The exhumed corpses were old and rotten, but they still had their ligaments and sufficient flesh. Ignis first used his power to kill every organism that lived inside the two bodies as there was a good chance fresh air would make them more active, then applied a light curse to stop new parasite from settling in.

Even for Ignis the smell was painful to bear, and not something he’d ever become fully used to, but for Azrael, it was much worse. He waited until the young apprentice had finished vomiting to approach him again with a wet towel and some soap. “Here, clean yourself up.”

“It wasn’t what you were expecting, right?”

“I… I hadn’t really thought about it. I didn’t know corpses smelled so bad.”

“Don’t’ worry, it’s the same for everyone. The story about raising the dead kind of forget to take into account the smelly and retching parts. It’s not cool, it’s a disgusting and horrendous act, don’t ever forget about it.”

The child, didn’t dare look at the two bodies. “I won’t sir.”

You’ll have to go through it though was the thought on his teacher mind at this very moment, but first. “I’m going to transmit the ownership of one of my familiars to you.”

“Eh? But why, I already have one.” His question was genuine because he had yet to understand what possession was all about.

“Typical spirits are pure desire or hatred, they can be tricky, sometimes cunning, but they don’t have will and intelligence of their own. At best, they carry bits of knowledge of what they once were and use it carry their vendetta against the living.”

“Yes, I know that.” Why did his teacher feel the need to feed him such trivialities?

“You do, do you? Tell me, does anything I said apply to this?” He pointed at the haunted armor behind him.

“Ah…” He’d gotten so fixated on the benefits he could get from the singularity, that he’d forgotten about what made it special in the first place.

“Eventually, you might have to use possession on this once, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Take this.” The doll contained a particularly evil spirit, although it hadn’t been remotely as harmful in death than it had been in life. “You don’t need to worry about hurting this one, treat it as a disposable thing, it’s trash. If there’s really is a hell, it’s meant for the likes of this one.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“What… what did it does?” He wanted to know, but at the same time, felt it might be better not to as it’d might cause him to hate the spirit.

“You don’t need to know, and you’re better not knowing. It’s just a spirit now.” Even though he said that, he himself differentiated between his familiar depending on their origin as proven by his previous statement.

Azrael despite being able to discern the double standard, accepted the statement: knowing wouldn’t help.

Ignis showed the method for possession a few times. There was no actual method to teach it, It didn’t require a spell and could be describe as a natural ability for those born with the death element. Eventually, you’d learn how to do it… or not.

The young apprentice tried many times but couldn’t reproduce it. He suspected his slight disgust towards the spirit might have something to do with it and raised the question with his teacher. “I know you told me about its past so I wouldn’t worry about hurting it, but it made me feel antipathy and disgust towards it, I think somewhere inside, I don’t want to bond with it.”

“You might be right, the next one wasn’t a particularly bad person.” It was also one of his clients. A lot of them reneged on their promise out of greed or out of fear, this one was the latter. “Once you’re done, I’ll ask you to release it.”

There was more than one lesson being taught, a necromancer role wasn’t to judge which spirit deserved an afterlife, and which didn’t. They did anyway, no human could be truly impartial, but they needed to make the effort.

The idea of liberating a trapped innocent soul was tempting enough for the child to try harder, and he did it in only a few tries. Nothing of what he had expected happened, it was very much the same a looking through a spyglass or connected mirrors, or not… “I can look around. I can fly” Exclaimed the child.

Finally, he caught sight of his own unmoving body, down on the ground and the vision terrified him. In a blink of an eye, he was inside. Azrael wanted to try again immediately, the feeling of flying weightlessly through the air had been tremendously enjoyable. Next time he wouldn’t succumb to fear.

His teacher though, had other idea. “You did it.” Announced Ignis proudly. “Your first possession. Now, as promised free this poor spirit.”

“Ah, yes.” How could he have forgotten about that. “I’ll do it immediately. I, Azrael liberate you and hereby sever our contract; may you find peace in the after-life. “

Ignis smiled internally, content to hear a proper spell coming from his disciple, but there was no time to spare, he needed to seize the moment. “Try again with the second spirit, and avoid looking down.” The two main reason for losing controls where the fear of height, or seeing your own body, as long a he didn’t look down he’d avoid them both.

The second time was easier, and the apprentice had already forgotten about his distastes for the spirit in his hurry to fly again, in fact he wouldn’t realize he had been manipulated until much later.