Death's Favorite Warlock

by Charles Dean

“In the bath?”

  “Why not? It’s so comfortable.”

  “I don’t know . . . I was always told you shouldn’t soak for too long . . . but I don’t see any issue with it, really,” Lars said. “Have at it if you want.”

  “Thanks, wonderful and kind master of this humble bed slave, for giving me a little time off.” Her words were obviously mocking the idea that she had to ask for permission for such a simple thing, but they lacked any real hostility. She leaned back so that most of her body was submerged, rested her neck and the back of her head on the rocks behind her, and closed her eyes.

  I have half a mind to make sure that little fie fie doesn’t get any sleep today.

  Why? What’s wrong with letting her rest?

  Nothing. Just messing with her seems fun, and she’s so useless at the moment that any fun we can get out of her seems worth it. Should we? Can we? Can we please torment her? I promise I won’t nag you about krowenberry milkshakes for a day.

  How is that a promise? You don’t even know if anyone can make them as delicious as Anneliese. For all we know, you may never taste that sweet milkshake flavor that brought all the cultivators to her stall.

  Ugh. Don’t remind me. I know you want to butcher them for how they likely played with your adolescent crush, Dawn, but forget that. I want to kill every single member of that sect for ruining my plans to have more milkshakes. I’m going to ask that you savor each and every kill.

  I just might . . . He didn’t like the idea of killing anyone that was innocent, but he truly hated what had been done to his people. Just remembering the tattered, broken shell of the woman he had pined after for years, whose heart had been as warm as the summer sun, filled with him with rage.

  So, yeah, depressing thoughts away! Let’s cheer ourselves up by messing with this girl.

  She really doesn’t seem that bad. You sure we can’t—

  Just trust your master. Have I ever led you astray?

  You did tell me to kill everyone I knew and cared about . . .

  And how much better would their fates have been if you had ended them quickly in their sleep compared to what that monstrous sect did to them? It would have been nice, clean, and peaceful. You doomed them to that horrifying conclusion. You should have trusted your master.

  Okay, you know what? Fine. I don’t feel like arguing with you, but if it’s cruel at all, I’m out. I don’t mind messing with her, but I’m not going to be mean about it.

  That’s the spirit. Wake her up right when she falls asleep—which shouldn’t be more than a minute at the looks of it—and make her cultivate. Tell her that it’s not safe and that if she doesn’t cultivate, she will die a horrible death since there are too many wicked forces that will conspire to end you both.

  That . . . sounds true. It doesn’t sound like you’re messing with her. What’s the catch? And how are two or three hours of cultivation going to help her improve significantly when she has been cultivating for longer than I have and only made it to her current stage?

  Is your master not all-knowing? You think I don’t have a solution for her?

  Lars felt a little angry. You do? If you knew how to cultivate all this time, how could you let me waste all of my money on that damn book?

  Because I told you it was useless. You just didn’t listen. You have no beast, monster, or demon blood in your veins to purify. Even if you did, our contract wouldn’t allow it. Only through me can you gain strength. Only by my wishes and mercy can you ever achieve anything.

  Why do I feel like you’re grinning evilly as you say those words? And what contract? I don’t remember any contract.

  That’s ‘cause you weren’t the one who made the contract with me. Your father was.

  Huh? Lars blinked. Eighteen years had passed, and this was the first time his master had ever even mentioned his father. For him to find out that his father was the reason he had this voice in his head—that the man had made some contract—was like he had been slapped across both sides of his face and punched in the gut all at once. He knew he had a father. The chances he was just spawned randomly out of a woman who hadn’t been with a man were pretty much nil. However, it had been something he had pushed out of his mind. He had ignored it. He had avoided it. He had done his best to pretend like it wasn’t even a thing. After all, any time the topic of his dad had come up, his first reaction was always “Why should I think about him? He abandoned me. He left me. He’s not worth my time,” and he always managed to dodge the subject.

