Necromancer Academy’s Genius Summoner - Chapter 649

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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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Summoning Genius of the Necromancer School, Chapter 649
The Dark Festival—chaotic, loud, and relentless—had finally ended, and ordinary life returned once more.
The professors who had taken their holiday break came back eager to unleash assignment after assignment on their students, then proceeded to blast through lectures at a merciless pace.
The students, who had expected to catch their breath after the festival, found themselves struggling to stay afloat under a workload that made the festival seem trivial by comparison.
The Summoning Department professors were particularly fervent upon their return. While it was good that their students had brought them honor by placing second in the Dark Festival, it had only kindled an inferno of new assignments.
Grerion, who taught Summoning Material Studies, was no exception.
“Begin!”
A low rumble echoed through the cave.
Grerion’s Cave—the place Simon had once used as a headquarters for his “Ever Kiray Countermeasures Team.”
But today, the Summoning Department students had descended upon it in groups, scrambling over one another to secure materials like shoppers clearing shelves at a discount store.
From Simon’s Group 10, Lorain and Toto had gone out to gather supplies.
“Ready?” Simon asked, pulling on his work gloves.
He addressed Eshu, who was assisting.
“Leave it to me, Chairman—or rather, team leader!”
Eshu threw her fist up in the air with a cheer, and the small puppet figures around her mimicked the gesture, raising their tiny hands in unison.
This practical assessment in Summoning Material Studies was titled “Skeleton Chimera Creation.”
The materials used were skeletons that had undergone White Public Processing.
This “White Public Processing” was a highly specialized chimera-crafting technique. When undead bones were soaked in a special solution derived from creatures called bacong workers, the bones would turn a pale sky blue.
After this treatment, though the bones lost some durability, they could be connected to other types of skeleton bones and move as a single unified body with minimal adverse effects.
For example, wing bones from a flying monster could be attached to the skeleton of a land monster and function reasonably well. Monster combinations normally impossible to fuse became viable when constructed as White Public Processed skeleton chimeras.
“Remember this!” Grerion shouted as he circled among the students. “You must attach bones from at least two different types of undead!”
The professor had clearly spent his entire break training—his physique had noticeably improved.
“Recall the formulas you’ve learned! Think of skeleton combinations that will create the greatest synergy!”
“Yes, sir!”
On the supply shelf lay countless bones that had undergone White Public Processing.
Everything from common monsters like orcs, ratmen, and knolls, to the wing bones of sky-soaring harpies and the spines of aquatic creatures that could swim through the sea.
Students could choose whatever materials suited their vision.
Group 10, Simon’s team, had already decided through discussion what kind of chimera they would create.
“Simon! Catch!”
At Lorain’s call, a large bone fragment came flying. Simon caught it safely and set it down on the work table.
First came the most basic task.
Simon lifted his work knife. The bones, having been submerged in the White Public solution for so long, were far too heavy to animate as undead in their current state.
The thick coating of solution that clung to the bones needed to be scraped away now.
Scrape—scrape—
The same sound came from every work table nearby. Simon and Eshu, along with all the other construction teams, had begun this tedious process simultaneously.
It was the most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the work.
“Eshu, shave the joint areas especially thin. Just barely let the white of the bone show through.”
“Got it!”
Simon delegated that work entirely to his assistant and moved on to the assembly stage.
Snap—snap—
With each fluid movement of his hands, bones locked into place. He built up the spine like a tower, then, unsatisfied with the result, scattered it and started over from the beginning to the end.
Eshu’s eyes widened as she watched.
‘Wow, this guy’s skeleton assembly is insane.’
What’s more, Simon wasn’t even looking at any blueprints. He was fitting the bones together flawlessly using only the knowledge and intuition in his mind.
“Good.”
Simon completed the upper torso assembly in one fluid motion and turned his head.
“Eshu, the Black Conduit?”
“Right here!”
The puppet figures, standing in for Eshu who was still working, came together and struggled to lift the Black Conduit, their expressions strained with effort.
Now Simon threaded the thick Black Conduit through the spaces between the bones. Like electrical wiring in a machine, this conduit would serve as the channel through which the Dark Element flowed, distributing it to every part of the skeleton.
After securing the conduit firmly and carefully channeling Dark Element into the joint areas, he completed the linking operations. The undead’s upper body work was nearing completion at impressive speed.
“Simon! Is this base formation acceptable?”
Toto and Lorain, who had been handling materials, had returned and were preparing the Magic Circle. Simon examined the circle they had drawn and was impressed.
“You two are really good at this. Keep going just like that.”
“Okay!”
