Chương 29: Book 2 Chapter 10: Why you're so obsessed with me, ahahahaha?

"I didn't do anything. You should rather be asking what you did to yourself." Jim glared at the creature smiling at him.

"I never wanted this! I never agreed to this!" he exclaimed loudly, voice cracking in the middle, and it was only his painful experiences in Combat Magic 2 that prevented him from trying to slap the skeletal bastard.

"Your thinking was likely going along the lines of, 'he'll forget his promise anyway as long as I reset the loop, right? I can learn all his secrets and never pay back the favour, I'm so smart!'" the professor asked in a high-pitched falsetto voice, mocking Jim while waving his hands in the air. The student clenched his fist and gritted his teeth, looking away, out of the small window of the shack.

"Think, boy, think," the lich continued more seriously while tapping a finger to his temple.

"Do you think I'm a fool, that I don't know the inherent power disadvantage between me and someone who can travel through time to avoid their commitments?"

"You are a fool," Jim suddenly said with blood-shot eyes.

"Otherwise you wouldn't be standing there relying on me to free you!" That gave the professor pause. The creature swept his arms behind his back and started pacing back and forth.

"Perhaps I am a fool. We can both be fools together. The fact of the matter is, however, you need me as much as I need you. You're the only one who can truly free me considering the amount of time in your hands and that you can try, fail and try again. As for me, I'm the only one qualified to teach you the things you'll need to know to succeed in your endeavours."

"Tell me what you did first, what you did to me," Jim demanded in a low-voice.

"I helped Leilei with some of the theories of the brand," the lich started slowly.

"He obviously thought I wouldn't be able to piece it together, but as always, people always overestimate the complexity of their own thoughts. The brand is anchored in the soul. After all, the body is reset, and magic is not a part of the body but merely something we can access. The soul is the only constant. I suspected from that moment that an opportunity might present itself with the bearer of the brand and began working on a new type of vow, one that affects the soul."

"Magical vows affect whatever was sworn, bodily harm, life, does a…" Jim started slowly, dread slowly starting to creep up in his bones.

"No," the lich shook his head.

"That is a domain that has long since become inaccessible. I never cast the spell to test it, knowing that doing so with anyone but the bearer of the brand would kill me for trying to escape, but theoretically the vow made on the soul simply makes going against it impossible. If you default, you lose control and go through the motions. As insipid as it sounds, resistance is truly futile." He paused.

"You know, sometimes my brilliance shocks even me…"

"But you also swore, then you have to teach me, we're both stuck with each other," Jim complained.

"Don't be an idiot," the lich quickly interrupted.

"The only soul being sent back is yours, I never made a vow." Jim stared at him, mouth open.

"You, you asshole!"

"Been called worse," Quetzal said thoughtfully.

"Well, get on with your emotional outburst quickly, we have a lot of work ahead of us." Jim stared at him, then with no preamble surged forward to punch the professor in the face. In an act that surprised even himself, his fist actually managed to crack across the lich's face, making the creature stumble back and fall to the ground.

Jim used the opportunity to mount the lich the same way Katniss had mounted him that morning and started pummeling its face and its torso with a frantic energy he'd never suspected he had.

"Get it out of your system," the professor said in a bored voice as fists rained down on him.

"I don't feel pain, you're probably hurting yourself more than you're hurting me." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Jim didn't care.

"Fuck you, you sack of shit!" He continued punching until his breath grew ragged "Go die!" and his visions swam "You bastard!" from the sweat accumulation in his eyes.

"Arrrghhh!" It must have been a minute or two of straight wailing and shouting expletives on the professor before he ran out of stamina, rolled over and lay down on the floor, breathing heavily. The professor for his part got up, dusted himself off and extended a hand to Jim. The student glared at the offered hand, before eventually taking it with great reluctance and using it to get up on his feet.

"I'll still teach you, don't worry, after all, we don't know if the time loop is truly infinite until the conditions are fulfilled. You'll need all the knowledge you can get to free me and resolve the calamity at the same time to make it stick," the lich said in a friendly voice.

"How did you even know?" Jim muttered angrily.

"The vow is made between two souls, yours recognises mine but cannot penetrate into its sanctum due to me not consenting to it in this timeline. I felt this and immediately knew it was only the one with the brand who I would bind. I made the magic for this specific scenario after all," the professor explained patiently. Jim crossed his arms and grumbled, thoughts racing.

"I don't even want to be here, saving this stupid kingdom. I keep dying in Sredina, I want to go to Riche to at least see if the loop resets even when the task fails."

