How Could You Call It Stealing?

When Han Shuo woke, he found himself lying on the small wooden bed in the Supply Storeroom, drenched in cold water. Across from him, the chubby little Jack held a small wooden bucket, struggling to stand on a stool as he prepared to pour the cold water over him.

The weather was already rather cold, and Han Shuo was soaking wet and freezing. Seeing Jack about to dump another bucket of water on him, he suddenly shouted, "Jack, what are you doing?"

The stool Jack stood on was another discarded item and was already wobbling. Han Shuo's shout startled him, making his heart jump, his feet shift, and his hands shake. The cold water in the little bucket suddenly poured over Han Shuo's head, and even the bucket flew out of Jack's hands and struck Han Shuo in the chest.

"Ugh... Jack, are you trying to kill me?"

Drenched by the second bucket of cold water, Han Shuo shivered all over. The bucket striking his chest hurt like hell, too, and he immediately bared his teeth and howled.

"Sorry, Brian! I thought the first bucket hadn't woken you up. Your stool was wobbling to begin with, and then you shouted. You startled me into shaking, and I poured the water on you!"

Looking thoroughly apologetic, Jack grabbed a nearby rag and began wiping Han Shuo, wanting to dry the water on his neck first.

To his surprise, Han Shuo let out another squeal like a pig being slaughtered, scrambling away in a panic. "Jack, that rag you're holding has spoiled bone powder from necromancy experiments on it! That stuff pricks like tiny needles. Are you trying to prick me to death?"

"Ah... Sorry, Brian! I didn't mean to! I really didn't!"

Jack panicked a little, too, and hurriedly threw the rag far away, inwardly relieved that the side he had held had no bone powder stuck to it.

"Achoo... Achoo... Forget it, forget it. Jack, how did I get here? I remember that bastard Bark using me as a shield, and that little witch Lisa's Soul Pain hitting me, didn't it?"

Sneezing, his neck bright red, Han Shuo hurriedly stripped off his soaking clothes. He found Brian's grimy black towel nearby and quickly wiped the icy water off his body.

"Brian, you have so many scars!"

At Jack's words, Han Shuo examined his body carefully for the first time. Everywhere he could see was scarred. He sighed inwardly, once again saddened by what Brian had suffered.

"Scars are a man's memories and medals. What the hell do you know? Hurry up and tell me what happened after I passed out!"

"After Soul Pain knocked you unconscious, classes at the Dark Arts Academy happened to start. Lisa said a few things and hurried off to class. I called Uncle Shalu, and the two of us carried you back!"

"So Uncle Shalu came over. Right, what did Lisa say before she left?"

Han Shuo nodded as he wiped himself down. Uncle Shalu was the oldest servant in the necromancy department, in his fifties, and usually treated Brian and Jack very well. By the time Brian had come to work as a servant at the Babylon Academy of Magic and Martial Arts, Shalu had already been doing the job for over a decade.

"Lisa said it was your bad luck. If Soul Pain had hit Bark, since he's a magic apprentice, his mental power would mean his soul would only hurt for three days. But you're not a Necromancy Department magic student and don't have any mental power, so it'll probably hurt for a month. She said you disturbed her sleep yesterday and stuffed stones into your pants, hurting her foot when she kicked you, so she wouldn't remove Soul Pain for you!"

"Damn it, how dare Lisa treat me like this! I'll deal with her sooner or later!"

Hearing this, Han Shuo's expression immediately turned cold, and he cursed aloud, giving Jack quite a fright. Jack thought that Lisa had been treating him like this for far more than a day or two, yet he had never seen him do anything to her.

After he finished cursing, Han Shuo thought for a moment and said, "Bark's a magic apprentice, so with his mental power, he only has to hurt for three days, while I have to hurt for a month. Heh heh, I'm exceptionally gifted. If I learn some necromancy, maybe I'll be better in three days."

"Brian, you're a servant. How can you learn magic?"

"Then how do the magic students learn magic?"

"First they meditate and sense magic elements. Once they have mental power, they study the knowledge in magic books and practice magic according to the spells. If there's something they don't understand, they ask a magic teacher!" Jack thought for a moment, then spoke as though it were obvious.

"There you go. I can meditate, too. Once I have mental power, can't I practice magic by studying spells in magic books?"

"But you don't have any magic books!"

At this point in their conversation, Han Shuo walked over to Jack in a very friendly manner, suddenly put an arm around him, and said with a broad smile, "But I have you, don't I? Aren't you the one who cleans the library?"

Startled, Jack hurried away from Han Shuo and said in a panic, "Brian, you want me to help you steal books?"

"How vulgar! How could you call it stealing? I'm only asking you to borrow books. Once I've finished reading them, you can put them back, can't you? Hardly anyone reads those books on magic basics anyway. Nobody will know. Jack, all my bad luck today was because I was helping you. You ought to help me, too, shouldn't you?" Han Shuo stared at Jack and spoke with righteous conviction.

His words left Jack visibly torn, but under Han Shuo's continued emotional appeals, he finally agreed, reluctantly, to "borrow" magic books for him.

That evening, Jack came looking for Han Shuo, acting furtively. He pulled a copy of Necromancy Basics and a Magic Dictionary from over his plump belly and handed them to Han Shuo. Only after a long string of repeated warnings did he sneak away.

