Unlike the first two floors, the third floor had two guards standing outside. Each wore golden enchanted armor and weapons. Each had been trained in magical combat. Neither looked happy to see me. As I stepped forward neither of them stepped to block me. Each had memorized the faces and names of all the students in the school despite the hundreds of students currently enrolled in the school.
The school’s library held some of the most truly supreme divine abilities of our world. The books on the top floor went beyond ordinary. The Freak College was the oldest school of magic in the world and over time they had amassed a lot of knowledge. Amongst the most precious books the school owned, the rarest and most powerful were housed on the top floor and the knowledge within them was not casually taught to students. The power of the knowledge within these books filled me with a blazing fire. I scanned the bookshelves until I found the necromancer section.
Around the walls of the top floor stood several guards. They were also wearing enchanted armor except their armor was silver instead of gold. The guards outside were veteran fighters meant to protect the library’s most precious knowledge from people. The guards inside were younger and were meant to protect people from the library’s precious knowledge.
I kept my guard up at all times as I entered the third floor. Amongst the ceiling were several books flapping around. They dove and glided around in different aerial displays. Every so often I had to duck as a book would glide down and try to take a bite out of me. If you looked closely you could see several of the books had tiny fangs on them and those things were sharp! I rubbed my neck at the spot I had once been bitten by a book. It had been my first time visiting the top floor of the library.
The library was old and the magic was exceptionally concentrated on the top floor. The concentration of magic was so high at times it had unforeseen consequences.
I looked at the title of the books and sighed. Just looking at a single shelf from a single bookcase was enough to make me shake my head. Just the books from this one shelf in front of me would be considered precious treasures in some of the smaller schools of magic. Just these few books could be used as a corner stone to start one’s own school of magic and here they were left out for any student to read. This truly was the greatest school of magic. It was the reason I had decided to attend this school.
There were more things than just books here. Knowledge had been recorded in all kinds of ways. One shelf held several different colored gems. Most of the gems were red rubies, blue sapphires, or green emeralds. If one held them they could have all the knowledge contained within the gems instantly inscribed into their mind, knowledge that could never be forgotten. These were actually forbidden to students and were a perk for teachers only.
Another shelf contained what appeared to be green jade fortune cookies. These were a rather strange treasure the school had found a long time ago. Occasionally slips of paper would appear within these jade fortune cookies offering knowledge. On rare occasions profound spells and even secret fighting arts would appear on the slips of paper inside the jade fortune cookies. Most of the time though the slips of paper contained rude suggestions instead of helpful knowledge.
A jade fortune cookie once offered me a slip that said, ‘You need to lose some weight.’ Unfortunately, the jade fortune cookies are almost indestructible and won’t break, despite how many times you jump up and down on them. Eventually a guard in silver armor had to drag me away from the offending item.
After finding a few books that interested me I placed them down on the nearest table and proceeded to sit down and read. A calming sensation overcame my senses and made it easier for me to focus.
Once again the uniqueness of the Freak College’s library shined through. The table, like all the tables in the library, had runes carved into it, most carved on the bottom of the table. Along the corner of the chair I was sitting in were carved runes to help to clear the mind and some to help focus it. Hidden in the library on bookshelves and in corners and along the top of the walls next to the ceiling were hidden runes. These runes were all connected in a grand formation that would help to improve the memory of those studying here along with several other beneficial effects.
I took out a pen and a few sheets of paper, just in case I needed to take any notes. The first book I looked at was Army of the Dead – Fourth Edition. The book had a simple introduction and was split into thirteen chapters, each concerning the animated dead proceeding from the simplest to create to the most complicated. I skimmed through the book briefly before focusing on the chapter on skeletons.
I read over the skeleton section multiple times while occasionally pausing to take notes on it. Then I opened another book, Supreme Skeleton Creation. After reading the first half of the book, I felt my brain hurting. The difference between a skeleton archer and a skeleton mage was huge. I could easily create a skeleton archer, but a skeleton mage might be more than I could handle. All I could do was try. I made a few notes on a list of ingredients and items I would need.
I spent the next day gathering all the materials. I didn’t have to kill anyone to get a skeleton, since the school had thousands in storage. Our school really had skeletons in their closet. I bought distilled essence of souls to animate my skeleton. I also spent a large amount of money to buy a blue Sea Sapphire that had spent centuries at the bottom of the sea. A master of magical jewels had carefully carved the jewel and soaked it in special potions to increase its power.
Most people would outfit their skeleton with armor, according to the books. I had spent so much money on the jewel and soul essence I had little money left. I did have enough to buy it some blue robes that had a low level enchantment to increase resistance to impact and a cheap wooden staff that I could carve a few runes into. I also included a small non-magical dagger in case my skeleton had to fight in close combat.