Toto in particular showed genuine talent among all the class assignments, especially with chimeras.
The summoning formula was less difficult than with other undead, and Toto seemed to prefer being able to freely modify the work according to taste rather than simply following established procedures.
As each section continued to be completed one after another—
“I-I’m sorry, everyone!”
An accident occurred.
Eshu’s puppets had dropped the white-processed bones while dodging other students rushing about, shattering them on impact.
“The hind leg bone cracked.”
White-processed bones were extremely vulnerable to external shock until natural drying was complete.
“Simon! I don’t think we have any more!”
Toto quickly checked the material line and reported that nothing remained.
‘We’ll have to make this work somehow.’
Simon fell silent for a moment, studying the damaged section.
“At least it’s the hind leg that broke. We can change our approach.”
“Um, how?”
“We’ll increase the scorpion’s proportion.”
Group 10 had been planning to combine the bones of two monsters: a scorpion and a bletho.
A bletho was a four-legged monster that burrowed in dirt and hunted its prey.
While the bletho was fast, its fangs and claws were weak.
The scorpion could manipulate its long tail freely, catching monsters with brutal efficiency, but its movements were sluggish.
So they’d wondered: what if they combined the two?
The bletho also had sharp spines embedded in its tail tip—its primary hunting method involved piercing prey with those spines. Group 10’s thinking was that with the scorpion’s longer tail, it would be even more effective.
But now the leg bones were damaged, forcing them to abandon speed.
So then.
“We’ll reinforce something else instead of mobility.”

* * *
Once all the work was finished, the evaluations began.
The group that scored highest was Aseraz’s Group 8, which had attached dark-element feathers to the wing bones to enable high-speed flight.
And Group 11, led by Fitzgerald, Kizen’s finest chimera maker among second-year students, who had blended four types of undead creatures. Grerion, finished checking the submission sheet, nodded with satisfaction.
Simon, who had completed his work slightly later, waited nervously with his Group 10 teammates for their turn.
“Ugh, this is irritating!”
A female student brushed wheat off her thigh as she spoke.
“How is wheat growing in a cave?”
Simon’s expression went sheepish.
He could see instructors in the distance, sighing heavily as they cut the wheat down with scythes.
“No matter how much we cut, there’s always more.”
“We asked Professor Byeol-Ya for herbicide. It should help once we spray it.”
They’d done cleanup, but the wheat’s vitality was so strong that some remained. Simon offered a silent apology to them in his heart.
“Next group. Come forward.”
Finally, Group 10’s turn. Simon and Lorain stepped forward, followed by Toto and Eshu.
“We’ll begin our presentation.”
Simon spoke.
“We created a chimera by combining a scorpion and a bletho.”
The watching students craned their necks forward. A flat-bodied monster, supported on four legs, stood on the ground.
Two-thirds of its upper body was scorpion, while only its head and front legs were bletho. It had the tail bones of two scorpions, making the tail quite long, but at first glance it seemed incapable of mobility.
Grerion opened his mouth.
“Your proposal said you’d attach a scorpion’s tail to a bletho’s body—why this deviation?”
The standard approach here would be to explain the scorpion’s advantages plausibly and claim the direction changed for various reasons.
“There was an error during construction.”
Simon answered honestly.
“The hind leg bones were damaged during work, leaving us no choice but to abandon the pursuit of mobility. However.”
Simon gestured toward the undead creature.
“Because of that mistake, we believe we’ve created something even better.”
Grerion rested his chin on his hand, and this time the Senior Instructor spoke.
“Simon. For you to claim it’s a better result—this specimen appears markedly deficient in mobility. I’d argue that a chimera made from the scorpion alone would outperform this, without the need to blend in a bletho at all.”
The other students nodded in agreement, and Simon broke into a grin.
“Rather than explain, let me show you.”
Grerion’s Cave already had various set pieces prepared, including tanks for aquatic undead creatures.
Simon moved the undead to a sandy-floored set, then commanded it through telepathy.
“Burrow.”
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The chimera dug furiously with its front leg claws, burrowing completely out of sight in moments.
“Please imagine this as prey.”
The moment Lorain set the target on the ground, a piercing crack erupted from below—the tail bone shot up and punched straight through the center of the target.
The crowd gasped.
Exclamations erupted from various corners of the arena.
Watching the long tail bone trembling beneath the ground, Grerion chuckled, rubbing his chin.
“Indeed, they’ve built the concept around an ambush-type summon.”
Lorain tossed a ball into the air this time, and the tail bone struck it with precision. Both power and speed were impressive.
That was when Aseraz raised his hand and stepped forward.
“I have a question for Group 10.”
