Chapter 56

Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner

Chapter 56

The next class started right after the 1st ended.

Today, Class A had four two-hour classes scheduled, and the second class was Necromancy.

“With Spirit! Let’s give a shout of concentration and start off today tooooooo!”

Shouting loudly in the middle of the classroom was a man named Umbra Warframe.

As a unique feature, his body was a bit more blurry than usual, and his legs were nowhere to be seen, leaving him floating in the air like a ghost.

Believe it or not, apparently, he often went back and forth between the real world and the spirit realm, being too absorbed in it, and eventually became like that. Then, he wore a lifelike wolf mask on his face.

Because of how lifelike it was, rumors circulated among students that it was his real face, and that Umbra was a mixed-blood werewolf.

Necromancy taught by Umbra was the study of the body of the soul called ‘Spirit’. Everyone thought it’d be a very delicate and silent class, but they were completely mistaken.

“You lack the guts! Your mind is completely rotten! Why are you already deciding that you can’t do it! Come on! Raise your arms!”

Umbra was a passionate professor. Contrary to his limp, ghostly body, he was full of strength and energy.

Simon woke up more than once to Umbra’s explosive voice when he was trying to concentrate to feel the Spirit.

A student once asked,

“Professor! No matter how hard I try, I can’t feel the Spirit. What should I do?”

Umbra answered,

“Feel it! Don’t think that you can’t! Feel it! Just feel it! You’re not trying hard enough! With all your strength and heart! Pour your energy!”

……It wasn’t very helpful advice.

However, Umbra’s words weren’t that wrong, because feeling the Spirit wasn’t a problem that could be solved with power, knowledge, or technique.

The ‘Ethereal Connection’ that responded to Spirits was different for each person. Whether or not you could feel a Spirit with a small Ethereal Connection was also case-by-case, dependent on the individual’s constitution.

And Simon, who was never left out when it came to talent…

‘……Why can’t I feel it?’

was poor at Necromancy.

Simon diligently spun an occult tool called ‘The Ouija Board’ with the students seated around the circular table.

“It’s my turn to recite the spell, right?”

Said Jamie Victoria in a hoarse voice.

Even her, the honorary class president of Class A who excelled in all subjects, still couldn’t feel the Spirit.

The basis of Necromancy was ‘Spirit’. Any class would be meaningless unless you could feel it.

So Umbra split the class into two teams.

The first team was a training team that learned the operation of Spirit while following Umbra’s lessons.

The second was the preparation team. As they couldn’t feel the Spirit yet, they repeated only the actions to feel the Spirit with various tools throughout the class.

Rotating the Ouija Board for the entire period of the class, performing bizarre dances to summon Spirits while holding occult tools, going inside a coffin-like a corpse, meditating (obviously, you’d get scolded if you fell asleep or dozed off), and repeating these odd activities.

“You have no guts!”

Occasionally, Umbra gave practical exercises to the training team and came to see the status of the preparation team.

“Exert more spirit!”

While five students were spinning the Ouija Board, putting their hands on the handle together, Umbra grabbed the handle with his large hand.

“Grab the handle harder! Like this! Like this! Spin it with all your might and utmost sincerity!”

“Yes sir!”

He was so powerful that he overwhelmed five teenage students just by himself.

“Your voices are low!”

“Yes sir!!”

Jamie Victoria closed her eyes and began to recite the Spirit-summoning spell in a loud voice.

After nodding with satisfaction, Umbra’s gaze turned away.

“What? You! What are you doing right now?!”

Umbra’s gaze turned to Camibarez, who was sweating profusely while doing the ritual dance this time.

Startled, she said,

“I-I’m sorry, professor!”

“Raise your legs more! Higher, higher! That’s right! The ritual to call a Spirit isn’t child’s play! Make your movements bigger!”

“Yeeess sir!”

Small tears welled up in her eyes as she swung her knees and performed the bizarre dance. Her whole body was drenched in sweat.

To be honest, it wasn’t really a dance suitable for a girl.

Shaking your head wildly, moving your shoulders back and forth, crossing your arms in a cobra shape and swinging them up and down. It was hard to understand how the hell it was a Spirit-summoning dance.

The students had already given it nicknames, like Chicken Feed dance, or Squid Courtship dance.

‘P-Poor Cami……’

While Simon was looking at her with a pitiful expression…

“Alright! Assistants! It’s time to swap!”

“Yes professor!”

The assistant teachers approached Simon and the group who were spinning the Ouija Board and said,

“Please leave everything on your seat and stand up. We’ll move to perform the ritual dance.”

The time had come.

Simon sighed inwardly and stood where Camibarez had been dancing before, the place covered with sheets at the back of the lecture room.

This also had things like position, so students had to stand facing each other, a small distance apart, and in front of Simon stood Jamie Victoria, a female student of all people.

“I believe you’ve memorized the dance by now. We’ll start.”

* * *

* * *

The assistants started playing strange instruments with skulls.

Tootle-too~

A strange sound of a flute was heard.

‘Let’s just empty the mind.’

Frankly speaking, it wasn’t a dance you could do with a sane mind. Simon emptied his mind and danced, moving his body as he learned.

