He was still getting used to the complexity of human sensation. Animals had simple hunger, on or off, eat or starve. Humans had gradients. Levels. The ability to be "a little hungry" without panic.
It was nice. Civilized. He'd missed it.
The tofu brain awaited.
Jake had spent the early morning experimenting with Jonas's neural tissue. Testing. Exploring. Figuring out the mechanics of his new living situation.
The regeneration was remarkable. He'd take a careful bite and watch through his enhanced senses as the cells began rebuilding. Not instantly, but fast. Much faster than they should. Jonas's Bone affinity, the structural aspect of Life, was still active in every cell. Still performing its function even without conscious direction.
Sustainable food. Forever. As long as Jake didn't damage Jonas's body beyond the brain's ability to heal it.
The problem was the taste. Or lack thereof.
Bland didn't begin to cover it. This was anti-flavor. The complete absence of anything that made eating pleasurable. Pure biological matter stripped of everything that made memories rich and satisfying.
Jake ate anyway. Took careful, measured bites. Just enough to keep Jonas's body functioning. Just enough to satisfy the hunger without overindulging in something that tasted like compressed nothing.
His tendrils had evolved overnight. That wasn't quite the right word. Adapted maybe. Reorganized. He'd spent hours in the pre-dawn darkness working on control, and somewhere around the third hour, he'd had a breakthrough.
Instead of trying to manipulate Jonas's brain, he could just bypass it entirely.
His tendrils had threaded deep into the brain stem. The primitive core where automatic functions lived. Breathing. Heartbeat. Balance. All the things bodies did without thinking.
And Jake had connected directly. Become the autonomic system. Made himself the source of those commands instead of just influencing them.
Suddenly, Jonas's body wasn't a puppet anymore. It was an extension. A natural part of Jake's existence.
“Could I have done this with the beasts?”
Possibly. The thought surfaced as Jake moved through the tower, his coordination perfect now. Smooth. Natural. Maybe if he'd fully consumed a creature, understood its biology completely, he could have achieved this level of integration.
But then he would have become the beast. Lost himself in its consciousness. Been trapped in animal instinct with no way back to humanity.
Jake remembered those primal thoughts. The rat's aggressive territorialism. The panther's hunting focus. The way animal minds worked in loops, simple and direct and utterly incompatible with abstract human thought.
He'd been so close to losing himself. To becoming nothing but predator instinct wearing Jake's memories like decoration.
And then the fey had saved him.
The memory made his tendrils tingle. That creature's last moments. The peace it had radiated even in death. The acceptance of the cycle. The gentle, profound calm that had pulled Jake back from the edge when he'd been drowning in beast rage.
It had given its life to save him. Had died so Jake could find his way back to humanity. And he didn't even remember what it looked like. What species it had been. Just the feeling. The passion and calmness mixed together. The beauty of something that understood death wasn't an ending.
"Thank you," Jake whispered to a memory that couldn't hear him. "Whatever you were. Wherever you are. Thank you for saving me."
The words felt inadequate. But they were all he had.
Jake moved through the second floor quietly. His Life-sense painted Forge's signature clearly. Still deep in sleep. Twelve hours down, probably another four to go. The man had been running on fumes. His body was taking the recovery time it desperately needed.
Good. That meant Jake could explore without Forge's terrified life signature bleeding anxiety into every moment.
“If anyone ever needed a Xanax bar, it was that guy.”
The library door was slightly ajar. Jake pushed it open and stopped.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
The room was a disaster. Books scattered randomly across shelves with no apparent organization. Some stacked vertically, some horizontally, some just shoved wherever they'd fit. Papers covered a desk in the corner, curling at the edges from humidity. Broken quills. Dried ink. What might have been food remnants from months ago.
And bones. Of course there were bones. Random skeletal elements used as paperweights and bookends and probably decorative touches Jonas thought looked mysterious.
"What a disorganized, lazy, corpse fucker!" Jake said aloud. Then paused. Looked around. "Right. Still no filter. Great."
But the assessment stood. Jonas had lived here for decades. Had access to magical knowledge. Had the time and resources to create an actual functional workspace.
Instead, he'd created chaos. Like a teenager's bedroom after a month of neglect. Except the teenager was a middle-aged necromancer with no excuse for being this slovenly.
Jake counted the books. Maybe forty total. Forty-three if he was being generous and included the water-damaged ones that were probably illegible.
He'd expected more. Had anticipated shelves packed with arcane knowledge. Centuries of accumulated magical wisdom. The kind of library a necromancer should have.
This was pathetic.
"Were all these given to him by the Serpent Lords?" Jake muttered, examining spines. The titles were pretentious. "On the Nature of Unlife." "Void Inversions Vol. III." "The Art of Corpse Preservation."
