Early in the afternoon it was finally time to teach my favourite subject. Necromancy. It was my favourite for two reasons. Firstly, it was the first school I had mastered and was the school I grew up focusing on. Secondly, it was, in all honesty, quite boring to teach the same thing over and over again. Oh sure, I enjoyed the fresh faces of wonder and amazement, however there are limits to how often I could talk about the same thing in a row.

  Hence, why I had started to teach based on the questions my students asked instead of just droning on and on about whatever topic was at hand. Most of the time, at least.

  Luckily, Fluminix had proven to be an ample distraction from potential boredom. However, the incident at the start of today’s first class was rather embarrassing, but it showed how much I had fallen into a routine over the past millennium.

  Not unexpected, or unreasonable, but still... I had always strived to be better than that. And yet, a nonroutine presence threw me off, so much so that I quickly forgot about said presence.

  I shook my head clear of useless thoughts, before moving one of the skeletons in the back to the corner opposite the door leading into the classroom with a helpful hand of a telekinesis spell. Afterwards, I used the same spell to open one of the drawers in the cabinets next to the door and took the goggles out of it and placed them out on the tables.

  It was so nice to have magic to ensure I didn’t have to move a muscle.

  It wasn’t long before the eager beavers entered the classroom, most of those were people interested in casting necromancy. Others, usually those lagging behind, were more interested in necromancy in order to learn how to defend and fight against it. It made no difference to me.

  “Good to see you’ve taken up my advice, Roland,” I greeted one of them, one of the students who was already clearly set on becoming a crusader in his first year.

  The teenage human boy had clearly managed to build up some muscles over the two years I hadn’t taught him. His dark brown hair was still cut short in a military style. If I recalled correctly, he was from a family of crusaders, so his choice to join the knight department wasn’t entirely unexpected.

  “Same goes for you, Lisya,” I said to the foxkin girl following close behind. I idly wondered if the two of them might be dating, they do seem to be close.

  The orphaned girl had apparently chosen to join the mage department and, with her upbringing in an orphanage of the Church of the Holy Light, I would be rather surprised if she wouldn’t join the Church in some capacity after graduation. Especially, since her family was killed by a necromancer’s handiwork.

  Once everyone was seated, I closed the door.

  “Welcome everyone, aspiring mages, knights, artificers and tenders alike,” I said as I stood up from my seat. For the first time today, if I wasn’t mistaken. “You’ve all had the misfortune of not getting a substitute teacher during my absence. I’ve already let the headmistress know of my opinion on that, which I know she sees as my own fault.

  “Anyway, let me start with two things. Firstly, due to us having lost a month’s worth of classes, I’ll dispense with my usual Q&A style of teaching until we’ve caught up. That said, you’re all more than free to ask me anything.

  “Secondly, and I do this each year, I like to voice my disagreement of the current division of the schools of magic. Because Necromancy isn’t a viable school of magic.”

  I saw some hand being raised, but I ignored them for now.

  “Let me explain what I mean by that, and why I’ve been arguing for a different division for centuries now, before I’ll answer your questions on this matter.

  “Let’s start with reanimation. There’s a reason why it’s called reanimation and not resurrection. This is because of two things. The first is the spell formation,” I explained as I drew two spell formations on the blackboard. “Would anybody like to take a guess as to which one of these is of the school of necromancy and which one is of the school of conjuration?”

  One of the eager beavers quickly raised their hand, one of the worrying ones. The catkin enby was a little too interested in necromancy and I could see the darkness clinging to them.

  “The one on the left is necromantic, because I recognise the darkness runes in it,” Kumbe answered, after I indicated them to do so. “Which, obviously, means that the one on the right is from the school of conjuration.”

  I resisted the urge to sigh, because they just completely missed the point.

  “Well, you are correct,” I admitted. “However, if one looked closely at their structure and the overall runes used, you will see that the necromantic one is essentially the same as the conjuration one. Because, in essence, both spells work the same way.

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  “As you may have noticed, I’ve placed goggles on each of your desks. Please put those on, because they are a nifty piece of artificing. They are enchanted to see mana.”

  After some amazed exclamations, they all started to put the goggles on. They covered the entire eye socket, leaving only a round glass to see through. I could see when each of them had put them on, when the dull dark purple of the enchantment shone from each of them.

  “Please watch closely as I summon a spirit from the astral plane,” I instructed, before I cast the summoning spell to conjure a small spirit. It was nothing more than a floating torso and head, each of them barely recognisable as such and slightly distorted.

