The Heart of the Necromancer King (Part 3)
On their way back to the academy, Gilbert pondered in silence for a long while before finally breaking the quiet.
"Boss. Who do you think would be best?"
"For what?"
"The ones to drag in."
"The ones to drag in?"
"Yes. Just say the word. Those Siren dogs would be ideal, wouldn't they?"
Gilbert's eyes glinted with anticipation.
Truth be told, his hands had been itching for action. During their nocturnal excursion to the black market, he had barely lifted a finger. His boss had resolved every single obstacle alone—from handling the Robson Family and facing down King Robson himself to tearing through the black market's inner sanctum. Gilbert had accomplished practically nothing.
Because of that, he was burning with desire to kidnap a few prime targets and purify the Heart of the Necromancer King exactly as his boss intended.
This is my chance to finally prove my worth.
In his former days as a 1st-Class Crow, he had completed countless contracts and earned unquestioned trust within the underworld. As long as it did not involve outright assassination, snatching a few aristocrats from their beds was child's play. And right on cue, the name that sprang to mind was Siren.
Ziel, however, shook his head.
"There is no need for you or me to do that."
"No need?"
"Did I not say I dispatched letters? Others will handle it."
"Ah...!"
Ziel had interpreted Gilbert's words in an entirely different light. With the topic of House Siren having come up, he assumed Gilbert was suggesting they take immediate measures against the family—specifically targeting Professor Titus, a graduate of the Siren Junior School whom Emeric had mentioned earlier.
Ziel decided this was an opportune moment to draw a firm boundary.
"Gilbert."
"Yes, Boss."
"We belong to the academy. I am an elective lecturer, and you are a teaching assistant."
"I know, but..."
"Our identities are precious. Therefore, unless an absolute necessity arises that cannot be resolved through other hands, we do not move."
Of course. Gilbert was instantly persuaded.
He means we must preserve the cover of our organization at all costs!
Unbeknownst to Ziel, he had long been elevated to the mastermind behind an elusive shadow syndicate.
"Understood, Boss. My thinking was short."
"Then think longer next time."
"...Pardon?"
"It was a joke. A book mentioned that stating the opposite makes the listener laugh."
"Ha... haha."
"Do not laugh. It is not actually funny."
"..."
"That, too, was a joke."
Gilbert found it utterly impossible to gauge how to react. Regardless, he felt certain he understood his master's grand scheme.
He sent letters, which means those factions will abduct suitable sacrifices and deliver them right to our doorstep!
In reality, Ziel's calculations were far more grounded.
The letters sent to House Kundel and Rocus should arrive shortly. Once they do, both will mobilize. In one way or another, they will strike at Siren.
The letters contained precise intelligence detailing how Siren was secretly assembling an assassination squad, complete with corroborating evidence. Details regarding their covert management of the black market were added as a bonus. As Ziel anticipated, both House Kundel and Director Rocus held deep animosity toward Siren; they would ruthlessly exploit the information to their own advantage.
Siren would be immobilized for the foreseeable future. Ziel had already dealt them a devastating blow by blowing open the black market vault, seizing leaked equipment from Black Sky, sweeping up hundreds of Dikelen silver coins, and confiscating the extraordinarily dangerous Heart of the Necromancer King.
We will have peace for a while. In the meantime, the Kundel family and Rocus will keep them occupied.
Pulling strings from the shadows possessed a peculiar charm. Even during his assassin days, Ziel had operated behind veils under false identities, yet manipulating noble politics felt distinctively different.
For now, House Siren could be put out of mind. It was time to focus on preparing for the upcoming semester.
Naturally, appropriate measures would still be taken regarding Professor Titus.
I can make good use of the dossiers Kundel provided.
Among the intelligence files were dossiers on prominent mages who had graduated from the Siren Junior School—individuals indebted to the ducal house. One of the names on that list was Titus.
"Gilbert. As soon as we return, draft a curriculum proposal to incorporate magic puppets and standard magic tools into our practical classes."
"Understood, Boss."
"Make it thorough yet intuitive to review at a glance. Each proposal should span roughly ten standard parchment pages."
"..."
Wait, what?
"Draft at least five separate proposals. Seven would be preferable."
That meant seventy pages of detailed administrative documentation.
