Life Hunter 81 ''Homunculus?''

"…Yes" Night answered with a delay after he almost was thrown away when Arima jumped so suddenly. Now, he was grabbing Arima's shoulder but from the wrong side.

"What are you doing?" Arima asked and Night grunted "Still, I deployed ten thousand of them, how did I find nothing? Or maybe nothing really happened this night?" He said.

Night sighed after he was back on Arima's shoulder how he should be "Maybe. Are one of your familiars destroyed?" He asked.

"I checked already, none of them has been destroyed" Arima declared and jumped down from the roof. Directly landing in one of the academy's courts. Fortunately, there was no student there. He then directly headed toward his cla.s.sroom.

"In the end, what do you think they're planning by doing a ma.s.s murder?" Night inquired when they arrived at the cla.s.s.

"I don't know" Arima sat down on his seat and said "Maybe it's a magic theory which needs the sacrifice of a great number of lives. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is a curse, a large scale one, or maybe something like a plague" He answered

"A curse, huh? Anything else?"

"I don't know, there's not really a lot of magic which needs a grand scale sacrifice. But, one thing is certain, if it's the preparations for some sort of ritual, then it's something not really good" Arima said and yawned "Ah, I'm still tired" He complained.

Night sat down on the desk "You seem to not care about it"

"Nah, it's not like that. I mean I think I'm still human enough to not ignore a ma.s.s murder like this and the deaths it could cause in the future. But you're right, it's not even my world, not even my duty and I don't need to help them" Arima smiled and said.

"But I'm still teaching in this school you know? It would be inconvenient for the city to be attacked or destroyed" He added.

Night dryly laughed "Of course it is"

An hour or so after that, the first students arrived. When they arrived, they also spotted Arima sleeping on the seat with Night looking at him blankly.

Ultimately, it was Isla who approached Arima discreetly and woke him up. For that, she suffered a cold and annoyed look but it was worth the surprise she gave to Arima. She then went to her seat with a very awkward laugh.

Soon after, Ofia and Lena appeared inside too. Both of them had a heavy expression. When she entered, Ofia directly went toward the teacher's desk and stopped there. She looked at Arima who was waiting for her to say something.

But even after a minute, they were both silent and looking at each other.

"Hey, am I supposed to talk first or what?" Arima finally said and Ofia trembled.

"Hum, teacher… if I asked you, would you help our city?" She asked hesitatingly.

Arima's expression twitched and he poked her with his finger. Ofia looked wide-eyed while rubbing her forehead "Give me some context, silly kid" He laid back on his seat and said.

Ofia wryly laughed while her sister also smiled when she looked there "The results from the investigation about the attackers you saved us from last time. We got them" Ofia started to explain.

"My brother said he felt like they had no emotions when he fought them" She said and Arima nodded casually "When we a.n.a.lyzed the bodies, we indeed found out that they were artificial bodies infused with a soul. They had different limbs on their body and even their organs didn't match the others"

"Homunculus?" Arima commented and Ofia affirmed.

"Yes. From what we know, there are not many people capable of doing that kind of work. Much less someone who wants to harm us. In the end, our research spread to the nearest continent, Firnea. We also know that its king doesn't want us good" She paused "But the biggest piece of news we got was that two people who were on that continent were summoned and hired by the king"

"One was a Z rank mercenary, Arister Zeola" Ofia said. Arima glanced at the actual Arister on the side and the latter shrugged.

"You don't need to worry about him anymore" Arima exclaimed and Ofia furrowed and nodded.

"I understand" She responded "For the second individual, his name is Ojure Karez"

Arima frowned "What a strange name" He blurted out.

Ofia wryly smiled "Yes, it is, but that person is really a problem. He once pa.s.sed by the Main Land. He is an extremely talented necromancer and healer. He's basically an expert in everything related to life and death" She said.

"Oh, interesting" Arima smiled "So you're basically saying that Firnea is planning to defeat you with the help of that man and his expertise, right?"

"Yes" Ofia nodded.

"Then we can also consider that those deviants are homunculus too" Arima said "So, you asked me if I would help you, huh?"

Ofia one more time nodded, very seriously. Arima smirked "Don't worry, as long as I am on this continent, you can expect that I will lend a hand"

Ofia smiled and sighed "Thank you"

"Sure, now go take a seat. If you want to protect your city, you'll need to learn how to protect yourself at least" Arima waved his hand and Ofia bowed before going to her seat.

Ten minutes later, everyone was here. Even Lanya and Karma, they arrived together, laughing with each other. It was without saying that Arima shivered when he saw this.