  So, I’ve picked out the perfect cultivation method for her! All you have to do is convey my words to her, and she’ll be able to start purifying that blood in her veins and rising in Qi stages faster than ever before.

  Right. Lars was somewhat happy and somewhat disappointed that the subject of this contract, of his father, had been skated over by his master. He felt like a ball of saliva and stress that had clogged up his throat broke into pieces small enough for him to swallow as the topic shifted, but at the same time, part of him, a part not strong enough to voice itself, wanted to ask her for more information. Unfortunately, that part of him felt so insignificant and worthless, the abandoned unwanted child that had been tossed aside, that it never gained the courage to speak. So what’s the catch? he asked instead.

  The method I picked out is indeed one of the three most effective methods. However . . .

  However?

  However, it is also the cruelest method to practice for any parrot or bird cultivator.

  Cruelest? How so?

  Extreme pain. Extreme, terrifying, awful pain. She will be increasing her Qi by stepping forward, instead of backward, in evolution with a single goal in mind: the phoenix. This means that she not only has to purify her blood but that she also has to forcibly add an element to it.

  And there aren’t equally powerful cultivation techniques that don’t involve her torturing herself?

  Oh, sure there are. She could refine the beast blood in the direction of one of its ancestors, one of the truly terrifying and powerful bipedal dinosaurs of old . . . but what would be the fun in that?

  So, this is what you meant by wanting to mess with her. You want to help her out, but you also want to make her pay for that help . . . Lars sighed.

  Hey. Give her the option. If she wants it, she wants it. If she doesn’t, she can stay with no greater potential than a middling Stage 3 or Stage 4 cultivator by the time she hits thirty. She’s already comfortable with calling herself a bed slave. Maybe that’s all she wants to aspire to, an unused bed slave you keep around but never use because your morals aren’t as awful as her sect’s were.

  Lars looked over, and sure enough, just as his master had anticipated, it had only taken a minute for the woman to pass out. Her head was leaned back, and her eyes were shut. He could almost make out a tiny, little bubble of snot filling and collapsing with air as she began to snore ever so softly.

  Look at her: she’s so cute and sleeping so peacefully. It’s going to be great breaking her out of that much-needed rest and giving her a hellish task. I’m so excited.

  You aren’t giving her the cruelest method because you’re trying to torture her, are you? Lars remembered too well how his master had, in her entire existence, never encouraged him to do anything that would make others suffer needlessly. Sure, she wanted him to kill people, but she just wasn’t the cruel type to those that were still living. You actually think this method is the best one there is?

  Don’t take the fun out of this, or so help me . . . Just do it already. Mess with the fie fie.

  “Hey,” Lars called out. He then used his foot to nudge her foot so she’d wake up after she made no sign of hearing him call out to her.

  “What?! WHAT?! I promise I only closed my eyes for a minute, senior bro—” She snapped awake, already lowering her head and preparing to apologize, before coming to her senses and realizing where she was. “Is it dinner time already? How long was I out?” she asked.

  “A minute, maybe two?�
� Lars answered as a wry smile spread across his face. He hated to admit it, but his master was right. Messing with her was already fun, and as he watched her become frustrated, he couldn’t help but take a little pleasure in it—especially since he knew he had something really good for her.

  Her look became dour. “Then what is it?”

  “Well, it just occurred to me that you’re too weak,” he said. “If you don’t get a little stronger, you’re going to be taken advantage of and die horribly in this city. It’s far crueler than I thought, and my master and I were worried about you.”

  “Really?” She looked at him skeptically. “Or is it that you just want a better bodyguard?” she asked. “Oh well, if you go down, I go down. So what’s your plan to help me with being . . . too weak? Is it part of the reason why you’re looking for random people to kill? Are you going to be teaching me some dark cultivation technique that helps me siphon the Qi or blood essence from other cultivators?

