Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 14
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Summoning Genius of Necromancer School — Chapter 14
The following morning, Simon’s new day in Kizen began.
Three classes were scheduled for today.
The professor leading the first class, Eboncraft, was a man named Erik Aura — middle-aged and distinguished.
Ideally placed wrinkles and a neat beard, a dignified bearing that suited formal attire, an unhurried demeanor that spoke of accumulated wisdom — everyone found him likable.
“Eboncraft is the foundation of every Necromancer. No amount of emphasis would be excessive.”
Erik guided the students with practiced ease.
Clear explanations and concepts that lodged themselves neatly in the mind — he lacked the flashy technique of Bakhil from Curse Studies, but the lecture itself was clean and unadorned.
Before long, the entire Class A was absorbed in Erik’s words.
How does Eboncraft conjure the miracle of Black Magic?
The flow of Eboncraft.
Understanding Rune Language.
The operational principles of Magical Circles.
“The origin of Rune Language can be traced to the ‘Eternal Flame’ within the Del Temple.”
Erik did not stop at mere theory.
“People never questioned why the temple flame did not extinguish. They deemed it sacrilege to doubt the miracle of the divine.”
Sometimes he would reach back into history itself to explain Rune Language.
“Ultimately, they noticed that the ash falling from the eternal flame had taken on forms resembling letters. And they were appalled by the truth — that mere letters could achieve miracles as profound as the flame itself. This is the origin of Rune Language.”
Erik drew ancient runes on the blackboard and explained how the mages and Necromancers studying them had refined Rune Language over the ages.
Then he flowed seamlessly into an exposition of modern Magical Circles.
Why this Circle functions.
Why this Circle does not.
Erik meticulously dissected Magical Circles in his explanations. Until now, Simon had been drawing them mechanically with a Correction Tool, but only now did he begin to grasp the underlying mechanics.
While Simon frantically took notes to keep pace with the lesson, the bell signaling the end of class rang before he knew it.
“That will be all for today.”
Erik announced the class’s conclusion.
“You have an assignment due next time. Choose one non-functional Magical Circle from those you’ve learned, then submit a plan for correction, calculations, and the formulas you used — all before the next session. Those I call upon will present your work directly at the front.”
Perhaps because Eboncraft was a mandatory major course, Simon was spared the ordeal of being called forward this time.
He felt a small surge of relief.
“Wow, this class is brutal.”
Among the students chattering their way out of the lecture hall, Dick — looking visibly worn — stretched himself languidly.
“It’s like studying mathematics with my father back home. Why can’t we just memorize the Circles like usual? Do we really need to know all these piddling details about how they activate?”
“I thought it was fine.”
Simon replied, crossing his arms.
“Half of it went over my head, but I liked how he explained the principles step by step.”
“You think everything about Kizen is amazing. You even scratched the soap at the bathhouse with your nails because you thought it was so strange.”
Simon elbowed Dick’s chest. He stumbled backward with an exaggerated yelp, but his laughter never ceased.
“Oh! I got scared when I saw the bubbles in the bath! I was like, ‘Am I allowed in here?’ Haha!”
“I’m going ahead.”
Simon answered with a sullen tone and walked on. Dick quickly called after him, insisting it was a joke, and caught up.
Class A had no break — the next lesson awaited immediately.
After a twenty-minute walk, they arrived at the second class location: the outskirts of Kizen, a barren, empty plain.
“Is anyone here?”
“Wait, over there…!”
While Class A students chatted as they waited, a thick cloud of dust rose from the forest.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The ground trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
What approached was none other than a herd of dozens of hippopotamuses.
The students cried out in alarm and stumbled backward.
“Ha-ha-ha! Greetings, Freshmen!”
At that moment, a man atop one of the hippopotamuses came into view.
Dark-skinned with full lips, a lanky frame, short limbs relative to his frame, dressed simply and barefoot. He skillfully brought the herd to a halt before the students and leaped down.
“Professor Hongpeng has decided today’s Martial Combat Magic class will be held at Rocksan! Come now, everyone onto the hippopotamuses!”
Hongpeng Tun Sokum Marlat, the Martial Combat Magic professor, was known as a remarkable eccentric throughout Kizen.
Although Kizen had arranged both a research facility and a residence for her, she spent her time wandering through the regions of Rocksem and camping. Because of her nature, most Martial Combat Magic classes were conducted outdoors.
“…Are you seriously asking us to ride on those things?”
