A Bad Teacher
Drip.
A drop of water fell from the ceiling and soaked Chris's shoulder.
"Creepy place."
He walked on, glancing around the cave.
"You sure there's actually a spellbook in here?"
No answer. Chris stopped and looked at the mask. He had it leashed on a cord and was dragging it along the way you'd walk a dog.
"Hey. Answer me."
He yanked the cord and cracked the mask against the cave wall. Still nothing. Clicking his tongue, he connected to the mask.
"Why aren't you answering?"
"I told you it takes a lot of power to push my voice outside the mask. If you'd just connect and talk, it'd be easy — so why do you keep calling out to me in the real world? It's annoying."
"It's a pain for me too."
The mask answered sullenly.
"What's so painful about it for you?"
"I have to connect every time we talk."
"Then stay connected."
"If I stay connected, I can barely move. Keeping a spell up like this is hard enough already."
On the mask's screen, the light orb Chris had conjured to illuminate the cave was spilling its glow.
"I already taught you how to cast while connected to the mask."
"Because it's difficult. Look. Even now."
Sure enough, with the link open, the light orb had dimmed noticeably.
"Practice."
"I don't have to connect at all, so why would I grind through practice? I'd get a hundred times more out of spending that time on something else."
"If you want to talk to me, you have to connect."
"Then come out of the mask and talk."
"How many times do I have to tell you that manifesting outside the mask is hard?"
"Enough. You brat."
"Brat?! You know how old I am, talking with a mouth like that?"
"How old are you, then?"
The evil spirit held its silence a moment, then cleared its throat.
"Old enough. Anyway."
"If I keep going this way, there really is a spellbook, right?"
"I said there is."
Chris cut the connection and pressed deeper into the cave. Before long he came to a stone door furred with moss.
He pushed it, pulled it, shoved it sideways. Even a Grandmaster's strength didn't stir it. This was no ordinary stone door.
"How do you open this?"
No answer.
"Having to connect every time I want a word out of you is going to be the death of me."
He linked with the mask again.
"You know how to open the door, don't you?"
"I do."
"How?"
"First you have to make a special kind of magical power."
Red particles bloomed in the mask's mindspace. The evil spirit was showing him the pattern visually.
"These stand for fire mana, right?"
"Yes."
Blue, brown, purple, and green particles appeared in turn.
"Water, earth, metal, and wood?"
"Correct."
The five attributes of mana bound together in a form of staggering complexity. It was so intricate, so perversely ingenious, that looking at it made his eyes swim.
"Hold on."
Chris put the brakes on.
"This is too hard. Show me again. Slowly."
"I got it in one look... You're not exactly bright, are you."
"And yet someone so brilliant ended up trapped in a mirror."
He'd mocked it outright, but the evil spirit didn't get angry. It only sighed.
"You're not wrong."
Since it hadn't gotten angry, the jab left him faintly sorry.
"Even a monkey falls out of a tree now and then."
He'd meant it as comfort. Unexpectedly, this was the line that set the spirit off.
"Are you calling me a monkey?!"
The rage button was in a strange place.
Chris started to fire back, then swallowed it.
"Show me again. Slowly."
Grumbling, the evil spirit showed him again.
"Once more."
Only after he had forced twenty repetitions did Chris nod.
"All right. I've got it."
He severed the link and stepped out, ready to try forming the magical power, when the mask spoke.
"Do it while you're connected."
"That's harder."
"That's how you get better. Your mana synthesis, your control of magical power — both will improve beyond recognition."
"You think so?"
Chris did as he was told, and then he swore. Moving real mana while linked to the mask was miserably difficult, and what the evil spirit had shown him was so complex that conjuring a light orb looked like nothing beside it.
After three hours of wrestling with the pattern — the evil spirit heaping tremendous abuse on him the entire time — he could finally manage a crude imitation.
"Good. Now we open the door. Come out."
"Come out?"
"Disconnect."
Chris couldn't believe it.
"You nagged me to talk while connected, to cast while connected, made the whole thing as miserable as you could — and now you're telling me to cut the link and come out?"
"I can't teach you like this. It's hard on me too."
Grumbling, Chris severed the connection.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
The evil spirit revealed itself outside the mask. Its wings were more ruined than before, and it had even more rotten teeth.
"You look like hell."
"All your fault."
"You ended up like that because you tried to eat me and failed. How is that my fault? Have you no conscience?"
"You didn't have to go and set the mask on fire."
"So you really don't have one."
"We're short on time, so let's get this done. Move the mask toward the door."
Chris had no wish to touch the mask while the evil spirit was possessing it, so he raised his magical power and shifted the mask toward the door that way.
The evil spirit set a finger against the door.
"Watch closely. Feed in magical power, and move it like this."
The spirit bustled about, tracing the path the power had to travel, and the path was fiendishly complex. More complex, even, than the circulation of Iron Body.
"Why is this so complicated?"
The complaint came out sour. He was certain the evil spirit would scold him for learning too slowly, and sure enough, it lost its temper.
"You blockheaded brat. How many times do I have to teach you before you understand?!"
It ran through the pattern five times, then threw up its hands.
