Rino returned to the farmhouse and saw his magic teacher huddled over the small kitchen countertop with a little clay cup and some linen cloth.

"What are you doing?"

There was a sharp smell in the air that Rino was unfamiliar with.

"Your food was insipid. Apart from the natural forest herbs, there wasn't anything else. I'm just experimenting with some flavour enhancing ingredients. At the same time, I thought you might appreciate some ink to accompany the paper production house you're making."

The flavour enhancing ingredient turned out to be vinegar. From his knowledge, it takes a long time to create vinegar because vinegar was the end product of the long fermentation process. Most people only made vinegar out of wine in his previous world only when the wine or beer was left out for too long.

He spent a day away putting his newly learned dark magic to use, but Kragami already fitted right in with the crowd.

"Who told you about it?" Rino glanced over the necromancer's shoulder.

No wonder he was able to create vinegar in just a few hours! Living as a necromancer in a dreary swamp gave Kragami the knowledge he needed about decomposition. Fermentation was a process similar to that. His teacher was using dark magic to create a time acceleration chamber that Rino wanted to learn. Imagine using that time acceleration chamber to finish his daily quests with extra time to slack and nap!

Kragami did not answer Rino immediately. If anything, he was utterly focused on the task. Rino watched the yellowish liquid bubble and change in colour as the smell became stronger. The liquid sample looked like beer in a clay cup, but Rino did not remember having anything that made beer.

"What is this? I don't recall seeing any brewery in the area for beer."

Kragami smirked. "You have plenty of it lying around in your granary. Fronzo said I could have as many as I wanted, so I took one to make some beer. It tasted strange, but Fowler liked it. It's not difficult to get that lesser vampire talking when he gets drunk. The rest of it, I'm making an experimental batch of vinegar for ink."

That would explain a lot. Rino made a mental note to forbid drinking. At the very least, those on duty shouldn't drink. It would be terrible to see many of his subordinates act like Fowler if they drank and sold the empire's secrets.

The vinegar was completed, and Rino saw how his magic teacher poured the liquid into a little glass bottle. Rino did not remember having the expertise to create glass yet, and while the glass bottle was clumsily crafted, it was very useful for storing spices. The vinegar bottle was sealed and set aside with the other seasoning glass bottles on the shelf that Rino made. It was finally out to good use, but Rino could not help but wonder what those seasonings were.

"That's salt. I cannot believe you did not have salt! Humans need salt to survive, and while the majority of the people here don't need this stuff, it's a different story for those who are still alive."

It turned out that the food Rino thought was tasty was still considered lacking to Kragami. Even the ladies who cooked had a lot to learn from this fussy old magician. Noir would get along with his teacher. Rino was sure of it.

"Did you practise the basic spells?" Kragami asked as he walked out to admire the magical night scenery of wisps and undead working in the fields.

Rino nodded. "Would you like to take a short trip to see the renovations in the swamp?"

Kragami chuckled. He knew that Rino was busy, so he did not bother the lich. Fowler was great company, even if he was slightly dumb with a mountain of useless pride. If Fowler did not offer to help him hunt a bird for his quill, Kragami would have left the hunter's company a lot sooner to check on his student.

Rino's ambition to make paper only told Kragami that his student had to be some kind of scholar before becoming a lich. In this world, only scholars and cartographers liked papers. For everyone else, that thing is a useless commodity that does nothing. Most folks don't read, and even magicians use parchments because it was cheaper and more easily available.

With his teacher leading the way, Rino did not know why they were here at the kiln. The hardworking fire pixie that Rino recognised as that determined wisp greeted them enthusiastically.

"Hello again," Kragami smiled. "Do you have what I asked for earlier?"

The pixie blushed, and Rino could not help but feel that something was up between this young fae and old necromancer. However, he didn't care. It was none of his business, and neither was it hindering his goals.

The fire pixie handed over a glass bottle full of wood ash and quickly fluttered away. Kragami smiled, and Rino regretted making his teacher appear younger. He wasn't young but compared to the haggard elderly man from their first meeting, this version of the necromancer could be called a dignified silver gentleman.

With his bottle of wood ash, Kragami returned to the farmhouse. Rino had absolutely no clue what his teacher was going to do. Didn't he say he was going to make ink? In Rino's previous world, ink was made from leftover tea leaves.

Kragami worked quickly, mixing the wood ash with some water he helped himself to from Rino's sink. The clumpy mixture looked iffy and was nothing like ink until it smoothened into a thick black consistency.

Rino swiped it with a finger and noticed how perfect it was. Unlike ink in his previous world that dripped everywhere if he wasn't careful, this ink resembled paste but was also smooth enough to write with.

"It's not done yet," the necromancer said and retrieved the bottle of newly made vinegar from the shelf, adding a single drop to the mix before stirring it well with the spoon covered in black gooey mix. Then, more water was added to make the ink a little less sticky so that he could transfer it into the glass bottle that previously contained the wood ash.

Rino watched his teacher sealing it and nodded. "It's done?"

Kragami smirked. "The ink is. Your lesson isn't. We're learning how to draw rune symbols today."

No wonder this necromancer went all the way out to make these strange things! Rino should have seen this coming. Kragami only did this so that he could give Rino homework. Now, he looked at the stack of wooden chips and back at Kragami.

His teacher only shrugged. "It can't be helped. You don't have blood, so writing in ink was the best alternative I could think of."

Rino shuddered a little when he heard that. Was Kragami going to make him use blood to write rune symbols if he had some?

Unbeknown to Rino, the necromancer chuckled. The lich was sometimes gullible. Of course, nobody wrote using blood unless it was for a sacrifice. Even so, they would use the blood of a dead animal. Rino could be funny sometimes.