The First Spark of Creation
"Phoooow—"
Simon closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath, ratcheting his focus up inch by inch.
He took his time clearing every stray thought from his mind, then opened his eyes. On the table before him sat a practice biological organ.
It looked like a pair of lungs, twitching and flexing of their own accord. Its sole function was to draw in ambient mana and expel it back out.
Next.
Simon looked down at the magic circle laid out beneath it.
It was about a third complete. The border and the basic formulas were already fixed in place, but the slots reserved for the runic language and the core calculations sat empty.
It was like staring at a quiz question.
What formula did this blank space demand? Which runes would suit this configuration best?
Fill it in properly, apply it to the organ, and the result would be an engine that converted mana into Jet-Black.
Okay, okay. How do I do this?
First, he reminded himself of the goal.
Turn mana into Jet-Black.
Then he searched his memory for the knowledge he'd need to get there.
Since I'm working with Jet-Black, the first step has to be mutating the organ into undead tissue.
What does undead conversion require? The alteration formula and the decay-mutation formula. We covered that in Ghoul class.
And the supplementary formula to support the main rune? A subspace binding should do it. Same principle as the Crypt Guard from the textbook.
He asked and answered in turn, layering hypothesis upon hypothesis until the framework held.
The answers were coming with uncanny ease.
Solve one problem, and another unraveled on its own. Everything he'd learned so far came flooding back, each piece shoring up the theory.
Let's lock this design in a little tighter.
While the other students were still squabbling over materials, Simon pulled every one of his Summoning notebooks out of his bag.
The other tables were buried under piles of ingredients; Simon's had nothing on it but notes. He sketched a magic circle onto a blank page, then branched formulas off it like the limbs of a tree.
Link it with the alteration formula.
Professor Aaron hammered on about the Rune of Obsession so much—where could I apply it here? Do I need to keep the lungs active as-is? Wait, then...!
One idea sank its teeth into the next.
Understanding poured into his head like a dam giving way.
Theory's set. Straight into practice.
Simon carefully completed the remaining portion of the magic circle. First he laid down the formulas that anchored to the main rune, then chained on the auxiliary calculations and sub-runes after them.
Before long he carved the finished circle directly into the biological organ—but it didn't behave the way he wanted.
The alteration formula is matched. Why won't it move? Is something missing? Assuming the circle itself is right, then the external conditions... Ah!
Only once the circle's design was complete did the materials he actually needed come into focus. Simon was the last of all fifty-two Summoning students to grab a basket and run for supplies.
Whitesilk herb extract, a base node, and opel.
He gathered what he wanted, then brought the prepared cauldron's water to a boil. In went the ingredients, and as he stirred, he reinforced the biological organ little by little.
There was even a stage that called for cutting openings into the organ with a work knife. Threading Jet-Black filament through those holes and twisting the strands tight together was unmistakably chimera-craft technique.
I know all of this already.
It was nothing like building his Lich on raw talent alone.
The knowledge was stored in his head; all he had to do was arrange it by feel.
A riddle that had looked unanswerable was turning into a puzzle. Bits of knowledge that had seemed utterly unrelated clicked home one after another, unfolding into a single grand picture.
Perfect.
He was so absorbed that the corners of his mouth kept creeping upward on their own.
As Simon pulled ahead, the other students seemed to be finding their footing too.
The grumbling had died away. Only the scratch of quills and work knives remained, and the hall had fallen so silent that everyone was clearly buried in their work.
"Wh-what is this?"
At this point, the students who'd declared surrender from the very start just looked ridiculous.
"Did you figure something out? How, when we were never even taught—"
"Busy. Don't talk to me."
What mattered was the willingness to attempt something—anything.
Aaron's order to create the engine of a Dullahan they'd never been taught had struck everyone as impossibly vague. But anyone who resolved to try and chewed the problem over found images surfacing in their mind, a little at a time, student by student.
Seize one of those images and start somewhere, and that first step became the important one.
One student split his biological organ in half. Others tried sheathing theirs in a shell, or dripping highly corrosive venom onto it to force a chemical reaction.
Because this was a free-form lesson rather than a standardized one, a whole medley of interesting ideas came bubbling up.
"Teaching assistant."
Simon, deep in his work, raised his hand. The assistant came over.
"Yes, student. Go ahead."
"Do we have to use only the materials here?"
"No. This is a free creative exercise. If there's something you want, anything—"
Swish!