  “Not exactly . . .” Lars began. “What I’m going to be teaching you . . .” He paused, listening to his master’s instructions for a minute. “Well, what I’m going to be teaching you is going to burn you. Quite a bit.”

  “Burn me?” she asked worriedly.

  “It’s going to be incredibly painful, but the results should manifest rather quickly,” he explained. “You’ll gain strength, but . . . the toll your body will pay, it’ll be quite a lot. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and this won’t be an exception.”

  She looked contemplative. “I see . . . Can you guarantee it’ll work?” she asked.

  “I can’t guarantee anything, but my master doesn’t lie. Ever.”

  “And your master said it would work?”

  “If you can tough it out. But it’s entirely your choice. You can stay the way you are and continue cultivating whatever broken technique your sect gave you in hopes that you would never advance so that they would always have one more set of hands for gathering herbs. You will never amount to anything more than a middling life of no import, but it will be one without pain, which isn’t something to frown at. I’ll do what I can to make sure that you never get taken advantage of—assuming that there’s anything that I can do. Whether I like you or not, you’re still my responsibility, so I’ll still take care of you, even if you choose to do nothing with your life.”

  She stared at Lars with a look of ferocity and determination he hadn’t seen on her before. Then, after a few moments of silence, she finally answered. “I’ll do it.”

  “You’re not worried about the—”

  “I said I’d do it,” she insisted.

  “Alright, then let me walk you through how to force Fire Qi into your blood and how to manipulate and evolve your beast essence. Once you manage to change it to the phoenix, which is apparently close enough that this will be possible, then the sky will be the limit for your potential.”

  “The legendary phoenix?” she said, her mouth slowly opening and closing.

  “Yeah, that phoenix,” Lars replied.

  “Okay, okay, tell me quickly!” Her eyes lit up with excitement—an excitement that Lars could only envy—as he began to explain, step by step, what she needed to do. It was lucky for him that his master was very good at giving instructions, and neither he nor Desdemona seemed to have any difficulty in understanding any of the cultivation steps.

  The only thing that had Lars slightly confused was that his master kept talking about the profundity of this or how profound something else was or about the profound and ungraspable nature of something else. His master also seemed to insist he repeat those exact phrases and also talk about the “difference between heaven and earth” or “that one must do this, or else they will not even recognize Mount Tai.” Lars almost felt like his master wasn’t just messing with Desdemona by giving her a technique she would have to suffer through for progress, but that she was also messing with Lars by forcing him to explain stuff with the most ridiculous phrases ever.

  How is lining up one’s Qi something profound? What is profound about it? He sighed as he almost turned redder from embarrassment than Desdemona did from starting the process of literally burning herself, using the two lesser spirit stones that Lars had taken as his spoils while fighting in the village to begin the process of creating Fire Qi within her.

  So, you still have a little over two hours until the sun sets, and we have to get a bite to eat sooner than that. What do you want to do next?

  Well, we got fresh clothes, 38 silver, a few vials of anti-poison medicine, and a town we’ve never been in . . . Lars thought, trying to imagine the possibilities. What do you want to do?

  I want to try every dessert we can buy with 38 silver pieces. How about this . . .

  His master cut off for a minute, only to return with a quest.

  Quest: Spoil yourself. Spoil your kind, loving, all-powerful, and amazing master.

  Objective: Buy 5 different types of street food and enjoy them nice and slowly, savoring their flavors to the fullest.

  Another quest without a listed quest reward? Fine. Whatever. I could go for trying out some street food. He tugged at the two sides of his fresh new robe, pulling it tighter around his body and straightening it a little bit. Let’s go do some damage to this little town.