Probably so. That made sense. Jonas had been a collaborator. A tool. The Pantathians wouldn't give powerful knowledge to someone they considered property.
These were basics. Primers. The magical equivalent of children's books designed to teach fundamentals without revealing anything actually dangerous.
Which, Jake realized, actually worked in his favor.
He didn't need advanced theory. He needed to understand the foundations. Needed to learn what magic WAS before he could figure out how to use what he'd accumulated.
Jake grabbed five books at random. Different sizes. Different levels of wear. Started with the smallest one because it looked the least intimidating.
"A Magical Primer for the Newly Named Pantathian."
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
The title was written in large, friendly letters. The cover had illustrations. Literal cartoon drawings of smiling serpent people holding glowing orbs.
Jake opened to the first page and just stared.
It was a children's book. Actually, genuinely a picture book. Big block letters. Simple sentences. Illustrations on every page showing basic concepts.
"Oh my God. They literally made magic for dummies. With pictures."
He kept reading.
WELCOME, YOUNG PANTATHIAN!
You have been gifted the honor of a name and the responsibility of power. This primer will teach you the foundations of magical practice. Study well, for knowledge is the path to serving the Empire.
Jake snorted. Propaganda right from the start. Classic indoctrination material. Teach the basics while reinforcing hierarchy. Clever.
He turned the page.
WHAT IS MAGIC?
Magic is the ability to interact with the fundamental forces that shape our world. These forces exist in all things. In fire and water. In light and shadow. In life and death.
To use magic, you need two things:
- AFFINITY - Your connection to the force 2. UNDERSTANDING - Your knowledge of how to use it
Think of affinity as a door and understanding as the key. You must have both to enter the room beyond!
A helpful illustration showed a Pantathian child standing before a door labeled "Magic." One hand held a glowing key labeled "Understanding." The other hand touched the door, which glowed where contact was made, labeled "Affinity."
Jake had to admit, it was clear. Childish, but clear.
"Okay. Two components. Makes sense. I have affinities from consuming hosts. But understanding has to be learned. I got that impression from Tikka, before…"
He kept reading, trying to stay focused.
THE THREE CATEGORIES OF MAGIC
Magic is organized into three great categories, each serving different purposes:
ELEMENTAL AFFINITIES
- Fire
- Water
- Earth
- Air
These are the building blocks! Every Pantathian can learn elemental magic with practice and study. They are common, reliable, and powerful when mastered.
An illustration showed four Pantathians, each demonstrating their element. One breathing fire. One creating water from nothing. One moving stones. One floating on wind currents.
Jake thought about Jonas's fire-lighting trick. The casual gesture that should have worked but didn't when Jake tried.
"Elemental. Jonas had fire affinity locked in his cells. But I pureed the understanding. So the door is there but I lost the key. Fuck."
PRIME AFFINITIES
- Light
- Life
- Space
- Time
These are the rarest and most powerful forces! Prime affinities are often genetic, passed through bloodlines. They are difficult to develop and dangerous to misuse. Handle with great respect!
The illustration showed a Pantathian elder manipulating each prime. Light bending around them. Living plants growing instantly. Space folding. Time freezing a falling object mid-air.
Jake felt something click in his mind. Life was listed as a Prime. Unified. Whole. Not fragmented into Blood and Bone and Claw.
"So they KNOW it's supposed to be unified. They know Life is one force. And they still fragment it when they create species. That's not accidental. That's deliberate crippling."
The realization was cold. Calculated. The Pantathians had taken a fundamental force and broken it into pieces, then distributed those pieces to their created species as separate capabilities.
Divide and conquer. Literal magical eugenics.
META AFFINITIES
- Void
- Fusion
- Amplification
These are the rarest of all! Meta affinities don't create effects on their own. Instead, they CHANGE how other magic works. They are modifiers, filters, and enhancers. Only the most gifted Pantathians ever develop these!
The illustration showed abstract concepts. One Pantathian with Void turning light into shadow. Another showed the temperature dropping with a snake man shivering. Yet another with Fusion combining fire and water into steam. With Amplification making a small flame become an inferno, and a small breeze into a hurricane.
Jake's mind raced. Void was Meta. A modifier. That matched what he'd learned from Jonas's cellular memory. It didn't create, it changed. Filtered. Inverted.
And Fusion. That was what he'd been doing. Light plus Void equaled Shadowed Step. He'd been using Meta magic without understanding it was Meta magic.
"Holy shit. I've been doing advanced magic by accident."
He turned the page, hungry for more information.
DEVELOPING YOUR AFFINITY
Affinity is your natural connection to a force. Some are born with it. Others develop it through long practice and exposure. The more you work with a force, the stronger your connection becomes!
IMPORTANT: You must have affinity BEFORE understanding matters. No amount of study will let you use magic you have no connection to.
