The Lich Without a Soul Vessel

Evan returned to his quarters. Once Jessica had gone, Xiaoshuang spoke up. "That Water Dragon Beast you made up actually got summoned, alive and real. Does that mean every fantasy-born creature is just fantasy? Are devils fantasy-born too? Are the gods?"

Evan thought it over for a moment. "I don't know. This is only a first step. What I'm calling fantasy-born creatures right now is a narrow category. There's too much still buried in this world's magic for me to guess at yet. I've only lifted one small corner of the curtain — whatever's actually behind it might surprise us both. No sense dwelling on it yet. Our instincts can mislead us sometimes. I need to go write up my paper."

Back at his quarters, Evan spread out a sheet of paper and wrote the title with a quill: Some Thoughts on Fantasy-Born Creatures. He set the pen down and pulled out his notes from the day's experiment. Since it had been a qualitative test, he had no hard data to work with — but with the fire giant, he'd observed clearly that what looked like a solid body was in fact a mass of pure energy. What people actually saw was an illusion, a manifestation given shape. It seemed the old texts hadn't overlooked this at all — they'd understood it well enough to call these creatures "fantasy-born" in the first place. Evan knew one theory held that they were projections, tethered to some true form elsewhere, mere avatars of a greater whole. He'd once believed something similar himself. Today's results, though, cast real doubt on that idea.

The Water Dragon Beast summoning made the point clearest of all. It had come purely from Evan's own imagination — no legend anywhere described such a creature — which ruled out the idea of a projection entirely. Unless, of course, Evan had simply been unlucky enough that a creature matching his invention happened to exist somewhere by pure coincidence. The odds of that were vanishingly small, and yet he couldn't dismiss it outright either. That was why he and Xiaoshuang had dreamed up a dozen more fantasy-born creatures together — reasonable enough at first, but by the end, some of them barely qualified as creatures at all. He couldn't believe coincidence alone could account for all of it.

He intended to publish his findings in Hollingburton's own periodical, Magic — a publication carrying real weight across the magical world these days. He'd seen a copy once at Leonardo's home. It had started as nothing more than a school newsletter, but as Hollingburton's reputation grew, it had gradually become one of the most influential journals in the field, released monthly. Evan had read every issue since arriving at the school, though its theoretical foundation still rested squarely on classical elemental doctrine.

There was another journal too — Alchemy, put out by the Solomon Academy, another school of magic, covering natural philosophy, magic, and alchemical research. Every college at Hollingburton subscribed to it, and plenty of teachers kept their own copies as well. Evan was no exception.

He roughed out an outline before setting down his pen. The experiment had barely begun, and the early results looked promising, though he had no way of knowing what would come later. However confident he felt, his fantasy-born theory remained nothing more than a hypothesis for now. He set the pen aside and picked up the latest issue of Magic, delivered by owl that afternoon while he and Jessica had been at the dueling grounds — the owl had simply left it and flown off, finding no one home.

Nothing new in the way of theory this issue, though there were a few clever minor magical techniques worth noting. One article, surprisingly, had been written by Leonardo — on blood transfusion in humans. Since Evan had left, Leonardo had gone on studying blood types in detail, refining the theory further, even proposing the concept of plasma transfusion. The past year clearly hadn't gone to waste for him.

Xiaoshuang had already gone to bed. Evan read a while longer before putting out the lamp.

The next day, Jessica arrived at his door bright and eager, and the two of them returned to the dueling ground. The summoning went smoothly today, especially the creature Evan had christened the Blaze-Spitting Fire Tree — a creature born entirely from his own imagination, a mobile tree fitted with four barrel-like protrusions, a walking fortress of flame that spat fire in every direction. Evan watched in genuine awe that she'd managed to summon it at all — the incantation he'd built for it drawing on the same basic principles as any spell: psychological suggestion layered over the manipulation of the fire element.

Another creature defied easy classification as living at all — an entirely metallic body, complete with eyes, nose, and mouth, shaped like an elongated flying sword without a hilt. The moment it manifested, its mouth opened and spat a beam of white light that struck the ground, leaving a crater behind.

Evan felt certain none of these creatures should exist at all. Every one of them had come purely from human imagination — though an ordinary person's imagination couldn't manifest anything on its own. It needed a certain baseline of mental power behind it.

After several more summons, Jessica was clearly worn out. "Thank you," Evan said. "Let's leave it there for today. Truly, thank you. We'll pick up the rest tomorrow."

Jessica hesitated, seeming to want to say something. Evan caught it. "Something on your mind, Miss Jessica?"

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"I wanted to ask why you don't summon these creatures yourself," Jessica said.

"Ah, that." Evan came up with a reason on the spot. "I'm a necromancer. Anything I summon tends to carry a heavy stain of death about it. You don't belong to any single elemental school, which makes you the better choice here, I think." The real reason was that these creatures were his own invention, and he already knew their true nature — using himself would compromise the experiment's objectivity. Which was exactly why he'd turned to Jessica. Of course, the experiment wasn't finished yet; once this first phase wrapped up, he intended to move on to a second stage.

