Chapter 1: Scientific Mindset A corpse lay on the floor 3 meters across him. In 5 more meters lay another one, and the next in 7 meters. Blood had stopped spilling from the wounds. The souls, however, were long gone. The cellular degradation had already progressed past the point of necrotic reversal. Zephyre activated his Bastion, watching the spirit realm overlay itself onto his visual cortex. The corpses appeared as hollow shells now, with their spiritual tethers severed cleanly at the moment of cardiac arrest. He moved toward the nearest body, examining the wound pattern on the thoracic cavity. Penetrating trauma, likely from a blade guided with surgical precision between the fourth and fifth ribs. Whoever killed these people understood human anatomy better than most physicians he'd worked with. The second corpse displayed clear signs of asphyxiation. Petechial hemorrhaging around the eyes and oral mucosa suggested manual strangulation, though the hyoid bone remained intact. Interesting. The killer had precise control over the compression force applied to the carotid arteries. Walking toward the third body required him to step over scattered papers and overturned furniture. Someone had searched this place before he arrived, though they clearly hadn't found what they wanted given the destructive pattern of the search. He knelt beside the corpse, noting the absence of defensive wounds on the forearms and hands. All three had died within a two-hour window based on the livor mortis patterns and ambient temperature readings. The lack of rigor mortis in the smaller muscle groups indicated death had occurred approximately six to eight hours ago. Zephyre stood, deactivating his Bastion to conserve his neural resources. The spiritual signatures were gone, but the physiological evidence told him everything he needed to know about the method. The motive, however, remained unclear until he figured out what the killer had been searching for in this laboratory. Retrieving three glass vials from his satchel, he checked the contents—a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid enhanced with spiritual catalysts. While most mortuologists preferred working with intact specimens, he found the standard dissolution protocol much more informative for molecular study. Most mortuologists were idiots. Understanding death required understanding every chemical bond, every cellular membrane, and every phospholipid bilayer that held a human body together. Staring at a corpse and wondering about the metaphysics of consciousness wouldn't reveal how the mitochondrial ATP synthesis failed during the final moments of tissue oxygenation. Only complete molecular dissolution would give him the data he needed. He uncorked the first vial, pouring the solution across the nearest corpse's chest cavity. The acid began its work immediately, breaking down the protein structures in the dermis and epidermis layers. Hydrogen bonds snapped apart as the solution penetrated deeper, reaching the adipose tissue beneath. The legal restrictions on dark magic existed for good reasons, supposedly. Using necromantic energy to reanimate dead tissue crossed ethical boundaries that the Council of Mages had established centuries ago. Studying death through chemical analysis, however, remained perfectly acceptable even if the end goal was identical. Hypocrisy dressed up as regulation. He'd written three papers on the subject, none of which had been published in any mainstream magical journal. Zephyre activated his Bastion again, entering the Epiphany state while the acid continued its dissolution process. The Alpha zone properties of his mind allowed him to process information at rates that would overwhelm a Beta or Delta zone practitioner. He could observe the molecular breakdown in real-time through the spiritual lens, cataloging each stage of protein denaturation and lipid hydrolysis. The corpse's cellular structure appeared in his consciousness as a vast network of interconnected systems. Hemoglobin molecules released their iron cores as the acid broke through the erythrocyte membranes. Calcium deposits in the bone matrix began dissolving, though that process would take significantly longer given the hydroxyapatite crystal structure's resistance to simple acid degradation. He moved to the second body, repeating the application process. The spiritual data flowing into his Bastion organized itself into distinct categories: cardiovascular degradation patterns, neural pathway dissolution rates, muscular tissue breakdown sequences. His mind compiled the information automatically, cross-referencing it against seventeen years of similar observations. The third corpse received the same treatment. Pouring acid on dead bodies at a crime scene probably violated several laws beyond the restrictions on dark magic, though he doubted anyone would care enough to investigate once the local authorities discovered three murders in an abandoned laboratory. He sat down on an overturned chair, maintaining his Epiphany state when the dissolution continued. The data accumulation would take hours. His Bastion could handle the extended activation period without significant neural strain, one advantage of the Alpha zone that made his research possible in the first place. While the carboxyl groups in the amino acids broke down, releasing a faint effervescence