A month in and Van had decided to take a room for himself in a nearby dorm so that he wouldn’t have to wake up super early to travel a few hours to class.

Which he was sitting in on right now, learning about how to properly exorcise ghosts and spirits. With later classes having them sit and watch how spirit callers called spirits to them and how ‘judges’ and counselors help them move on.

He learned that not all spirits and ghosts are the same, that there are actually many different types and subcategories. Some are dangerous and some are not, but what a necromancer or spirit caller should always keep an eye out for, is whether they have a soul or not.

This is a surprising fact about spirits, not all of them have souls. Most are just bundles of spiritual energies with memories of their living life. More memories than actual people. Some are called echoes meaning that they have a very strong memory and even an echo of their true soul. A true soul being, well… your soul, and not a bundle of spirit energy and memories. More importantly, ghostly spirits, spirits of people, should never be confused with spirits of nature or the elements. They are two completely different things.

One is more an afterimage of a person in life, the other is a more natural being of the world that flows through all life and or a specific element such as fire, water, earth, wind, or more. One can contract spirits of nature and the elements, not so much a spirit of a dead person unless you are a necromancer.

This brings into something Van has learned here in his month of studying. That for the most part, necromancy is split into white, grey, and black necromancy. His teacher right now was talking about it.

“Now, you are all here to learn about necromancy, yes? But what's more important is the history of necromancy, and therefore, the history of Alcray. Now I’m sure most of you have already read about this before, so I’ll do my best to summarize.” the teacher said.

“First we will start with the Nilfan. They are the empire that preceded us. Thousands of years ago, the Nilfan was a slaver nation, but a very powerful and wealthy one. But as their empire grew more decadent and the poorer became poorer and more disgruntled in their life. The nobles began to worry, so they cast powerful magic on the chains of their slaves to become absolutely loyal to them, threatening death and worse to those who would try to disrupt the status quo.”

“Another thing about the Nilfan is that they were, for the most part, great mages and very learned in the magical arts. World-renowned actually, and many of their magical goods, weapons, and tools even last to this day. Because of this amazing skill in magic and their larger-than-average affinity for magic, they deemed themselves superior to all others. This was only reinforced when they saw the other nations crumble around them in the time of darkness.”

“But even they knew that all good things were not meant to last. With refugees pouring into their empire. And anger towards the nobles and the highborn at all-time high… they did... nothing… for them, they had something far more important to do. They believed their grip on power was unshakable. The only flaw as far as they could see… was their normal lifespan.”

So they started to practice as many different forms of magic as possible, experimenting on animals and people to find out how they can increase their lifespan. And that is when they discovered… necromancy. Pooling all of their knowledge about the soul, and how to bring things to life, like one would do with a golem. They have come to a conclusion, that it may be possible to tie their soul into a living construct, thereby living forever, sort of. It wasn’t their first choice… but for them who were desperate to live and rule forever, so far, it was the only one.”

“But of course they had to test it first… as the number of their slaves grew, drawn from the over pouring of the poor they cared less and less for their lives, deeming them like flies or cattle, and as the decades passed, the lives of such people somehow became cheaper. Because now the corpses of their fallen slaves would not only provide what they needed for further experiments but also provide a slowly growing army of the undead, completely loyal to them, to protect them from the still-living slaves.”

“With an undead force to protect them, the Nilfan become reckless in their debauchery, for who would have the courage to oppose them now? Any with a rebel thought was swiftly killed and turned into an undead that would also kill those same people who would dare think about rebelling.”

“As their knowledge and power grew, they became less scrupulous with their actions. Going so far as to use babies or unborn children to figure out how to make the perfect, intelligent undead, undead they were hoping to turn themselves into. Some would bathe in the blood of young children, others attempted to devour or drink the souls of the recently deceased, and others still, tried to steal the organs of young and healthy individuals to replace their own aging and blackened ones.”

“Decades more would pass until they had created an undead close to matching their desired outcome. An undead that was more alive than undead able to enjoy life’s pleasures, more near undead, then true undead… beautiful, powerful, and more importantly, immortal…”

“Their experiments with unborn children… finally bore fruit… these new undead would have to be born instead of made. With the cheap cost of the mother's life and the sacrifice of a few dozen lives as the baby grew in its mother's womb.”

