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"Amazing!" The young witch exclaimed in awed expression on her face.
Ian was also happy as he had finally found someone who could appreciate his artistry. Not everyone could recognize the brilliance of his Dark Magic.
"To be able to see how powerful this magic is, you're pretty remarkable too!" Ian happily returned the compliment, and then began carefully and meticulously teaching Young Morgan the Corpse Control Curse advanced version- The Corpse Dance Curse.
He already had his own little classroom, and teaching young wizards was second nature to him. What's more, Morgan's talent far surpassed that of any of his other students.
Very quickly, which meant that after just over an hour, Young Morgan was able to control a corpse with relative ease. Although she couldn't yet make it dance as smoothly as Ian's puppets, under his guidance she managed to have the corpse perform the Moonwalk.
This achievement filled her with both excitement and accomplishment. She even lost all the initial disgust she'd felt toward the rotting bodies. In fact, she began to complain that the legs of her puppet were too short, and went so far as to remove the legs from another corpse and attach them instead.
If Ian hadn't stopped her, she would have gone on to gouge out the eyes from several corpses and cram them all into a single face.
"We're practicing corpse control, not creating Cthulhu abominations…" Ian looked at the young witch, who still seemed unsatisfied. He knew this girl was born for this kind of research.
Truly, no wonder she would grow up to be such a wicked woman.
"What's Cthulhu?" Young Morgan asked, having stumbled into a gap in her knowledge. Her face lit up with eager curiosity, and her eyes shone as she stared intently at Ian.
"Uh, how should I put it… Wait a moment. I have to deal with a small problem first." Ian was choosing his words carefully as he walked under a tree and suddenly stomped hard on the shade beneath it.
"Ah!"
A scream came from the shadow beneath the tree.
"You stepped on my tail!"
The voice sounded panicked and pained. A twisted shadow writhed under Ian's foot, struggling to break free, but he pinned it firmly to the ground.
"Hiding nearby to spy on me, huh? You're pretty well concealed, if the sun hadn't shifted several times and you still hadn't moved, I almost wouldn't have noticed that someone was secretly watching… my school's forbidden arts."
Ian looked down in surprise at the shadow beneath his foot. He could tell this shadow was a kind of magic, but within it, he also sensed the presence of life.
Was it magic that had come alive?
Or was some kind of creature hiding beneath a disguise and protection woven of magic? Facing the unknown, Ian's curiosity was stirred. He crouched down and grabbed at the shadow cast under the trees.
What he caught was a lump of pitch-black substance, like a blob of bubblegum. It had no warmth to it, but Ian couldn't quite determine what category of magic it belonged to.
The shadow twisted and writhed furiously.
Without hesitation, Ian kneaded it into a ball and slammed it hard against the ground several times.
A panicked, terrified scream instantly burst forth from within.
"This isn't how it's supposed to be! You're not supposed to be able to touch me!" The struggling shadow exclaimed in shock. After a few futile attempts to break free, it cried out in disbelief.
"Under normal circumstances, a magic wrap like yours really would let you exist between the state of 'being and not being'. But too bad for you, you ran into a wizard like me, someone who just happens to be your natural nemesis."
Ian had already seen through a few things. He wasn't wrong. With the Authority of Paradox upon him, any so-called 'Schrödinger's state' held no power in front of him, at all.
"Let me go! Release me! I mean no harm! I was only passing through… yes! Just passing through!" The shadow pleaded desperately, completely unprepared for this turn of events.
Trapped in the hands of such a bizarre little wizard, it was forced into passivity. The mission the Duke had entrusted it with, it wouldn't dare reveal, not even under threat of death.
"Sorry, but you've spied upon my secret arts. What was that saying again? Ah yes, you've already chosen the path of death." After studying it for a moment, Ian tried to peel apart the shadow to see what was hidden within. This entirely reasonable action of his immediately drew another horrified scream.
"No! You can't do this! I belong to a great power, a mighty background! I have people above me! You really want to provoke a force you could never afford to offend?!" The shadow tried to intimidate the young wizard.
Unfortunately for it, what Ian feared least of all was intimidation.
He wasn't even of this era. If things ever got troublesome, he could simply pick up a Time-Turner and walk away. Whatever forces might rule this age, what did they have to do with someone who lived a thousand years in the future?
And besides, "Sorry. You may have someone above you… but me? There's no one above me anymore." Ian wasn't being arrogant. As a legendary wizard, there truly wasn't anyone stronger than him standing above.
His hands never stopped moving.
At that moment, Young Morgan came over as well.
"What is that?"
She didn't seem to recognize this thing that had been at her side since she was young. Perhaps its disguise really was that well hidden, if Ian hadn't been so observant, he wouldn't have noticed it either.
"Whatever it is, it's nothing good," Ian replied, still peeling away layer after layer of the shadow's shell. It was like an onion, one layer after another.
"I'm a good guy! Truly! Blessed by the great gods! I'm the incarnation of a story, the protagonist of a fairy tale! A messenger destined to spread love and peace across the world!"
Even though the being within the shadow was frantic, it still loudly protested Ian's judgment. Its self-introduction was so extravagant that Young Morgan was stunned.
"The protagonist of a fairy tale?" She was astonished. Ian was as well.
"Oh?" Ian's curiosity was piqued. He knew many fairy tales were indeed real, but to encounter such a being once again in the living world was entirely unexpected.
"How do you prove it?" Ian paused in his actions.
The creature inside the shadow breathed a sigh of relief.
(To Be Continued…)