BUT! Understanding without affinity is useless. Affinity without understanding is dangerous. You need BOTH to practice safely.
Jake thought about his accumulated affinities. Every host he'd consumed had given him fragments. Pieces. Tiny connections to forces they'd possessed.
Fire from... where? Had one of the animals had it? The rat maybe? Or was it environmental absorption, just existing near flames? Someone had heat, he remembered the heat…
Water, Earth, Air. Same question. Fragments accumulated through consumption or proximity.
Light from the displacement lizard. Definite. Clear. That one he knew.
Life. His big one. Blood and Bone and Claw merged into something whole. The troll had shown him unified affinity, but it was cauterized during metamorphosis through sheer force of will and refusing to stay fragmented.
“Did I evolve during that cocoon thing? Will I have to do that again?”
He would have to save that mystery for later.
Void from the shadow panther. Small. Underdeveloped. But present.
Space and Time though...
Jake turned his attention inward. Really examined his cellular structure. The affinities locked in his small form.
And there they were. Tiny. Barely present. Slivers so small he'd never noticed them before. Space and Time, the rarest Primes, existed in him as the barest possible connection.
“Maybe from the Fey? Or maybe accumulated from dozens of minor hosts. Just the tiniest fragment of the most powerful forces in existence.”
“Not enough to use. Not even close. But present.”
"I have all of them," Jake said aloud, the realization hitting like physical force. "Every category. Every type. All the elementals, all the primes, all the metas. I've consumed enough hosts that I've picked up fragments of everything."
The scope of that was staggering. He'd accidentally created a collection that would take most magical practitioners multiple lifetimes to accumulate. And he'd done it in weeks. Months. However long he'd been alive in this world.
But the affinities were useless. Completely useless without understanding.
Jake had doors to every room. But no keys. No knowledge of how to use what he'd collected. No comprehension of the forces he'd absorbed.
He could spend lifetimes studying. Actually, genuinely, multiple human lifespans dedicated to magical research. And he'd still barely scratch the surface of what was possible.
Time alone. Just that one Prime. How much would someone need to learn to manipulate time? To slow it. Stop it. Reverse it. The conceptual knowledge required was astronomical. The practice needed to make it safe. The understanding to avoid catastrophic mistakes.
And he had a sliver. A fragment. The barest possible connection to a force that could reshape reality.
"What would it even look like?" Jake whispered. "Complete affinity. Not fragments. Not pieces. But total, absolute connection to a single aspect of the universe."
The thought spiraled. Complete mastery of Time. Or Space. Or Life. Not just using the force. BEING the force. Understanding it so completely that the distinction between self and concept disappeared.
That would be godlike. Actually, literally godlike. The kind of power that could reshape worlds. Create species. Destroy civilizations. Rewrite the laws of reality itself.
Something stirred in the back of Jake's mind. Not his thought. Someone else's. Something else's. Beast instinct surfacing from where he'd buried it.
Complete power. Complete mastery. Could make HER suffer. Could make Hope scream. Could show that bitch what real punishment looks like. Could...
"NOPE!" Jake said aloud, slamming the book shut. "No. Absolutely not. Not thinking that. Not going there."
He looked around the library. Checked corners. Examined shadows. Just in case.
"Sorry!" he called to the empty air. "Not planning anything! Totally reformed! No deicide on the agenda! That was just, uh, residual beast personality. Not me. Jake is good. Jake is behaving."
Silence answered him.
Jake waited. Held his breath. Half-expected lightning to strike him down for even having the thought.
Nothing happened.
"Okay. Good. Crisis averted. Let's just... not pursue godhood for revenge purposes. That seems like a bad life choice. Probably ends extremely poorly."
He opened the book again. Focused on practical information instead of cosmic power fantasies. Tried to ignore the part of him that still wanted to make Hope pay for what she'd done.
That wasn't Jake thinking. That was contamination. Beast rage. Animal vindictiveness. The parts of consumed personalities that still surfaced when he wasn't careful.
Jake was better than that. Had to be better than that. Because the alternative was becoming exactly what Hope had accused him of being.
A creature of pure appetite with nothing inside but hunger.
No. Jake had come too far to lose himself yet again. Had fought too hard to stay human, or at least human-ish, to throw it away chasing revenge on a being that was so far above him that he might as well be… a worm.
“Oh you pretentious… Nope. I have got to stop doing that.”
He'd learn the magic. Would master what he could. Would become powerful enough to survive and maybe thrive.
But godhood? Cosmic vengeance? Killing the goddess who'd cursed him?
That was a path to becoming something worse than what he already was.
And Jake Rivers might be a parasite, a user, a fundamentally selfish creature wearing someone else's corpse.
But at least he knew his limits.
- - -
End of Chapter 35