New Life As A Level 0 Undead Mage

Mat opened the tome, to see its front page. It had a pentagram-ic figure inscribed inside a circle. Below the circle was the title of the book, which he had only discovered now.

"Simpletons' Guide to Simplified Complex Magic"

Mat stared at the title.. What sort of joke is this supposed to be, aye?

Mat cursed the old man in his head, that troll.

He turned the page to a 'contents' and 'index' page, that showed him how many chapters were in the book and what each pertained to.

"Life Incorporation.." Mat searched through the index, trying to find the spell. When he reached the end of the page, all he saw was an entry for 'appendix' and blank margin at the bottom.

There was nothing in there!

Is it even in there? Did he get scammed by the old man? Would he really have to enter the city looking like a bone man?

Mat took a breath, shook his head, and looked at the thick tome of wisdom again. He flipped it on the other side and opened the last page. There were some blank pages at the end of the book!

Mat flapped through several of them to reach one that actually had something written on it. Flipping further back, he reached beginning of those extra pages.. which he guessed were meant for rough work or note taking.

Indeed, just as he'd hoped, at the top of the first page was a heading written in large characters.

'Life Incorporation Spell'

"Found it!" Mat cheered to himself and read a little side note right beside the heading written in really small characters.

"Maybe you're not as big of a simpleton after all if you found this. Good luck ahead, young lad."

…

Mat's right eye twitched as he read the little message.. what an infuriating old man.

He was sure his blood pressure would rise if he had a body right now.

Pushing such thoughts out of his mind, Mat read through the spell definition and tried to comprehend what it did. The Old Man had written long and detailed descriptions in a black ink, highlighting parts that were crucial to the subject, and even adding a little glossary at the end. On the last page meant for taking notes, the Old Man had drawn the figure that the spell needed. Beside it was another note written in those similarly small characters.

"I do not expect you to understand the details of the spell, since it is a book meant for Simpletons, but it would serve you well to read through it at least once. Remember to use mana to purify the water—1 litre should be good enough for your small size—then mix it with a beast's blood. Any beast would do, small, large, as long as it's fresh blood, just a few millilitres—use the ratio of 5 millilitres to 1 litre—should be more than enough. Then simply draw the magic circles as I have described. Fill the outer one with your mana, then lay in the inner one, and activate the spell. Once the surrounding mana dissipates, the spell would have ended and you would be free to go."

There was another note right below it, "Note: Do make sure to purify the water and use fresh blood. Do fill the circle with the blood and water mixture. At least 5ml of blood for one litre of water."

Below it was another smaller note, "Note: Do make sure to draw the outer circle! Do not get up from the inner circle until all mana dissipates! Do not use dirty water! You wouldn't want to know the side effects if you mess up the spell."

It was completely underlined and written in all capital letters.

Mat sighed in exasperation. It was getting harder to like this man.. but at least he cared to make sure Mat didn't fuck up. I'll ignore all the implications of me being a simpleton.. ignorance is bliss after all.

Closing the tome, Mat pulled it into his spiritual space again, and started walking closer towards the city to a source of water. From the top of the forested hill that he was on, he could see in the distance the river that flowed right outside of the city's walls, dividing off into a canal that went into the city while the main stream scurried off further west.

I wonder what the river is called..

He walked for about half an hour before he reached the bottom of the hill where the river stream ran. The closer he got, the louder the burble of the river got, until he reached the very shore of it. The mountainous and hilly structure of this region made clearings like this area really rare. Mat was half inclined to believe that the whole city, and the fertile looking plain fields outside it were made that way by some really strong mage's powers.

As Mat sat on the shore of the river, he realised one big problem in his whole plan to make a body using the spell. He didn't have a container to store the water in… which was going to be a problem in this case.

Looking around the area, Mat felt a little hopeless, and sat down for a moment. He felt like giving up and just letting it be for a moment. Walking a few paces away from the water, he laid down on the grass covered slope of the river shore, closing his eyes to darkness and relief. Mat didn't know how or when, but he fell asleep.

…

It was only when the sun was one third of it's way to the zenith, that he woke up.

He had napped for at least 2 hours.

Mat yawned as he woke up, and looked around to see where he was. Ah.. I died and got transmigrated..

He wasn't sure what he actually thought about all this.. or the little battle he'd had at the castle. He wished he could go back, but considering how it went in this sort of novels, it seemed impossible, especially because he already died in his world. Maybe if he'd just transmigrated.. there could have been more hope.

