Chapter 5

Tests and Other Interesting Endeavours

Dungeon bosses never ran from a fight. Once they claimed a territory, the only thing that could make them leave was the need to find a better territory to continue growing stronger. The massive arachnid that ruled the cavern where the dungeon fortress lay, trembled as Gorgath casual walked over to it. The students on the wall watched in terror as Gorgath ripped all but two legs off. He used the last two as straps, throwing the dungeon boss over his shoulders like a backpack, stabbing the spider into his spikes, before picking up the torn off legs and heading towards the tunnel I was standing in.

Gorgath had caused a minor surge by entering the dungeon. Every dungeon monster had either run or hid. It was nothing like the surge taking place in Arcadia, but all the students who’d been hunting had fled for the safety of the fortress. The Gor didn’t interact with humans outside the Abyss, but Gorgath could smell how useful the dungeon boss’s bloodline was, so had walked into the chamber to collect his prize.

The moment Gorgath released its remaining legs, the dungeon boss began trying to grab onto something to escape. Gorgath ignored it as he made his way to tunnel where I was waiting. He stopped just inside the tunnel and peered down at me as he grabbed one of the torn off legs and took a bite, cracking the exoskeleton with his teeth.

“Gorgath, is going now.” He stepped over me and continued down the tunnel heading from the entrance to the Abyss.

The activity and heightened alertness at the fortress meant nothing to me. I wasn’t leaving the dungeon yet. I needed to find somewhere hidden and out of the way where I could practice magic.

I began my search.

An hour later, I wriggled my way through a large crack in the dungeon wall, entering a narrow shaft, and eventually dropped into somethings’ nest, flipping midair to land on my feet. The chamber was only fifty feet wide and unnamed somethings were pretending to be rocks, hiding among the bone and chitin, ready to leap onto anything that entered their nest. With my aura threatening anything near me, they continued to pretend to be rocks.

I brushed the dirt from my shoulders as I walked toward the largest, kicking aside bones. It remained perfectly still as I sat on top of it. The smell of the monster fear amused me.

I had five days left before I needed to pass my magical aptitude test to secure the teaching position. There were several lifetimes of magical knowledge bouncing around in my head, along with a lot of information from Contessa’s library. None of the elder vampire’s I’d eaten were necromancers and everything I’d read about magic said converting spells from one school of magic to another was only applicable to the advanced spell tier.

I continue brushing the dirt from my coat.

Spells were broken into the tiers: basic, intermediate, advanced, expert, master, and divine. Each tier had three ranks to it, making a total of eighteen ranks. Students of these academies traditionally left when they had master advanced tier magic or became an apprentice to progress to expert tier magic.

I needed to display at least an expert level spell to secure the job. I also needed to show my basic aptitude across all elements, converting raw mana to elemental mana.

I flicked away the last speck of dust, held out my hand, and cast the basic fire bolt spell, without using an incantation. A cantaloupe sized ball of fire appeared at the end of my palm, illuminating the nest, as I launched it against the nearest wall. A few second later, I cast the water bolt version, pulling the moisture from the air.

Fire, water, earth, wind, death, necrotic, and lightning bolts all struct the wall in quick succession. The knowledge in my head, told me my spell work was sloppy. I’d work on refining my technique later. Right now, I needed to make sure I could perform the basics.

To make sure my understanding of basic magic was complete, I cast every basic spell the vampire’s I’d eaten knew. Each one came together without any trouble.

As the levitation spell faded, I floated down to the creature pretending to be a rock and sat.

Beyond basic tier magic, I like every other human practitioner was restricted to practicing branches of magic which I had the corresponding skill for. This was because the human body was incredibly conductive to magic, but not very resistant, and despite being an ancient vampire, very little of those underlying mechanics had changed.

Between my mana network and my magic skill, I could convert raw mana to any form of elemental mana and then pressurize it up to a 3rd rank spell. If I tried to pressurize elemental mana beyond the 3rd rank, without the skill for that branch of magic, the pressure would overwhelm my mana network’s resistance and allow the mana to pass through my flesh, effectively draining away all the mana.

There was no way around this limitation.

Even as an ancient vampire, my body’s natural resistance to death and necrotic mana wasn’t as high as what I received when I gained the death magic and necrotic magic skills. So, I was limited to just these two branches.

Death magic had far more utility than necrotic magic. It could be used to weaken my enemies, create undead, kill, protect, consult with spiritual entities, see if someone was a murderer, and even heal to a limited degree. In many ways, it was a reflection of life magic. Necrotic magic on the other hand broke the bonds between atoms, making it pure destruction.

