With the additional work from our new project I was quite busy. There were still regular classes to attend, there was homework to be done and I did not want to neglect training either. We regularly sparred in addition to our combat classes. I would never be a genius fighter but with our circulation technique, in addition to being a foxkin, I could do quite well in a melee.

Despite the hard work I was always looking forward to any magic classes, especially advanced death magic. Today I was quite late and sprinted down the hallway to reach class in time. Kaito and Hatsumi were following me, while Nyx sat on my head.

I reached the door at the same time as our teacher.

"Sorry!" I said, as I quickly hurried to an empty desk. Tim, Tom and Leo were already here.

"Everyone is here, good." Gronir said to start the lesson. "Today is exciting! You are going to learn something new. Follow me."

I had just sat down as we all stood up again and followed our teacher.

"What is this about?" I heard Tom whisper. Tim just shrugged.

Gronir did not elaborate, he just smiled as he led us down to the training rooms.

"Oh, maybe we are practicing some necrotic magic." I mused.

"No, today is much more exciting than that." Gronir said, with a chuckle.

He opened the door to a large training room and we followed. Inside were cages…

"Why do you have skeletons in cages?" Tom asked.

I frowned, the skeletons just stood there, not doing anything. They seemed a bit ragged. Some were goblins, some humans and one looked like an elf. They did not look like Gronir's normal undead. He usually took better care of them, keeping the bones properly clean. Those looked more like they were raised during a battle with no time for preparations.

"They seem to be dumb skeletons. Maybe even tier one. Do you expect us to fight them?" Leo asked.

"Not a bad guess, fighting undead can be tricky for you since they are resistant to death magic. Only Koyuki has a second element to fall back on. Of course, the same applies to every affinity. A fire mage will have a bad time fighting a fire elemental. You actually have an advantage there, because you could use your own undead to fight other undead. You could also attack them with weapons. However, there is another option. Any guesses?" Gronir asked.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Control!" I said, as the idea popped into my mind.

"Exactly! Assuming, of course, they are not already controlled. Overpowering the link of another necromancer takes a lot of power and is not feasible in most situations. However, a natural undead is a different story." Gronir said.

"Those are natural undead?" Tim asked.

"Indeed!" Gronir replied. "They are weak tier ones so ideal for practice. The more powerful an undead is, the harder they are to control. You have to subdue them mentally, then establish a link. Once that is done they will be like the undead you have created."

"So you could just catch tier three undead and bind them?" Tom asked.

Gronir chuckled. "Catching a tier three undead would be rather difficult. And then you would have to subdue them mentally. A tier three will put up a fight I can assure you. And if you succeed in controlling them they will probably hate you. It's a lot harder to convince a wild tier three to serve you than one you have created. But there are certainly some necromancers who have hunted tier threes. And I have to add that there have been some tier threes who were caught and willingly surrendered to avoid execution."

"Really?" I asked.

Gronir nodded. "They were vampires used to living among humans. It would be hard to convince a truly wild undead to submit. Also, I think the last time this has happened was over 20 years ago and the vampire was not particularly strong."

"How many controlled tier three are there?" I asked.

"That, I do not know. While having a tier three requires a licence I don't know how many people have one, or how many undead they have. Nethena has about 5000 senior mages, only a fraction of them are necromancers. And only some of those have a tier three. Of course, not every mage is registered and there could be visitors. But you might meet some of them during the conference." Gronir replied.

Leo looked strangely pleased at the mention of the conference. He had likely secured an invite, being the son of a duke.

"Now, back to the lesson!" Gronir said. "I want all of you to try to take control of an undead. You all have your books with you. There is a spell called control undead. The spell is simply there to initiate the link. Once that is done you will need to overpower them. For a tier one that simply means pouring enough mana into the spell. DO NOT try this on a tier three, or you might end up as their puppet." He warned.

"Or as a snack." I mused.

"Can we try this as well?" Hatsumi asked.

"Certainly, we have enough test subjects!" Gronir replied. "A tier three undead can use the same spell to control simpler undead."

I was excited! I immediately looked for the spell in my book, then selected one of the human skeletons. I felt a mild resistance that was easily crushed by my mana. The link formed and I had a new undead. A rather disappointing one. The skeleton felt weaker than the zombies I had raised during combat. Also, it required more mana for the link. I had expected a natural undead to be superior. Nyx certainly was amazing. Maybe tier ones were just really crappy?

I tried to analyse my new undead some more. The whole mana flow felt wrong, inefficient. Could that be fixed? How did they rise naturally anyway?

"Um, what is wrong with those undead?" I asked out loud.

"What do you mean by wrong?" Gronir inquired.

"They seem really inefficient. Weirdly raised. Not like a proper spell." I explained.

"Ah, you have already controlled one. Yes, natural undead vary in their effectiveness. A lot depends on how they came to be. Those are from the Themeran Crypts. The entire place is flooded with necrotic mana and is rather hostile. Sometimes people venture there in search of treasure, mostly they end up as undead themselves. The tier ones are often defective skeletons that have risen because they have absorbed a lot of mana. They have been raised by brute force, not an elegant spell. However, the additional mana might help them evolve, if they are around long enough." Gronir explained.

I pondered that. So basically those tier one skeletons had more than enough mana to be tier two. But they were so ineffectually raised that it was all needed to hold them together. Was this why I could control so many undead? I had heard that my spells were efficient but the contrast to this mess was staggering. Now I wondered how the undead of other necromancers looked like.

"This is revolting." Kaito said. "This goblin skeleton is an insult to undeath!" The flames coming from his neck brightened. He was clearly upset. "Mistress Koyuki, might I dispose of this thing?"

Nyx looked at the skeleton and licked her lips.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.