of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, Zephyre shifted his gaze to the chaotic arrangement of the room. The kinetic force required to upturn the heavy oak desk implied a perpetrator with enhanced muscular density or magical augmentation, specifically in the deltoid and trapezius groups. Standard physical searches often followed a predictable algorithm: clear the surfaces, empty the containers, breach the structural voids. The pattern here suggested frustration. Drawers lay splintered on the floorboards, their contents scattered without regard for categorization. He leaned forward, picking up a crumpled sheet of parchment near his boot. The ink composition looked standard—carbon black suspended in a gum arabic solution—but the equations scrawled across it were barely undergraduate level. Derivations of basic mana flow vectors. If the owner of this lab dedicated their life to such rudimentary calculus, their death merely accelerated the natural selection process of the scientific community. Yet, the precision of the kills contradicted the apparent mediocrity of the victim. High-value assassins didn't deploy for low-value targets unless the value lay hidden beneath the surface observations. Zephyre adjusted the focal depth of his Bastion. Ignoring the macroscopic layer of the paper allowed him to observe the residual spiritual resonance clinging to the graphite. A faint distortion rippled through the Epiphany field. Apparently the writer hadn't just pressed a pen to paper; they had channeled a low-frequency mana current through the tip, encrypting information within the atomic lattice of the ink itself. Clever. Most mages looked for magical seals or invisible runes, completely ignoring the sub-molecular arrangement of physical matter. He reached into his satchel for a pipette, drawing a small sample of the acidic sludge pooling in the first corpse's chest cavity. The solution now contained dissolved organic compounds and, more importantly, the necrotic energy released during the breakdown of the spectral tether. It was a potent reagent for revealing hidden necrotic biases. Carefully, he dropped a single bead of the dark liquid onto the parchment. While the visual spectrum remained static, the spirit realm showed the carbon atoms masquerading as ink flaring violent violet. The "basic equations" unraveled, snapping the mana current bonds and realigning into a new configuration. The distraction text dissolved, leaving behind a complex diagram of a biological modification array. The diagram showed a schematic for forcing a Bastion activation in non-mage subjects through neurosurgical stimulus. Zephyre stabilized his breathing, ensuring his heart rate didn't spike and disrupt the Epiphany state. Artificial induction of magic was theoretically impossible. The Bastion was an organ, yes, but its function relied on a genetic predisposition to access the spirit world. You couldn't just cut into a vivid lobe and poke it until it saw ghosts. However, the diagram referenced a specific catalytic agent: *Liquefied Spirit*. He looked back at the three dissolving bodies. The physiological evidence he had gathered earlier—the precise kills, the lack of defensive wounds—now pointed to a different hypothesis. These people died as failed test subjects. The killer likely arrived strictly to "clean up" the evidence of a trial that went wrong, disregarding whatever the victims might have hidden in the lab. The dissolution of the second corpse reached the skeletal structure. The acid hissed as it reacted with the calcium phosphate. Zephyre noted the breakdown rate of the femurs was 12% slower than the standard model. He focused his spiritual sight on the exposed marrow. The exposed marrow lacked the standard red or yellow coloration. Inside the dissolving bone, the substance shone with a dull, synthetic grey luminescence. Someone had managed to alter the hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow, attempting to turn blood production into a generator for spiritual energy. The science was reckless, sloppy, and ethically abhorrent, but the theoretical framework showed a terrifying compatibility with his own research into cellular immortality. If they were trying to manufacture mages, they were essentially trying to cheat the biological imperative of death and birth. He pulled a sterile glass slide from his kit. Collecting a sample of this grey marrow before the acid destroyed it completely was a priority. The police force on this planet rarely possessed the equipment to analyze metaphysical biology, and frankly, they wouldn't understand the data even if they had it. As he scraped the substance onto the glass, the air pressure in the room dropped. And Meteorology had nothing to do with the change. His Bastion registered a sudden, massive displacement of Nirvana energy outside the laboratory door. A construct was forming. Someone else had arrived, and unlike the sloppy search party, this visitor carried a spiritual signature that radiated disciplined, high-yield mana control. Zephyre capped the slide and stood up, sliding the sample into his reinforced pocket. He didn't deactivate his Epiphany. Confronting a hostile element while blind to the spirit world was a statistical error he had no intention of committing. Calculated risks were acceptable in the pursuit of immortality; walking unprotected