"That's quite a smart thought, but don't worry too much about being tied down at the academy. I actually can't spend too much time teaching you so as to not arouse the suspicion of the people watching over me. They've grown very lax recently with their impending issues, but you can never be sure what will tip them off. We don't want you to die seeking instruction too often and losing out on your attempts if they are finite," the lich started.

"For teaching, the skills you need all require strong fundamentals so I will at first guide your direction, leaving you to find the basics elsewhere. After all, it would be a waste to not let the other professors be useful for once."

"The calamity," Jim muttered hesitantly.

"Realistically speaking, what can I even do against it?" he asked.

"There are two main directions I'd suggest we explore," the lich said, raising one finger.

"The first, is banned magic."

"Magic that the gods ban when it gets used?" Jim asked curiously.

"But what's the point of having a one-use spell?"

"Well, the question we should try and answer first is if magic that you use and that gets banned remains banned once you travel back in time," the lich proposed.

"The test is actually quite simple. The soul-binding vow I made you undergo is something that is most definitely a bannable offence, all soul magic is, fundamentally. We can simply make another vow, an irrelevant one. If it works again then it means you can start a collection of banned magic which you'll be able to use against the calamity as many times as you need in the loops to find the correct configuration of usage." Jim narrowed his eyes, quickly catching on.

"I promise to give you a gold coin as long as you immediately return it after, within a minute," he proposed, pulling one such coin from his thankfully still present coin pouch.

"Let's shake on it," the lich agreed with a nod, extending his hand. Jim reluctantly shook it, extending his magic senses as far as they could go but still barely feeling a small flicker somewhere inside himself and the lich as the handshake went through. Suddenly, he felt compelled to give the gold coin in his hand to the professor, which he promptly received back.

"Good," the lich commented after the exchange was complete.

"The spell is now unusable, it feels the exact same as when I used banned magic in the past."

"That's good, right?" Jim asked.

"Of course," the lich nodded.

"It means you can start a collection, although, before getting to that point you'll need to surpass six circles and enter archmage territory. Banned magic is all complex without a fault."

"Then what's the point!" Jim cursed, striding towards the small window and peering outside.

"Given infinite time even a monkey could write a novel," the professor said, shrug evident in his tone.

"No student of mine will remain in the circles for long. I refuse."

"You said there were two solutions," Jim said, turning around.

"What's the other one?!"

"Banned magic would let you single-handedly take on the calamity if you gathered enough of it," the lich started.

"The other option is expanding the list of people perpetually adapting to the calamity until you reach a critical mass of allies in the know."

"I don't understand," Jim said with furrowed brows.

"The ritual you underwent tied your knowledge to your soul and sent your soul back to your younger body. What if you learned a magic that compresses other people's knowledge into packets you can store and take with you? Knowledge you can then transfer to those very same people when you came upon them in the past?"

"The only reason I'm here is because there's nobody I can trust," Jim cursed.

"Then figure it out, with trial and error," the professor replied.

"Fuck!" Jim shouted, slamming a fist on the windowsill.

"Fuck indeed," Quatzel said with a nod.

"It's not easy magic either. You'll need to work hard to have even a chance at fitting one set of additional memories in that head of yours. One of the more complex fields of magic that, oh dear indeed." Jim remained silent, sulking. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to do this. But now he was… He was screwed. Bound to a vow he hadn't even really meant.

"What am I supposed to do? About me, about the," he waved his hand, "about everything."

"You still have a lot to learn at the academy," the professor pointed out.

"Get an elective slot and pick Introduction to Mind Magic. If you get two slots, take External Mana Sensing, it helps with a lot of things. I'll give you detentions to bring you here until I can personally mentor you with the exceptional talent clause."

"And after?" Jim asked.

"When the calamity happens, I want to live for once!" The lich shrugged.

"Go to Riche before the calamity, if the loops are finite then we need to preserve your attempts. Don't do anything stupid then come back when it's all over." He paused. Looked Jim up and down.

"You don't look like you're ready to go out and gather information yet, but maybe you can test the loyalty of some potential allies. Find some do-gooders that want to save lives. Preferably young, their memories will be easier to package." Jim shook his head, before sighing.

"Don't you have any secret methods or spells that will get me ahead faster?" he asked.

"Our time is running short," the lich cautioned.

"I will attend the start of semester exams, show me your level and I will draw up a plan and have it delivered to you."

"That's it?" Jim asked.

"You screw me over, tell me what to do, then dismiss me?" Professor Quatzel tapped his chin with a finger bone before shrugging.

"Seems like it!" he said happily.

"Fuck you!" Jim shouted, then promptly turned around and stormed out of the shack.

"Don't worry too much! You'll get wrinkles!" the lich shouted after him.