  “Now, remember what you just saw and observe while I reanimate the skeleton,” I instructed again, before specifically using a spell to reanimate the skeleton that I had moved to the front of the class before they had arrived. “Who can tell me the difference between the summoning of a small fire spirit and the reanimation of a wolf’s skeleton?”

  One of the more academically inclined students raised their hand with more confidence than some of the others had. The human student from the far east, at least from the position of the school, had been a frequent visitor in after school hours over the years.

  “There are none, Morgana-sensei,” Aoi answered, after I nodded her way. “The mana flow for each spell was the same and even after the spell has been cast, there is no difference. Not notably so, in any case. Maybe the difference becomes visible once you give them commands?”

  A grin tugged at my lips, as I issued both the spirit and the skeleton various commands, sometimes different ones. I took some joy in seeing them trying, and failing, to find any difference.

  “There is none,” Aoi said reluctantly with a frown on her face, and I could see the more zealot of my students, both for and against necromancy, frowning in a different kind of frustration.

  “That’s because, as I said, there isn’t one. The difference lies in people’s perception of the spells,” I said as I turned around to write on the blackboard again. “However, this segues perfectly into the next branch of necromancy, and arguably the most unique and consequential, soul magic.”

  I wiped what I had previously written and drew a line in the middle of the blackboard and one circle on each side of the line. At the top of the left section, I wrote material plane and at the top of the right I wrote astral plane. In the left circle I wrote body and in the right soul.

  “All of you, hopefully, still remember this diagram from first year basic magic theory,” I explained. “However, today we’ll go a little deeper. I told you during that class that the soul is housed in the astral plane and is connected to the body in the material plane. It is a little more complicated than that.

  “The soul is connected to the body through something not dissimilar to a cord,” I explained as I drew a broad line with the side of the chalk piece, stopping just past the dividing line. “This cord is, however, not tied to a singular place in the body, contrary to what a lot of people seem to believe.

  “The cord splits itself into five smaller ones. One for each vital organ,” I continued my explanation, as I drew seven smaller circles inside of the body circle. I drew five smaller lines from the thicker line and connected three of them to three of the circles, whereas I split the remaining two to connect to two circles each.

  In the first three circles I wrote brain, heart and liver. In the other four I wrote lung, lung, kidney and kidney. This part tended to confuse and baffle people and I could see that it held true this year as well.

  “I know some of you are wondering why I wrote each lung and kidney separately,” I explained with a, not quite suppressed, grin. “It’s simple really. You could survive with one of each of those, but are guaranteed to die if you were to lose both of either one of them.

  “Oh, and to dispel any notion of the heart being the most important organ, please look and study the mana flow of your classmates with the goggles.”

  I gave all of them a moment to do just so.

  “The highest and largest concentration of mana is concentrated on the brain,” I continued my explanation. “Now, let’s take another look at both the skeleton and the spirit, while I give them commands.”

  All of them looked at the skeleton and spirit. I could almost see the realisation dawn on them, even with the goggles obscuring their eyes.

  “They are using their own mana,” Roland said with obvious surprise in his voice. “There’s a small... fluctuation just after you give them a command.”

  I always loved to see potential future crusaders realise that the bias they were raised on might just be just that, bias. I could also see that Fluminix had woken up from her overload induced nap, as she was stretching like a cat in the nook in the back of the classroom. Right there in the gap between the line of cabinets and the back wall, causing her to have been out of sight to my students when they entered.

  “You are absolutely right,” I complimented him with a nod. “Now, for the fun of it, take a look at me. Though, I suspect most of you already have.”

  I gave them a moment in any case and gave a batkin boy a nod once I thought that they had been given enough time.

  “You’re... churning all over...” Itzcatl said in awe. “How?”

  I chuckled and erased the smaller lines and circles from the diagram, before I extended the thicker line, so it connected to the body circle.

  “Because this is what it looks like for a lich,” I explained, as I tapped the connection point. “A ritual like that to attain lichhood connects the soul to the entire body and has the potential to strengthen it. It was what made liches so hard to kill.

  “So, for why the mana is churning in my body, without me actively casting a spell? That’s because the reason why the entire body is connected to the soul is because the ritual turns the body itself into something not dissimilar to a ritual.”

  I erased the diagram on the blackboard and sat back down on my chair, just as Fluminix climbs on top of my desk to beg for food. Which I obliged her in.

  “As for the last branch?” I continued. “It’s pretty much just evocation spells or abjuration spells. Offensive, healing spells and buffing respectively. The only difference is the elemental runes used. But that’s all we’ll have time for today.”

  The bell range as I finished speaking and I focused on feeding the hungry, hungry dragon.