"When Can I Make a Lich?"
Simon stepped into Aaron's office.
Aaron had summoned him because he wanted to walk him through the commentary on the recent class.
"Right."
Tap.
Aaron set down his teacup.
"You want me to explain my battle with Magnus?"
"Yes, Professor."
The four colossal undead warships Aaron commanded. Magnus had dismissed them as nothing special, scoffing that every necromancer had limits on how many undead they could control—but the moment Simon laid eyes on those ships, his chest had burned with excitement.
To bind that many undead into a single, unified system!
Ever since, Aaron's Hive Magic had kept flickering through his mind, and as it happened, he'd just found the rune that formed the foundation of Hive Magic among his rune fragments.
The Rune of Transmission.
Once the explanation beneath the rune gave him the basic idea, Simon moved immediately. The Magiste System that students used from their seats wasn't built as separate stations—it was a single magic circle linking every desk in the practice hall into one interconnected whole.
So Simon tapped into the system's main network with the Rune of Transmission, coated it in his own Jet-Black, and simply issued an Absolute Order.
He commanded every Skeleton Mage in the lecture hall to reuse the spells they had just cast.
Something only possible in Aaron's class, which ran entirely on the Magiste System.
Theoretically, it's the kind of thing you could imagine. But having the audacity to actually execute it in that short a window—that's genius in its own right.
Aaron tilted his head toward Simon.
He claims he replicated my Hive Magic, but all he really did was take the idea. He used a completely different branch of dark magic and still managed to achieve the same effect.
Then, as that genius of a boy took a sip of tea and scrunched his face at the bitterness, Aaron smiled to himself.
"Professor, there's something I'd like to discuss with you."
This time it was Simon who spoke up. He'd come at Aaron's invitation, but he'd been planning to visit anyway.
"Go ahead."
"The magic-type undead creation project."
Simon's eyes gleamed.
"There's something I really want to build."
"And what would that be?"
Simon was such a flighty, unpredictable kid that Aaron was already dreading the answer. Strictly speaking, he'd already succeeded at the project—a Skeleton Mage was a Skeleton Mage, and slapping even a slightly unusual spell onto one would count as a pass. But this boy had pulled off the absurd stunt of hijacking other students' Skeleton Mages in his very first practical exam.
The lens through which he saw the world was simply on another level from his classmates.
"One moment."
Simon dug out his Summoning textbook and flipped to the back pages.
"Ah, here it is. Look at this. I'm not sure if we ever cover it in class."
Aaron braced himself and took another sip of tea. No matter what variety of Skeleton Mage the boy proposed, he resolved not to react.
"When can I make a Lich?"
Pfft—!
Aaron sprayed his tea across the desk.
The innocent, guileless expression on Simon's face—textbook spread open and everything—slowly curdled into something damp and miserable.
"Get a hold of yourself!!"
Aaron shouted, then doubled over coughing, clutching his throat.
"Is it something we learn in third year, then?"
"A Lich,"
Aaron's voice came out slightly hoarse.
"is not taught at this academy!"
"What?"
"That's an ultra-high-tier undead! Summoning magic so difficult that even most professional necromancers can't touch it!"
Simon set the textbook down and tilted his head.
"So you can't make one either, Professor?"
Why, this little...
Aaron pressed a hand to his forehead, let out a long sigh, and then stretched out his arm.
"Don't say I never warned you."
Behind Aaron's back, a subspace tore open with a sharp crack.
Clang—
"!"
For an instant, the entire office seemed to drown in shadow. What poked its head out of the subspace wore a deep hood, and beneath it gleamed not the face of a man but a skull, its eye sockets burning with crimson light.
Thump. Thump.
Simon felt his heart pound.
He'd never heard the sound of a beating heart this loudly in his life.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
And when the creature pulled its upper body out of the subspace, Simon realized the heartbeat wasn't his at all.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
It was,
the heart of a Lich.
This is... possible?
Inside the undead's ribcage, visible through the folds of its robe, a bright red heart was unmistakably beating.
An undead.
A dead thing.
With a pumping heart.
"The reason a Lich is called the pinnacle of magic-type undead," Aaron said, "is that it operates a special heart called the Life Vessel."
The Lich fully emerged from the subspace. Chains coiled ring after ring around its hole-riddled robe, a massive wooden staff clutched in one hand, and the sinister glow of its eye sockets sent a chill down the spine.
"Do you understand why it operates a heart?"
Simon swallowed hard and nodded.
"...To run an independent core. Isn't that it?"
"Correct."
For a corpse to be fitted with a beating heart and granted command of a core, all so it could wield even more powerful dark magic—the sheer obsession of necromancers who pursued such a thing made Simon feel like the air had been squeezed from his lungs.
Truly incredible.
Something like this was actually possible?
Then the Lich slowly turned its head toward Simon. A hand of bare bone, jutting from the robe, seized him by the chin and lifted.
Ugh—!
Cold sweat ran down Simon's body in rivulets, and he couldn't move a muscle. The crimson glow that served the creature for pupils slid down to peer at his chest. Its lower jaw creaked open, bit by bit.
Keeeeeeee—!
