Raven gently stood on top of a steel beam and looked down at the dead apostle snarling away at him, lost to their desire for blood.
Honestly, she was kind of cute, but as momma Inanis would have probably said-
"Don't stick your dick in crazy." He finished aloud as he jumped down and swung a great sword empowered by Dawn energy right through their head and tearing up the heart, putting them down for good.
"I know my own regeneration has recently become broken enough to survive the same shit, but damn if it isn't annoying." Raven mused as he set the body on fire and ensured it fully burnt before he walked off for a moment before he vanished in the next moment.
•~~~~•
"Running a little late are we Mr. Inanis?" Albus asked to Raven as he took a seat and placed some food onto his plate.
"Not my fault she succumbed to her need of blood. She was admittedly powerful for a dead apostle, but she wasn't an actual threat to someone of skill and decent power." Raven said practically dissing the whole wizarding community with a few words.
"You sound arrogant." Snape drawled out, simply as a fact, a statement.
"Perhaps, but Lori would not accept anything but perfection. I would need an ancestor level dead apostle to be challenged. They might even win, the mystery in them letting them rewind their bodies through time to regenerate it simply facinating. Relaity marbles, marble phantasms and so much more. Maybe I'll go hunt one of them this summer!" Raven felt the familiar battle hungry smile forming on his face he got at the thought of a good fight.
"Calm down Raven, we don't need you scaring the students." Albus said and Raven calmed himself before he started leaking bloodlust.
"Apologies." Raven said and turned to Snape.
"You are correct, I do possess arrogance, however it is tempered by confidence and complete certainty in my power and skills, I understand the need to escape from a fight I can't win, only an idiot would stay and lose an unbeatable fight." Raven replied and Snape only nodded.
"you hear that a new model is being released for public use?" Raven focused in on a conversation one of the teachers was talking about.
"Hm?" Raven asked leaned to the side to pay attention to them.
"The Einzbern are releasing a new model of homunculus that can be bought, a battle servant model. The capability of a good maid or butler, and a capable fighter. A upgrade to their previous one." They said and Raven let a small hum out.
Homunculus, a much more advance version of golemancy. The art of creating an artificial being.
He let a small hum out before focusing on his food and responding to conversations around him. Though part of his mind was already running the calculations for making golems.
At their base, golems were a core. Their outer shell was merely its way of interacting with the world.
•~~~~•
"So first I need to make the core. Not to hard, I need something durable, but malable." He mused in his hidden workshop in a remote mountain range he had bought.
A multitude of resources lay scattered about the room, he'll clean it up eventually… probably not.
"Ok, so a gem would be a preferred storage method, to handle the mana quality I'm going to insert inside of it, but I need something durable to also inscribe the ruins onto." Raven dug through his stuff trying to decide on what to use.
"Hm, perhaps I can combine them together to form my deseried core." He said as he grabbed a large blue gem, it was spherical. He then grabbed a large bar of Dawn Ingots, he really needed to get that renamed.
"Step 1, fill gem with mana." He mused and shoved half his mana inside of it and took a deep breath at such a large amount of his energy gone, he'd recover it soon, but the point still stands.
"Step 2, mold the ingot around the power source." Raven user alteration to slowly let it wrap around the gem in such a way they were attached together, melded into a single thing.
"Step 3, carve the needed runes into the core." Raven said as he went to start finger carving the runes, but then paused.
"What type of runes should I use for this?" He asked himself and then paused as he realized he would need to decide on a operating system for the golem core, because he would not make a shitty creation.
"I'll workshop this for now and focus on making another piece for Project Damocles." He decided and shoved everything off his workbench and let a giant slab of metal appear as he started a slow process of carving hundreds of thousands of rune clusters.
•~~~~•
Raven let a small content hum out as he held a glowing white orb above his hand. It was his attempt at an artificial soul.
He had sorta understood the data that was a soul, what constituted its ego, what made a being them. However it had taken some trial and error to make the barrier around the ego that kept it from spilling out into the universe.
To put it simply, it was like an egg, the shell keeps the yolk inside, but the moment it's cracked open, it's free for all to use or destroy.
"So it's holding stable, but it does show signs of slow deterioration as well. Ego is holding strong." Raven said and he slowly inserted the soul into the gem, which suddenly cracked before in a blinding light, the soul cracked as well and then exploded.
"Fuck." Raven cursed, but he was thankful he had the idea to install automatic shield generators inside his workshop. They would activate anytime something was going to go wrong. To protect himself and anything important in the workshop.
"Test 001, failure." Raven sighed as he sulked around before cleaning up the mess and making a new core and trying a new set of runes.
•~~~~•
"Test 002, failure."
"Test 003, failure."
"Test 027, failure."
"Test 058, failure."
"Test 136, succ- fuck! Failure."
"Test 187, failure."
"Test 340, failure."
"Test 500, failure."
"Ok, I'm done for now." Raven slumped down as he huffed in annoyance, he crushed the artificial soul in his hands out of existence.
"I'm probably doing something wrong in combining the nature of soul and vessel." Raven mused and then took a deep breath before a stream of curse words left his mouth in such a way that even a sailor would turn beet red.
"The answer was so fucking simple!" He grunted as he summoned a new core and drew a few sets of rune clusters on it, and then summoned another artificial soul, except this time he did the obvious thing and molded it to match the shape of its vessel perfectly.
"Test 501, successful." He grinned widely as the core hummed to life, Raven happily rubbed his face against it, baby talking the core.
"I think I will call you, Aria!" He declared happily as the core glowed softly as he added an extra rune cluster to it. The core glowed brightly for a moment before dimming down.