His legs went forward and then rose up until his knees almost touched his chest. His arms and legs waggled like a wave, then his upper body stretched out, and his whole body wiggled like a mollusk.

The students who slightly opened their eyes to check on Umbra’s countenance let out a simper as they saw Simon’s passionate dance.

‘What is he……? Why is he working hard on these things too?’

‘He’s good at everything you do with your body.’

Simon began to dance as his body and mind thoughtlessly became one.

In fact, he was at the level of oneness between the ego and the outside world.

Seeing him, Umbra also laughed with satisfaction.

“Very good! Excellent! Even if you can’t feel the Spirit, you just need to have that kind of dedication and effort!”

Umbra thought that he should take Simon to the 50th anniversary of Goliath’s death scheduled for this weekend and assign him a part-time job for the Dance of the Spirit. He was really good at dancing.

‘……He’s complimenting me, but I’m not happy at all.’

Simon opened his eyes slightly while dancing diligently.

Class president Jamie Victoria was doing a Chicken Feed dance with sullen gestures. Her face flushed red with embarrassment when their eyes met.

“P-Please don’t look this way……”

At her plea, Simon quickly turned his head.

It wasn’t like the students didn’t have anything to complain about having them do this. They just couldn’t dare protest against Umbra, timidly complaining to the assistants.

And every time they complained, the assistant teachers said the same thing.

‘If you don’t like it, go to the training team.’

It was a roundabout statement saying that the students of the preparation team were there because their skills weren’t enough, so they couldn’t fight back.

Besides, the most surprising thing was the fact that there were one or two students in a class who actually felt the Spirit and raised their hands while dancing the Chicken Feed dance and spinning the Ouija Board.

“Congratulations. You may proceed to the training team.”

Finally escaping from this embarrassing hell and moving to the training team, the students yelled out a cheer with faces like they were on top of the world.

At this point, rumors circulated that the students felt the Spirit from clenching their teeth out of not wanting to die of shame rather than the effect of the occult ritual actually being good.

And just like that, the dreadful Necromancy class was over.

‘Ughhhh……’

After finishing the course of the preparation team, Simon was walking down the hallway, limbs waving like a mollusk.

“Hey, are you really alright?”

Asked Meilyn in surprise. Simon raised his limp arm and gave a thumbs up.

“What did the training team learn?”

“Offensive magic, of course.”

Answered Rick, who was walking on the left with his hands resting behind his head. It was hard to believe, but Rick also managed to get a feel of the Spirit in the first class.

“Because of the Duel Evaluation, all the professors are teaching offensive spells that can be used immediately instead of theories. I believe it’s the same for other classes.”

“Hm… What’s our next class again?”

Rick replied with a smirk,

“It’s Hemomancy.”

The class had been postponed until now due to the overlap of Silage’s mission schedule and personal circumstances.

It was the first class for Class A today.

* * *

The Hemomancy class was held in the ‘Magical Bullet Shooting Range’ building.

The professor was the famous Silage Basabar. that middle-aged professor who guided Simon on the Nether Whale and brought him to Kizen.

Like a patient fighting disease, a face pale, cheeks sunken, and hands yellow, he now had more white hair than black.

Simon thought that his condition had become worse than when he first saw him.

“Cough, cough. Hemomancy is a dark magic that uses blood as a medium.”

Seven students, including Simon, stood in the firing range. A target was attached 200m in front of them.

“It’s known by the public as a study to the extent of reproducing the secret arts of Vampires and Blood Wolves, but that’s not true. As the most compatible substance for jet-black is the caster’s blood, it has a long history.”

The students in the firing range were preparing to shoot, and the rest of the students were listening to Silage’s explanation from their seats.

“The jet-black and its operator’s blood are compatible in one way or another. Necromancers can ‘artificially’ mix jet-black and blood to create various magical reactions.”

Silage spread his hands. Drops of jet-black flowed from one hand, and blood flowed from the other.

When drops of blood and jet-black met in the air, they provoked a fierce reaction and bounced around with great speed.

Exclamations broke loose among the students.

“Cough cough! Outside of being a Hemomancy professor, I can confidently say that it’s a waste of power for a necromancer to not use blood. Although the caster’s stamina is consumed, Hemomancy can be a necromancer’s fastest and most powerful weapon.”

Under the control of the assistant teachers, the students standing in the firing range held their right hand closed, pointed with their index fingers, and aimed at the target.

All of them had an IV-like device on their arm, and when the assistants operated the device and spread the magic circle in front of the student’s finger, the magic circle was dyed red with blood.

This was the basic skill of Hemomancy, ‘Blood Bullet’. To put it simply, the IV device was sort of a Hemomancy version of the magic circle rectifying tool.

“Kehem. We’ve been delayed a lot since today is the first class for Class A. In today’s class, we’ll find out what kind of blood you have, how this blood can be a help, and finally, we’ll try to use the Blood Bullets in action.”

Even if we were delayed, how many things were we doing simultaneously?

Simon looked at the target 200m away with those thoughts in mind. Not only was one target there, but up to 10 were standing further behind it.

Silage turned around while folding his arms behind his back.

“Well then. We’ll move on to the actual training.”

——