The Chosen Pervert

Chapter 4: The Spell Book Discovery

Two years later, I was three years old and finally mobile enough to explore the GreyFox estate without someone hovering over me like I was made of glass.

Freedom, I thought as I toddled down the hallway, my stubby legs carrying me past the main hall and toward the west wing. Sweet, glorious freedom.

Well, "freedom" was a strong word. I was still three. My legs were short, my coordination was s**t, and I had the attention span of—well, a three-year-old. But at least I could walk without falling on my face every five seconds, and that was progress.

The house was quiet. My mother was in the garden with Marta, tending to her herbs. My father was gods-knew-where, probably charming some village woman out of her skirts. The other servants were busy with their daily tasks.

Which meant I had the run of the place.

Time to do some exploring.

I wandered through the corridors, taking in the details I'd missed as a helpless infant. The stone walls were lined with tapestries depicting battles, forests, and strange creatures I didn't recognize. Candles flickered in iron sconces, casting dancing shadows across the floor. The air smelled like wood smoke and lavender.

It was... nice. Comfortable. A far cry from the dingy basement I'd spent thirty-five years rotting in.

Don't think about that, I told myself. That life is over. This is your life now.

I turned a corner and found myself in a part of the house I hadn't explored yet. The hallway was narrower here, the walls bare stone instead of decorated plaster. Dust motes danced in the sunlight streaming through a small window.

Storage area, I guessed. Or maybe servants' quarters.

I kept walking, my curiosity piqued.

And that's when I saw it.

A cat.

A big, fat, orange tabby cat sitting in the middle of the hallway, licking its paw like it owned the place.

Oh, a cat, I thought. Cool. I like cats.

I'd never had a pet in my old life—my mother wouldn't allow it, said they were too much work—but I'd always liked the idea of cats. Independent, aloof, didn't give a s**t about anyone.

I could respect that.

I approached slowly, crouching down to the cat's level. "Hey there, buddy," I said, my voice high-pitched and childish. "You're a big guy, huh?"

The cat stopped licking its paw and looked at me.

Its eyes were yellow. Cold. Unblinking.

Uh oh.

"Easy," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Just wanna say hi."

The cat's ears flattened against its head.

Its tail puffed up like a bottle brush.

And then it hissed.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—"

The cat lunged.

I didn't even have time to react. One second I was crouched down, trying to be friendly, and the next second the f*****g thing was on me, claws out, teeth bared.

It swiped at my face.

Pain exploded across my cheek.

"f**k!" I screamed—or tried to. What came out was more like a high-pitched wail, because I was three and my vocal cords hadn't developed yet.

The cat hissed again and bolted down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.

I stood there, stunned, my hand pressed to my face.

Did that f*****g asshole just scratch me?

I pulled my hand away and looked at it.

Blood.

Oh, you've got to be kidding me.

My face was on fire. The scratches burned like someone had dragged a hot poker across my skin. I could feel the blood trickling down my cheek, warm and sticky.

I'm a thirty-eight-year-old man, I thought, my mind reeling. I've been alive for thirty-eight years—thirty-five in my old life, three in this one—and I just got my ass kicked by a f*****g house cat.

The absurdity of it hit me like a freight train.

And then the pain hit me again, and I started crying.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I was sad or scared.

But because I was three years old, and my body didn't give a s**t about my adult consciousness. Pain meant tears. That was just how it worked.

"MAMA!" I wailed, my voice echoing through the hallway.

Footsteps. Fast, urgent.

"Wyatt?!"

My mother appeared at the end of the hallway, her green dress billowing behind her as she ran toward me. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with alarm.

"Wyatt, what happened?!" she gasped, dropping to her knees in front of me.

I pointed down the hallway, still crying. "C-cat," I managed to choke out. "The cat—"

She cupped my face in her hands, tilting my head to the side so she could see the scratches.

Her breath caught.

"Oh, sweetheart," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Oh, my poor baby."

I'm not a baby, I wanted to say. I'm a grown-ass man who just got mauled by a domestic animal.

But I couldn't say that. So I just kept crying.

My mother pulled me into her arms, holding me close. "It's okay," she murmured, stroking my hair. "It's okay. Mama's here."

She pulled back slightly, her hands still on my shoulders, and reached into the pocket of her dress.

And pulled out a wand.

A wand.

It was small—maybe six inches long—made of dark wood with intricate carvings along the shaft. The tip glowed faintly, like it was alive.

Holy s**t.

"Hold still, sweetheart," my mother said softly.

She raised the wand and pointed it at my face.

And then she spoke.

"Sanatio vulnerum."

The words were Latin. Or something close to it. They rolled off her tongue like a song, smooth and melodic.

And then the wand glowed.

Bright, golden light erupted from the tip, washing over my face like warm water. I felt it—really felt it—sinking into my skin, wrapping around the scratches, pulling them closed.

The pain vanished.

The burning stopped.

The blood dried and flaked away.

And when the light faded, my face was healed.

No scratches. No scars. Nothing.

Just smooth, unblemished skin.

I stared at my mother, my mouth hanging open.

She smiled and tucked the wand back into her pocket. "There," she said gently. "All better."

All better.

She just healed me with magic.

Real. f*****g. Magic.

I'd seen magic before—sort of. I'd seen the servants light candles with a flick of their fingers. I'd seen my father conjure a small flame to light his pipe. I'd seen my mother make objects float across the room when she was cleaning.

But I'd never seen it up close. Never felt it. Never experienced it firsthand.

And now I had.

Magic is real, I thought, my mind racing. Magic is real, and my mother just used it to heal me.

My mother kissed my forehead. "You need to be careful around the cats, Wyatt," she said. "They're not always friendly."

No s**t.

"I will," I said, my voice small.