The instant the Lich's maw gaped wide, aiming for Simon's left breast—
"Enough."
The slack chains snapped taut around the Lich's body. Aaron swept his arm, and the chains dragged the creature back into the subspace, which sealed shut moments later.
"Haah... haaah."
Only then did the suffocating pressure ease. Simon exhaled a sigh of relief while Aaron opened the window to air out the office.
"Now—"
Aaron turned back to Simon.
"I trust you understand how naive you sounded just now."
"I want to make one!"
"You absolute lunatic..."
Aaron got that far, then couldn't bring himself to curse a student outright and covered his face with his palm instead.
Simon popped up from his seat, eyes sparkling.
"Please teach me how to make a Lich! I'm begging you!"
The demonstration had been meant to shock him into giving up. Instead, it seemed to have lit an even bigger fire under him.
What am I supposed to say? That it's impossible? That it's dark magic no first-year could ever handle? I can't bring myself to say that, because...
Simon had done it all.
The full-body Bone Armor that second-years study—he'd pulled that off in the first semester. And in the second, he'd succeeded in creating the Blood Golem, a third-year dark magic.
There was no talking this genius down with ordinary, common-sense arguments.
Aaron walked slowly to a bookshelf in the corner of the office. He opened the glass door, pulled out one thick, ancient volume, and tossed it over.
"Take it."
Simon stretched out both hands and caught the old book awkwardly against his chest—it was heavy.
"If you study that and put together even the basic framework of a Lich, I'll hear you out."
A spark of sharp intelligence flashed in Simon's eyes.
"Thank you, Professor! I'll have it ready in no time!"
The very next classes followed suit, with each professor laying out their schedules for the practical assessments.
With the 4th BMAT streamlined into the after-school format, a veritable bombardment of practical exams was raining down on the students. And just as Aaron had announced his final, top-scoring project—'Magic-Type Undead Creation'—in advance, so did the other professors.
Professor Bahil of Curse Studies assigned 'Curse Synergy' as his project.
"Complete a curse that produces a synergistic effect using three or more curses."
In other words, either discover a unique combination where stacking three or more curses unleashed some powerful effect—
—or craft a single curse whose formula incorporated three or more curse components in synergy.
The other students were in an uproar over how hard it was, but Simon saw it a little differently.
Wait, isn't this...
For Simon, the answer already existed. Mastering the Four Great Curses Bahil had assigned him and building Compellonia from them would solve this problem naturally. So Simon simply resolved to keep grinding through his usual curse studies.
And in the next class, Hong Peng's Magic Combat course, another brutal assessment was waiting for them.
"You're going to fight a TA one-on-one in Magic Combat and win! Easy, right?"
At this point, the students were wearing expressions like they were about to cry. Protests rang out from every corner of the room.
"Professor! Forget Magic Combat—we couldn't beat a TA even going all out!"
"It's impossible!"
It wasn't often that students voiced complaints directly to a professor. TA Brad, standing behind Hong Peng, made a sharp 'Hup!' and conveyed his message with a look: I'm watching every one of you.
"Now, now."
Hong Peng clasped her hands together and smiled.
"The TAs will all be fighting with a handicap! So do your best not to get steamrolled!"
Knowing there would be a handicap was somehow not very comforting.
"...Sparring with a TA? We're going to get beaten half to death."
Meilin grumbled, hugging her knees at her desk. Dick and Camibarez looked just as frightened.
Simon, however, was thinking something a little different.
I have done something like that before, actually.
Back in the first semester, he'd thrown down with Brad, the Magic Combat TA, when the man had picked a fight over the matter of becoming Hong Peng's direct disciple. Of course, that bout had carried the condition that Simon only needed to land a single blow to win—and without such a handicap, his odds were zero.
"Alright! Let's run even harder, in preparation for the day of that final practical assessment!"
And so, after Magic Combat came the class in question: Hemomancy. In the lecture hall attached to the dark-magic target range, Professor Walter announced his top-scoring practical assessment as well.
"The heart."
Walter said it without preamble.
"Prepare a dark magic relating to the heart and demonstrate it. That will be your final practical assessment."
...This man really does love hearts.
Simon rested his chin on his hand, thinking this. The memory of the fish market was still vivid. What on earth had he been planning to do with that mountain of hearts?
And then, mid-thought, Simon's eyes flew wide open.
Oh. The Life Vessel!
The Lich's 'Life Vessel' was, after all, a dark magic relating to the heart.
Which meant that if he truly completed his Lich, he'd score top marks on both the Summoning and Hemomancy assessments in one stroke.
Simon was growing more and more serious about building his Lich. Just then, Walter, who had been diligently explaining theory, set down his chalk.
"Now, take some time to copy down your notes."
Scratch, scratch.
As the students copied the dense Hemomancy formulas covering the blackboard, Simon glanced sideways.
Two seats over sat a familiar friend.
"Toto."
Simon called to him in a small voice. Toto caught on immediately—Simon could see him turning his head.
"Want to stop by the club room after class?"
Toto nodded.
"Yeah! Sure!"
First things first—Simon figured he'd have to sit down for a consultation with Benya. His imagination unfurled its wings.
What kind of heart would make the best Life Vessel?