I was at a refinement many would celebrate for clearing the first set of runes, and I was already offered five more runes.

  Many of the remaining runes were the kind that would change my type of attack, and most of those were not necessary for any Ideas I had. Images of the walking dead haunted my mind as I observed the control and corpse runes, every memory I had screaming to take those, and as I thought of it, I decided to simply give in to the urge. After all, everyone knew I was a necromancer at this point, so I might as well lean into the true power.

  Quickly, the two were chosen, leaving me with four more runes to choose, most of which would probably join the endless looking table of runes I already had waiting for my use.

  I had things to damage, ways to slow down and things against infections, so I decided to take the bubble rune as well, which left three more things to pick. I could complete any of the three things I had chosen the rune from today, and as I observed both exhaust and focus, I decided this might not be that bad of an Idea.

  This made me wonder, the last rune I would choose had to be pocket, simply because carrying everything in an oversized backpack was getting old, and I couldn’t be looking boring when I was about to attend an academy. Kids tend to be cruel.

  With the new runes implemented, I slowly woke up again, my friends sleeping in the beds to my right and left as I stretched my bones a title.

  The first urge I followed was to create the spells these runes had me thinking of.

  ‘Control corpse’, ‘Bubble pocket’ and ‘Exhaust focus’ were created quickly, and as I tried the first on a dead mouse I had started carrying around for Nemo, and quite literally took control of it.

  This was probably the most cursed rune I had witnessed since the rad or seizure spells, and while my first instinct was to add a ‘Don’t use’ to the spell description, I soon realized that this might not necessarily be the best decision, given the way it felt right to feel my power flood into it, the corpse obeying my every command as I focused on maintaining it, like strings pulled as I had to concentrate on every single movement, probably something more training could help with.

  Exhaust focus was different from my other spells, as I cast it on myself, I felt my view zoom out, making it impossible to actually comprehend the individual things I was seeing, even as the information reached my eyes.

  It was relaxing, like I was staring into colored nothingness, zoning out on command was fun, and even as the spell wore off, not focusing on anything kept me in the state.

  Then came the last part, and it was hilarious.

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  A bubble was created that followed me everywhere, and I slowly put all my things inside, concentrating on it made it impossible for me to cast most spells, but that would not be a problem unless I was involved in a fight.

  I looked at the massive list of spells when a hand grabbed my shoulder, making me turn around slowly, both my companions were awake now, which meant I would have to do something I was legendarily bad at. Goodbyes.

  “I’m going to miss you, Pale.” I said, hugging her as I knew we would take an eternity t meet once more. “Was a good time, maybe I’ll learn some of your anti aging traits during the training, and the next time I see you, it better be in front of an undead army of some kind, got it?” She asked, and I nodded, a grin spreading across my face as a single tear streamed down the corner of my right eye.

  “If you die, I’m going to raise you just to kill you again, got it?” I asked her, and she nodded before departing.

  “Ember, don’t fuck this up, you got a few years of college before you where you can learn to throw a proper fireball, I want to see one when you’re done.”

  With that, she departed. We followed shortly after, making our way along the markers towards the capital.

  It was time to open a new chapter of my life, and as I looked back on the last six years and three months, I decided that I just needed to do better.