Elite Mages’ Academy (Web Novel)

Chapter 281: Introduction to Necromancy

The library area for Planet Norma was split into a few segments, including the history of the planet, the government, cultures, geographic and various races. There was a lot of content, not just detailing the current races, but even some ancient and extinct ones.

Understanding one’s foes was the first step to defeating them.

Xiao Lin felt like the library was built with that in mind as well. The colonists had limited influence on Planet Norma, and they would never outnumber the natives. Being able to get so many territories and powers in just a short two hundred odd years required a very firm understanding of their enemies.

Some of the books were written by themselves, but those were fewer in number. Most of the books were translated from Planet Norma’s own literature. Almost every academy had a team of linguistic specialists in charge of translations.

Xiao Lin flipped past a few books. Some of them were just handwritten logs, written like diaries; some of them even had magical symbols. The symbols looked to have some significance.

“I should come back to look at those some day.”

Xiao Lin somewhat reluctantly put down the book. He was not here for that this time. He sat on the flying carpet and wrote ‘Black Iron Rank Skills’ on a paper slip before dropping it into a pocket in the front of the carpet. The paper slip emitted a dim glow before the carpet suddenly moved by itself.

It started to zip around the gigantic bookshelves, weaving left and right. If it was not for the automatic guidance system, Xiao Lin would probably have gotten lost, even with the map.

However, when the flying carpet finally stopped, Xiao Lin could not help but break out in cold sweat. In front of him were dozens of rows of books. All of them were Black Iron-rank skills. The writing of skill books, especially low-ranked ones, would directly affect a new student’s growth, which was why those books were all written as a joint effort between all the academies. To put it simply, they were textbooks.

However, the textbooks here numbered a lot more than back on Earth. The academy adopted different teaching methods based on what they required during different time periods. On top of that, thanks to the uncountable number of different skills, it was impossible to rely only on classes.

Xiao Lin’s position was obvious. He needed skills that would help him increase his attributes quickly. For instance, Phantom Steps was a skill that had simple requirements, but was extremely helpful to increasing his agility.

He then wrote the word ‘strength’ on the paper slip, adding ‘F-rank’ upon further thought. The flying carpet quickly brought him to a segment that focused on weapon skills, but he did not really like burdensome weapons like axes and hammers since they would affect his speed and skill usage.

Shaking his head and forgetting that train of thought, Xiao Lin started to look for a needle in a haystack. Strength- and Agility-based skills usually needed various basic skills as requirements, but Xiao Lin only had his Basic Swordsmanship at a respectable rank at that moment. Since he still needed to master Lightsword, he did not want to take up other sword skills at that moment.

He then shifted his focus onto spells. Song Junlang once said he had quite a decent affinity for flame-based spells, and his usage of Flame Bullet during the monthly examinations proved the point.

There were a lot of flame-based spells. There were spells like Exploding Flame Bullets, Rapid Flame Bullets, Flowing Fire Bullet, and various other fireball-like spells. There were other spells that focused on single-target damage or even area-of-effect damage. Everything had its own unique trait, making it hard to choose.

However, Xiao Lin thought for a bit before writing down ‘necromancy’ and putting it in the pocket. The carpet seemed to stop for more than ten seconds before speeding up, heading somewhere further away.

Necromancy was exactly what Xiao Lin was looking for. It was the reason he came to the library because even after browsing through every single class, he could not find any classes related to that branch of magic, which meant he could only rely on the library.

Xiao Lin’s interest in necromancy was not recent. It had started ever since the high priest’s undead army caused so much trouble for Lilith and himself, with them only able to escape that place after braving a lot of dangers.

During the monthly examination, his Holy Soul Sword’s summoning skill was also quite useful. Even though the elves hated it, forcing him to not be able to use it openly later on, the soul’s defensive abilities were still really great as protection.

The monthly examination still revealed a lot of problems. For instance, after activating Miracle to shift his attributes to Agility, coupled with Phantom Steps, his speed could reach shocking levels, but with the changing of his attributes, he became incredibly weak at the same time, forcing him to only be able to evade.

However, as a skill that did not have a very high rank, Phantom Steps was limited in its capabilities. A more skillful opponent would not care about his evasive maneuvers.

As for hoping for help from his teammates, even if Xiao Lin was not that arrogant, he could confidently say that no one from the first year could even force him to use everything in his arsenal. It was obvious from the monthly examination when he used his full speed to help out at various defensive points. He was just a sitting duck when his time limit was up. If he did not have any help, he would have been captured by the orcs. Releasing the sword spirit at that time would help him cover for that deficiency.

Thanks to his prior gaming experience, Xiao Lin was filled with an interest in necromancy. However, the flying carpet was moving in a strange direction, flying past countless bookshelves as it moved toward Area B.

He used his library card to open the access door, and after a brief pause the flying carpet flew inside. Xiao Lin was filled with curiosity. He did not expect necromancy spells to be that area.

It really was in the area, and even in a secluded corner. There was much less of a crowd there, with him only occasionally bumping into other students wearing higher-year uniforms.

There was only one row of books on necromancy spells. Compared to other books, the number was extremely small. Xiao Lin glanced over the books, ignoring any topics that were too high-level or useless to him, finally fixing his eyes on ‘Introduction to Necromancy’.

“Necromancy is different from any other elemental magic. It uses mental strength to communicate with the dead. Learning necromancy will require sufficient mental strength and perception…”

The opening paragraph led to Xiao Lin widening his eyes. Just like how different sword skills needed certain requirements to learn them, elemental spells needed elemental affinity, but that indirectly increased the amount of time needed to learn them, not allowing for attributes to increase quickly. However, based on what he had read, he made the right choice picking necromancy.