Chapter 10 - Raising the undead

After an attack by mandates.

Argus energetically beckoned the first student over, who peered curiously around the corner to see what had happened. A small, pale guy with long black hair that covered half his face. It took the principal a second to remember the name. Rodrik Bann... something. One of the students from Majere's faculty. So probably some kind of mage. He vaguely remembered that the usually placid Professor Rohal had literally dragged him into his office by his ears the semester before last and demanded that he be forcibly put into a course in magical and general ethics. Since old Whitebeard never had any other requests or complaints, Argus had agreed without even caring what the guy had done.

He pointed at the student and then at the dead man: "You there, get this mess out of here."

From many years of painful experience, he now expected the usual whining. Questions about where to take the body or how to transport it. Or lengthy discussions about religious rites that had to be spoken over the dead body first. Simply fainting would not be unusual either. The pale student wiped his hair out of his face with an agitated gesture, briefly revealing his left eye. A glass eye with lots of little sparkling metal tinsel embedded in it. He straightened up to his full, unimpressive height and replied downright enthusiastically: "Yes, sir! Right away!"

The rector walked on, but placed one of his mobile eyes so that it could observe what happened next. He was curious to see how the lanky fellow was going to move the corpse of the much taller Mandate. When he was alive, the Mandat had clearly stood out from the crowd of his colleagues. Two meters ten tall, broad-shouldered and with enough muscles to easily get a scholarship as a football player. The suit he wore was undoubtedly custom-made and correspondingly expensive.

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Rodrik rubbed his hands in delight. He had never been able to obtain material for his experiments so easily! A truly magnificent specimen of a corpse! Fresh and barely damaged. He pulled his ritual sacrificial folding knife out of his trouser pocket and flipped it open. Professor Rohal had pulled out a good chunk of his beard when he had first seen it. The old man just wasn't ready to move with the times. Almost as bad as Majere. Whereby the dean had only criticized the quality of his rune engravings and the insufficient silver content.

The mage drew the sharp blade across his palm in a practiced manner and let blood drip onto the corpse's face while he recited a magical formula: "Blood of my blood, life of my life. Rise up to serve me!"

Elán Vital, pure life force, flowed from his body, into the corpse's still fresh energy channels. Of course, he couldn't muster enough to raise it as a permanent zombie right away. The energy in a single human wouldn't have been enough for that, even if he killed himself in the process. But it would be enough to activate him long enough for him to stash him in the biology department's cold storage. A few of the students there still owed him and would certainly be happy to let him use one of the large freezers. The version of the spell taught at Nexus University didn't actually require blood as a transfer medium for the life force, but the classic formula simply had more flair.

The giant rose clumsily and staggered in front of him, obediently following Rodrik's verbal instructions.

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