Before the man could even finish, Simon had torn apart the Mini Knight Terror he'd built back in his Summoning Materials class.
Then he started lashing its components onto the biological organ in wholesale fashion.
The assistant's eyes went round as saucers.
...What on earth is he trying to make this time?
"Time's up. Everyone, stop working."
Aaron announced. The students all pulled their hands from their tables and took a step back.
"Good work. There were plenty of interesting, unconventional approaches in there—enough that I picked up some inspiration myself. But we are necromancers, and with performance evaluation scores on the line, I have no choice but to judge you on results."
He tapped his own shoulder lightly with the clipboard in his hand.
"Any student whose exhaust pipe isn't producing Jet-Black, step back for now."
Students filed out like an ebbing tide, groaning their disappointment. Before long, only a dozen or so remained in the outdoor training ground.
The model students—Simon, Hector, Asseraz, Fitzgerald—were there, of course, but so were plenty of surprises.
Toto!
With even the top-ranked Eshu Arzel and Pierre Buckler eliminated, Toto stood there among the survivors, proud as could be. Aaron made straight for him first.
"Toto Amori. Activate your organ."
"Yes, sir!"
Toto powered up his biological organ. Nothing looked much different on the outside, but the organ began beating furiously as it drank in mana.
What came out of the exhaust port below was unmistakably mana—but laced, just faintly, with something dark and grimy.
"...Oh, that counts as a success, right?"
"It's a small amount, but Jet-Black is coming out."
"Nice work, Toto!"
That last shout was Eshu's.
"You'll need at least that much to make a Death Knight!"
Toto's face flushed crimson, and scattered snickers rippled through the crowd.
"Hmm."
But Aaron's expression was not a kind one.
"Did you draw a Jet-Black circle on the organ's interior as well?"
"Ah—yes, Professor!"
"That isn't mana converting into Jet-Black. The circle you drew inside is collapsing, and it's flowing out along with the mana. You missed the mark. Step back, please."
AHAHAHAHA!
Rowdy laughter burst out from all corners. Toto trudged back to his spot, redder than ever.
"...I still think it was a good attempt."
Kind-hearted Loraine offered her encouragement, but with Eshu doubled over clutching her stomach beside them, it wasn't much comfort.
One by one, the other students were evaluated.
Asseraz's work in particular drew the eyes of a large crowd. From his exhaust port flowed something like black mud—a thick, sludge-like liquid that held its form, and its Jet-Black purity looked impressively high.
"You walked the royal road while chasing maximum efficiency. A result fit to serve as a textbook example."
"Thank you, Professor!"
Next came Hector's turn.
His creation had been warped beyond all recognition of its original shape. Holes dotted it everywhere, impossible to tell whether they were intake ports or exhausts.
"Heavy mutation."
"Yes."
Hector answered proudly.
"I altered the mutation formula and the decay-mutation formula to push the transformation to far more extreme states."
"Activate it."
The moment Hector triggered his circle, the organ began sucking in mana through every one of its openings. The inflow was visible to the naked eye—a river of mana pouring inward.
"Huh? It's just swallowing mana endlessly."
"Where's the exhaust?"
The students murmured in bewilderment, but Hector's faction wore knowing smiles.
FWOOOOM—!
Then, from every single port, Jet-Black came erupting out black as pitch. The output matched the intake in sheer volume.
The murmuring cut off instantly, and even Aaron gave a nod.
"You converted the exhaust system."
Hector nodded.
"Yes. I was considering how to detonate a large reserve of power all at once."
"It's drifted somewhat from the Dullahan's foundation, but it is unquestionably an impressive engine. Well done. Top marks."
"Thank you."
Hector bowed his head. His friends came charging over in a clamor, slapping his back and throwing arms around his shoulders.
"And next is..."
Aaron walked over to Simon's station.
"If I recall, I ordered you to build a Jet-Black exhaust engine. Simon Polentia."
Sitting on Simon's table was the Knight Terror he'd built some time ago. Behind it, a tail woven from Jet-Black swayed lazily back and forth.
"Yes, sir. I built the exhaust engine properly, too."
Look closer, though, and an engine sat nested inside the Knight Terror's outer shell.
Aaron smirked.
"Activate it."
"Yes, sir."
Simon lifted the Knight Terror and set it down on the snow with a soft thump.
"??"
The students in back came over, faces full of puzzlement. Simon spread his palm and triggered the magic circle.