"I should talk with Hades, he of all people would understand souls. Plus he might have advice about ensuring her stability. Plus he might know something about how to do Plan Origin." He nodded to himself and tucked the core into his pocket and then opened a portal to the underworld.
•~~~~•
"Sugar daddy im home!" Raven declared cheerfully as he busted into the throne room, but paused as he stared at the figure teleporting away in a red magic circle.
Hades took a deep deep breath as he waited for the magic circle to vanish before slumping as his skeleton form faded away to reveal his human form.
"I feel like you did that on purpose." Hades accused and Raven laughed joyfully as he made his way over as the throne room changed into a living room with large comfy couches.
"I would love to admit I did, but sadly I did not, I was actually coming to visit about somethings other than embarrassing you." Raven laughed as he dug into his pocket and pulled out Aria's core.
"This is my latest invention, a core made use golemancy and an artificial soul. Can you take a look at the soul, as much time as I've spent experimenting with them, I don't have your experience with them." Raven admitted and Hades nodded as he took the core and studied it.
"This rune work is definitely the best way to keep it stable and constantly supplied with mana, I believe about, half your reserves to start its own?" Hades asked and Raven nodded at that.
"This soul though, it's definitely stable, no cracks or deformities in it. The ego, of what's barely there, impressive for a young just made soul, is holding strong and growing. I don't see any signs of it destabilizing and fizzing out, just come back regularly for check ups." Hades said with pride in his tone.
"Good, now for the second thing." Raven said as he slid Aria into his pocket and sent her back to his apartment.
"I went through your books, and I noticed in the old days that the first humans didn't have three different mana making organs, but a single core." Raven said and Hades nodded.
"I want to make that happen for myself. Having two cores and the so many magic circuits I have is a pain to differentiate them at times, not that I can't do it subconsciously at this point, but my point still stands." Raven said as Hades stroked his own chin in thought.
"It's definitely possible, that's for sure. I didn't focus on that too much in the days of old, it was a passing fancy to look into slightly when the cores of humans split into three different forms, however I know someone who does, her existence is one as old as my own and deeply rooted into magic, Hecate." Hades mused as he closed his eyes momentarily.
"She has accepted to come and talk, achieving the results is up to you. However I must go, my dear old younger brother is throwing a hissy fit and demands my presence. Hecate will join you here soon." Hades said before vanishing into a shadow and disappearing.
"I need to a cool teleportation trick." Raven mused to himself as he thought of different ways he could do such a thing.
"Lord Hades said you had inquires about the origins of mana production by humanity?" A cold voice said and Raven leaned his head back trying to not attack the person who appeared without him even realizing its
"That was quicker then expected." He said in response as he tried not to stare at the glorious set of mammaries blocking his view of her face.
"When the lord of the underworld ask for a favor, one typically responds as quick as they can." Hecate said and Raven nodded his head at that.
"Understandable. However yes, I wished to learn about the origin of humanities magic core and how it split into the three current systems it did. What caused it, and if it was possible to return to that." Raven stated and Hecate hummed as she moved to sit beside him.
"Your curiosity is boundless, the greed in your great, yet inside you I send a burning desire, to prove yourself. A burning desire that can spiral into a dangerous inferno that threatens to burn you as well." Hecate said with blank face.
Raven smiled at her.
"Correction, it has burned me." Raven said as his smile only grew.
"Burnt you might have been, but consumed you weren't." Hecate.
"Oh no, I'd say it did consume me for a while. The whispers of the old ones certainly did not help." Raven laughed softly as he idly let a ball of mana form in between his hands that he started molding like clay.
"Perhaps it did, and perhaps they do, but yet, here you are." She responded back and Raven merely nodded his head.
"Here I am, half way to insane and pursuing life merely because of a few beings." He answered.
"You pass. How would you like to learn the true magic of the world, the true magic that makes-" Raven held a hand up to her.
"As a magician of the first true magic, I take offense to whatever you call true magic." Raven said and Hecate stared at Raven before she started cackling.
"Oh yes, this is Lord Hades greatest gift to me ever. Child, what is your name?" Hecate asked happily as a smile formed on her face.
"Raven Inanis." Raven said simply and she smiled wider.
"Raven Inanis, I am Hecate, The Goddess of Magic, and I will offer you my services, I will make you into the greatest magic user in the world, past, present and future. All I ask of you is time and dedication." She said and Raven stood up and stared into her eyes before grinning.
"I am at your command teacher." He said dramatically. Then paused. He took out his phone and snapped a selfie with her.
Raven sent it to Hades with the caption saying "New magic teacher, 'bout to break the world." He'd have that skeleton regretting this for sheer amusement on his part.
"Now my first lesson, forget everything you know, I will break you down to the basics and rebuild you up. Before that though, we need to fix that issue of your divide casting systems." Hecate said with a smug tone before she snapped her fingers and they vanished as Hades reappeared in shadows with a panicked expression on his skeleton face.
It worsened when he realized he was too late and couldn't sense them in his realm.
•~~~~•
Raven and Hecate cackled together as they went over runic formations together.
•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•
Lmfao I had this ready like three hours after the last chapter was posted and forgot to hit publish. Only four days late, sorry. It's happened more then once too.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and the coming together of a feared duo.
The chaos gremlin of chaos gremlins and the goddess of magic herself, what a soon to be feared duo.
Ima go now, I gotta finish my 2am dinner, take a shower and then go to bed, I gotta prepare myself to nap all day tomorrow lol. It's like my first day off in three weeks.
It was either work, house work or family crap to deal with, I just wanna nap all day damnit! Is that too much to ask for in this world?
Yes, yes it is.
Anyways I'll stop ranting now and let you all go, so u too next time!
-Voidy, Insomniac