Marble's legs regained their strength as he felt a burst courage. His hand tightened around his bucket's handle. He took a step forward, then another, following the goddess. Compared to the statues of her, which he had kneeled down to in worship every day of his life, she was much fairer, like a free spirit. "I-I don't know if you're here, but we should go before this place burns down." He said as he squinted, trying to look through the bright fires. "Goddess, I have asked for your protection before, but now I ask that you listen to me. Let us leave this place of evil!"

"Come," her voice rippled across the raging inferno like a drop of water in a calm lake. Sir Marble cursed and went deeper into the library. The flames parted wherever he walked. The ceiling fell around him yet did not hit him. The ash floated around the white radiance which had appeared around him.

 "Here," the Goddess's voice called to him. Sir Marble rounded a corner to see a wide-open space with a cracked throne at the back. On one of the many burning bookshelves was a single book, untouched by the fires. The Goddess pointed to it with her dainty hand, a radiant smile welcoming him.

He took a deep breath before reaching out. His fingers wrapped around the cool leather cover and pulled it out of its place, away from its soon to be grave, refusing to let it die alongside its rightful owner.

"Now go," she said before fading away. Sir Marble ran out of the library and, after making it to a safe distance away, kneeled in prayer. The book under his arm was titled: "The connection between magic and life essence."

…

"On that day," Doevm flipped the page. "Sir Marble found a book in the Lich's possession. The author is unknown, since it is highly doubtful that a magic-obsessed Lich, whose only goal is complete destruction of the human race, would be interested in anything other than heretical practices."

"Learning from its contents made Sir Marble powerful, both as a knight and a noble. He was promoted to the king's righthand man. Like a true knight, he shared the contents of the book with the public, changing both the world of healing and the use of life essence forever."

"Knights could fight mages. Healers could fix previously impossible injuries. Even normal people can become a lesser healer. That is why one must know the book's contents, which can be summarized as such…"

Doevm shook as he turned to the next page, cursing under his breath. He could hardly read the words. He had to sit down and bite his lip to keep himself still. No matter how many times he shoved his emotions into that deep dark pit inside of himself, it was already full. Now it was overflowing. He flipped the page.

"Typically, beings have two energies: life essence and mana. The popular theory is that these are the physical manifestation of the body's two energies - strength and mind because, as a consequence of utilizing these energies, one's mind gets foggy and their strength depletes. There have been, after thorough examinations, exceptions to these common beliefs. After taking these considerations into account, these exceptions become errors. They are unexplainable, calling into question what these two energies actually are."

Doevm swallowed his saliva. He knew the contents. He didn't have to keep reading, yet out of some faint hope that something might have been lost, he flipped the page. He took a breath and wiped his sweaty hands on his wet clothes.

"While the origin of life essence does pique my curiosity, it is not related to mana. Thus, I will save this subject for more thorough examination later. However, it must be noted that, in order to find what the true uses of life essence are, one must explore the human body just as mages explored magic, by developing magic circles. This means that life essence might be incomplete in how it is used today."

Doevm stopped at the bottom of the page, knowing what was to come. He held his head in his hands and took deep breaths. 'No,' he thought. 'Of all the pieces of information that Goddess could have chosen, this might not have been the most destructive, but…damn it.' He flipped the page.

"Ancient mages only used basic mana spells, manipulating mana without magic circles. After finding magic circles, how it altered the mana into different states such as into the core elements, they grew much stronger."

"The same can be said for life essence. While making magic circles is impossible for knights, by understanding the human body, one can learn how to better use their life essence. For example, since healing is a natural property of the human body, what if life essence accelerated it. Life essence is known to only enhance strength, defense, and speed, but that is primarily because knights only follow what has been taught to them, much like how mages in Draken Capital only follow the hypocritical statements of their teachers."

"Only by exploring what the living body is capable of and dissecting it, can one hope to find out the limits of what life essence can do. If that can be found, the era of fighting techniques will be over, replaced with living beings who modify their bodies into weapons. It will no longer be the era of knights. Something else will be born. I hope this future never comes, because that will mean that magic will no longer be a dominant force in the world."

Doevm crumpled the note up and threw it into his spatial ring. 'She did it,' he thought. 'My dragon fire spell should have destroyed everything. Only a powerful being could have stopped that fire, and the only one watching, was her. She had seen everything through her champion's eyes, waiting for an opportunity. She was planning this from the start in order to give her worshipers my book. She robbed my grave, then her people spat on me as evil, all the while preaching justice.'

He didn't know how long he stood there, imagining her death at his feet. The light crystals flickered around him as his mana and life essence left his body in a tangled mess, ripping at his skin and clothes. His body went hot and cold as a numbing pain stabbing into his bones.

He grabbed his head and flailed around. His twisted energies left him as nothing more than a husk. His head hit against a wooden door as he collapsed and writhed on the ground. "just a second," the person inside said before he heard a stream of steady clicks and clacks. The door creaked open, and a ray of light shown on Doevm's cracked mask.