"I'm too exhausted. I can't do any more."
And with that, it retreated into the mask.
"What a temper."
Chris grumbled for a while, then injected magical power into the door. Calling up the path he'd been taught, he set the power moving.
The door didn't open. Sweat streaming down him, he tried six more times and failed every one. Halfway through the seventh attempt he gave up and connected to the mask.
"Show me just once more."
The evil spirit sighed.
"This is the last time. I'm too worn out to do it again."
It emerged from the mask and set a hand on the door. The strain was real — its fingers trembled. Chris focused and watched them move.
Whether it lacked even the strength to speak, the evil spirit showed him once and slipped straight back into the mask. Chris closed his eyes and replayed the movements. This time, he thought, he had it.
He drew a long breath, formed the magical power, fed it into the door, and moved it. The instant the power touched the final segment of the sequence in his memory, the stone door began to sink.
"Done!"
He clenched a fist and cheered. A fierce sense of accomplishment washed through him.
The evil spirit popped out.
"Idiot."
"Coming outside is hard and annoying, you said — but the second you want to insult me, you appear like a ghost."
"Shut up and move."
"Hold on. There might be traps."
He formed a light orb and threw it ahead. Unexpectedly, a flower garden lay beyond the stone door, though long neglect had withered every tree.
It didn't look dangerous, so he went in. Walking between the dead trees, he found a pavilion deeper inside. A pavilion belonged in a garden, or somewhere with a view worth keeping; raised in the belly of a cave, it looked absurdly out of place.
The evil spirit pointed at a pit in front of the pavilion. A pond had probably stood there once. It was dried to the bone now, without a trace of moisture.
"To the pit."
"Why the pit?"
"I'm exhausted!"
The evil spirit snapped.
"Just do as you're told!"
Chris was irritated too, but the spirit looked genuinely spent, so he climbed down into the pit that had, he supposed, once been a pond. The soil was parched, and dust rose with every step.
"Dig there."
He dug where the evil spirit's skeletal finger pointed — a withered thing, so dried it looked ready to fall off.
"Why are you digging with your hands instead of magic, you stupid little—"
Mid-curse, the evil spirit's eyes flew open.
"Why are you this strong? Are you a Body Mage?"
"I am."
The evil spirit groaned.
"So that's why you're this stupid. You fool! You should have said so from the start."
"What difference does being a Body Mage make?"
"All the difference."
"Such as?"
"Those too dim to learn magic properly drift into becoming Body Mages. If you'd told me that's what you were, I would've taught you to suit it."
"I didn't become a Body Mage because I'm dim. I had no choice."
"That's what the dim ones always say. Wait — careful."
"What?"
"It might break, so dig gently. Yes. That."
Chris drew out a root vegetable shaped like a potato. The instant he did, the evil spirit lunged and latched onto it. Before he could stop the thing, it started eating, and left alone it looked ready to take his fingers along with the root, so he flung the vegetable away.
The evil spirit devoured it in a flash.
"You can eat food?"
"Why? Is that strange?"
"An evil spirit eating food is obviously strange."
"This isn't food. It's medicine."
"Medicine? What's it called?"
The evil spirit picked its teeth, looking thoroughly satisfied.
"Paphon."
"What's Paphon?"
"An herb that stabilizes the soul."
"Is it valuable?"
"Extremely. And thanks to it, I've got my strength back."
The evil spirit mounted the mask and flew up to the pavilion.
"Wait."
Chris hurried after it.
"You can't just eat treasure without a word."
"Is that so?"
"We should have discussed it first. Obviously."
"A fair point."
"So how are you going to compensate me?"
"Do I have to?"
"Of course you do."
"Fine. Then you can have that."
Chris followed the pointing finger up, and a startled cry escaped him.
"My God!"
A glass bottle no larger than a palm hung from the pavilion ceiling, and inside it was Motaro. He sprang up and snatched the bottle.
"Something this precious, and I got it so easily!"
Overcome, he kissed the bottle.
"It wasn't easy. Without my advice, you never would've gotten in here."
Suspicion prickled through him at that.
"How do you know this place so well?"
Now that he thought about it, it was suspicious that the spirit knew how to open the stone door. Suspicious that it knew Paphon was buried in the pit. Suspicious that it knew Motaro hung from the pavilion ceiling.
"Because it's my house."
"Your house?"
"More precisely, one of my hidden residences."
"You have more than one?"
"Yeah. A clever rabbit digs three burrows."
Chris tucked the bottle of Motaro into his spatial pouch.
"Where to now?"
"We're not done yet."
Chris's eyes lit. He rubbed his hands together.
"There's more treasure here?"
"There is. Feed magical power into the pavilion's pillar. Do it like you did with the door, and the treasure will come out."
He set his hand on the pillar, then laughed, sheepish.
"Ah. Forgot."
The evil spirit clicked its tongue.
"You forgot already?"
"Show me again."
The evil spirit swore a couple of times, then demonstrated once more.
"Got it."
Chris fed magical power into the pillar and moved it. A grinding groan rose, and four bricks in the floor lifted. He cleared them away, and a yellowed jar came into view.