into the line of fire of an unknown high-grade caster was simply bad math. Zephyre reached out with his mind, grasping the ambient atmospheric particles hanging in the doorway. Standard defensive spells relied on mana density to absorb impact, a crude method that wasted energy from Nirvana. Instead, he focused on the electron valence shells of the nitrogen and oxygen molecules occupying the space four feet in front of him. By manipulating the electrostatic repulsion forces between the atoms, he could turn the air itself into a rigid lattice, effectively increasing its viscosity to that of solid steel without changing its optical properties. The construct snapped into existence. To the naked eye, the air shimmered slightly due to thermal refraction, but in the spirit realm, the doorway was now blocked by a hexagonal grid of hyper-static potential. He stepped out of the lab, the wooden floorboards creaking under his boots. A woman stood at the end of the hallway. In that grey trench coat, she seemed unassuming. Hands deep in pockets, posture relaxed, she played the part of a casual observer well. Most would mistake her for a detective or perhaps just a confused tenant. Zephyre, observing through the overlay of the Epiphany, saw a walking artillery battery. While the physical body remained motionless, the spirit body was a blur of complex geometric weaving. Three distinct constructs hovered around her spiritual torso, rotating with high-velocity kinetic potential. High-pressure compressed air lances. She hadn't manifested them into physical reality yet, keeping the mana consumption at zero until the millisecond of activation. She hadn't noticed him earlier. His passive mental barriers were designed to disperse spiritual resonance, effectively zeroing out his presence in the local mana field. To her sensory seep, the building had appeared empty until he physically moved. That was a tactical oversight on his part. By hiding so effectively, he had startled a predator. If he had just flared a minor amount of spiritual pressure—standard protocol for one mage acknowledging another—she wouldn't have prepared three lethal spells before he even crossed the threshold. He stopped five meters away, just behind his invisible electrostatic lattice. "ID," she said. Her voice didn't carry a tremor, nor did it carry aggression. It was the flat, calibrated tone of someone who had killed enough times to make it a clerical procedure. The constructs in her spirit body aligned their vectors toward his jugular. Zephyre didn't reach for his pocket immediately. Sudden movements triggered reflexes, and reflexes triggered spells. Instead, he slowly levitated his identification badge from his satchel using a minor telekinetic lift. The silver-plated card floated between them, displaying the holographic seal of the Galdor Institute of Magical Sciences. "Zephyre Valerius," he stated, keeping his hands visible. "Class A researcher." The eyes tracked the badge. The tension in the physical shoulders dropped by perhaps two millimeters, but the spiritual constructs didn't dissipate. If anything, they spun faster, accumulating a denser charge from Nirvana. She recognized the Institute, but wasn't stupid enough to trust a piece of metal. "Eina Solberg," she replied. "Bureau of Magical Regulation. Got a ping about a Category 4 spike." "Seventeen minutes ago," Zephyre corrected, noting the inefficiency in her response time. "You're late." "And you're here." Eina ignored the critique. "Why?" "Was passing by. Picked up the fluctuation on my equipment. Wanted to check it out." It was a half-truth. He had been passing by, yes, but the specific frequency of the energy—necromantic harmonics—was what drew him, not just the intensity. "You walked into a potential crime scene alone?" "Place was unsecured and radiating hazardous energy. Figured I should check the decay rate before the spell remnants dispersed completely." While she listened, the flow of mana around her head shifted. This was a minute alteration in the spiritual waveform most mages would mistake for background noise, yet Zephyre's Alpha zone processing caught the anomaly instantly. She was launching a mental intrusion algorithm. She had deployed a sophisticated query syntax designed to slip past the Bastion's outer firewall and access short-term memory storage. She wanted to verify his story by functionally browsing his visual cortex history from the last hour. A Battle Mage. Only combat specialists learned to weave interrogation spells simultaneously with conversation while keeping the facial muscles perfectly relaxed to mask the incantation. Erecting a blockade would create resistance, and resistance confirmed guilt. Instead, he adjusted the refractory index of his mental shielding. As her psychic probe contacted his Bastion, he angled his own surface thoughts to act as a mirror. He applied a simple Newtonian principle to metaphysics: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The probe bounced. The informational packet she sent—loaded with the intent to breach—reflected precisely back along its transmission vector, amplified by his own Bastion's superior density. Eina flinched, squeezing her eyes shut for a split second. A sharp breath hissed through her teeth as she managed the spike of pain. The neural feedback of having one's own spell slam into their frontal