Free My Path to Magic 2: A Combat Alchemist by Irina Syromyatnikova

flow of thoughts to a flow of ethereal energy." In the senior year of our university program, we just touched lightly on the relevant sections of magic: their mastering required a certain talent, bore deadly risk, the result was unpredictable, and the university did not want casualties among students, especially shortly before their graduation. What I was practicing with Charak was, a priori, very dangerous. Dark students were taught professional safety for many more hours than the secrets of magic, so my memory obligingly gave out dribs and drabs of relevant material. Some spells (so-called "dynamic curses") were especially dangerous due to the relatively high likelihood of backfire - energy poured into a spell could hit the mage casting the spell. It is common knowledge that combat mages often kill themselves, so no wonder that magicians tried to avoid the dynamic curses wherever possible.  Recalling how my necromantic amulets heated up after a spell casting, I could imagine what happened to the brains of mages under a backfire - if they made a mistake. But I knew nothing of the risks a successful spell could generate.
    " Is that all you know?" Charak gave a sad smile. "Did you ponder over it at all? Making an imitation of a being as complex as yourself doesn't go unpunished. Initially, a necromancer recreates a human whom he is going to raise in his own mind. And the part of his brain which will be occupied by the other person's imprint will never be the same thereafter. On top of this, our spell craft requires fine-tuning to varying circumstances; hence, it is useless to memorize necromantic curses. Instead, you should learn the general principles of our art."
    Charak observed how my face changed expressi on and nodded with satisfaction: "The main occupational risks for necromancers are madness and the loss of one's own personality to an outside entity; any safety against this is fundamentally impossible. Death per se leans toward the lowest of our risks. Our professional hazards are a side effect of the reconstruction in our mind of the alien personalities that we raise."
    And how wonderful it all began! Though there clearly was a catch somewhere.
    "Is it very harmful?"
    " In most cases, not so much. The effect is observed for two to three days, usually no longer, if the ritual is performed by the book. A serious risk arises only when a necromancer tries raising a corpse alone - that is, when he attempts to retain in his mind all aspects of the alien personality. But we, as you've seen, are not engaged in this."
    Yes, that was true. Charak strongly opposed my attempts to create a more or less functional zombie to collect firewood for our bonfire. Now I knew he was not guided by ethics; the necromancer had safety in mind!
    "Are you scared?"
    A silly question! Dark mages are not afraid of anything, but I did start having some doubts regarding the path I chose.
    Charak smiled blissfully and a bit madly: "You are worried about what you might lose, and you don't think about what you can gain! Look at me - I haven't lost myself after raising thousands of zombies. If the integrity of your personality is not lost, you will restore yourself sooner or later and you'll likely be more perfect and complete. There is some benefit that cannot be obtained in any other way…"
    "Zombies?" I ventured to suggest.
    "This is secondary," the necromancer brushed me off. "A human understands another human by identifying with him, by reading the other person's mind through his gestures, looks, intonations. However, everyone remains alone in his or her own world from birth to death, as in a shell that other humans can penetrate only as a pale shadow. But a necromancer is capable of crossing the impenetrable shell - I mean an opportunity to live the lives of dead people raised by us.  A chance to acquire talents which you have not been endowed with in your own life, to try new feelings, visions, ideas that you would have never learned on your