A male student, watching the hippopotamuses snort and shift their weight, grimaced in displeasure.
“Hey, attendant! Shouldn’t you at least put a mat or something on that beast?”
The man heard this and approached the student with a grin.
And.
“Ah, ahhhhhhh!”
He lifted the student’s face in a single-handed grip. Startled cries erupted from every corner.
“What—what are you doing?”
“How dare you to a Kizen student!”
From the innocently smiling man’s frame radiated a thick, suffocating killing intent. The students who had been rushing to protest faltered, their feet stopping short.
“Why do these freshmen have no sense lately? It’s Teaching Assistant, not hired help.”
Only then did the male student, grasping the situation, cry out urgently.
“Ahhh! I’m—I’m so sorry, Teaching Assistant!”
A teaching assistant meant, with high probability, a senior who had studied at Kizen.
Moreover, as the closest aide attending to a professor, he was someone absolutely not to be dismissed by a freshman.
“Teaching Assistant, not senior.”
“I’m so sorry, Teaching Assistant!”
Watching the chaos unfold, Simon shook his head slowly.
“What’s with all of them?”
“They’re nobles.”
Dick shrugged and picked up the thread.
“Grew up like hothouse flowers, always indulged—they still have the habit of treating everyone around them like servants. The early part of the semester’s going to be full of this stuff.”
The explanation made so much sense that Simon nodded in agreement.
A moment later, the teaching assistant returned to his innocent expression and waved his arm.
“Right then, we’ve lost a bit of time. Everyone onto the hippos, please! Three people can ride on each one!”
The students climbed onto the hippos with movements now considerably more energetic.
Simon mounted in one fluid motion, while Dick behind him slipped several times, grunting and struggling before finally managing to pull himself up.
“Whew, and we haven’t even started class yet—this is brutal.”
Dick was wiping sweat from his sleeve when—
A female student came into Simon’s view, hesitating and bouncing nervously where she stood.
“Everyone up? Then we’re departing now!”
At the teaching assistant’s words, her expression grew frantic. Simon readily extended his hand toward her.
“Need help?”
“Oh—! Thank you!”
She approached as if he were a savior, grasping his hand.
Simon pulled hard, and her body was dragged up like a paper doll, landing cleanly on the hippo’s back.
“Now we depart!”
The moment she mounted, the teaching assistant slapped the hippo’s rear. The lead hippo bolted forward with a shout, and the rest surged after it in unison.
Barely secured in her seat, she exhaled in relief and turned to Simon.
“Thank you for helping me! I’m—”
Whatever she was about to say was cut short when the hippos suddenly accelerated. The other students, gripped by fear, pressed their bodies tight against the animals’ backs.
The vibration coursed through Simon’s entire frame—the ride was hardly comfortable.
One student cried out.
“T-Teaching Assistant! I’m going to fall! What do I grab?”
“Anything at all!”
“It’s too fast!”
“Grit and determination! Push through it! This is all part of your training!”
The teaching assistant, balancing on his legs alone, raised his right arm sharply as he spoke.
“Of course, if you fall off and get trampled by the hippo herd, you’ll die, won’t you? They say about one or two students have accidents every year?”
“…I’m sorry?”
The students doubted their own ears.
“Hold on! Hold on! Students who can’t even manage riding on a hippo’s back properly have no place at Kizen!”
“Ahhhh, aaaahhhhh!”
“Mommmmmm!”
“Hey, stop! Stop this damn thing!”
“Hahahahahaha!”
It was a mobile lesson born of madness.
* * *
At last they arrived at the lesson site.
Beyond dense groves of towering trees, a clearing opened before them in the heart of the mountain. The sun hung at the forest’s heart as if welcoming them all, and the chirping of birds and the hum of insects flowed together in harmony like an orchestra’s music.
It was nothing short of beautiful.
“Huff… huff… damn it…”
“Ugh, hah… ah… ah…”
Of course, that was only if the observer had the stomach to appreciate the scenery.
All the students lay sprawled across the field, their faces drained of all energy. The hippopotamuses had retreated back down the mountainside, and the teaching assistants were offering water containers to the collapsed freshmen.
‘What is this?’
When Simon took a sip, the taste was peculiar and complex.
Sweet with a faintly spicy aftertaste—a mysterious beverage. Yet the moment he drank it, his thirst vanished entirely, and his fatigue began to lift away.
The other students’ expressions gradually returned to life.