Of the two, death magic would make a better impression, but everything I’d read told me that necrotic magic would be easier for me to reach expert in. With only five days to practice, I decided to take the easier path.

***

Five days later, I walked into Darksmith’s administration building and was sent for testing. Madrine, the death sorcerer headmaster Wink had brought in to test me, met me at the door of the training room and immediately began the test. Five minutes later, I stood in the middle of the room juggling fifteen mana balls, with fifteen different types of magic that I’d created using ambient mana.

The room had recently been cleansed and smelled strongly of cleaning products. There were no traces of other branches of magic in the air that could interfere with the test, showing they had gone to a lot of trouble to make this test as accurate as possible.

Madrine watched me juggle for nearly a minute, before making a note on his clipboard, chuckling. “I asked you to display your control over the various branches of magics. I didn’t ask you to display your mana manipulation ability.”

“It seems simpler to do both at the same time.”

He smirked. “Show off.”

Madrine was an undertaker by day.

He specialised in keeping the dead dead, and in their resting place. To keep his spirits high, he wore a bright multicoloured robes, and to have some semblance of professionality he kept his full head of silver hair slicked back. Those were his words, not mine.

He turned and pointed to the training pole. “It’s not really necessary after that display, but would you please demonstrate a basic fire, lightening, and wind bolt at the target.”

I shot off the three bolts in quick succession. They were basic spells and anyone who had reached expert magic could do it just as quickly. The three bolts slammed into the barrier around the pole.

As the thunderclap faded, he made another note. “Nonverbal spell casting. I would have been shocked if you couldn’t do it. Please levitate yourself.”

I cast a basic levitation spell and hovered above the ground.

He made another note and asked me to perform another basic spell. Thirty spells later he made his final note on basic skills. “Perfect marks. It’s a shame that you’re a necromancer. You would have made one hell of an archsorcerer.”

I shrugged, trying to appear indifferent, despite completely agreeing with him. “Life is rarely fair.”

Madrine nodded, knowingly. “We’ve covered the basics, so I’ll let you show me the extent of your capabilities. Your pay will be based on the upper limits of your skill.”

From what I understood of Murdell society that was pretty normal. “This room isn’t rated for master tier combat spells.”

Madrine chuckled. “Darksmith prefers academic curiosity over raw power. A lot of sorcerers learn how to cast master level combat spells without ever understanding the fundamentals of expert magic.”

This worked in my favour as I’d only been able to learn a single expert tier spell. It had taken me three entire days to figure out how to cast it successfully, and I was still a long way off from being able to cast master tier spells.

I made two finger guns while giving a simultaneous double thumbs up. I pointed them at the training pole while doing my best Fonzi impression. “Ayeee.”

Two intense beams of black necrotic energy slammed into barrier around the pole causing the barrier to buckle. Multicasting this spell was a rather lethal combination. A regular person would have disintegrated.

I was the Fonzi of death.

Luke would find it funny.

Madrine scowled. “Multicasting the finger of destruction spell.”

I smirked. “Which is technically classes as a master level spell, because of the difficulty of multicasting and the mana control requirement.”

Madrine reached into his pocket and tossed me three small crystals. The moment I caught them, they glowed purple. “You failed to mention that you’ve mastered magic, death magic, and the necrotic magic skills.”

“I assumed you would have realised I’d mastered them.”

“I did, but when you didn’t bring it up, I assumed you were embarrassed you hadn’t.”

“So, we both made reasonable assumptions and were both wrong.”

He made another note. “I’m putting you down as a master level skill. Please perform the finger of destruction spell as many times as you can.”

I raised my finger guns. “Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.” The training pole lost its barrier and disintegrated on my twelfth shot. I turned to Madrine. “Do you want me to keep going?”

***

Headmaster Wink was all scowls when he met me outside my classroom the next day. He reeked of gin and smelled angry. “Let’s get this over with.” He shoved opened the door waving me to follow. “Perfect marks on your theory, a master of death and necrotic magic, an exceptionally large core, and master tier talent. You’re almost too qualified to work here.”

The finger of destruction spell was an 11th rank spell. It wasn’t that impressive, considering Davina could cast 9th rank spells at will.

I gave him a genuine smile which he didn’t returned. “I’m just happy to be here, headmaster.”

Darksmith was a safest place for Kathrine to recover. There was nowhere else I would rather be.

Wink sighed as we walked into the classroom. It was like any university lecture hall. It had tiered seating and a blackboard up front. It could seat exactly one hundred and twenty people which was how large my classes would be.

