"Does Phloria know about this Death Vision thingy?" Yurial asked. "No, she has spent too much time worrying about me night and day. I’m going to give her a little respite before breaking the news to her. She deserves it." "Man, that’s exactly what I am talking about." Yurial sighed. "Before Balkor, everything was so easy for me. I had my future set in stone. I thought I had my whole life in front of me. That my sh*tty wife would give me a few heirs before I started searching for happiness somewhere else. "I didn’t give a damn about love. All that I cared about was to take my father’s place as the head of the family and make my Grand Duchy a better place for everyone to live in. "Now I feel completely lost. I can’t stop thinking about all the things that I will miss because of my role and my marriage. To make things worse, if something happened to me tomorrow, nobody would care. "My mother barely remembers my name, while my father is always so busy that I rarely see him. Is it wrong for me to want to go away and have a life? To forget about duty and think only about myself for more than five minutes? "I want to have something similar to what you have with Phloria, even once, before duty hog-ties me like a prime roast. What do you think I should do?" "I’m sorry Yurial, but this is something only you can decide." Lith shook his head. "There are only a few things I can tell you. First, give yourself some time to recover. Maybe you need to re-evaluate your life’s long term priorities or maybe this is just your anxiety talking. We both need some quiet to get things straight, right now we are a mess. "Second, you can’t go to class in that state. Unless our Professors and colleagues have gone blind, they’ll notice how high you are. You could get in serious trouble, maybe even get suspended." Yurial sighed before using a few healing spells on himself. Cleansing his system was the easy part, in just a few minutes his appearance became that of someone that just had skipped too many meals and a few nights of sleep. The problem was that now he could only resort to sheer willpower to keep his inner demons at bay. When they met the rest of the group in the compulsory courses’ class for the Necromancy lessons, their mood only got worse. While most of the class was moping in silence, the girls were smiling and laughing, like they had no care in the world. Yurial was so envious of house Ernas that he was about to pop a vein. Phloria’s older brother was already married, ensuring the future of the family and relieving his sibling from any kind of pressure. Based on what Quylla had told him, she was walking on air. Orion was the father she had always wished for, and once she got used to Jirni’s attempts to manipulate her, Quylla couldn’t get angry with her. Not after what she had heard from Friya and Yurial about their respective biological mothers. Yurial couldn’t agree more with her. ’Lady Ernas may be nuttier than a fruitcake, but whatever she does to her daughters, she only does it because she thinks it’s for their sake, not for her own.’ Yurial thought. Also, while Yurial’s trauma was only getting worse over time, Friya was slowly overcoming her own. Losing her family after her mother’s escape had been the lowest point of her life, but she was now certain that being adopted by the Ernas couple was the best thing that could happen to her. She had finally a place where she belonged, loving relatives, and no more worries outside graduating from the academy. Since the fall of house Solivar, her arranged marriage had been called off. She was now free to do as she liked. The boys faked a smile and sat in their chairs, waiting for the second gong to sound. Professor Zeneff entered the room, giving a sad smile to the class. The students were so used to her cheerfulness that the change of attiude drawn on her drew even the gazes of those that usually wouldn’t pay attention until the start of the lesson. She had lost several kilograms too fast, making her appear much older than she actually was. Professor Zeneff seemed to be dreadfully tired, her movements were unsteady. "Good morning, dear students. I know I look terrible, just like I know that after all you went through, you probably don’t want to study Necromancy one more minute than absolutely necessary. "Luckily, we are on the same page. The Black Griffon academy has suffered many casualties. I have lost many dear friends and assistants that were like family to me. So I’m eager to get over our lessons as much as you do and go back home. "Today I’ll teach you how to possess the body of one of your undead and use it as it was your own. This is the last thing you need to learn to complete this subject. I told you at the beginning that my course would be quick and easy. I kept my word." Her voice lacked the enthusiasm they had become used to. The gloomy atmosphere of the class became even worse. "The principle behind it is relatively simple." She made appear a rat skeleton, turning it into an undead, and imprinting it with her mark in a few seconds. Death Vision made Lith see the undead’s eyes turn off once the spell had lost its effectiveness and then after its body was crushed under something heavy. ’What the heck? Do I care for undead too or is this some kind of curse?’ Lith thought. "When I taught you how to move them and impart them simple commands, I explained to you how to perceive the mana that you have transferred within the corpse and move it with your will. "Even if detached from your body, it’s still a part of you." Professor Zeneff placed her hand on the undead. Its eyes turned blue and it continued the explanation using Zeneff’s voice. "The last step requires for you to transfer your consciousness along with the mana. You have to find that sliver of your essence and establish a connection with it. I always suggest imagining it like creating a tunnel between the sliver and your consciousness. "Then, imagine opening a door that leads outside your body and into the tunnel. Push your will through that door not to enforce a single thought, but your whole being. It can be done at any moment after creating an undead. It will allow you to see, hear, and speak as if you were there. "The process doesn’t consume your mana, but the longer you use this technique and the farther you get from your real body, the greater is the focus required. Always remember that as long as you possess an undead, you can’t use any magic and your own body is helpless. "Also, if the corpse gets destroyed while you are still inhabiting hit, your mind could experience mild damage. Not enough to suffer from long lasting consequences, but enough to knock you out for a few minutes. "In the event of danger, the best course of action is always to get out of the undead, animate a new one and take a different route." Professor Zeneff returned to her body. Then, with a clap of her hands, she made a rat skeleton appear on each student’s desk and a small metal bucket at their side. While some like Lith had no idea what the purpose of the bucket was, many others soon had a dire need of it. Even if the rats and Balkor’s creations were worlds apart in all respects, the feeling that the darkness magic animating them gave off was similar. Most of the students still had nightmares about those three days. Darkness magic made them remember the fear of death they had experienced and the comrades they had lost. A series of dry heaving was quickly followed by puking sounds. "I’m really sorry guys, but if you don’t complete the task, I’ll have to fail you." Professor Zeneff sniffed, empathizing with their feelings. "Be strong and consider this lesson as shock therapy. If you manage to succeed today, you will not be forced to raise another undead until you graduate from the academy. There are no Necromancy lessons during the fifth year, you have my word for it." The desire to get rid of the undead once and for all was motivation enough for most students to overcome their fear and start practicing. Lith was already used to control multiple lesser undead at will, also he had decided to stop holding back. Merging with the undead’s blood core wasn’t much different from entering the mind space he shared with Solus. Once he identified the part of him residing inside the creature, all he had to do was to force the sliver of his life force to take over the entire blood core. Lith could feel his creation weakly rejecting him. Even with the mark forcing it into submission, the creature instinctively resisted the possession. The gap in willpower was abysmal, so it took him only a few seconds to complete the process. The sensation he experienced though the rat’s corpse was terrible. The world around him had turned black and white, all colors had disappeared. He couldn’t smell anything and all of his new body was insensitive. Either Lith touched the wooden desk or his originals’ body hand, he couldn’t feel any difference between the two. Even moving was awkward. Not only was Lith not used to moving on all four with such a different center of gravity, but also he could feel the body trying to expel him. Even a mindless creature like an undead rat had enough hatred for the living to reject its creator’s mind. It took Lith only a few minutes to get accustomed to the new body, but he could feel the resistance the creature offered increasing over time. It was like keeping a spring compressed and preventing it to return to its natural shape. The Lith rat jumped down from his desk, landing with the grace of a rock. Luckily, he felt no pain from the impact. ’If this is what it feels like being an undead, then it’s simply appalling. The only bright side is that I don’t have Death Vision in this form.’ He thought. "Professor Zeneff, is this enough for a passing grade?" Lith approached the teacher’s desk, while Zeneff and a few students clapped at his performance. "No, but it’s a great result. Do it again another nine times and you will pass the basic Necromancy course with flying colors." Abandoning the corpse turned out to be easy. As soon Lith let his concentration slip, he found himself back in his own body. He waited for a few seconds before trying again, hoping to be finally free from Death Vision. Yet when he saw some invisible beast bite Professor Zeneff’s head off, Lith understood that things weren’t so simple. He repeated the process ten times without a hitch, obtaining a round of applause from the whole class and thirty points from Professor Zeneff. Lith spent the rest of the lesson helping the Professor in teaching to his classmates, giving them hints and tips. Soon everyone became able to possess the undead, but despite all the support provided to them, some weren’t able to keep the creatures under control for more than a few seconds. The shock from the past fight against the undead was still strong enough for their minds to reject the corpse as strongly as it rejected them. Yurial was among them and even by the end of the lesson he hadn’t been able to achieve a single success. Things went smoothly during the following dimensional magic lesson instead. Lith, Phloria, and Yurial were already capable of successfully perform Switch, however they would still fail from time to time. Succeeding eight times out of ten was a great result, but if it happened during a real battle it could prove to be fatal, so they kept striving for perfection under Professor Rudd’s strict supervision. He seemed to have changed too, albeit not physically. He gave them actual pointers instead of sarcastic remarks or riddles. Rudd would also explain to them what their recurring mistakes were and how to fix them. With his help, they estimated that in another couple of lessons they would completely master the Switch spell and obtain more free time along with Friya and Quylla. After dinner, Lith made up an excuse and went straight to his room. Seeing Phloria so happy had made him change his mind. ’I’ll tell her about Death Vision another time. She’s finally getting along with her sisters. I don’t want to spoil Phloria’s happiness with my problems. Her smile means too much to me.’ Thanks to Invigoration, he quickly returned to his peak condition and then started to work on the boxes. Now that he was finally aware that multiple pseudo cores could exist within the same magical item and knew how they would interact with magic crystals, Lith was certain he would succeed opening at least one.