After my first success I became even more obsessed. I was right after all, magic is real and I might be the very first person to find it. Rather, I might be the first to rediscover it. Afterall, magic as a concept has existed way beyond recorded history. The question is, why was it forgotten? 

 

I made many more experiments both using ink with blood and without. Soon I discovered an important fact. More blood equals better results and fresher blood equals better results. With this I began to theorize. Could it be that blood itself wasn’t important but something it contains?

 

Through more experiments I came to the conclusion that what was important wasn’t the blood itself but rather the life in it. Because of this I decided to rename this form of magic into vital magic as it seems to use vitality or life. I also began experimentation on other glyphs and runes I have designed. Some were effective, others not so much. With time I refined my Noctus glyph system. 

 

To keep my “hobby” a secret I continued to study and went to university where I decided to study medicine and biological science. Afterall, my new vital magic uses life, then I should study life to find the source of this energy. Like that time flew by as I studied both magic and science. 

 

With time I made other interesting discoveries. For example flesh could also be used for my magic however its efficiency was debatable. Even though it could provide a larger amount of energy it seemed reluctant to heed my command. Thinking about it and after some more experimentation I found why. I called it the law of vital cohesion. 

 

To put it in simple words, the larger the amount of vitality not belonging to the one trying to control it the harder it would be to control. This could be worked over by using different sources of vitality. Vitality coming from the same entity tended to have a higher cohesion than that from different sources. 

 

Now I could understand the concept behind sacrifices and blood rituals I had seen in so many history and folklore books. They were using the vitality produced by the sacrifice however they were being extremely wasteful with it. Either that or the effects they wished for were simply too extravagant for the amount used. In a way magic followed the rule of equivalent exchange. 

 

Years went by as I continued with my studies in magic and science. I had conducted a few experiments that I will admit I am not too proud of. One of them consisted of sacrificing a hundred mice to try and rejuvenate myself. After all, what women wouldn’t want to stay young. It worked somewhat. 

 

I am not old. Not at all, after all, I am in my thirties doing my specialization in biological science and neurology. However, I will admit that the passage of time and my unhealthy sleeping habits haven’t done me any favors. However, after my little ritual I felt a year younger.   

 

I found out that my ritual had been very inefficient with its usage of vitality. After all, it had just infused my body with it and left my body to do the rest. In the end more than half of it dissipated as my body couldn’t or didn’t want to use it all. 

 

In the end it wasn’t a big loss as I still had my mice farm for experimental subjects. Now that I knew that I could slow down my own aging using this method I felt a bit better knowing I have more time for my craft. 

 

With time I came to discover a few new things of interest. One of which is the fact that I can now turn hearts into vitality batteries. The process is complex and bothersome, however the rewards are worth it. I came into this line of experimentation after trying a ritual with way too many mice. To put it simply I had reached a bottleneck. 

 

The fresher the kill the less vitality is lost to the air. The larger the body the harder it is to control vitality. To put it simply, my current bottleneck lies with my speed of killing mice. By the time I am finished killing the last one at least a third of the vitality of the first was lost. 

 

By then I decided I needed a better source of vitality or a way to store it. Taking into account the stubborn nature of vitality cohesion I decided to go for the later. Through rituals and experimentations I came with a neat solution I call a vital crystal. 

 

Using some iron rust powder, silica crystals, and a heart in a special ritual I am now able to construct vital crystals. These neat little things can store vitality with minimal loss. To put it simply, they can store the same amount as the animal the heart comes from for as long as the animal’s natural life span.  

 

In other words, a mouse's vital crystal could contain the same amount of vital energy as a mouse for around twelve months before it starts to decay into dust. With it I became able to conduct better and larger rituals for my experiments. By now in my forties I look like a young eighteen year old. What others wouldn’t give to learn of my craft but I wouldn’t let the world know, not yet. 

 

I had to move from my hometown by now as rumors started to flow around. No one had found anything incriminating but it seems that staying young looking for so long wasn’t good for keeping out of the public's attention. Either way it didn’t matter, I now have quite the amount of money at my disposal thanks to some neat tricks I have devised. 

 

Who would have thought that stealing money would be so easy when no one could realize what you were doing. To put it in simple words I would just walk to an ATM and move the inner mechanisms around with magic. That while using magic so people wouldn’t realize who I am or what I was doing as well as making cameras unable to take clear pictures of me.