Whir-whir-whir!
This time a flock of white birds came soaring over, passing above the students’ heads. Everyone blinked, watching the spectacle unfold.
“Welcome to my department, everyone!”
Simon turned his head. Beyond the flock of ascending birds, a tall woman walked toward them with both arms spread wide.
Her skin was a healthy bronze, her frame lean and muscular. Her hair was gathered in an unusual style, twisted into several thick strands with cord.
The students scrambled to their feet.
‘That person is….’
Hongpeng Tun Sokum Marlat.
A legend in the Necromancer world—she had faced the colossal Undead monster known as Kundar Hydra, which had devastated four fiefdoms, entirely alone. Over five days, she had broken a hundred of its heads and seized a dramatic victory.
After that battle, Hongpeng was scouted by Kizen and has been teaching Martial Combat Magic to students ever since.
Eccentric as she was, her skill was beyond dispute, and that was precisely why the school overlooked her antics.
Whir-whir!
Forest birds alighted upon her extended fingertips.
“Then, everyone please stand up.”
She spoke in the common tongue, though her accent was noticeably awkward.
“Form in four columns, if you would.”
“……?”
The students stood bewildered, unable to understand, so Hongpeng’s teaching assistants approached and clarified.
“Please form into four columns.”
“Quickly now, everyone move.”
The students lined up with uncertain expressions. Hongpeng stood at the front, while teaching assistants positioned themselves on either side of the formation.
“Then we shall depart.”
Wait—when does the actual lesson begin?
Scarcely had Simon formed the thought when Hongpeng burst forward into a run. The students at the front scrambled after her, gasping, and an impromptu running exercise commenced.
“A healthy body cultivates a healthy spirit! The foundation of Martial Combat Magic requires sturdy physical conditioning!”
Her speech was halting, as if she’d only recently learned the continental tongue, yet her intent was unmistakable.
As she gradually increased her pace, the students at the front struggled to keep up.
And Simon, running in the third column, watched her form with admiration.
‘Extraordinary.’
He’d never seen anyone run quite like her.
The angle of each footfall, the ripple of muscle, the stillness of shoulders and torso—there wasn’t a wasted motion. It was flawless, like a painting come alive.
How could someone with the same two arms and two legs feel like an alien from another dimension? Her form was uncannily perfect.
“Huff! Huff!”
“Wheeze! Wheeze!”
While everyone else ran in frantic gasps, Hongpeng eased her pace slightly and continued her lecture.
The fundamentals of Martial Combat Magic. Its essence and purpose.
In essence, Martial Combat Magic was a discipline where one wrapped Eboncraft around one’s body to enhance it to extreme degrees, then learned combat techniques utilizing that enhancement.
Once a practitioner reached a certain level of proficiency in Martial Combat Magic, silken Eboncraft would flow from the body and take the form of garments—the “Black Garment”—a technique that was the very symbol of battle Necromancers.
Many male students harbored romantic notions about this technique, and no small number chose Martial Combat Magic as their major specifically to obtain the Black Garment.
“There are many trees. Be careful!”
The run continued through dense forest terrain, bristling with brush and foliage. The four-column formation dissolved as students weaved around the trees, each following Hongpeng in their own fashion.
While most hacked desperately through the undergrowth, several students leapt upward, bounding from branch to branch.
All of them were Martial Combat Magic majors—seizing the chance to show off their specialty.
One teaching assistant leapt up into the canopy and gave them a thumbs-up. The majors’ faces lit up.
“Lucky bastards. Ugh!”
Dick cursed, having taken a tree trunk to the face.
‘Hmm.’
Simon observed the scene intently.
This Black Magic focused on physical combat—and he found himself genuinely intrigued by it.
“Gasp! Huff! Hey, Simon! You okay?”
Dick’s face was flushed crimson as he spoke. Simon blinked and replied.
“Hm? Oh, I’m fine.”
“Huff! Wheeze! How do you even have this stamina…! Cough, cough!”
“Isn’t everyone doing this kind of run?”
Simon, who traversed Reshill’s treacherous southern mountain range as casually as a neighborhood stroll, said it without a trace of irony.
The teaching assistants beaded with sweat across their foreheads, yet Simon’s expression remained perfectly serene.
‘This class is fun too!’
As Simon threw himself into the practical work with the enthusiasm of a fish returned to water, Hongpeng Tun Sokum Marlat watched him with luminous eyes.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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