Reborn with a Necromancer System - Chapter 85

Chapter 85: Training and Hunger
Kai gave his team members until the end of the week to get themselves in shape for the Arcane Crucible. That’s all the time he gave them.

Kai had pulled the three aside, Willam and Mari, and told them to train for the Arcane Crucible like their lives depended on it. Because, in a way, they did. This wasn’t just a team game or school event. It was his leverage, his escape plan, and the key to carving his way up from the gutter class he’d thrown himself in.

“If you can’t push past your limits,” he told them, “then don’t bother showing up.”

And with that, Kai bought himself something he hadn’t had in weeks.

Time.

Time to study sigils again and time to practice necromancy without hiding behind classwork or false smiles. Time to exist without someone knocking at his door asking questions he didn’t want to answer.

He crafted a perfect replica of himself using Shade, more shadow than substance, a false body that “slept” in his bed, breathing just enough to fool any curious observer. With it, he could slip away each night and train deep in the woods or under the abandoned storage halls beneath the academy.

It wasn’t enough.

When the team regrouped near the end of the week, two days before the cut-off point to formally submit their application for the Crucible, Kai was already in a foul mood.

Willam had improved slightly, but only slightly. His magical theory was sharper, but his hand-crafted spells still fizzled more often than they fired. Mari, despite her divine heritage, seemed to struggle in high-pressure practice drills. And E-class only had limited time in the simulation rooms for the Arcane Crucible.

Kai hadn’t ranked up either. He was still locked in E-Class and a rank 7 Necromancer.

And worse, he was hungry.

Not for food. Not for recognition.

For life.

And his frustrations made it feel worse.

His gaze slipped to his stat panel. A simple command brought it up in his mind’s eye.

—

[Life Essence: 191 / 27,500]

—

A hollow number. Nearly bone-dry.

“Figures,” Kai muttered as he leaned out his dorm room window and stared into the darkness beyond. “Casting sigils, training spells, running lessons… and I haven’t gained a drop of essence since the forest.”

He could feel the stagnation setting in, like a slow rot gnawing at the edge of his mind. A hunger no normal meal could satisfy. A hunger that whispered to him every time he cast a spell, every time he tried to animate a corpse and felt the lack of essence turn his magic brittle and thin.

The wind rustled the trees outside the academy, and beyond them, the sprawling glow of the Citadel called out. A thousand lights. A thousand lives.

Kai’s shadow rippled unnaturally behind him, and he sighed.

“I guess I’ll fix myself a little snack.”

—

The streets of the Citadel were quieter at night, but never truly empty.

Kai wore a simple black cloak, nothing magical, just enough to keep from standing out. He used Concealment to further hide his presence. His boots didn’t echo on the cobblestones, almost nonexistent as he passed under gaslights and through alley shadows.

The old shipping yards on the outskirts of the Citadel were a graveyard of forgotten ambitions. A sprawl of rusted manual cranes, broken-down platforms for loading and unloading cargo, and skeletal storehouses stretched like a dead beast across the riverfront, slumped in the shadow of once-grand architecture.

The scent of salt and rust filled the air, mingled with stagnant water and the faint chemical tang of alchemy waste dumped illegally into the canals. Old ships, more hulls than vessels, lay half-submerged along the banks like corpses waiting for the tide to drag them under.

Storehouses leaned at odd angles, their wooden beams blackened by mold and time. Iron chains swung lazily in the night wind, creaking like dying breath. The slate roofs of the warehouses had long since caved in, exposing tangled piles of crates, rotten rope, and shattered barrels filled with nothing but splinters and shadows.

It was the kind of place no one came by accident.

Which made it perfect.

Kai passed a hunched man by a broken barrel fire, then a woman curled in a corner with glassy eyes and fresh bruises. People the city had forgotten.

He felt nothing.

His fingers twitched. His shadow slithered along the walls like a hungry tongue.

Ahead, a group of men loitered beneath a flickering lantern, thieves, judging by the blades at their belts and the way they laughed too hard at nothing. One of them barked out something obscene as Kai passed.

He stopped.

Turned.

A slow smile curled across his lips.

—

He didn’t need to kill innocents. But he didn’t need to go out of his way to spare the wicked either.

“Even rats carry essence,” Kai whispered.

And tonight, the alley rats would feed him.

[Name: Kai Tensen |

Age: 14 Years |

Specialisation: Necromancer |

Rank: 7 |

Awakening Requirements: Sacrifice 100,000 Life Essence (12,020/100,000). Consume a soul of Sovereign rank or higher |

Life Essence Stored: 191/27,500 (2,750/2,750 – Phylactery Reserves) |

Mortality Deviance: 5/10 |

Artifacts: Abyssal Band, Mirage’s Veil |

Souls Absorbed: Winfried Drummond (Greater), Angelica Trunsdale (Greater), Nameless Guards (2, Petty), Nameless Inquisitors (3, Lesser), Arcane Wolf (51, Lesser), Iron Bear (13, Greater) Deer (91, petty) |

Undead Army: 316 (Joran (Brawler), Rhea (Commander), Finn, Merri (Shadowsworn), Voltis, Zephyr, Kael (Splitspeed Rogue), Ralts (Chaos Lich), Joe (Death Knight), Arcane Wolf (2), Arcane Panther (3), Skeleton Novice Fire Mage (12), Skeleton Novice Shadow Mage (10), Skeleton Novice Elementalist (3), Skeleton Warrior (38), Skeleton (186), Zombie Warrior (41), Zombie Sprinter (9), Zombie Shambler (20), Ghast (13), Shadow Death Knight, Lesser Lich (2), Grave Maw |

Tethered Souls: 0 |

Languages Translated: Imerian, Salan, Forebearers (Partial) |

Skills: Mana Manipulation, Mana Tempering, Mana Sense, Shadow Manipulation (Advanced), Strengthening Magic (Moderate), Elemental Magic (Minor), Combat Arts (Intermediate), Shadowmeld, Precision Targeting (Magic), Death Sense, Murmurs of the Departed, Shadow Decoy, Sigilcraft (Fortification, Elemental), Aura of Undead |

Spellcasting: Intermediate |

Spells: Raise Undead (Moderate), Thrall Control, Shadow Conjuring, Bull’s Strength, Frozen Touch (Contact), Frozen Zone (Area), Icicle Javelins (Ranged), Searing Touch (Contact), Wall of Flame (Moderate), Wither, Gravebound, Wall of Ice (Moderate), Mass Raise Undead (Lesser), Tether the Fallen, Ice Prison (Minor), Shadow Weapons, Flamethrower, Tempered Shadows, Shadow Space, Speed Sigil (Lightning), Power Sigil (Fire), Aura Sigil (Ice), Undead Enslavement, Chaos Sigil, Darkness Sigil (Shadow), Chaos Shadow Barrier, Control Sigil (Anti-Chaos), Flight Sigil, Shared Senses Sigil]