Saintess Summons Skeletons

Is this it?

Oh…

“I managed to connect to it…” Sofia told Eternam while her vision was of the other side of the door. “It’s… very blurry. I think the person waiting is Miss Beryl. Or an Exidian woman at least.”

“Likely to be her. Pull back, and let me check,” Eternam said.

Sofia severed her connection to the skull. Eternam instantly connected back to it. Sofia saw his eyes glaze over and he confirmed Sofia’s guess, “Hi Berry! Coming to visit an old friend, yes? Finally going to hand back my book?” He paused for a second. “That was her, yes. Fast learner, this one.” He paused again. “Of course, give me a second.”

The shade maid started working on unlocking the door, while Eternam severed his connection to the talking skull. Immediately he addressed Sofia again, “Quite good for a first try. The blurriness is a result of an unsteady connection, you have to focus on maintaining a constant flow of mana, it should be easy to get with a bit of practice.”

“Makes sense… I’m more used to sending commands as packets of mana to the skeletons, not maintaining a steady link. In the case with Pareth he’s always been the one creating the connection, or the skill was, at least.”

“That is simply a matter of using a different tool, you will get used to it. If you need to control hundreds of skeletons simultaneously in the future, this would also be a more efficient way to coordinate their actions while keeping track of their status…”

It seemed Eternam had more to say but he was interrupted by Beryl’s entrance. She was holding a stack of paper folders as she approached. After a simple greeting, she handed one of the thinner folders of the stack to Eternam and the thinnest one to Sofia, leaving her with around twenty more on her arms.

“These are your mandatory students for the year,” she explained, “As the Headmaster explained, you only have five of them to take care of, Sofia. Although more may join for an appropriate price, at your discretion. Ether, everyone from last year signed up again except for the graduates, and you have four more, a first year kid from the elves and two fifth year students who are also in Sofia’s class. Last is a human alchemist on temp enrollment.”

Alith? Of course she’d sign up with the necromancy and alchemy teacher. This whole teacher thing feels a lot more serious suddenly.

“Five students for Eltiel’s class, ever the unpopular subject,” Eternam commented, downcast.

Beryl shook her head, “This year is quite something, there are two top students in the lot, I expect a lot more kids to pick a summoning class in the coming years. Be ready for an influx of new heads.”

“More necromancers would be appreciated,” Eternam acquiesced.

“Well, that’s it for me,” Beryl announced, “A lot more to do before the opening ceremony, be nice to the new teachers Ether,” she sarcastically joked while she realigned the stack of folders in her arms.

“I’m alway nice.”

“I never said you weren’t,” Beryl deadpanned, before turning around to leave, she smiled at Sofia, “Nice outfit. You look a lot better like this.”

“T- thanks.”

Beryl left.

“She’s a lot friendlier with you around,” Sofia commented to break the silence.

Eternam laughed in a series of short caws. “Berry and I are both like that, yes. A bit cold on the outside, perhaps, but dare I say friendly people. Although some students call me a grumpy old bird, and admittedly they are not wrong. But the ones one should be scared of are the exact opposite. The people with a friendly front but a heart cold as ice, like the Empress,“ he said with a shiver.

“Is it fine to say this?” Badmouthing royalty is usually a severe crime…

“Oh, she knows perfectly well what I think of her. If you ever have to deal with that two-faced vixen, you better keep your wits about you,” Eternam advised, dead serious.

After a bit more casual necromancy chatter, Sofia returned to her room. Throwing herself on her bed, she opened the paper folder. There were five pages in there, one for each of her students.

Let’s see what we’ve got.

Lots of useless information… The top frame is the only really interesting one.

‘Name : Erian ProudWall

Fifth year student / Male

Exidian - 16 years old - Orichalcum ID

Nobility : First Son of Duke ProudWall

Tuition fee : Paid in full

Class : [Invoker]

Average grade : S’

Alright, Exidian noble, Invoker… Whenever the system uses the word invoke it’s always for temporary summons, usually not live ones. The spine and heal undead had it I think.

