“Dark spells? Well…” the teacher replied after some thinking, and then looked at Emily “I didn’t really want to talk about them too much. There are explained better later into the course, and talking about them so early would be a waste of time.” after that he smiled a little “But what would be a class without some hard questions? I’ll make it quick.”

He seemed to be excited, as he quickly approached the blackboard that still had his earlier notes on it. Then, with a simple water spell he wiped it in a moment, and grabbed a piece of chalk.

“As you know now, dark spells draw their strength from the bad emotions of the caster. Anger, sadness, envy, hate… They manifest themselves in the mana of the mage, making his spells go wild.” as he said those words, he wrote “fireball” on the blackboard, and then looked at the class “Fireball is the most used offensive spell in the world. Known even by peasants, it brings destruction on a small scale. But what does happen, when the fireball stops being a fireball?”

After his question, the faces of the students seemed confused. Most of them didn’t understand what he meant by it. Of course, that was to be expected. He was explaining things that were rather advanced for our class.

“Army noticed that some of the mages that have returned from war, showed a weird behavior in their spell casting. Theirs spells were chaotic; some ended abruptly, and some had a new and distinct way of behaving. It has been noted, that some of them started casting black fireballs that didn’t become stronger while being near fire source, and they couldn’t be extinguished with normal water. The fire that they left was black, and it always died out quickly. It was a rather long time ago, but it prompted the research of spells like this.”

When he said this, he looked at the blackboard once again, and sighed a little. Then he started writing.

I couldn’t see what it was, because he was covering it with his body. Finally, after a moment passed he moved away from the board and I saw what he wrote.

The Lich of Madiff.

“Of course, people knew that spells like those existed even before the army took interest in them, but the research at those times exploded. Hundreds of test were being carried out, and each one of them was worse than those before.” as he was saying that, he looked at the name he wrote “This was the first artificial mage. He lived seven minutes after becoming able to use magic, and in this time he casted only one spell - Raise Undead.”

“Artificial mage?” one of the students asked with a curious look.

“Yes. People that never used any magic, and that are being subjected to a great stress which makes them able to cast spells. They always die in a matter of minutes.” as he explained this, he looked at us with sadness.

“It’s horrible!”

“That’s barbaric.”

Some of the students said without thinking. They were right; it was barbaric and horrible. Research on human beings was always wrong, but for some reason I could understand why they would do that. It was weird, because I knew that I shouldn’t think like that. I knew that I wouldn’t think like that.

“That’s why it was banned. Of course, it wasn’t the only reason. Those spells were too dangerous… To answer your question.” professor said, and looked at Emily “Dark spells are the most powerful ones, but the are also the most dangerous to use. I think it is easy to see after what I said.” after saying that he smiled faintly.

That was a heavy topic. It seemed that I wasn’t the only one in the class that thought this way, because other students also seemed to lost their fervor. They just sat there, looking at their desks while thinking. When you imagine a wizard you think about someone who can cast nice spells; someone who is smart, and maybe someone with a funny hat.

You don’t think about things like this. No one really does. No one really cares, before they need to face the reality.

“Thank your professor. But I have one more question.” Emily said, and the teacher looked at her once again “Those people that used those dark spells… Was there something in common among them? Certainly, not everyone that came back from the war started casting dark spells.”

What a weird question.

After hearing it, professor seemed to think about something. He looked at her for some time, and his face seemed to convey zero emotion. But his eyes… They were somewhat different.

“You really are similar to your father.” he said while turning to the desk, and then he started walking towards it “Most of the documents talking about those people can’t be acquired by a normal person, and some of them were probably destroyed. But from my research there are two requirements that need to be met.”

He sat slowly on his chair, and looked at us for a moment. Everyone was curious, and he had all of the students attention.

“Enormous intelligence, and near-death experience.”