I stared at a bucket filled to the brim with water. The water bucket stared back at me, or at least my reflection did. And so did the academic librarian whose staring was more glaring than staring. Librarians were defenders of paper. Water and books were known enemies of each other, because water was friends with mold. And where mold liked to hang out, so did rot.

Now, there were plenty of places where I could’ve stared at a bucket of water that weren’t in the middle of the crowded library at the Academy of the Dark Arts. But school projects needed to be finished… eventually.

Three days passed since I took the mana battery class. Every moment since, I’d been looking into a bucket of water trying to find out a way to push past my mana barrier. It got odd looks, but Calvin wasn’t a fully formed well-known identity yet. Maybe they’d think that I was just eccentric.

“You know that you should sip the water occasionally, so the librarian doesn’t have a reason to throw us out. I get that you somehow convinced her that you needed to stay hydrated, but the optics of that obvious lie won’t work if you don’t actually hydrate.” said Alcathorn.

“I’m hydrating,” I countered, as I continued to stare at the pale of water.

“I don’t think you are. Water needs to go down your throat.”

“Well, technically plants use roots to drink, so if they can do that then why can’t Calvin drink with his eyes?” Marcus said rather diplomatically.

“His eyes? The water isn’t even touching his eyes. Also, he’s not a plant.” insisted Alcathorn.

“Just drink the water, Calvin. While I don’t doubt that you’re hydrating…”

“Yes, I am.” I lied.

“For optics sake, take a sip. We need to be in the library if we’re going to figure out what type of mana is in our femur. Now, I know you’re taking an alternate route to discovering what is in this bone, but three of us want to use the books. And that librarian is insistent that we don’t damage them.”

I peeled my eyes away from the bucket of water, although I found it hard. I didn’t want to admit it, but the monstrosity, the horror lurking at the bottom of the school was affecting me negatively. There were things that weren’t meant to be looked at. That thing was one of them.

Maybe learning something different would be fruitful.

The femur was placed in the middle of the table, surrounded by a dozen or so curated books. Some were placed there by the librarian and some Marcus picked out himself. The group had various amounts of literacy.

Alcarthorn was raised in a well established family, albeit one that liked fighting more than anything else. He could read perfectly well, but it was the understanding of some words that caused him to pause. What was an albatross? Who really knew? but from context clues and some time thinking, Alcathorn realized that an albatross was a type of flying fish that soared over oceans. It was a northern mainland fish that had a hard exterior mouth that was good for eating other fish, and webbed feet to walk on the ocean floors.

Helfen was silent while reading. Although he turned the pages quite quickly. He couldn’t have been reading all the words, surely, I thought.

Marcus was the strongest contender in the arena of words. You could tell he’d honed his mastery of the skill over a lifetime chained to a desk. It was almost as if he prided himself in spending all his days inside reading. Occasionally, he’d comment on a passage or two. The knowledge were interesting tidbits.

And then there was me.

“I’ve heard of those voice recording books? Do you think any of the books in the library would have those types of enchantments?” I asked.

Marcus looked puzzled by this.

“Why would anyone need that? Reading the words is much faster,” He said.

“Of course it is. I know that.” I laughed.

I looked down at the book sitting next to my water bucket. The page number read three and I only read half the words. This was not practical learning. I practically learned nothing from the few words I understood. Now, I wished I hadn’t been a bumpkin from a no name village. Sure, I had learned what letters were, and even had most of them memorized, reading didn’t till fields, or dig holes.

As the others became engrossed by their books, I looked at the center of the table; I looked at the Femur. Quietly, I reached for it. No one at my group noticed, they were too busy ogling words.

I pulled it up to my eyes, and looked at a brownish red mana. I felt the anger from the bone, I felt it shifting my emotions. I restrained myself from hitting the bucket of water. That would get us banned from the library.

Professor Wrath had mentioned that the bone would have characteristics of the mana trapped inside of it. The problem was, dead inert bones didn’t get angry. Sure, if the bone was a part of a dead body with flesh, the mind would carry over like it did for George. But I knew, emphatically, that skeletons were the most mindless things to walk the planet.

So how would it manifest? Well, there was really no way for me to tell. While I had messed with bones before, I had never analyzed a femur. I knew how death mana interacted with the bone, somewhat but that was different. All bones had that.

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“Should we get a second femur?” I asked.

“What? We’re not going to be able to trade our femur. This is our femur, no ones gonna trade for it. Not after you made a scene with it. It was a smart move,” said Alcarthorn.

“Picking this femur was a smart move?”

“Well, that was your devious plan right? Trick the group into taking the hard to discover bones and take the prized one for yourself.”

“I think you’re overvaluing my deviousness.”

“Ah, but you admit I’m not overvaluing your intuition on mana. I know you’ve got one of those mana deciphering devices. How’d you afford it?”