I spent my third day etching complex runes all over the skeleton. Most of them I didn’t fully understand because of their complexity, but I was able to follow the instructions in my book. Runes were similar to a programming code in that they told the magic what to do. Paths also had to be carved to join certain runes in specific ways, which reminded me of computer chips. Quartz gems had to be imbedded into the skeleton to absorb mana from the air. Many of the tiny gems acted like capacitors, storing magic inside of themselves.
For some things I followed the traditional method, using an enchanted knife to carve the runes into my skeleton’s bones. For the more delicate work, I used a high powered laser and special magnification goggles. The school had a small laser lab that students were allowed to use for school projects. I also used the lab to make tiny grooves in the bones that connected everything.
After carving, I poured molten gold into the most important pathways. Gold was an amazing conductor of magic and would allow my skeleton mage to channel larger amounts of magic and also increase its speed. I soaked the skeleton’s bones in the soul essence with a few herbs and minerals added in that would harden its bones, giving it higher defense capabilities. With some difficulty, I embedded the Sea Sapphire into my skeleton’s forehead to increase its magical senses.
The final step was something I had created on my own. It was something I had been thinking about before I even knew about this project. I had my parents send me a small diamond that had come from an old ring of the family. The band of the ring had become so worn away it had eventually broken. I held the tiny diamond in my hand and poured as much death qi into it as I could. Then I placed it down on a table while I created hand seals with my hands. At the same time I said several words of power making sure not to blink even for a second. Strange symbols that were a combination of my knowledge of alchemy and formations appeared inside the ring. Once it turned black I embedded the diamond on the inside of the skull, on the opposite side of the bone from where the Sea Sapphire was embedded. An evil grin appeared on my face as I finished incorporating the diamond into my skeleton.
Chapter 11
I was all fir
ed up for finals. After I took my first final, I already knew I had a perfect score. After my second final, I knew I had aced it as well. I was on fire.
For the third final things were far more interesting. Bob had also created a skeleton. From the bow it was carrying and the quiver on its back full of arrows I assumed it was an archer. The bow and arrows appeared to be made of a black metal. They looked powerful. Luckily Ms. Olga was able to see Bob’s skeleton archer before he freaked out from all the zombies the other students had made. Even though he ran from the room screaming, Ms. Olga still gave him a passing grade.
“He screams more like a girl than I do,” mumbled Nyxra.
The other students had all chosen to create zombies. Nyxra had gone outside of the box and had a muscular four armed troll zombie. I was a little impressed. It looked fierce and was very large. Its head was brushing the top of the ceiling. I couldn’t tell whether she had sewn on the additional troll arms or if the creature had actually been a four armed troll, something I highly doubted.
Ms. Olga approached me. “Well?”
I placed a ring on the table in front of me. It was made of bone and had a small bone skull on it with a tiny blue gem embedded on its forehead. She raised one eyebrow. I was rather impressed by the effect, I would have to practice that in the mirror in the future. Placing the ring on my finger it began to glow. In a flash of blue light the ring disappeared and a skeleton mage appeared standing next to the table.
“I decided to make it portable,” I told her. Judging from the look of surprise that quickly turned into a smile I knew I was getting another A+. The Sea Sapphire was glowing blue in the middle of my skeleton mage making it look powerful and mysterious. At the end of class, Nyxra and Bob gathered around me and demanded I show them how to do the same thing. I was more than happy to teach them.
Chapter 12
It was finally our last class, demonology. This was the last class I needed to pass. Nyxra was already using the blood I had given her to draw a pentagram onto the cement slab used for summoning. Some teams decided to use the ground instead. The symbols that Nyxra was painting on the cement were strange and complex. I was completely lost and it showed on my face.
Nyxra’s cat was currently examining the pentagram and symbols and noticed my confusion.
“Meow meooow.”
“What do you mean I’m slow in the head?”
Those symbols were complex.
“Meow, meeeow meow me’meow.”
I could somehow understand every word the cat was saying and they were all insults towards me. For a cat she had an impressive vocabulary.
“Well…your mom.” I was currently losing in an argument with a cat. A rather annoying and particularly cruel cat. I wasn’t surprised at all she was a demonic familiar.
I hoped my familiar was nothing like the cat.
As Nyxra continued to draw the symbols, the air above the pentagram started to shimmer like the air above asphalt on a hot summer day.
“How is it going?” I asked her.
“This spell is reaching across dimensions to find a creature that is a reflection of your very soul. Then an unbreakable bond is created to forever bind the two of you. The calculations to make this spell work are mind boggling to say the least.” She grinned over at me, then continued to add symbols, redrawing a few, even smearing out a few entirely. I stood there with no clue what she was doing.
I started to doubt my own intelligence. I thought I was smart. I thought I was good at magic. I didn’t understand anything Nyxra was doing. I looked over to Bob and he appeared to be doing most of the work for his team himself. His partner appeared to be as lost as I was and Bob appeared to be a slightly lost than I was. I was more worried about Bob than I was myself. As long as I had Nyxra I knew I would be fine.