S-Something feels terribly wrong about this... Gilbert blinked, dazed. But surely this, too, served the organization's grand design? To maintain an airtight cover, one had to perform their duties as an educator flawlessly so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion...
"You have two days."
Even so, did their cover truly require seventy pages of paperwork?
"I will observe your competence, Gilbert."
Gilbert stiffened, his breath catching in his throat.
His boss was testing him once again.
An endless series of trials!
He had successfully gained entry into the organization, but he would constantly need to prove his worth to remain at his master's side. That was only natural for the underworld's finest.
"I accept the challenge, Boss."
He had endured the brutal crucible of Crow training. A mere stack of paperwork was nothing.
"I shall deliver precisely ten completed proposals."
"Very well."
"Then I will begin immediately!"
Ziel watched his assistant march off with an inexplicably resolute posture, then followed at a leisurely pace toward the faculty dormitory. Gilbert lived on the third floor; Ziel lived on the fifth. They were heading in the exact same direction anyway.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
While Gilbert was furiously wearing down quill nibs on the third floor, Ziel sat in his fifth-floor quarters and retrieved the chest taken from the black market vault.
Without hesitation, he broke the first seal.
A wave of foul, sinister mana immediately billowed outward, heavy enough to choke an ordinary man.
"So this is it."
Even Ziel, who had carried out countless bizarre assignments beyond simple assassination, had never encountered mana this intensely corrupted.
"The Necromancer King..."
Though he had not yet consulted the academy's archives, he had gathered enough preliminary intelligence to understand how catastrophic the entity had been. The man had been an esoteric practitioner capable of raising armies of the dead. His arcane might had grown so monstrous that, six centuries ago, the entire continent had nearly fallen into his grasp.
And even now, six hundred years after his demise, his heart pulsed with terrifying magical reserves.
Ziel pressed a finger directly against the organ without a flicker of fear, calmly gauging the density and volume of its power.
It exceeds the total capacity of sixty 5th-Tier mages combined.
Across the entire empire, there existed merely five 6th-Tier mages. 5th-Tier mages numbered barely fifty—ten times that amount. Yet dormant within this single organ rested power eclipsing sixty of them.
If I can repurpose this for the students' curriculum...
The first semester had focused on establishing a physical foundation: stamina, core strength, and reflexive response. While conditioning would continue into the second term, the primary focus would shift toward swordsmanship and mana application.
In that process, individual disparities would inevitably widen.
Physical gaps could be bridged through sheer effort and structured conditioning, but mana operated under different rules. Those without access to secret family breathing techniques—students like Yurio—were forced to practice flawed, generic methods, or lacked the resources to cultivate internal energy properly.
Differences in innate talent do not matter.
What mattered was that honest effort should never be betrayed by circumstance. Ziel had been brooding over how to close that structural gap, and by sheer coincidence, an ocean of pure mana had landed directly in his lap.
Emeric's offhand remark echoed in his mind.
"Unless someone mastered an absurd breathing technique that doesn't accumulate mana internally and just expels everything..."
That casual complaint had provided the vital breakthrough.
What if one could filter the toxic corruption from the mana without allowing it to settle inside the body, returning the purified mana back into the heart?
Then it can serve as a training battery for the students.
And Ziel was fairly certain he was the only person alive capable of pulling it off.
The Breathing of the Polar Night.
An esoteric technique so demanding and counterintuitive that Ziel remained its sole living practitioner. In all likelihood, he was the first person to master it directly since its creator, Azneel.
The reason for its extreme difficulty was simple: it drew upon ambient mana strictly on demand.
In plain terms, its operational mechanism was the exact opposite of conventional breathing techniques.
Standard cultivation methods gathered mana through disciplined breathing, circulating it through the vessels, adapting the body to the flow, and gradually expanding internal reserves over years of training. The body acted as a vessel to hoard energy.
The Breathing of the Polar Night did nothing of the sort.
It stored zero mana within the body.
Whenever mana was required, it instantly pulled the exact necessary amount from the surrounding atmosphere, utilized it, and dispersed the remainder into the air. Consequently, no matter how intensely a master scanned Ziel, he registered as nothing more than an ordinary civilian devoid of internal mana.
Since assuming his civilian cover, no one had attempted an intrusive scan on him. Doing so was considered a grave breach of etiquette, and ordinary etiquette dictated that both parties would instantly become aware of the intrusion. As a result, Ziel had never fully appreciated the unique quirks of his art until now.