“Through pain and suffering.” I said, which was somewhat true.

“Ah, so you were previously an adventurer! Man, I wanted to follow in my brother's footsteps when I grew up, but roaming the world is not for Necromancers.”

“Well, if you’re not an adventurer anymore, then what do you want to do with your life?” I asked.

“Raise a party to go adventuring for me. I’ve heard if you get good enough at Necromancy there are spells to see your undead.”

“Why not go with them?” I asked.

“Come on. We’re forced to do ritual magic. It takes time. I won’t be safe if I come across monsters, or bandits, or very attractive and endearing vampires that distract from living out my life's great purpose. .”

“Hold on. What was that last one?”

“Vampires?”

“NO, nevermind. Keep your fantasies for yourself.” I said.

“And the rest of you?”

“Probably keep assisting Helfen,” said Marcus.

“Redecorate my father’s drab mansion,” said Helfen.

“That’s not a life goal, Helfen. You need to think bigger. You’ve got all the building blocks for greatness, you just need to focus and think grander.” recommended Marcus.

Helfen shrugged.

Fine, if Helfen wasn’t going to reveal his real intentions, I’d just have to keep my eyes on him.

“So, none of you want to go out and experience the world? Alcathorm, you could always travel with your warring band of undead. And Helfen, you could get inspiration for decoration from the mysteries of ancient ruins. There’s more to the world than staying put.”

“Oh, and you’re going to traverse the edges of the known lands, Calvin. That’s a lot of talk for someone who is a Necromancer.”

“You’re also that.”

“Well, I’m not the one with fantasies,” said Alcathorm.

“The vampires?”

“Well, I don’t expect them to come true like you do. What’s your dream, if you’re going to try and dictate how we live ours?”

“I guess I haven’t thought too much into what I want. I know that in the short term, I want to win the upcoming school tournament. I want to continue living, as you do. And I guess I want to be free of burden.”

“You think you’re going to win the tournament?” scoffed Alcathorm.

“We Necromancer don’t win those. But I have to say, it's nice to talk to someone who has got passion. I’ll be rooting for you, as I wait in line in the nearby food stall.”

“Shoosh!” whispered the librarian rather loudly. She was a bit hypocritical if I was being perfectly honest.

The four of us hunched over and leaned in. We began to whisper.

“So, anyway, what were you saying about the femur.”

“That we should get another one.” I said.

Marcus thought for a second before speaking up.

“I think it’s a good idea. Professor Wrath did say that all the bones had different characteristics so we need a control. Something to compare our femur to.”

“Nothing is as good as our bone. Right, Calvin?”

“That’s not the point, Alcathorm. The point of the project isn’t to prove that our bone is better than the other one. It’s to root out its differences.” corrected Marcus.

“So it’s to prove that our femur is way better than all the other ones. I’m down,” responded Alcathorm.

“Well, where do we find a femur?” I asked.

“That’s easy. We’re Necromancer's now. We just have to do some gravedigging. The hard point is, figuring out whose femur that we steal. Ideally, we want to find the most boring dead guy to exist. Someone whose life was so milktoast and boring that their femur is perfectly average.”

“Well, there are probably some census records in the library. It wouldn’t be too suspicious for a bunch of budding Necromancers to check out one of those books. At least I hope not.” Reasoned Alcathorm.

Marcus, the golden boy of the library, the one who’d help me convince the librarian to let me have my bucket of water, strutted up to the counter. The librarian was preoccupied with a book, seemingly at ease with the bucket of water at my table. I took a sip from my bucket as I watched intensely.

“How can I help you Mister Marcus?” the librarian asked. She was an older woman who had years of experience handling some of the rarest books in all the land. She’d read most of them too. Her eyes didn’t stray from the words written on the pages of her book.

“Uhm, I would like to check out some census data for our research project.”

The librarian looked up from her book, her stern expression felt more stern when she pushed her thin framed glasses closer to her eyes.

“No, you’re forbidden from those records, Mister Marcus.”

Marcus staggered backwards.

“Why!?” he yelped.

“Because you’ve been placed in the Necromancer path. Those of the Necromancer path are forbidden from seeing the town's census data. Every year like clockwork, some new upstart students want to ransack this city's graveyard. The city does not like it when you mess with the dead, without permission. As first years, you certainly haven’t passed first year grave digging ethics, let alone gotten the required certification.”

“There’s a certification for that?”

“You’ll find quickly, young man, that there is a certification for just about anything and everything. Some are worth more than others, but anyone trying to make something of themselves should have one or two of them in my opinion. Now, is there anything else I can help you with, young man?”

“No.”

Marcus walked back to the group looking dejected. But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. There were skills to Necromancy that didn’t involve magic. Stealing was one of them, and I figured that there wasn’t a better place to learn through action. What was I going to do? Read a book?