  Chapter 5

  Name: Lars

  Level: 2

  Power: 75

  Speed: 40

  Fortitude (HP): 40

  Resistance: 40

  Unspent: 109

  Elemental Abilities

  Wind Qi: 56

  Toxin Qi: 32

  Fire Qi: 18

  Ice Qi: 8

  Water Qi: 6

  Unassigned Qi: 15

  Abilities

  [5] Advanced Reading Level 1 [37,003/1,000,000 Words Read]

  [10] Knife Hand Level 2 [0/10 Unaware Combatants Killed]

  [20] Toxin Immunity Level 4 [1/10 Toxins Consumed]

  [N/A] Unyielding Ice Veins [No Level]

  Item Skill Progressions

  Enslavement [1/5 People Enslaved]

  Active Quests

  Spoil yourself. Spoil your kind, loving, all-powerful, and amazing master.

  “Is it just you that is leaving?” Matthew’s mother asked as Lars, by himself and only wearing the clothes that he had taken from the dresser, approached the entrance to the courtyard. She had the same emotionless face that she usually had, but her eyes were studying all facets of Lars. “Will your bed slave be accompanying you?”

  “Desdemona,” Lars said, “will be busy cultivating. I will return in time for dinner. Hopefully.”

  “That is good.” She gave a fake smile. Her eyes didn’t move at all even though her lips parted. “But, I think perhaps you should wait until after dinner. I’m sure the young master and his father have much to discuss with you.”

  “Thanks, but . . . it’s my first time in this city. I kind of want to stretch my legs and learn the layout some,” Lars answered, not sure how to read the words she had just spoken. Was that a threat?

  She’s a Stage 7 Qi-Gathering Cultivator. If she is threatening you, she has the strength to back it up.

  Holy crap! That’s strong, Lars thought, mentally doing the math. This meant that she had, at the very least, over 1,280 points into each of the four major stats. A light attack from her with even a 10 for the vulnerability coefficient would still do enough damage to kill Lars over 100 times and then some. If she had the same damage vulnerability coefficient as the beasts he had fought, one punch would do 8,192 damage at the very least. There was also the possibility that her stats were closer to 2,559 and not the bottom of the stage. Just thinking about how ridiculously strong she was, Lars swallowed involuntarily.

  “Young Master Lars need not fear,” she said as if reading his every thought. “I am merely advising you to return by dinnertime so that you can enjoy Matthew’s and his father’s company. I would not dare be so presumptuous as to tell the disciple of Hsein Ku what to do with his time.”


  “Right . . .” Lars thought for a minute. He didn’t need an excuse that would please her, but given their power discrepancy, he still felt like making one, just to be safe. “I also want to find tools—paper, ink, a fresh quill—so that I can impart something to your son.”

  “Of course. The young master mentioned you were going to assist him with his cultivation technique,” she said. Then her empty smile, that painted expression, disappeared. “But I would prefer it if you did not write it down for him.”

  “Can he not read?” Lars asked, honestly unsure of whether or not he had that ability.

  “He can read,” the mother assured him, “but he has his father’s blood, not mine.” As she spoke, a bushy tail that started off slightly white but then darkened to almost black as it progressed toward its tip appeared out from behind her.

  Coyote. She’s cultivating the blood of the coyote. You don’t see them often, as they’re not really common around this region, but it’s very similar to a dog—if a dog were more self-serving and cunning and less agreeable.

  “Indeed.” Her eyes seemed to catch Lars’s understanding of her lineage. “While my kind are often cunning, his kind are fierce, loyal, and sometimes dense but always easily manipulated. I mean no ill will when I say those words. Without those qualities, I would not have been able to attain such a comfortable life here, eating the finest foods, receiving good resources to cultivate, and spending my days living in such a nice place.”

  “So you don’t want me to give him a written manual because he is too loyal?” Lars didn’t understand why that was a bad thing. In the town where he had grown up, none of the qualities she had listed would stand out as particularly negative. It wasn’t exactly the best to be called a chump who could be manipulated easily, but it was indicative of a person who trusted their friends. Trust was important.

  “Because, if you do, he will run with his tail wagging and the manual in hand to Mishil. She will take the book from him. It is a certainty. She uses his affection against him in every exchange.”