My desk had seen better days. There were scorch marks along the wood. And the oak seat didn’t have a cushion. There was also a dozen cursed objects, placed around the room, which radiated black smoke to my gaze. That would normally concern me, but I’d spotted dozens of students carrying cursed objects since I’d arrived.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Curses were far too common at Darksmith.

Wink glanced at me. “Did my assistant inform you of your duties?”

“He did.”

Beyond teaching my class, I had to participate in extracurricular activities every second evening. I also had to tutor no less than three students privately. The workload was high, but the bad pay made up for that. Well not the bad pay, but the other benefits. I had access to a private occult library, workshop, training hall, and apartment. Everything I needed to take care of Kathrine.

The tiered seating rose to my left as I followed Wink to the other door in the far-right corner of the room. We entered an enchanters and crafters workshop. The equipment was completely top of the line and looked like it had barely been used. Based on what I could see, I’d be able to study any changes the mana tempering did to my equipment.

Wink waved to everything around us. “This is your private workshop. Occult studies don’t typically involve crafting or enchanting, but every teacher has one, and you can give student permission to use it if you so choose.”

“Am I allowed to craft undead here?”

Wink frowned as he headed for staircase at the back of the workshop. “That’s a point of contention here at Darksmith. We have too many students capable of practicing necromancy and not enough cadavers to supply them with. I’ve restricted everyone to using dungeon monsters or animals.”

“Why?”

“Scarcity of cadavers pushed up the price the academy was willing to pay and then the local murder rate.”

That didn’t appal me, even though I knew it should have. “I’ll restrict myself to using dungeon monsters and animals then.”

“Please do.”

Wink led me up staircase, and, at the top, we entered a grand reception room with a set of double doors. Wink held up an amulet and then waved his hand using magic to unlock the doors.

He tossed me the amulet. “The doors are magically sealed. The barrier is only advanced, so it can be easily overcome, which is intentional. There are master tier enchantments on the door that will warn you and all the members of the faculty if anyone tries to force their way in here.”

That was a lot of security. “Why?”

Wink opened the door, and we entered a lavish hallway.

He pointed to the first door on the left. “That door leads to your private occult library. This is a restricted library. You may not lend books out to students, but you may invite them to read them here. A private terrace runs down that side of the building with a private garden, so don’t leave the library door unlocked, or one of our more idiotic students will run off with something that could drive them insane.”

I opened the library door to check if what he said was true. I immediately felt the dark aura that flooded the room. There concern seemed to be justified. The second I closed the door the aura was cut off.

“That’s an impressive containment system.”

“We try to do our best. Now, beyond the library on your left you have your dining room and then your kitchen. You can prepare you own meals or eat in the dining hall with the students and faculty. The rooms on the right are your sitting room, your training room, and then your bedroom. The room at the end of the hallway is your study.”

Wink led me to the study and opened the door. The study was similar to Winks office with bookshelves down either side and a large desk. The only thing it lack was a private bar.

Wink went to one of the shelves and began reading the spines. “Your predecessor quit quite suddenly, which is why we weren’t ready to replace her, and have been scrambling to find someone qualified.”

The news would concern a normal occult studies professor, so I spoke up. “Change in behaviours usually points to corruption in our profession.”

“It wasn’t that. The Northern students just drove her over the edge with their behaviour. She walked into my office and told me that she was seriously considering cursing some of them and if she had to spend another day teaching them, she was going to start. She then quit. It was entirely rational thing to do.”

“Why?”

“The North serve a Dark Lord. Many practices that are banned in other civilisations are common there. They consider occult studies a joke, so you’re going to find yourself the target of a dozen minor curses each day.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Technically, yes. If they outright attack you, you can kill them. But minor curses and inconveniences are something the staff at Darksmith are supposed to be capable of dealing with. Thankfully, Darksmith is neutral territory. Because of the treaty, the northern students can’t seriously harm the southern students while here, so they attack their own people. Some of the southern students do the same, but it’s not nearly as bad.”

That was annoying. “Do you have a school rule book I can read?”

Wink waved his hand to the bookshelf he was searching. “It’s somewhere among these along with your curriculum. I’m sure you were informed occult studies are a mandatory class for all students. We have a maximum of six thousand students at any one time, and they all have one class with you every ten days. Your class is outside of the school’s main curriculum, so it doesn’t go to their final grades, but you’re welcome to punish them for failing a test or not doing homework. Feel free to get creative.”

