Quill started back towards the room. The suns were high over the hall windows, and the third test was going to start soon. Rognor and Narrah were following close behind him, talking about the possibilities of the upcoming practical exam, but his mind was wandering elsewhere.

  He grit his teeth. He recalled what the golden elf had said earlier in the foodhall. ‘My mouth is shut.’ Maybe she meant that she had no plans of going to the City Watch, keeping the events of that night under cover.

  But why would she?

  Quill didn't understand the reason for it, and the more he thought about it, the more it didn't make sense from her perspective.

  The golden elf should’ve loathed him for what happened. The scar on her neck was a permanent reminder of his anger towards her. He could see the daggers in her eyes before, and there was no doubt that the same feeling was burning in her chest now. She didn't seem like she was lying about keeping his identity a secret. The whole encounter was just… odd.

  Quill sighed before stopping in the classroom. He pushed the door with a click, finding the rest of the Group A Initiates turning to him before whispers started to regulate over the tables. He was starting to remember the cogs of social hierarchy, and it seemed like he had caught the bad side of many nobles here. Most of them were ramblings of jealousy.

  Quill brushed it off before pulling himself a seat in the back. Narrah and Rognor followed, taking the two seats to his flanks. Narrah flashed him a smile while Rognor nodded with a timid bow.

  Quill could only return the gesture before the overseer arrived, commanding silence to the remaining Initiates in the room.

  Just like before, their numbers had halved once again.

  There was only a quarter of mages left coming from the second test, and this third one was going to shave even more of them. It was a brutal filtering separating the better, the good, and the bad, and Quill could only hope Narrah and Rognor were up to the task.

  The overseer then gave the instructions for the third test. It was simple. All the mages here needed to learn the Simple Spell ‘Manalight’ before the timer ran out. It was a spell that converted the energy of mana into light, the color of the light taking on the hue of the mana’s Aspect and nature.

  But a handful of the examinees had already learned Manalight. Around three of them cast the spell on their index, drowning the room in Orange, Yellow, and Purple lights. Because of that, they were given luck’s favor and permitted to leave early, while the rest of the mages were left in the room to build the spell.

  When the clock struck one, the overseer nodded for the test to start. Initiates started writing Scripts in the air.

  Quill remembered the time he was in the tunnels. He had forgotten to add Manalight to his arsenal of spells after that, overcome with the excitement of acquiring the Ghoulshroom Cores to advance his Core, but it was a far stretch to say that he would have a hard time learning Manalight here.

  The Scripts for Manalight had the same base as the spell Manaball, but instead of writing ‘movement’ and ‘direction’ Scripts, he had to use the symbol for ‘fuel’ instead to turn the mana into a resource that could burn. One by one, Quill constructed the Scripts in the air before then adding value Scripts that signified the rate of consumption and strength of light.

  The hard part here was the construction of the Scripts. He could recall from memory the Scripts of Manalight using the Black Aspect, but he had to remember that White Scripts were a different beast entirely. He ordered and reordered the Scripts in front of him, changing values and exchanging similar Scripts for others before he arrived at the final form.

  The Scripts shimmered before pulling mana to his index finger, creating an energy ball of mana that glowed a beautiful white. It drowned the entire classroom in its color, catching the eyes of the others before he then snuffed it out by severing the Mana Link.

  It didn't take him an hour before he was able to recreate Manalight.

  “Hey, he’s already got it.” One of the Initiates murmured.

  “Shut up, man, I’m trying to focus!”

  The overseer nodded, permitting him to leave. Quill nodded in turn before twisting and starting for the door.

  He then stopped with a thought. He turned again before he muttered a hint to Narrah and Rognor, barely a whisper hiding under the overseer's nose. He didn't have any obligation to help them, but their company wasn't the worst, and if they could understand what he meant with the hint, then they might have a chance at this academy.

  “Nothing left to do for another hour again.” Quill sighed before he followed the hallway out, leading him to the same garden from before. He grazed his hand over the shrubs and flowers in utter boredom before he dropped to the edge of the fountain. Rhena was still nowhere to be seen.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Fenith Cranfeather.” A low voice called to him behind the fountain. It was Kael, the human mage, who ran this academy, and the man he’d given the scar on the cheek.

  “What is it?” Quill coughed. It was strange talking to someone from his past life, but Kael wouldn't have known that the man in front of him was the Night Lich. From his perspective, he was just like any other Initiate mage enrolling for the academy.

  “You have a warrant from the City Watch.” He said. The Meldhide Cloak wasn't doing a good enough job of securing his information against stronger mages. “Care to explain why you have criminal charges against the City Watch?”