She smiled and stood, brushing the dust off her dress. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."

She took my hand and led me back toward the main hall.

But I wasn't thinking about the cat anymore.

I was thinking about the wand.

The spell.

The magic.

If my mother can do magic, I thought, then maybe I can too.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

For the rest of the day, all I could think about was the wand, the spell, the golden light that had healed my face.

Magic.

Real, tangible, functional magic.

Not the bullshit pseudo-science magic from video games or the vague hand-waving magic from fantasy novels.

This was real.

And if my mother could do it, then maybe—just maybe—I could too.

But how?

I needed to learn. I needed to understand how it worked.

And that meant I needed to find a spell book.

It took me two days of sneaking around the house to find it.

The GreyFox estate was bigger than I'd realized. There were rooms I'd never been in, hallways I'd never explored, entire wings of the house that seemed to exist solely for storage.

But I was determined.

And on the third day, I found it.

The storage room was tucked away in the far corner of the west wing, behind a heavy wooden door that creaked when I pushed it open. The room was dark, lit only by a single narrow window near the ceiling. Dust covered everything—old furniture, crates, barrels, chests.

And in the corner, half-hidden beneath a moth-eaten blanket, was a chest.

A locked chest.

Bingo.

I approached slowly, my heart pounding in my chest.

The chest was old. The wood was dark and weathered, the iron hinges rusted. A heavy padlock hung from the latch, but it was open—someone had forgotten to lock it.

Lucky me.

I lifted the lid.

And there it was.

A book.

A thick, leather-bound book with no title on the cover. The leather was black, cracked with age, and the pages were yellowed and brittle.

I reached in and pulled it out, my hands trembling.

This is it, I thought. This is a spell book.

I opened it.

And I could read it.

The text was in a language I didn't recognize—some kind of archaic script that looked like a mix of Latin and Old English—but somehow, I understood it.

Every word. Every symbol. Every diagram.

Holy s**t.

I flipped through the pages, my eyes wide.

Spells. Dozens of them. Hundreds, maybe.

Fire spells. Water spells. Healing spells. Illusion spells. Summoning spells.

And at the top of each page, written in neat, flowing script, were the incantations.

The words you had to speak to cast the spell.

So that's how it works, I thought. You say the words, you channel the magic through a conduit—like a wand or a staff—and the spell happens.

It was just like D&D.

Verbal components. Material components. Somatic components.

I know this, I realized. I know how this works.

All those years I'd spent playing D&D, reading fantasy novels, obsessing over magic systems—it was finally paying off.

I understood this.

I got this.

I can do this.

I took the book back to my room and hid it under my bed.

For the next week, I studied it every chance I got.

When my mother was in the garden, I read.

When my father was out drinking, I read.

When the servants were busy, I read.

I absorbed everything. The theory. The mechanics. The rules.

And the more I read, the more I realized something.

Magic in this world had rules.

You couldn't just wave your hand and make things happen. You had to speak the spell. You had to use a conduit. You had to channel your mana—your internal magical energy—through the conduit and into the spell.

Without the words, the spell wouldn't work.

Without the conduit, the spell wouldn't work.

That was the rule.

But what if I broke the rule?

The thought came to me one night as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

What if I didn't need the words?

What if I didn't need the conduit?

What if I could just... do it?

It was a stupid thought. Impossible.

But I couldn't shake it.

The next day, I decided to test it.

I waited until my mother was out in the garden and the servants were busy in the kitchen. Then I snuck into the storage room, closed the door, and sat down on the floor with the spell book open in front of me.

I picked a simple spell. A light spell. Lux.

According to the book, you were supposed to say the word "Lux" while channeling mana through a wand or staff. The result would be a small orb of light that hovered above your hand.

Simple. Basic. Beginner-level magic.

I took a deep breath.

Okay. Let's try this.

I held out my hand, palm up.

And I whispered, "Lux."

Nothing happened.

Right. I need a conduit.

I looked around the room. No wands. No staffs.

Fuck.

I stared at my hand.

What if I don't need one?

What if I just... think it?

I closed my eyes.

I focused on the spell. The theory. The mechanics.

I imagined the mana inside me—whatever that was—flowing through my body, gathering in my hand, forming into a sphere of light.

I didn't say the word.

I just thought it.

Lux.

And then I felt it.

A warmth in my chest. A tingling in my fingertips.

And when I opened my eyes, there was a small orb of light hovering above my palm.

Holy s**t.

I stared at it, my heart pounding.

I did it.

I cast a spell without saying the word.

I cast a spell without a conduit.

I just broke the f*****g rules.

The light flickered and died, and I sat there in the darkness, my mind racing.

This isn't normal, I thought. This isn't how magic works.

No one should be able to do this.

But I just did.

I looked down at my hands, trembling.

What the hell am I?

Over the next few weeks, I practiced in secret.

I cast the light spell over and over, perfecting it. Then I moved on to other spells. Simple ones at first—moving small objects, creating small gusts of wind, heating water.

And every single time, I did it silently.

No words. No conduit.

Just thought and will.

And it worked.

Every. Single. Time.

I'm a f*****g prodigy, I thought one night as I made a wooden block float across my room. I'm a goddamn magical genius.

But I also knew I had to keep it secret.

If anyone found out—if my mother found out, if my father found out—they'd ask questions. They'd want to know how I was doing it. They'd want to study me, test me, figure out what made me different.

And I wasn't ready for that.

Not yet.

So I kept practicing. Kept learning. Kept pushing the boundaries of what I could do.

And with every spell I cast, I felt the power inside me growing.

This is just the beginning, I thought as I closed the spell book and hid it back under my bed. I don't know what I am. I don't know what I'm becoming.

But I'm going to find out.

I lay down and closed my eyes, a small smile on my face.

Let's see what the next milestone brings.