The building was a large cube made of the same brick that made up most of the buildings in town. About three hundred feet per side. There were no windows and no adornments, just plain brick except for one door. However it glowed, despite being the middle of the night the building looked like it was in full sunshine.

I bet it's bigger on the inside. Must suck to live here if your windows face this place. Bright fucking spotlight at all hours of the night. I wouldn’t complain though. Seems like a great way to end up as a spell component. I wonder how prevalent that is? Maybe non magic users have some other type of power? Chi? I hope not. That would mean I'd have to cultivate at some point and sitting around meditating all day sounds boring.

I have a status so maybe i can just kill my way to power? Does everyone have a status? Too many damn questions. Hope i can find someone to actually talk to about all this soon. I'm not getting any answers out of this asshole.

As soon as we entered the area around the school that glowed, I felt an odd tightening around me like the air was pushing on my body from every angle. While moving forward that feeling increased and the door seemed to get bigger and bigger. I’m shrinking. I guess that saves on the spacial enchanments or whatever the fuck makes things bigger. Once we got to the door, a task that took much longer than it should have since we kept getting smaller and smaller. The regular sized door towered above us. This posed no problem for my silent guide though. She just went and pushed it open a crack and continued on as if it was no big deal.

The interior looked much nicer. Beautifully carved wood paneling, gold filigree, marble flooring that had veins of power running through it. Gaudy as fuck but beautiful. Behind a counter at the back of the long entrance hall sat a teenager reading a book with her feet up on the counter. She didn’t even look up at us as we crossed the whole hall. Even when we were standing in front of her she just sat there continuing to ignore us.

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

The lady who brought me here - i really got to figure out her name - just stood there waiting to be acknowledged. As the minutes ticked on in awkward silence my guide - I’m going to call her Insane Deranged Know-it-all. IDK for short - got more and more visibly angry. Fidgeting in place, clenching her fists and staring daggers at the teen as she just continued to read. For some reason though, she didn’t do anything. Just kept letting it go one.

This receptionist is either incredibly powerful or the child of someone who is. Move her to the list of people not to piss off.

“Mage Angelica, welcome back. I don’t see your apprentice anywhere but you seem to have picked up an undead. You know the rules about apprentices. You break it, you buy it. That better be some pretty impressive undead if you think it’ll pass as an apprentice.” the receptionist said after about five minutes of ignoring us. However she never looked up.

“Yes Lady Mari, I am aware of the rules. You say it like this is the first one I've lost. This is a Cursing Skull with the soul of an Earthling. Probably going to be too weak to get his future hands dirt.”

Mage Angelica? But I'd just figured out a good acronym. Damn. Well she said i’d get future hands. That's promising. I'll show her exactly how dirty these hands can get. This does bring up more questions though. What qualifies as a mage and what the fuck is a Lady? I hope there’s no nobility here. I know heroes like to curbstomp uppity nobles but in reality they’re the fuckers who have private armies and more magic items than they can even use. I want no part of that shit.

“Don’t worry dear, I know all about him, we were watching that idiot boy the entire time. It was good entertainment. I really liked the moment where his enslavement spell went right through the spirit and then Markus went and burned him to death from inside his head. Brutal bit of fun. I have the whole thing saved for you. I was thinking about having it painted.”

Fuck they know my name. Probably not good.

“Other than that, Archmage Sigmund has taken a liking to the boy, er-skull. He’s decided that Markus will be your apprentice, he will also help the archmage. You can leave now.”

This doesn’t seem to be getting better. I’m so fucked.