CHAPTER 104: UNIQUE BINDING FACTOR

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—Dawn—

The sun was barely out when Caius stood up from bed and found his way to the grand desk in his room. With a wave of his hand, he retrieved his self-composed Grimoire from his Storage Ring and flipped through the pages to continue from where he had left off before the crash yesterday.

With a slight flick of the finger he was wearing his Storage Ring on, he made another book appear. A much larger book that contained the Von Helsing Family’s interpretation of the Arcane Codex or at least a copy of it that he was allowed to keep with himself.

For hours, he pored through the book in a studious study session, picking out the symbols that especially stood out to him. He formed seals over and over again, making Arcane symbols appear, trying to find something that would resonate with him enough to qualify as his ’unique binding factor’.

Being basically a codex of an ancient language of magic, not every symbol in the Arcane Codex was about spell casting. A lot of it was actually about the very core of a person. A lot of it was philosophical. So casting the symbols over and over was less taxing than it would have been if it were a spell. That said, it was still mentally draining and mind-throbbing to keep at it for so long though.

Caius still sometimes tried reverse-engineering the Spell Circles Arlette had given him yesterday to figure out the binding factor within them but he found himself feeling less interested in the easy way out.

It was very tiring work and most of all, frustrating. Especially since, in [To Kill A Demon Lord...], the original Caius had discovered this far more easily. It took him barely a day once he decided he needed to know it.

"Way to hammer in that I’m worse than him, I guess," Caius mumbled to himself and at his brain for bringing up that memory when he was feeling especially dumb.

It was like it was right in front of him but he was still missing it. Unable to grasp it. Like it was at the tip of his fingers but he couldn’t quite get his hand around it.

"Any luck?" Samantha asked as she appeared sitting on his desk, her ethereal-looking body looking like it wasn’t touching the surface, as usual.

"You know the answer to that," Caius said with a heavy sigh as he flipped another page in the Interpretation of the Arcane Codex.

"It shouldn’t be THAT hard," Samantha said.

Caius closed his eyes and a tiny laugh left his lips,

"Wanna try for yourself?" He asked.

"Hell no. I specifically avoided writing out the complicated steps involved in ’figuring it out’ by simply writing the characters as having ’figured it out’," Samantha said shaking her head so hard that her large breasts wobbled.

It probably said a lot about how frustrated Caius was feeling that he didn’t even look. Okay, maybe he spared a glance.

"The cheap way out," Caius said with a laugh.

"A common Author’s trick," Samantha said, sticking her tongue out at him.

Caius laughed a bit more and then sighed before going silent.

Samantha sighed with him and then leaned back, staring at the ceiling,

"You know what inspired me to include the ’Unique binding factor’?" She asked.

"Not really," Caius said.

"’True Names’" Samantha said with a smile, "There’s a thing in fiction where Characters learn their ’True Name’ and it’s unique to them and no one else has it. It gave me the idea."

"Really?" Caius asked and paused. This was new to him. Not the ’True Names’ thing—He had read stories about that—more the fact that it inspired what he had been struggling with so much so far.

"Yeah," Samantha answered,

"I still tried to make it my own. I mean there’s nothing about the ’Unique Binding Factor’ that makes you into a slave when someone else knows of it. It’s not that much into the ’True Name’ thing. Nothing like that. Just a bit of a signature flair. A way for my characters to make their spells their own.

By essentially binding the Arcane Symbols with their ’True name’."

Caius mused.

"What are the factors involved in figuring out ’True names’?" He asked.

Samantha shrugged.

"Stuff like what you truly are. The core traits that most identify you. But there’s fantasy jargon going on with it because there aren’t really any combinations of traits that are truly unique. Not in a world with billions of lives. No one is truly unique."

"But binding factors are unique in your story," Caius pointed out.

"Of course. I said it’s fantasy jargon, I didn’t say it was fantasy jargon that I don’t use.

I’m as cliche as anyone."

Caius smiled at the attempt at self-deprecation.

"What do you think my ’True name’ would be?" He asked in jest.

Samantha shook her head.

"Kevin, it’s not the same thing," she said.

"I know—" Caius started and then he paused. He looked into Samantha’s face with so much delight, it looked like he was about to get up, grab her face, and plant a kiss on those pretty ethereal lips of hers.

"Oh my," Samantha said and her cheeks turned as red as her hair as she became flustered because she could hear his thoughts. The sheer energy of them hit her like a punch.

Caius’s expression hardly changed. He really meant what he thought. Her telling him of her inspiration for ’Unique Binding Factor’ as well as her habit of calling him by the name he used to bear on earth, had finally opened up his mind to what he’d been missing.

That’s right. His name was Kevin. In many ways, his name was still ’Kevin’. He might now have this new body, he may now be capable of doing things he never would have dreamed he would be able to do in his past life, but at the core it all, he was still Kevin.

He was still that Lustful guy who read web novels on his bed. The one who skipped any stories that didn’t promise him a good bit of hanky-panky. All that had led him to this. The way he thinks, the way he acts, the way he plans, for better and for worse is more because of the life he lived as Kevin, more than it is about the years of memories he has as Caius Von Helsing.

’How could I have been so dumb?’ He said in his head,

’It’s so easy to see. I’ve been looking and searching for the ’Binding Factor’ as Caius and even if I am ’Caius Von Helsing’, I’m Kevin_The_Man too!

Okay, a bit of cringe there but on a roll, don’t lose the thread of thought!’

Caius flipped through the Arcane Codex and, following his epiphany and a complete turnaround of the way his thinking was and the way he searched, symbols were finally calling to him. They were finally resonating. Symbols that stood for Outlander, Endemic, Otherworldly, Lascivious, and more.

’Outlander, I understand because I AM not really of this world.

Endemic is because, through it all, I AM Caius Von Helsing still. My body, blood, and memories root me in this world and make me a native of it.

Otherworldly, though... it seems to be for the same reason as Outlander but it’s a bit strong though. It almost makes the fact that I used to be from Earth seem extraordinary. And is it?’

’Lascivious’ and the other words that followed mostly highlighted his lustful personality among other things but those first three were the most important of all. They formed the foundation that the other symbols joined to and together, they beget Caius’s ’Unique Binding Factor’.

"Eh..." Caius let out with wide eyes and and smile as he reclined in his chair and had one hand stretched out in front of him with a single amalgamated symbol that depicted the result of much too many hours of frustrating work.

"Congratulations," Samantha told him.

"Thank you," Caius said, "I mean that for your help too."

"You’re welcome," Samantha answered and then asked with a head gesture at his Grimoire that was open to uncombined spell circles,

"What spell creation are you starting with?"