“The vampire was born…

“At first it was a little hard to handle. The first vampire needed an excess amount of blood and life, otherwise, it would go into a blood craze and try to kill and feed on anything. But experimentation, and with slow and steady progress, the Nilfan mages were able to produce vampires more to their liking. There was only one problem. The soul.”

“The Nilfan used the souls of the dead to reanimate the corpses of their slaves. Can you imagine the horror of being killed, only to rise again and kill your loved ones? Or the torture of feeling your body decay around you, being forced to do the bidding of your murderer?”

“That is what we call, black necromancy. Any necromancer, who uses souls against the will of that person, or uses soul magic without supervision or allowance of the factions, or for that matter, the head spirit caller, head judge, and head necromancer of our guild. Are to be put to death without question. Soul magic is strictly forbidden.”

“Now, the Nilfan came to a problem. They cannot insert a soul into a body that already had one. Which meant they could not insert their soul, into the body of a vampire. Dejected, they considered the project a failure, though some thought there was still hope, either through more experimentation or crossbreeding. Whatever the case, they regulated the vampires to be their personal assistants. Teaching them, training them, to do all the tasks they felt were too boring for themselves to do.”

“There was just one thing they overlooked… because they were more near undead than actual undead, the effects of their necromantic magic had less effect on them. Meaning, they had more control over themselves than other undead. Another factor missed, was the fact that they were born and not made, something they dismissed as not important… but it very much was… for all souls, though very small, have the chance to be awakened. And that's what happened.”

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“Alcraz was born, and through the training of his Nilfan masters, and the knowledge of his past lives, he slowly spread his influence. Slowly taking control of large swaths of the undead, that now numbered in hundreds of thousands. At this point, 30% of all of Nilfan were some form of undead. The masters, valuing their undead slaves for their absolute loyalty, than the dirty peasants that worked the fields.”

“Gaining allies and working in secret, he built up his power. By the time the Nilfan realized what was happening, it was too late. A civil war racked the empire, the likes the continent has never seen. As their former undead slaves were freed from their magic, and with wills of their own, thanks in part to their souls still being intact, they turned on their masters with a vengeance. Undead and living alike, joined hands to fight their oppressors.”

“But the Nilfan would not go down without a fight. Outnumbered though they may be, they were still very powerful. Decimating entire landscapes with their magic, and unleashing horrible abominations made of flesh and bone and worse. They wreaked havoc on the land and its people.”

“But eventually, after many decades of fighting, they were pushed back to the east, where their capital was. The last years of the war were the most brutal, but the Nilfan were losing. In desperation, they used every forbidden magic they could, changing the landscape and part of the entire region with their foul magic. Causing the wastes we know today, also known by some as the deadlands.”

“The war was over, mostly because the last remnants of the Nilfan would never leave their precious city, their last safe haven, and for the vampires, going through all that dead land was too dangerous So for the most part, it was our victory.”

“Alcraz then reorganized the nation. Forbidding the use of soul magic and giving equal freedom to both the intelligent undead and the living. Great changes were made that helped the newfound nation of Alcray, with the lives of all improved for the better. Except for one problem.”

“The war devastated most of what was left of the empire and cut both the living and undead citizens down to half. And with the land ruined as it was, they had only one choice. They needed to expand. So they did, they expanded into what is now known as Fandor and Kittar. Using the resources they gathered to heal their own ruined one. But more importantly, they came into contact with the witches.”

“The witches lived in a large dark forest. Using magic that by most accounts would be considered evil. But there was one magic that intrigued Alcraz, in exchange for not invading them, the witches would give one of their most prized magics, the ability to create puppets.”

“These puppets were not like the golems that we know of, they were powered like golems, with mana and sometimes mana cores. But they had something else as well… a pseudo soul.”

“The witches taught Alcraz how to create pseudo souls using spiritual energy. And we now use this knowledge to create the undead we do today. We do not use the souls of the dead to power our undead, we instead form pseudo souls, souls constructed through spiritual energy and powered by mana.”

“With this newfound knowledge, Alcray began to flourish, decades turned to centuries, and soon, they slowly began to expand their influence and power further. All the way to modern-day Baloes and beyond. It was slowly turning into a golden age. Until of course, the elves attacked, causing their so-called war for light. But that is a talk for another time.”

That was a lot for Van to take in, but he still had some questions he needed to ask. “Why do the vampires of today not need to drink blood?”