As a servant, Brian had originally had no right to learn to read. However, because his duties involved all sorts of work, some of which required literacy, he had actually learned quite a few words over the past six years. All this knowledge had been left to Han Shuo, allowing him to read the text in these two books.

After Jack left, Han Shuo closed the Supply Storeroom's little wooden door, opened Necromancy Basics to its first pale-yellow page, and began reading with keen interest.

Magic was a means of using mental power to communicate with certain magic elements in this world. There were four ways to use magic: spells, magic scrolls (catalysts), gestures, and magic arrays.

Necromancy Department magic had once flourished immensely. At its height, all Darkness Department magic had been classified as necromancy. Unfortunately, it had since declined, and necromancy had instead become a branch of Darkness Department magic.

Necromancy Department magic had initially consisted only of magic that controlled souls and skeletal remains. As it developed, predecessors had continually experimented and made improvements, increasing the number of necromantic spells and gradually forming a system that eventually became representative of Darkness Department magic.

The foundation of all magic was mental power, and the way to obtain mental power was through meditation, sensing the magic elements ordinary people could not sense. Only someone who had developed mental power through meditation could be considered a magic apprentice.

Thus, while studying Necromancy Basics, the first thing Han Shuo did was meditate to sense mental power. However, after seven consecutive days of meditation, he had gained nothing and could not produce even the slightest trace of mental power.

During those seven days, Han Shuo only practiced meditation at night. By day, he still diligently played Brian's role, doing every bit of the cleaning, pest removal, and garbage disposal. Otherwise, as a servant, he could forget about getting anything to eat at the Martial Arts Academy or continuing to stay at the Babylon Academy of Magic and Martial Arts.

Because of Soul Pain, sudden pain struck inside Han Shuo's head several times every day. The first two times, he immediately passed out again. Later, however, although it still hurt from time to time, he did not faint again, perhaps because he had adapted.

During this time, Han Shuo's reputation for being half-mad and half-witted also spread. However, although he seemed mad and foolish, he still finished all his daily work. Seeing that he continued doing his assigned tasks despite his apparent madness, the Babylon Academy of Magic and Martial Arts did not expel him.

The necromancy students unanimously explained Han Shuo's strange behavior this way: he had been doing this work for six years and had formed a habit, so although he had become somewhat mad and foolish, that habit could not be changed, and he still completed his daily duties.

However, whenever students looking to test magic on Han Shuo found him during these days, he would suddenly develop a "headache" at just the right moment. His headaches made him even crazier, and sometimes he might make a complete mess of their experiments. The students all knew Lisa had afflicted him with Soul Pain, and since he was also somewhat mad and foolish, there was little they could do to him.

Nobody yet knew why Lisa had beaten Bark so badly, but Bark had been in a foul mood lately and would find excuses to come over and beat Han Shuo. Bark was a magic apprentice and physically stronger than Han Shuo, so even when Han Shuo feigned madness and fought him, he still took quite a beating over those days.

Returning to the Supply Storeroom that evening, Han Shuo burst into curses the moment he entered. "Bark, you bastard, just you wait! Sooner or later, I'll beat you until even your parents don't recognize you!"

Bark had beaten Han Shuo again that day. With Bark and a little skeleton fighting him together, Han Shuo naturally could not win, and his body was now covered in bruises. However, over these days, Han Shuo felt his strength growing, and his appetite had increased greatly as well. His own food was never enough, and he asked Jack for more every day.

Moreover, after every beating from Bark, although it hurt terribly at the time, as long as Han Shuo practiced the Demonic Cultivation Art according to the Solid Body formula after returning to the Supply Storeroom, he woke the next day without any pain and in excellent spirits. When he fought Bark again, he found that Bark's blows hurt less and less.

As a result, every time Han Shuo was beaten, he immediately returned to the little Supply Storeroom and began practicing the Demonic Cultivation Art. During this time, the tiny bit of demonic essence in his body also grew somewhat without his noticing.

It seemed that every time Han Shuo was beaten and returned to practice the Demonic Cultivation Art, his body was slowly being tempered, and his demonic essence gradually grew from the size of a fingernail to that of a thumb.

This left Han Shuo both excited and afraid. He was excited that his demonic essence was growing stronger and that his body and spirits were improving, but afraid because, seemingly as that demonic essence slowly strengthened, he sometimes found it increasingly difficult to control his temper and was prone to doing things that frightened him and left him regretful afterward.

Pulling Necromancy Basics out from under the little wooden bed, Han Shuo read for a while before once again beginning to meditate out of habit. The demonic essence within him also resumed wandering irregularly through different parts of his body. Wherever it flowed through a painful spot, Han Shuo felt extremely comfortable.

As Han Shuo meditated, that wisp of demonic essence slowly flowed from his neck into his head. At that very moment, a familiar pain suddenly erupted inside his head. Han Shuo knew that Lisa's Soul Pain spell had flared up again.

Suddenly, as Han Shuo's head ached, that wisp of demonic essence seemed to enter the center of the pain. This was the first time the demonic essence had happened to enter his head during an attack of Soul Pain. Han Shuo felt thunderous explosions inside his head, like firecrackers going off. Then pain struck his head, and he passed out again.