Chris despite his annoyance had woken up at 8:00 AM to attend his fire elemental class that started in an hour. This gave him time to grab a quick snack before going to class. He had sent a message to Velona asking her to bring him some blood. As long as it remained semi-fresh it would be good enough and the taste only mildly degraded within an hour or so. As long as it was not exposed to air it would not coagulate or thicken too much, he liked to think of it as a thick sweet wine. Once a servant arrived carrying the box he unwrapped it and in the privacy of his new room drank to refill his reserves. He filled up his mana and felt his body regaining its peak physical condition. He would have to research into how other undead absorbed ambient mana and energy. He couldn’t pull energy outside his body into him, he would question Velona later.

He freshened himself up in the bathroom and then looked at the room location on his timetable. He did not expect to be able to find the room without asking someone but what surprised to discover the rooms were ordered alphabetically and numerical, meaning he found a room nearby and walked in the correct direction. This resulted in him traversing the large but relatively black hallways fast and reaching his classroom ten minutes early.

As he walked into the classroom you could hardly call it a classroom. Small arena was more of an apt name, and it just currently had a few chairs and tables sitting in the middle of it. As he walked through the doors tall stone pillar jutted up from around a circular room over 300 feed in diameter. It was intricately carved with murals of mages fighting beasts and had a sand-covered center with a paved stone ring around the outside. This was where a temporary classroom had been set up with a blackboard. Chris guessed that it was more for practical demonstration and testing that theory.

The professor standing by the whiteboard was old. Her hair was white and face wrinkled yet she stood straight and had a keen look in her eyes. She must truly be ancient if she was a mage and showing such signs of age. Mages typically ages over a much longer time period, powerful ones could live for 200 years or more, depending on how advanced they were at strengthening their bodies. Chris estimated that she was nearing the two hundred mark and used mana to move as if she were forty. She moved with ease back and forth from her desk copying some notes onto the backboard.

She was drawing a diagram, a triangle with heat, fuel and air written on it. Chris noted that the last one should have been oxygen not air. The three things fire needed to exist. He drew his eyes away from the board and to the three students already seated, they were talking in hushed tones. Chris approached the tables and sat nearby. He strained to listen to their conversation, they were talking about spells that they were going to invent and how they would use them in a fight.

“Mine will be flaming spears of judgment, imagine summoning thousands of spears of fire and impaling all the men on a battlefield.” One blonde boy enthusiastically waved his hands around gesturing.

Just that one statement showed the amateur nature of the boy, and by the expressions of his friends they agreed with Chris. For a spear to impale someone it would have to be solid, fire was not solid. Ge could blow up thousands of people with spears of fire. But even that was…a bit childish. Another boy made a suggestion.

“That would be rather inefficient, far simpler to set the battlefield ablaze. No, my spell would be far more subtle, mind magic is by far the most powerful. Make your enemy completely disregard your presence. I would call it Complacency Aura, once active I would simply walk up to them and stab them. Simple but deadly.” The black-haired pale boy gave a slightly satisfied and very creepy smile that made some of the boys squirm.

“That would be a very effective spell, but difficult to develop and would only work if you could breach the mental defences of the enemy. Plus it’s not inherently destructive.” The one that spoke was the third and last student. She spoke as if seriously considering the applications of such a spell. “and to be fair I bet similar spells as both of those have already been developed.”

She was mildly haughty and spoke with an air of confidence the other two did not have. She was a few years older than the other boys probably around 13, as such she would be starting to attract attention from other boys around her age and was learning to hold that over them as leverage. Chris could see the effect on the boys, they snuck glances at her and agreed with whatever she said.

Chris was analyzing there group dynamic when she looked over at him, paused, stood up, and walked over to him.

“Hello, my name Amaryllis. You must be new to the class. What’s your name?”