Is that why the Organization was so desperate to force assassins to learn it?
During his years as an operative, the art had benefited him immensely without his conscious realization. Lacking internal mana meant the likelihood of being detected by hostile sensory nets plummeted to near zero. Just as Ziel used his razor-sharp instincts to track targets via breathing and scent, high-ranking martial artists instinctively sensed mana signatures. Ziel's peerless track record of flawless assassinations owed heavily to the fact that his presence was completely undetectable.
"If it leaves no residue in the lungs... I can purify it simply by stripping away the corruption."
To Ziel, who had no need to hoard personal mana reserves, the vast sea of energy inside the heart was essentially useless dead weight. Selling it on the black market would yield a staggering fortune, but that held no appeal.
I already possess hundreds of Dikelen silver coins. There is no need for money.
Having no intention of laundering underworld currency into imperial tender, Ziel genuinely never considered himself wealthy. What truly mattered to him was fulfilling his duty as an educator.
Would House Siren ever fathom the truth?
The heirloom they had locked away for centuries because no mortal could wield its cursed power was about to be converted into a classroom aid by an elective instructor.
Working through the night should be enough to finish it.
The Breathing of the Polar Night had only ever seen two practitioners across history, leaving its full potential largely unexplored. Now that he stood as its sole inheritor, Ziel had uncovered an unprecedented application for his art.
"Hmm."
Before initiating the purification, one practical issue remained.
How should I dispose of the toxic residue filtered from the mana?
The Heart of the Necromancer King had once brought the continent to its knees. Even if six centuries had diluted its malevolence, the residual blight remained exceptionally lethal.
"Ah."
A straightforward solution presented itself. Ziel stepped over to his locker and swung it open, revealing rows of dozens of glass phials. He selected the largest container among them.
I can distill it into poison.
Poisons and medicines were two sides of the same coin, differing only in dosage and intent. While this substance would undoubtedly yield a lethal venom, it could potentially be diluted into an antidote under the right conditions. Or perhaps...
It could serve as the foundation for the third edition of the Praise Cards.
Once he tested its properties, he could enchant the cards with defensive warding charms to protect the students in emergencies. Conversely, it might even be repurposed for restorative measures.
For containment, this will do.
He produced a specialized vessel: a Katalyst.
A marvel of magical engineering once considered indispensable to master alchemists, the Katalyst was an immaculate crystalline matrix capable of preserving any volatile substance without degradation. Ziel had confiscated this highest-grade specimen upon departing Black Sky. It was the perfect vessel to seal away the Necromancer King's blight.
Preparations were complete.
His right hand gripped the intake conduit linked to the Katalyst. His left hand pinched the corner of the heart's final parchment talisman.
Rip!
The moment the final seal tore away, the blackened heart was fully unveiled, throbbing rhythmically in the open air.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Six centuries dead. An organ ripped from its host that should have ceased beating an eternity ago was still pulsing with life.
Without an ounce of hesitation, Ziel laid his bare left palm against the corrupted flesh.
Instantly, he began siphoning the torrent of mana slumbering within.
"Hmph."
The sheer magnitude of the force was staggering, the depth of its foul corruption transmitting vividly against his skin. Yet guided by the Breathing of the Polar Night, the mana bypassed his lungs entirely, filtering through his body as a frictionless current before circulating straight back into the heart.
It is flowing.
The foul miasma, stripped from the circulating mana, was siphoned through his right hand and poured steadily down the conduit into the Katalyst.
His hypothesis had proven entirely correct. He had executed the process without doubt because the underlying logic was sound.
Rumble...
The Necromancer King's heart pounded with heavy, resonant beats.
Hummmm!
Dark, iridescent sludge gathered within the crystalline depths of the Katalyst. And gradually, inch by inch, the pitch-black hue staining the heart began to recede, giving way to a healthy crimson.
The purification proceeded with mechanical precision.
A faint, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of Ziel's lips.
I look forward to seeing how much the students will grow next semester.
In the dead of night, the most formidable instructional tool in academic history was taking shape.
And beneath the surface, something else was quietly unfolding.
The ancient, primordial power sleeping at the core of the Necromancer King's heart was beginning to induce an unexpected metamorphosis within Ziel's own body.