***

I saw headmaster Wink to the door and then went to check the bedroom. I’d been listening to Riza taking care of Kathrine, ever since I’d returned to Darksmith. She talked to my daughters sleeping form while she worked, sharing stories from when they were younger. From what I had overheard, they had been friends since Kathrine was summon.

My daughter needed round the clock care, similar to an infant, so I needed to be prepared. As I entered the bedroom, I immediately noticed it didn’t have any windows. That was good. It meant there was only one entrance. Illumination crystal sat in the chandelier and sconces along the wall providing plenty of light. There was a small vent in the wall that provided good air circulation and a device near the door that you could feed mana into to provide heating. I directed a little mana to it to increase the room temperature.

A gigantic four-poster bed sat against the far wall, with two bedside tables. There was a wardrobe and bureau on either side, and a couch and two armchairs near the entrance.

Normally, I didn’t care about decorations, but this was going to be where Kathrine stayed while she was asleep. Her dorm room was neat and tidy, so she’d put effort into making it prettier. I wanted to wake up to the same, so I fussed over everything while I waited for the students to go to bed.

In the early hours of the morning, I entered Kathrine’s dorm, triggering a magical alarm that woke Riza up. As I closed the door behind me, I heard her leap out of the armchair in Kathrine’s bedroom and snatch something off the table. A second later, she opened the door with her wand pointed at me.

Exhaustion clung to her scent, but anyone could see how tired she was. The bags under her eyes, showed she’d barely slept in days.

The tip of her wand glowed white as she glared at me. “You’re back.”

“I am. And I’ve secured a professorship here. I’m moving my daughter to my room.”

Riza continued to block the doorway. “Is she safe with you?”

“You can’t stop me from taking her and you won’t trust my word if I say she is, so answering is pointless. However, you may visit her if you like.”

Riza didn’t move.

I walked over and gently placed my hand on her wand and pushed it down. “I will not forget what you did here, Riza. My family means everything to me. If you ever need anything, you need only asked.”

Riza stepped out of the way.

They didn’t have catheters or colostomy bags, so Kathrine was wearing a diaper under her dress. Judging by her scent, Riza had been giving her a sponge bath twice a day. Her hair had been brushed, but she was still lying on her back. Kathrine had more constitution, endurance, and recovery than the average person, but not by much. After eleven days of being asleep, she was beginning to show signs of muscle wastage and atrophy.

I’d have to correct that.

I picked her up as gently as I could and carried her out of the room. “I’ll be back for her things shortly.”

***

My only priority was taking care of Kathrine, but to do that safely required my presence at Darksmith to go unnoticed. If that failed to continue, I needed to be ready for extreme violence. No one would give me the benefit of the doubt and a few of the faculty were powerful enough to concern me. That needed to change.

When I finished making my daughter comfortable, I went downstairs and locked the door to my workshop. Liquid mana tempering had changed the nature of the enchantments Lavire had laid upon my equipment, and I needed to understand how and whether or not those changes were dangerous. I also needed to bond with my equipment now that I could use magic.

Slaughter and the Day Walker set were grossly underutilized.

The workshop was state of the art, with equipment from a dozen different kingdoms. I went over to the bookshelf and read the instruction manuals, quickly making my way through the dense text. I knew what most of this equipment was and how it worked, but some of the designs were foreign to me. Once I familiar with how everything functioned, I drew Slaughter from its sheath.

The blade immediately began drawing in the ambient mana from the dungeon environment.

I willed Slaughter to go dormant and placed it on the balancer, a device enchanters used to examine their finished work. An enlarged visual representation of the kilij appeared above the balancer as I fed it enough raw mana for a first ranks spell.

The balancer was supposed to scan the item and show a visual representation of the runes, their connections, and the power flowing between. This was its most basic function, and it wasn’t doing that. I fed the device more mana, slowly increasing rank by rank.

Details didn’t appear until I reached the 15th rank, which mean the kilij contained peak master tier enchantments. The illusion transformed losing the physical properties of the kilij and only showing the enchantment’s runes and their connections.

Error symbols floated over every rune and every connection. From the balancer’s perspective everything about Slaughter was broken. Including the structure of the runes. I focused on a single rune and feed more mana into the balancer, increasing the size of the magnification.

Runes like spells had tiers and ranks, it looked like Lavire had layered the rune with all fifteen rank variations of the exact same rune. Using the weaker rank versions to reinforce the stronger ones. Nothing I’d read had every mentioned this technique, which explained why the balancer thought everything was broken, despite it functioning perfectly. Without the mana tempering, I doubted I would have been able to see this change either. The adventurer’s guild in Hellmouth had studied Slaughter, so they could destroy it, and this sort of runic structure hadn’t appeared in the investigation notes.