lobe was akin to a migraine compressing three days of agony into a single microsecond. Yet, the air lances in the spirit body remained stable. Zephyre was impressed. Most practitioners would have lost their concentration, dissolving their prepared spells instantly under such cognitive recoil. She absorbed the pain, compartmentalized the shock, and re-stabilized her spiritual focus within two heartbeats. She was definitely a Battle Mage, and a highly trained one at that. "Rude," Zephyre observed neutrally. "Standard procedure for unregistered variables at a crime scene," she gritted out, massaging her temple. She remained suspicious, scanning him for further threats, though she didn't attack. She realized the gap in their processing capabilities. "You're not just some researcher." "I'm a thorough researcher." He decided to conclude this interaction. The local police would arrive eventually, and their paperwork was notoriously tedious. He had the samples. He had the data. Further conversation yielded diminishing returns. "Three corpses inside," Zephyre said. "Failed experiments in artificial Bastion induction. Someone extracted the bone marrow, modified the hematopoietic stem cells. Left about twenty minutes ago, probably when the subjects died." Eina frowned. "How do you know all that? You've been in there less than ten minutes." "Standard autopsy takes too long." Zephyre raised his right hand. The surrounding mana coalesced rapidly, obeying the complex geometric instruction of his mind. He was drawing power he wanted to encode. He visualized the molecular structure of quartz, forcing silicon and oxygen atoms to bond in a specific, helical geometry. Tetrahedra linked vertices to form a chiral lattice, a spiral dense enough to hold a physical form yet spacious within the electron shells. A crystal, the size of a thumb drive, materialized in his palm. Though it wasn't about making a pretty gem; he needed a hard drive. He carved out specific defects in the crystal matrix where data could anchor itself against thermal degradation. He poured the information he had gathered into the crystalline lattice. The chemical breakdown of the acid, the rates of cellular decay, the spectral signature of the grey marrow, and the necrotic echoes of the severed tethers. The crystal held raw, unadulterated data impressed directly into the atomic structure of the stone. He tossed it to her. Eina caught it reflexively. As the skin touched the crystal, the Bastion automatically tried to parse the object. Her eyes widened. The sheer volume of biological and spiritual data stored within the small rock was staggering. It contained a total molecular deconstruction of death itself. To extract this much information usually took a forensic team of five mages a full week. Zephyre had done it alone, in minutes, and compiled it into a single artifact. "This doesn't look like a standard analysis," she said quietly, looking from the crystal to him. The horror of the method—the total dissolution—dawned on her. "You dissolved them, breaking down the evidence just to read it?" "More correctly, converted the evidence into data. Bodies are gone of course." "What's your specialization?" She stepped back, suddenly the constructs beginning to flare into the visible spectrum. Now visible, the shimmering spikes of compressed air hovered menacingly around her shoulders. The level of morbid proficiency required to define death so clearly unnerved her. "Mortuologist," Zephyre replied. Before she could process the implications or decide whether a Mortuologist counted as a hostile dark mage under Article 5, Zephyre activated his neural pathways for movement. It wasn't a teleportation spell, since they required tearing a hole in the fabric of space, which was loud and energy-expensive. He selected a hydrodynamic propulsion spell instead. Normally, this magic was used by hydromancers to propel themselves through water, reducing drag to zero. Zephyre applied the concept to the fluid medium of the atmosphere. Air was just a low-density fluid, after all. He calculated the Reynolds number of the air around him, adjusted the viscosity term in the Navier-Stokes equations governing the local space, and applied a vector force of ten Gs. For a normal mage, this spell would cover perhaps twenty meters before the air resistance and turbulence destabilized the trajectory. Zephyre, utilizing the Alpha zone, recalculated the turbulence variances in real-time, extending the laminar flow tunnel to five hundred meters. *Bang.* A sonic boom cracked through the quiet street. By the time the sound wave hit Eina’s ears, Zephyre was already half a kilometer away. Nothing more than a disturbance in the wind. Eina stood alone in the empty street, gripping the crystal tightly enough to almost crack the lattice. The neural static from the failed mind-read was fading, though the apprehension lingered. She looked at the empty space where the man had stood. Such precision. Such absolute command over the fundamental laws of biology and physics. He was a genius of a caliber the Institute saw once in a generation. And he was wasting it studying rot. She pocketed the crystal, shaking her head with a mix of professional respect and deep, ideological disgust. Because Mortuologists, brilliant as they were, burned brightest before they burned out... Or burned everything else down.