The third team seemed to be doing fine, except they weren’t using blood like the rest of us. Their pentagram seemed to be very similar to the one Chaz had used in his demonstration. Their summoning would be far less complex than ours, but if we couldn’t make it work then the tried and true method would defiantly get a higher grade than us as long as it worked.
Of the three teams, we were the first to activate our pentagram. Nyxra has done a wonderful job on it. I was still unable to understand most of the symbols. Despite studying several summoning and demonology books, I didn’t recognize the symbols at all, but you can’t argue with results.
A blue rope shot from the center of the circle and embedded itself into the middle of my heart. It was painful, but an invigorating experience. The rope shortened and I could feel a tugging on the other end of the rope. I grasped the blue energy rope and pulled, feeling like I was fishing. It was a strange experience to say the least.
A bright light filled the air and I was blinded, but I never stopped pulling on the rope. When the light died down a small creature was standing where the pentagram had been a minute ago. The rope vanished now that its purpose had been fulfilled.
It was solid black, except for its brown eyebrows. It was a tiny dog that couldn’t have weighed more than a pound. It appeared to be more fur than dog. A tiny fluff ball, it looked up at me with its tongue hanging out and a smile on its face. Its large black eyes made it almost too cute to look at.
I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I couldn’t see how this creature would be any help to me. It was even smaller than the cat, by a lot. The dog had a happy look on its face as its tongue hung out of his mouth, but it didn’t look like the brightest animal. He looked a lot like a tiny Pomeranian.
The dog decided to stand beside me. I had to admit he was rather cute. I reached down and picked him up and held him in my arms. I could easily pick him up with one hand. I was already growing attached to him.
One of the other team’s pentagrams flickered and died out. I already knew they had failed. The only remaining team was Bob’s team and currently his circle was flickering between glowing red and glowing purple. Every so often it would also flicker yellow. The light eventually stopped on the color red and then became much brighter. We were all blinded by the brightness of the light. A loud explosion shook the ground. Chunks of dirt flew everywhere. The tiny dog in my hands continued to smile as if it was oblivious to everything.
“What happened?!?!” yelled Chaz. My ears were still ringing from the blast and I was coughing from all the dust in the air, but I could still hear Chaz. He was yelling rather loudly. I noticed Bob staggering out of a newly formed pit, coughing as he limped along. He appeared to be fine.
“It was Bob’s blood, so he is the one to blame,” said one of the students.
“Yep, Bob’s blood, and he was the one that drew the pentagram, so it definitely was Bob’s fault,” said another student.
Everyone agreed it had to be Bob’s fault. Everyone was in agreement, especially Bob’s teammate. I caught myself before I could nod. I didn’t want Bob to get into trouble. I wished there was something I could do.
The big black eyes of the tiny dog in my arms began to glow red.
[Charm]
I could feel a strange power coming from the dog in my arms.
“Look at the cute doggy! He is so cute! Wait. What? I was just talking about…. Something… Something to do with something…” said Chaz.
“You were saying the entire class passed and you were so proud of us,” I replied quickly and crossed my fingers.
[Charm]
“Oh, yes…I think. Congrats class! I’m so proud of all of you!”
I looked down at the dog in my arms and realized this was the start of a beautiful relationship.
Chapter 13
I’ve never seen a dog get as much attention as this one. I decided to name him Crowley and he was a rather interesting dog. Everywhere I went every female wanted to pet him. Never had I ever been swarmed with so many beautiful women in my life. I was fortunate to only have recently acquired Crowley. If I had him when I was younger my mother might already have the grandchildren she wanted so badly.
/> The dog loved the attention more than I did. He walked around on his back legs and rolled over for tummy rubs. The girls went wild. The dog had more game than I did. It was a little embarrassing. I decided to carry the little fur ball around with me. Usually he liked to lay on my shoulder and look around. He was always interested in everything that was going on.
The next week we all had off to recover from finals. I took Crowley on several walks to try to burn off some of his energy. It didn’t seem to be working. The grades for all our classes were posted and we all managed to pass. Even Nyxra, though I have no idea how, considering she had only joined our classes a few weeks ago.
I was forced by Bob and Nyxra to show them how to turn their undead servants into accessories. Nyxra also decided to turn hers into a black ring. Bob turned his into a pendant. The three of us spent our free time together and we enjoyed every minute of it. I would often sneak out of school to take Nyxra on dates.
On our last free night, the moon was full and the magic in the air was humming in anticipation. Even the universe seemed to know something was up. The summoning field had been trashed thanks to all the dimensional energies released during our finals. The fabric of reality in that area had actually been weakening for centuries. The finals had only further weakened the dimensional walls, just enough for someone on the other side to reach across. To grasp this world and bridge the gap between here and there. We were the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
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