Vreeeeing!
The interior circle lit up, and mana began pouring in through the gaps in the shell. And then—
WHAKAKAKAKA-BOOM!
The Knight Terror lurched forward at blistering speed, its Jet-Black tail whipping behind it.
"Whoa—!"
"How is that thing moving?!"
The students scrambled backward in alarm. The Knight Terror plowed through the snow like a rocket until it slammed into the fence.
CRASH—!
Even then it kept trying to push forward, thrashing its tail again and again with an ear-grating shriek of metal.
"Mana-to-Jet-Black conversion, of course—but I also converted the Jet-Black I harvested into speed."
...Absolutely absurd.
Aaron's mouth curved upward.
Take that speed and turn it into motive force, and you had a Dullahan.
Keep pace with the curriculum, would you? You damned genius.
Behind him came the grinding screech of a fence on the verge of collapse.
Once the bonus performance evaluations wrapped up, the teaching assistants gathered all the students together.
"I am an educator."
Aaron began.
"But in a department of over fifty students, classroom instruction is inevitably uniform, and learners end up absorbing knowledge passively."
The students listened in silence, standing at attention.
"That's why, before we build the Dullahan, I gave you all a chance to exercise your own creativity. Some of you, I know, weren't happy about it—"
A few students flinched.
"I understand the complaint. But right before we pour standardized knowledge into your heads, I want you to think: if I were the first person ever to build a Dullahan, what would I have done? If I were the first, how would I have begun? I wanted you to feel even a millionth of the insight those countless pioneers once felt. To hand you nothing but rote knowledge and harden your minds without offering such an opportunity—well, that would disqualify me as an educator."
Simon nodded silently along.
Success or failure, the outcome didn't matter. The knowledge he'd grasped and understood through the process of exploring it himself—that, and only that, truly became his own.
"Professor."
Just then, the Head Assistant stepped up to Aaron and whispered something. Aaron nodded.
"Then, from this moment on, we begin the Dullahan construction lessons in earnest. Students who produced no results today—follow along for dear life. Students who did produce results—follow along while comparing what you believed was the correct answer against the real knowledge."
"Yes, Professor!"
The special lecture didn't end until evening.
The students, who had been shuttling between the outdoor training ground and the indoor lecture hall, finally stumbled out into the night with glazed eyes.
"Oh."
"Something smells good."
As they shuffled along like zombies, a huge pot of hot meat stew was just coming to a boil nearby.
"Waaah!"
Serving began. The students lined up, took their stew and bread, and sat down nearby to eat.
Simon scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, and took a taste.
Ah. I feel like I could come back to life.
In weather this cold, nothing beat a hot bowl of stew.
"Hmm. It's tasty, but compared to how brutal today's schedule was, isn't dinner kind of skimpy?"
Eshu blurted out suddenly.
"Meat! Meat! More meat! We came all the way out here—they should at least let us do a camping barbecue!"
"We're not here on vacation, Eshu."
Loraine sat primly, dipping her bread into her stew as she spoke. Eshu pouted.
"W-well, sure, but still!"
"Listen up while you eat."
Aaron strode in among the students, spreading the word.
"The assistants prepared tonight's meal because none of you had time to breathe, but from tomorrow on, you'll be handling your own food."
Here and there came groans of of course~
Not a single thing about this was easy.
"Tomorrow morning's lecture starts early as well, so make sure you aren't late. Dismissed."
With that, Aaron walked off. The members of Squad 10 immediately launched into discussion.
"What are we eating tomorrow?"
Simon said. Eshu gave a little hmph and crossed her arms.
"We hunt a monster and eat it, obviously. They say there's tons of those dinosaur monsters roaming around out there."
Toto and Loraine's faces froze in a picture-perfect expression of horror.
"D-do we really have to eat that?"
"Full of tendons, though. Probably not much meat on them."
Good food and good sleep were non-negotiable if they wanted to keep up with the punishing boot-camp schedule.
Sleep arrangements had fortunately been sorted out. The problem was meals.
Tricky. Factoring in the hunt and the cooking time, would we have to wake up before dawn?
Just as Simon closed his eyes and sank into thought—
"President!"
Eshu tapped him on the arm, grinning mischievously.
"I've got a great idea!"
"What is it?"
She glanced around in every direction, then lowered her voice to a hush.
"Tonight—want to sneak down to the village? I know where it is."
Simon's eyes went wide.
There's a village out here?