 

All of these things became possible thanks to my vital crystals and my use of Noctus chant. Noctus chant being the spoken version of Noctus glyphs. To say that developing the spoken chant was a pain would be an understatement.

 

I had to try over and over again speaking gibberish I made up after studying the pronunciation of greek, latin ancient egyptian and others. Not only that but I had to connect each of those with a glyph or glyph group while recording it. It took me years of work but it was worth it. I can now perform magic without the need for rituals all the time. Though I now have to chant spells. Thankfully I can do so by simply whispering, as long as the sound is produced it works. 

 

With all of that though I came to the realization that I had a lot to learn still. What about object crafting? What about chantless magic? What about magical creatures? There were too many questions and even though time had become a non-issue I didn’t want to spend decades, centuries or even millenia answering those questions. That is when I had a stupid idea. 

 

If magic is real, then shouldn’t other things like angels, demons and magical creatures be real as well? I  hadn’t found any magical creatures to date. Though I could make an educated guess why. Either way, finding them wouldn’t be all that productive in answering all my questions. Out of the three categories the ones most likely to give me answers would be the demons. 

 

With my mind made up I began this new line of research involving summoning. To say I became frustrated real quick would be an understatement. Who would have thought that piercing through the vale of reality would be so hard? Not only that but the first time I felt like the ritual would succeed it suddenly stopped. It was like the spell collided with a barrier. 

 

Confused, I began traveling the world trying again and again the ritual but every time this barrier would stop my attempts. Frustrated I thought about brute forcing my way through but I soon found out it wasn’t viable. The sheer amount of vitality I would need to pull it off would require killing the entire human population with a hundred percent efficiency of the vitality usage.   

 

Many would have given up just like so many had given up on magic. Me? I am a stubborn bitch that wouldn’t let go. I began smashing my brain and every single thing I knew about magic and science against this barrier. Soon enough I found something interesting. 

 

Combination after combination of magic with different arrangements and configurations led me to a neat discovery. The barrier despite its initial appearance wasn’t impenetrable. No, instead of a wall it behaved more like a door, one with a nightmare of a lock. 

 

I had to travel the world for years studying the stupid thing to try and pick the damned lock. It was like trying to enter a bank’s vault while blind folded with nothing more than a stick as a tool. Though with time I made progress. 

 

By the time I turned sixty I had managed to figure out a good amount of the needed magic wavelengths and what not to go through. Thankfully time had been kind to me, or rather I forced it to. I looked as youthful as ever though I had to fake my death. My still living parents wouldn’t shut up about wanting me to visit them. Something I simply couldn’t do. 

 

I had officially died at the age of fifty three in a plane crash I may or may not have caused. Who knew crashing a plane with magic would be so easy? Not like I would know, after all, I never did such a thing. 

 

By the time I became eighty seven I began to notice my body aging again. Looks like magic could only extend my life for so long, go figures. Not like it mattered much, I had finally figured out the combination to go through the damned barrier. 

 

After analyzing the whole thing I became sure of one thing. The stupid barrier wasn’t something naturally formed, no no no, this barrier had been made by someone extremely powerful a long time ago. No wonder I couldn’t get magic to work without vitality. This stupid thing was using all other forms of magic. 

 

I had thought about bringing it down but just finding the stupid key had taken me almost forty years of my life. Taking it down would certainly take the rest of it away. So I decided to continue with my original plan. I would summon a demon and bargain with it for knowledge. 

 

Many would tell me to not do such a foolish thing but I wasn’t dumb. I had already taken whatever precautions I could. Not only that but I had prepared my bargaining chips. Yes, they were a few unwilling people but in my defense they were all pieces of shit that deserved hell.   

 

Either way I prepared my ritual and performed the chants. I had to use large elephant vital crystals as well as a white whale one. Don’t ask how I got my hands on a white whale. I won't go into detail. Either way everything seemed to be working out until it didn’t. 

 

The barrier had let my spell go through after the key had been used. What I didn’t expect was for the summoning to call forth nothing. That is right, nothing came for a long while. The crystals were being drained of their energy fast but nothing was coming through. I feared I had failed until I wished I had. 

 

Why would I wish for failure? Because I called forth something I didn't want. I had wished to call a simple imp or the smallest and weakest yet intelligent demon to me. Instead what appeared in front of me made my blood run cold.