[Spine of the Black Sun]: Invokes the weapon ‘Spine of the Black Sun’.

Yeah. So maybe he summons weapons? Can’t be that simple or he wouldn’t be taking my classes. Probably not intelligent summons either way. A rich kid but that’s probably going to be most of them considering the kind of place this is. S grades. I guess they’re also using the system’s grading notation. Do they also use the pluses and minuses?

Sofia checked the ‘average grade’ of the next page.

A minus, yeah they do use those then. I wonder how you even decide that. Do I get a guide on what and how to assign a grade? I might have to go ask more things to Beryl, or to… Let’s quickly get through these and I’ll go check if Astelia and Zerei are in their rooms.

‘Name : Guerand

Fifth year student / Male

Dwarf - 16 years old - Copper ID

Nobility : No

Tuition fee : Student Debt to the Academy

Class : [Golemancer]

Average grade : A-’

Dwarf… Student debt? They teach them first and expect to be paid for it later? Interesting. I guess that’s alright if you think they’re promising. Golemancer… Golems are nice. Kind of like the graveyard skeletons, very dumb, basically puppets. At least they’re completely obedient like skeletons.

Skeletons are superior, but out of all the summon categories I know of, golems are a close second.

Sofia actually knew a few things about other summoning classes, courtesy of one of the very first books she had been given to read while she was a prisoner in the Holy See : ‘Intricacies of summonings’.

Next is… Damn, S+ and sponsored directly by the empire. She must be really talented.

‘Name : Shaily

Fifth year student / Female

Exidian - 16 years old - Silver ID

Nobility : No

Tuition fee : Empire-sponsored Scholarship

Class : [Sprite Caller]

Average grade : S+’

Sprite caller? I know sprites but I never heard of this class.

It’s referring to the natural elemental souls, right? Never seen one but from the description they should look like… Small angel ghosts?

I really need to do more research on angels and archangels. I’m starting to think the system didn’t invent anything. Maybe one of the admins was a sprite? They’re supposed to be about as smart as a young child, so probably not.

Maybe sprites have a skeleton?

I’m looking forward to meeting this one. Next is… Uh. Odon?

‘Name : En

Fifth year student / Female

Odon - 15 years old - Gold ID

Nobility : Third Odon Princess

Tuition fee : Student Exchange

Class : [Totemist]

Average grade : A+’

An actual Princess. But what’s an Odon? Another race I’ve never heard about at all… Did they forget half of her name? ‘En’ seems a bit short. Then again I sometimes call Alith Al, so En is fine I guess.

I know totems are enchanted pillars, but I didn’t know totemist was a class. Makes sense that it is, I guess. This one will probably want to take Zerei’s lessons too.

“And the last student…”

‘Name : Lola ElderPlain

Fifth year student / Female

Exidian - 16 years old - Gold ID

Nobility : Fifth Daughter of Marchioness ElderPlain

Tuition fee : Paid in full

Class : [Spiritist]

Average grade : B+’

Another Exidian nobility. Worst grade of the lot. Spiritist… Summon ghosts? That has crazy potential. Direct soul attacks can be hard to defend against, even though the mark of Aphenoreth makes me immune. They also can’t be damaged by physical attacks, and are mostly invisible depending on the kind.

This one should probably invest on defensive capabilities and let her summons do all the attacking, since they won’t be able to do anything to defend her. This is quite necromancy adjacent, so I guess she’s one of the two students of mine who also take Eternam’s classes.

Who may the second one be? The Golemancer? After all nothing stops you from making a bone golem and that’s pretty much just necromancy with extra steps. I’ll just ask them when I have class.

Speaking of which, I should start planning my lessons already, shouldn’t I? Or can I just wing it? I probably could but considering what I’m being paid…

Using her wings as leverage, Sofia sprang up from her bed.

“Let’s just go check on Astelia first.”