Mat shook his head to get over the melancholy of his thoughts, and got up to work. He'd had some inspiration. Pulling out the tome of spells from his 'inventory', Mat skimmed through the contents to find anything close to Earth or Soil magic he could find. Indeed, the book had sections divided up for each element, and he found a certain rudimentary spell in the Earth element section.

Flipping through that page, Mat reached upon the spell's description. Indeed, it was actually a relatively small and simple spell. Although considering that it was a spell meant for beginners, it had to be that way.

".. draw the magic circle, and fill it with mana. No special magic attuned ink is required, nor is any catalyst. For beginners, the spells requires practice, so depending on your mana control, you may get varying results…"

Mat read through the spell, and did as the figure drawn on the page showed. He drew a small circle on the ground with his finger, and mage a pentagram inside it. At the bottom area outside the star, Mat drew the symbol for Earth. Apparently this world had its own language for magical spells and arrays, which they called the Magika Linguistica.

Mat had almost wheezed when he'd first read the name, it felt like he was in a world built by an inexperienced writer with poor skills.

Shaking his head, Mat worked his way on the magic circle, drawing a single fire symbol—they called it infer here—in the top triangle of the pentagram's star, and a water symbol in the centre pentagon. It was a simple spell, and he'd needed to do just that little work.

Now, all he needed to do was channel and control his mana, and fill the circle's edges one by one, going from the outer circumference to the inner pentagram star, and the two symbols. He gradually let his mana flow, and activated the spell circle, making sure to control the flow and let it follow the structure of the figure.

As he did so, the spell awakened and a brownish glow flashed on top of the circle, gathering surrounding dust around him, turning it into a blob of earth. As the spell continued, his mana flow pattern changed to the element of water as his focus shifted to the water symbol, and moisture from the surrounding air drained by a little amount. Next thing, Mat focused on the fire symbol, and as the book instructed, imagined the shape of the vessel he'd wanted.. and let the spell reach its end.

The air around him heated up as the blob of earth and water took shape of a wide cylindrical bowl, steam wafting off of it and disappearing into the world, bringing back humidity to similar levels as before. As the vessel's shape solidified, Mat slowly let his mana flow off, making sure to not give the spell any mana shocks—no sudden increment or decrement in the amount of mana.

As his mana waned, and the magic circle died, a one foot wide and half a foot tall pail sat there, looking rough all around the edges, as if made by a potter on their first day of apprenticeship.

I'd take anything at this point..

Mat picked up the vessel, and walked towards the river to fill it, and also check if it was structurally integral, without cracks or holes. As he filled it with clear water, Mat noticed no leaks or breaks, and breathed in relief—at least he didn't fuck up that little spell.

Now that he had water.. he needed blood. Mat would have used his own blood, but that would defeat the entire purpose of the spell.. he didn't have any after all.

He'd have to find a source in that case.

A plan formulated in Mat's head, he left the pail of water on top of one of many stones at the riverside, and walked off a few steps ahead to arrange stones in a certain pattern. This was a simple technique he'd once seen Bear Grylls use in the show Man vs Wild, and he'd used it before on his expeditions in the Norwegian mountain creaks.

It worked on the principle of making a little dam on the side of the river, and keeping watch as a stray fish or two swam to that area. Depending on the biodiversity, and bio-density of the river ecosystem, it could be reasonably easy to excruciatingly patience requiring to catch fish this way.. but Mat had seen a lot swim by in the little time he was at the river, so he was confident in this luck in this case.

Mat waited at the shore as he watched and heard the river flow, shallow waves and white foam forming near the shores as the water crashed around with stones. The river must have been really cold, Mat thought, considering that it was a mountain creek. He was actually glad that he didn't have nerves at this moment, and his senses were numbed… At least he didn't feel cold.

He made another little pond using stones at the river side, where he could keep the fish once he'd caught it. He wouldn't kill it without need, he could simply heal it once he'd extracted some of its blood.

As he waited, it took only a few minutes when a cat fish finally swam into his trap. Mat didn't wait a moment, and straight on grabbed the cat fish the size of his forearm, pulling it out of the water. He immediately transferred it to the little pond he'd made.

Mat sighed in accomplishment, and gave himself a little pat on the back. It was time to prepare the circle now, to get himself a new human body.