Understanding seemed to settle over Jessica. "There's another creature in there — Chaos, I think it's called. Simple enough to visualize — six legs, four wings, no face at all, capable of devouring any element. That part is genuinely novel. A divine beast that can consume every element, native to some Void Plane. How could such a plane even exist?"

"There are countless planes out there. No mage could possibly know them all. Since this is an ancient text, it should be treated as reliable. Don't second-guess it. Rest up tonight — tomorrow's going to be a real surprise. Think about it: if you can summon Chaos, something capable of devouring every element, you'd have an answer to any magic thrown at you," Evan said, encouraging her with a smile.

The idea clearly appealed to Jessica. Xiaoshuang sat on Evan's head throughout this, gripping his hair, saying nothing at all. She knew the truth behind all of it, and listened as Evan spun his story for Jessica.

"This really is an astonishing kind of magic. Hard to believe the ancients had anything like it," Jessica said with a sigh.

Evan only smiled and said nothing, tidying up the site before walking out alongside her.

For the third experiment, Evan brought along several students, drawing from every element — earth, water, fire, wind, dark, light, and lightning. Neither time nor space affinities existed among the students at all; a talent for either surfaced perhaps once a century, which came as no surprise to anyone.

They arrived at the dueling ground to find it empty, as it had been for days. Students had gathered instead to watch the inter-college matches, and plenty were making a little extra money on the side — the school was vast, but its service staff were few, so students filled the gap, some running food deliveries, others setting up small stalls. The dueling ground itself, requiring advance booking, had gone almost entirely unused these past couple of days.

Jessica began her incantation, a ripple stirring the empty air, and Chaos manifested on the field — a divine beast Evan had modeled on a myth from his old life, and its abilities matched the legend. Evan wanted to see whether it could truly consume anything, reducing all of it to nothing. If it really could, something had to be fundamentally wrong with elemental doctrine as it stood — or else the elements themselves weren't the simple, indivisible things everyone assumed, but built on something deeper underneath.

The moment Chaos appeared, the students drew their wands and unleashed spells from every school in turn, exactly as arranged beforehand — beams of light, fireballs, every color of elemental force flashing across the field.

Chaos didn't disappoint. Though it had no visible mouth, every attack that touched its skin dissolved into nothing on contact, and its body swelled ever so slightly with each strike absorbed. Evan watched closely and noted that whatever element struck it seemed to be assimilated almost instantly, generating something that felt like a trace of pure void in its place.

Evan raised a hand to call a halt. The students lowered their wands, staring at the strange creature with open curiosity — their attacks hadn't so much as bothered it, as though every spell had been nothing more than a tickle. The students found the whole thing fascinating.

Jessica waved a hand, and Chaos vanished. Evan recorded every detail he'd observed, and once Jessica had sent the creature away, he smiled and thanked the students. They dispersed, leaving only Evan, Jessica, and Xiaoshuang on the field. "How are you feeling?" Evan asked. "Every one of these creatures looks strange, but they're not lacking in power."

Jessica let out a breath. "Chaos especially — it's practically a living shield. No matter the school of the attack, nothing touches it. Where did you even get this book, Professor Wang?"

Evan smiled. "If I told you the book was something I wrote myself, with Xiaoshuang's help — would you believe me?"

"Professor Wang, don't joke like that. There's no way you could have written something like this. It has to be handed down from antiquity," Jessica said, utterly certain.

"There's no relative here," Xiaoshuang cut in, sounding rather flat about it. "The book really is something the master and I wrote. He came up with a new theory about fantasy-born creatures a while back, and the two of us made up a whole bunch of nonsense together, and he wanted you to help test whether they could actually be summoned. I said it was impossible. He said it would work. We even made a bet on it, and I lost."

Jessica went completely still. It took her a long moment to find her voice again. "You're telling me you made all of this up? Is the world really this chaotic — that whatever you imagine simply exists somewhere? How else could I have summoned any of it successfully?"

"Quite the opposite, actually. They shouldn't exist at all — and that includes the fire giant you summoned before, for all we know. Don't forget what fantasy-born means. These creatures exist purely because someone imagined them into being. In short — whatever we've summoned together has probably all been exactly that kind of existence," Evan said.

"That's not possible. If it's all just imagination, how could any of it manifest with more raw power than I actually have?" Jessica said, seizing on what struck her as the fatal flaw in his whole theory.

"Nothing about that is impossible. You're underestimating the sheer power of human consciousness. This isn't just your imagination at work — it draws on something closer to the imagination of all humankind. The human mind is a strange and remarkable thing. Believe in something deeply enough, and what you imagine can manifest right in front of you, resonating with the energy of the world itself. That's the true secret behind summoning," Evan said.

Something in Jessica's convictions gave way at that. Evan felt her mind shudder violently, her mental power surging outward in every direction like a tidal wave.