He stood up and sat down on his desk "Well, good morning, today, I suppose you know what I will talk about. If I'm not wrong, the next one on the list is Soul magic" He said and everyone affirmed.

"What can I say about the soul…?" Arima muttered to himself "First of all, you need to know that the two things composing a human are his Mind and Soul. Don't forget that the two don't have any actual direct connection but can't work properly without the other"

"Well, there's a question that comes back a lot in my homeland, and it's where is the soul. There's a lot of different opinions. Most people just say that the soul is connected to our body and doesn't have any real emplacement since it's our life itself. Other say it's distributed among different parts of the body and others say that everything is in the brain"

"To be honest with you, I don't have an idea of what is true. And you don't need to know. The only thing you need to understand is what the Soul is and its difference with the Mind. The latter represents our thoughts and emotions. Basically, it's what you learn during your life, memories, and knowledge"

"Soul is a bit different. It's the essence of your life, it's what makes you live, your life force at the same time. But it's also directly affected by your mind. Your soul can also be defined as your personality"

"Let me give you an example. You're born, from that moment onward, you live your life. Learning and seeing things with your Mind. Everything that you saw in your life, and that was treated by it, will be carved in your soul as your personality. Then imagine you die, but your soul is reincarnated. You reappear in the body of another, with no memories, but the personality engraved on the soul will remains"

"As a result, the newborn who possesses your soul will have the same personality as you before you died. But it can also be altered with the new Mind"

Arima smiled "Well, it's basically that the relation between the Soul and the Mind. You should also know that the former is used basically to identify a person. It's also true that a person with a bigger soul possesses a bigger mana pool and is usually bound to become strong and talented if he lives long enough"

"Before I talk about the practical use, I need to talk about something. If you remember, I talked about the fusion of souls in the explanation for the Soul Contract. I said at that time that the Soul carried the information about your entire being"

"Then, you have to understand that it's possible to interact directly with a soul. Which brings me to the practical use of Soul magic. You can, of course, create artificial 'essences' to animate familiars and dolls. It's also by the same principle that a soul beast is created" Arima explained.

"But there's also one thing you can do with Soul magic, and it's modifying the Soul" Arima said "Imagine, what if you could change the essence of your own life, what could you accomplish?"

The students reacted blankly at first. But then, they remembered the soul contract. The latter allowed the user to fuse with the soul of another living being. It only worked because it was directly the soul that was changed. But it was that change that allowed them to transform their bodies.

Then, could they change their souls to their preferences? Could they gain every power they wished for?

"Yes" Arima smiled and said like he was answering to his students' questions "But" Then he said and his students' mood that went up to the roof, stopped ascending before it was too late "It's a really dangerous technique, I suppose you understand that if you mess up at 'tuning' your soul, you could end up dead or as a monster"

"Of course, I'll teach you this in detail later. But I have to say this before, there's only a small part of people who have the precision and talent necessary to do this, and the magnitude and quant.i.ty of changes you can give to your soul depends on how resilient it is" Arima smiled "So one more time" Arima paused "Don't try it alone" He said and everyone nodded.

They already learned to never ignore Arima's instructions "Well, that's all for the Soul. Since the beginning, I had nothing much to teach you about it. It's a subject very theoretical and abstract. We only know that the soul defines our existence, just don't forget that" Arima finished by saying that.

"Well, since we have still a bit of time, let's talk about Neutral magic, don't worry, it will be even shorter than Soul magic. Neutral magic is basically mana in its original and primal form, without any attribute or theory behind it"

"You use Neutral magic to strengthen your body or to create basic physical shields or weapons. It's also used for what we call psychokinesis. This, basically" Arima pointed at a book and made it float.

"Well, there's really nothing else to say about it. When you use neutral magic, you can think about it as a physical attack or an interaction. Normally, you should be able to master neutral magic, every mage needs to know how to use it. Even if they didn't begin with it, they should be able to control mana; and then neutral magic, very easily. I'm not really teaching you anything about this"

"Well, with this said. Next time, I'll talk about Death, Life and Time magic. The kind of hard ones, particularly Time, but it's not for now" Arima clapped and smiled "Time to change cla.s.s"

For the rest of the day, Arima continued his lessons and answered to the questions of his students. He also went more detailed sometimes. After all, in a general lecture, he could only give the basic stuff in the simplest way possible. The rest is up to the students asking him

The next night, Arima's familiars detected a movement "Finally" Arima exclaimed while he was on the FDA's roof "Let's go" He said and teleported with Night.