  Quill tensed his fingers. “They’re not real.”

  “And why would I believe you?”

  “Because you can read thoughts.” Quill said. Kael had magic capable of peering right into people’s heads, a result of his mastery over the Purple Aspect through the years. It wasn't a widely known thing about his magic, but he’d already experienced it enough times to know.

  “How… do you know that?” Kael said, his eyes turning dark as if he was threatening him, before a titter then escaped his mouth. “Forgive me. It’s a bit crude to talk about something so dark in such good weather. Let's talk about something else.”

  He plopped right beside him on the fountain.

  “It seems you’ve been doing great so far.” Kael sat beside Quill, his human ears a weird outlier from the usual elves in the city. “Are the examinations not hard enough?”

  “No mage would call this academy prestigious if it wasn't,” Quill said. “It's hard for the other Initiates, at least.”

  “But it's easy for you.”

  “Maybe.”

  Quill’s eyes drifted to the ugly botch of a scar on Kael’s cheek. That was a result of his Necrotic Blast long ago, back when he had crossed paths with Kael and fought for the last time, but looking at it now, it seemed to have healed well enough.

  There was no use trying to lie to this mage, and so the next best thing was to sprinkle necessary half-truths. If Kael cast his Mind Door spell in this very instant, then he would know that the Night Lich was sitting right in front of him. Quill had to prevent that from happening.

  “Haref must’ve been hard on you,” Kael said. “I’ve heard the former Chancellor was a strict professor before my time.”

  “I wouldn't know about it,” Quill said. “He hasn't taught me once. I’ve been studying by myself all this time.”

  Kael blinked before he then smiled. “You remind me of someone I used to know.”

  Quill swallowed. He didn't have friends even way back as a human, but if he were to be forced into saying a name that was closest to that definition, then it probably would've been Kael. He was a mage sent by the Circle of Mages to kill him when he was a lich, but before that, he was a mage who healed his mother’s deteriorating sanity.

  Quill was a woodcarver then, carving and selling quaint figurines for enough money to live by. It was a simple life, and if you were to ask him then, he was okay with that. But the growing sickness of his mother couldn't be healed from just any normal visit to the doctor, and with no other means, he was forced to beg the mages from the guilds.

  No one was willing to help. They turned their backs on him, not having enough money for his problem to be worth a mage’s time. And then he met Kael. Like before, he groveled to him and begged for help, and that was when he knew Kael was different. He’d agreed to heal his mother, and that was when the wonders of magic had taken over Quill's mind.

  Quill decided then to start following the path of magic. It was all because of Kael that he had grown to become a necromancer, a lich, and it was because of him that he was here now.

  “Have you heard of the Rotten Scourge?” Kael scratched the scar on his cheek. “Better yet, have you heard of the Night Lich?”

  “I… have.” Quill swallowed again. “I heard he was a strong necromancer.”

  “Of course he is,” Kael said. “The Circle made me run in circles trying to catch that stupid son of a bitch. And get this: when I finally found him, I was surprised to find out that the commander of the Rotten Scourge, the Night Lich, was a past friend of mine.”

  “A friend?” Quill said.

  “This scar is proof of what happened.”

  “And what did you think to yourself then?”

  Kael sighed. “He was a good man, you know. Sad to say, he had gone mad with forbidden magic.”

  Quill blinked before he then burst out laughing. All this time, the whole world had thought of him as some crazy lunatic, someone who had been corrupted by the so-called forbidden magic of necromancy.

  It couldn't have been further from the truth. Quill was as rational as any man, and the only thing that was different was his passion for magic. It was only because of his Black Aspect that he’d taken up undead raising in the first place, and on that alone, he was condemned to a lifetime of isolation.

  All he ever wanted was to pursue creation through the lens of magic. In the same way his hands created life through his wooden figurines, his necromancy created life through skeletons and ghouls. But he was ostracized for it. Maybe it wasn't Pormor that killed him, nor was it the Circle that sent out the order in the first place.

  It was the world that killed him.

  On that note, Quill didn't know what to make of it.

  “This was a fun talk.” Kael pushed off before he then waved him goodbye. “I’ll call for you on a later date to settle the case with the City Watch.”

  Quill watched him disappear into the castle. Kael was a good mage, but in the end, he never really understood what drove Quill's passion for magic. Quill could only rely on himself for that.

  Mages began to pour out of the castle, calling for the others to go back to the courtyard for the fourth and final test. When Quill stood up to follow the crowd, he found Narrah and Rognor standing over the entrance, calling to him.

  The look on their faces was all the answer Quill needed. They passed the third test, and now there was only one left.

  Thanks for reading!