At Kizen, free discussion and questions among students were permitted during evaluations.
“Moving the tail bone is something a scorpion could handle well enough. I don’t understand why you felt the need to mix in a whip scorpion. Is the whip scorpion merely to dig quickly through earth with its front legs? Or is it simply to satisfy the formal requirements of the practical assessment by mixing two types of undead?”
It was a rather aggressive question, clearly intended to belittle.
Eshu stepped forward with a stung expression, but Simon blocked her path and spoke calmly.
“Questioner.”
“Yes.”
“Your understanding of materials is insufficient.”
Oooooh~
Spectators throughout the arena whistled with fascination, and Aseraz’s brow twitched.
“Do you know how scorpions hunt?”
“What does that have to do with making an undead chimera…”
“A scorpion’s tail is covered in tough chitin, and its primary prey—small desert monsters—can be hunted with nothing but a lashing of that tail. More importantly—”
Simon conjured a thin thread of the Dark Element from his fingertips, letting it drape like a drop of water.
“A scorpion has venom in life. So its hunting method consists of either making a small wound with its tail to inject poison, or using brute force to ‘strike’ small monsters unconscious—that’s all. But after becoming undead? Only bone remains. No venom, no brute force. The tail-lashing hunt of a living scorpion no longer works.”
Aseraz had fallen into the error of assuming that hunting methods would remain identical before and after undeath.
Having gained the upper hand, Simon stepped forward.
“This is why we used a whip scorpion for the two skulls, and the mental link is also from the whip scorpion. In life, a whip scorpion succeeds in hunting only by precisely ‘piercing’ a monster’s neck with the spine on its tail, and that sensory acuity remains. Give it a long tail, and it pierces its target like a fish taking to water.”
The students’ eyes turned toward Grerion.
Grerion nodded.
“Simon is right. The hunting methods of undead are strongly influenced by their living nature.”
Even with Grerion’s acknowledgment, Aseraz withdrew, biting his lip with clear frustration.
More questions followed in quick succession, but Group 10 parried them all with ease.
“Enough.”
Grerion rose from his seat.
“That undead showed excellent practical utility! But what impressed me most about it was—”
He turned to address the students.
“The honest acknowledgment of error.”
The arena fell silent.
“Necromancers are obsessed with the fear of mistakes. A flaw in a magic circle leads to explosions and safety hazards; placing bone incorrectly in a summon produces something warped. Even professors are strict about error. But!”
His voice grew louder.
“Chimera crafting is different. Make mistakes. Make many mistakes. Someone forgot to add powder to a cake and created the world’s most famous dessert; a musician played a few wrong notes and got a better result. Such stories are legendary.”
He swung his heavy arm in a broad arc.
“Mistakes are fine, only don’t give up! A mistake isn’t a failure but a fork in the road to something new—accept it with a clear laugh!”
“Yes, Professor!”
He turned to the students again.
“Now, gather! I’ll announce the grades!”
The students shuffled into line. Aseraz watched Simon from the side, his eyes wary.
“You turned that insult around well. But what about the results?”
Simon smiled gently.
“Your harpy chimera. Impressive work.”
“Confident, aren’t we.”
That was when Grerion picked up his folder of papers.
“Then, I’ll announce the highest grade first!”

* * *
At the same moment, in Neftis’s Office.
“Ugh! The Grand Duke still won’t take my calls today!”
Neftis sat in her chair, swinging her short legs in frustration.
“This is awful! He’s the worst!”
Vice Chancellor Jane, accustomed to such displays from her superior, set down the stack of documents expressionlessly.
“You mean the Grand Duke who commands the 2nd Legion, I presume.”
“That’s the one!”
“Northern Kalos, which the Grand Duke governs, is a place where blizzards make crystal communication difficult year-round. I believe some understanding is warranted.”
“No! No!”
Neftis threw a tantrum.
“The Grand Duke is clearly refusing on purpose! This is unfair! I didn’t even ask for anything that difficult!”
Jane sighed at her words.
“So that’s the reason. Though I’m not entirely sure what you asked for.”
“I cherished him so dearly when he was just a little thing!”
“It’s ancient history he probably doesn’t even remember.”
Thump.
Neftis slumped across the desk, pouting and puffing out her cheeks.
“Fine, so he’s going to keep acting like this? Well, I have plans too!”
Jane shook her head slowly.
“I would prefer we avoid making another Legion Commander into an enemy on top of Magnus.”
“An enemy? What are you talking about!”
Neftis began writing out a letter with her quill pen, her movements sharp and decisive.
“Now that it’s come to this, I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse!”

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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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