“Simple, crossbreeding, the vampires of today, are not the same as the ones of the past. Not to mention, advances in magic and vampire biology have helped the older generations overcome their baser desires. Any more questions?”

“Just one. I was also told that some people actually came to Alcray to become intelligent undead. Wouldn’t that require black necromancy?”

“That is a good point, which is why I said that black necromancy had to be supervised and allowed first. Not to mention, while we have improved upon the knowledge of the past. Trying to become an intelligent undead is still a huge risk. The chances of successfully becoming one are very small. Yet fools still come by the hundreds to try. The most popular type of undead is the lich, mostly for the obvious reason of being the most likely one to succeed.” the teacher answered.

“Is there any reason at all why it would be okay to raise a person with their soul? What if they ask you to? Or if you raise a corpse and it turns out they do have a soul, are they still considered your undead, or a free person you have to let go?” van continued to ask.

“If they asked you to take that chance, you still would need permission from the guild, or have a high enough rank to be allowed to do such a thing, determined by your own discretion. As for what would happen if you didn’t know you raised a corpse with a soul. It's free unless it wants to die again. Also, so long as both parties agree, you can have an intelligent undead with a soul under you. In Fact, intelligent undead with souls tend to try to find a powerful necromancer and form a contract with them. Mostly because that undead might have fears that their baser instincts might influence them, then a strong necromancer could help reign them in. or perhaps because they have particular issues or needs that only a necromancer can help with, in exchange for servitude.”

“And ghouls? Are they also considered near undead?” Van asked.

“Yes they are, they were the more successful made undead, that could also breed. They were what came before the creation of vampires. Any other questions?” the teacher quirked in an eye.

Van shook his head.

“Good, now we will talk about the tasks of a spirit caller.” the teacher began. “A spirit caller is someone who goes out to collect spirits of the dead to help them move one to whatever afterlife is in store for them. When they help a spirit move on, they may get some leftover spiritual energy from that spirit, which they can use themselves, or sell to necromancers.”

“Of course if a spirit is too powerful, or too difficult, they can capture it in their lantern and dump it on a judge in one of our guilds. The judges, being more expert in such things, will take care of the spirit for the spirit caller.”

“Fun fact, unlike most nations outside Alcray, Alcray does not exhibit mindless undead overflowing our cemeteries. This is because, in other nations, they do not have spirit callers or white necromancers like we do. They do not know how to properly take care of a graveyard, creating spirit paths and methods of collecting stagnant spiritual residue to prevent the formation of spirits and other undead. Because of that, they have constant undead outbreaks from time to time.”

“Also, not only can you get spiritual energy from helping or exorcising natural wild undead and spirits, but we will also tell you how to collect the natural spiritual energy your soul realm produces. Very minutely, does your soul realm create excess waste spiritual residue, which can be turned into a few units of spiritual energy. So you don’t have to gather them from undead or spirits if you don’t want to.”

“As you all study here, we will go over how to talk to the dead, how to call them to you, how to deal with dangerous or difficult undead, and how to ‘judge’ the spirits of the dead. Most importantly. How to deal with undead that have actual souls, which for most natural or wild undead, can be a thing.”

The teacher then continued on, teaching them about the tools of a spirit caller and necromancer, how to see the flow of spiritual energy, and even introducing a few ghosts to them who had souls and oddly enough, were also teachers.

After that, they were taken outside to get some fresh air and walked towards the cemetery. As they walked the teacher would talk about how to properly bury someone, what rites to do, how to do them depending on the person or place to make sure that the person passes on safely. And not just burial rites, but how to burn corpses into ashes as some people would prefer that.

Pointing out the design of the cemetery, how to construct spirit paths and how to properly use spirit stones. Special stones designed by the necromancers of the guild to help spirit caller deal with the undead and other things.

After a few more hours, the class ended, and Van left feeling like he learned a lot, not just about the undead, but how it ties into the history of his country. He has read a lot of books, but they didn’t go into as much depth or detail. Or at least he just didn’t read the right books yet.

More importantly, he found himself both scared and fascinated by what he was learning here. He honestly felt like he could lose himself in studying everything this place has to offer, and he was not one to turn down a great learning opportunity such as this one.

With that in mind, Van continued to study and go to classes, nervous but excited for what he would learn next.