I ignored the oddity and went back to studying the rest of the Kilij.

Slaughter didn’t have a lot of the bells and whistles most weapons of its calibre possessed, for one simple reason. Ancient vampire’s didn’t need them. Lavire had crafted Slaughter from an alloy of two materials, one that contained his vampiric thirst capabilities, and one that absorbed and broke down mana, alloyed they made a material that ate both magic and lifeforce.

The enchantments were designed to enhance the weapons ability to eat lifeforce and magic, reinforce and repair the structure of the blade so it didn’t break, while storing the excess mana and lifeforce in the hilt to grow stronger over time.

From what I could see, the enchantments still did all of that, only now they did it far more efficiently, overcoming what the balancer said should have been possible, even for a master tier weapon. Its existence was unlike anything, I’d ever seen. Perhaps the Darksmith’s library would answer my questions because I couldn’t.

I didn’t bother to investigate further.

I placed my hand on Slaughter and wove a strand of unbroken mana from my core, through the runes, following the power flow sequence I saw before me. As I reached the last rune, a bond snapped into place. The excess ambient mana Slaughter consumed from the environment began to trickle into my core.

Now that we were bonded, Slaughter wouldn’t just feed me lifeforce, but mana too. It was a good improvement.

I returned Slaughter to its sheath and stripped naked, adding the Day Walker set to the balancer and poured more mana into it. Red error runes showed up everywhere.

Lavire had made the Day Walker set for his elder vampire brother. He must have cared a lot for him, because every component of the enchantments used only the best materials. There was no weak link, so the Day Walker set was now so sturdy it could even block Slaughter.

As, I continued to study the set, I realised the material components may not have been by choice, but a necessity. The Day Walker set wasn’t just designed to protect the wearer, it was designed to give them the same capabilities as an ancient vampire. However, Lavire wouldn’t have been the genius that he was, if the armour had have become redundant once his brother achieved ancient vampire status. There was series of runes that changed these properties when the wearer was an ancient vampire. It directed the enhancements into the wear’s constitution.

On my character sheet, my constitution had an infinity sigh next to it. However, this was because my recovery essentially made me unkillable, so it was showing that my constitution was not currently relevant. Because of this, I’d never invested anything into my constitution which meant I was nearly as squishy as a regular human. Luke on the other hand would walk away from a car crash unharmed and pull a roast out of the oven without mittens.

I created another thread of mana from my core and wove it through the enchantments. The bond clicked into place, and I felt magic surge through my flesh reinforcing it and making it stronger, despite not wearing it. I pulled up my character sheet.

Race: Ancient Royal Vampire Variant

Class: Hero

Level: 35

Strength: 340

Agility: 520

Endurance: ∞

Constitution: ∞

Cunning: 240

Perception: 480

Recovery: ∞

Mana Regeneration: 400

Nothing had visibly changed, but I felt different.

I needed to investigate.

As I dressed, the magic reinforcing my flesh grew stronger, which immediately told me that while the set did work at range it didn’t work well. I put the equipment away, unlocked the door, and headed for my private training hall. It had a master tier barrier system, capable of cutting me off from the outside world, so I could practice magic without giving my skills away. However, that wasn’t what currently interested me.

I made my way to the back of large empty room and opened the storage chests. They were bigger on the inside than a storage pouch but didn’t contain the massive storage space that a master storage chest would. They were still the size of a four-car garage.

I found the constitution testing device. The tube was small enough to fit inside the palm of my hand. It had a button at one end a very sharp needle only a few milometers long at the other. I place the needle side against the forearm, until the tube around the needle sat flat against my skin. If my constitution was under one hundred, the needle would have penetrated my skin. It hadn’t.

I began pressing the button.

The counter along the side of the tube, began going up by one each time I pressed the button. When the number reached 600 without the needle stabbing through my skin, I pulled the testing device away from my arm. High level sorcerers didn’t typically have constitution this high, so I was unlikely to find a better testing device in Murdell. Even without it, my instincts told me the needle would have pierced my skin sometime within the next hundred presses of the button.

I released the tension from the tester and then placed it back in the storage chest. The increased durability was nice, but not enough, so I opened another storage chest and removed a shielded training pole, so I could spend the rest of the night practicing magic.

There wasn’t a lot of time before I had to teach my first class and I needed to keep Kathrine safe.