"We finally get to see it!"

"I’m so excited!"

The Summoning Department students, their faces alight with anticipation, pulled on their coats and robes and filed out of the lecture hall.

’A Dullahan.’

Simon’s excitement was greater than anyone’s.

Deliberately ignoring his student’s intense gaze, Aaron adjusted his coat. "Looks like everyone’s here. Let’s begin."

With a simple hand gesture, he opened a subspace. A massive leg emerged, planting itself firmly in the snow.

"Whoa...!"

Was it an undead made from a giant? The Dullahan Aaron summoned was enormous. Its body was encased in pitch-black armor, a greatsword slung across its back. Where its neck should have been was a void, shimmering with a dark aura.

It strode forward, swinging its huge arms. Students who had rushed in for a closer look scrambled back in alarm.

"Huuuh!"

"Aaah!"

Startled screams echoed through the clearing. In its hand, the creature was holding its own severed head. The ghastly sight of the undead holding its head by the hair and scanning the area with an eerie glare made several students turn pale.

"Whoa! That’s so damn cool!"

"We get to use one of those now?"

Of course, many students were simply burning with pure necromantic curiosity. Among them was Eshe, who was practically bouncing with excitement.

"Eshe." Simon grabbed her wrist as she drifted too close. "It’s dangerous."

A huge arm, head in hand, swung right in front of Eshe’s nose. She had nearly been hit. Her eyes widened in surprise, but then a grin spread across her face as she let out an impressed, "Ooooh."

"What do you mean, ’Ooooh’?" Simon muttered.

"Hehe, nothing, nothing. Thanks."

After completing a full circle, the Dullahan returned to stand before Aaron. It was clearly on a different level from the zombies, ghouls, and skeletons they were used to.

"The Dullahan has several combat advantages," Aaron began. As he spoke, the Dullahan raised the arm holding its head to get a better view. "It relies on sight, yet its head is detached. It possesses excellent durability. It can wield a knight’s aura. But what I want to focus on today is..."

’Shing!’

The Dullahan stared straight ahead and drew the greatsword from its back. Aaron drew a magic circle and pressed it onto the creature’s armor.

"...its transcendent physical strength and abilities."

Something was about to happen. The TAs ushered the students back as they summoned skeletons to serve as targets.

The Dullahan immediately kicked off the ground, launching itself into the air with a mighty thud. The massive body soared through the sky before landing and swinging its sword in a single, fluid motion. A powerful gust of wind swept through the clearing, sending the students’ hair flying. The strength and speed were unbelievable for a creature of its size. Each time the sword connected with a skeleton, the undead was instantly shattered from head to toe. With a final, deafening crack, it cleanly split a target boulder in half, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd. Its power was undeniable, and its swordsmanship was flawless.

"Stop."

At Aaron’s command, the Dullahan froze. The sheer wind pressure from its movements had blown away all the surrounding snow, revealing the bare, frozen ground beneath.

"Hector Moore."

Hector, who had been watching arrogantly with his arms crossed, immediately straightened up. "Yes, Professor."

"What do you think is the source of the strength and speed that Dullahan just displayed?"

It was Aaron’s dreaded pop quiz. Hector, however, answered without a moment’s hesitation. "Dark aura."

An aura was a knight’s technique of imbuing mana into their attacks. A dark aura, naturally, was the same concept, but using Jet-Black.

"A textbook answer, but incorrect. This Dullahan did not use an aura."

Hector’s brow furrowed in disappointment.

"Toto Amori."

"Yes? Ah, ye-ye-yes! Toto Amori! Th-that...! The power of its excellent physique..."

"Incorrect." Aaron’s gaze shifted past him. "Simon Polentia."

Simon paused for a moment before answering. "Mana."

Confused murmurs spread through the group. Hector’s faction even snickered.

"Interesting. Why do you think the source of an undead’s power is mana?"

"Just now," Simon said, pointing at the Dullahan. The creature moved the head in its hand to look back at him. "I saw the surrounding mana being sucked into the Dullahan."

A few students began to whisper as they realized what he meant.

"Oh, now that you mention it..."

"The mana density around here does seem lower..."

Aaron slowly nodded. "Correct."

"Oh!" A wave of admiration went through the crowd. Eshe clapped Simon on the shoulder, exclaiming, "As expected of the Student Council President!" while Hector clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Dullahans are often called mana-eating monsters," Aaron explained. "Just as a necromancer inhales mana and uses their core to convert it into Jet-Black, a Dullahan draws in all the mana from the atmosphere, converts it, and uses it as its own power."

To demonstrate, Aaron cast a magic circle of pure mana in front of the Dullahan’s chest. The frame of the spell couldn’t even last a second before it collapsed and was sucked into the creature.

"Its mana absorption is so immense that a mage can be neutralized just by getting close. It’s also useful against priests, who convert atmospheric mana into divinity. Everyone, give it a try."

The students rushed forward to cast their own mana circles, and the Dullahan absorbed them all. The farther away they were, the longer their spells lasted. Jet-Black magic, however, was completely unaffected.

As expected, an undead that was still a mainstay of modern necromancy was truly in a class of its own.

Aaron then pointed to different parts of the Dullahan’s body, explaining that this particular one had eleven orifices for absorbing mana.

"Returning to the main topic, do you remember ’Rino’s Golden Thread,’ the ghoul funerary rite from Summoning Funerary Studies?"

"Yeees!"

"A ghoul can sacrifice its summoning circle to flood its body with explosive Jet-Black, gaining immense power for one or two minutes. The Dullahan’s explosive strength works on a similar principle."

It was a berserker undead, one that indiscriminately devoured ambient mana and burned the resulting Jet-Black as fuel to fight with frenzied power.

"Because of this, Dullahans are generally used for short, intense bursts of about fifteen to twenty minutes. In sieges, they’re used to shatter gates. In other situations, they excel at pursuit, securing escape routes, and breaking encirclements. The Dullahan is a key card that can turn the tide of battle. Of course, there are Dullahans built for longer engagements of two to three hours, but their instantaneous power is reduced."

Aseraz raised her hand. "Aseraz Mikel! Then shouldn’t the Dullahan also have an organ corresponding to a necromancer’s core?"

"It does. And for the record, the Dullahan’s Jet-Black organ surpasses a necromancer’s core in terms of short-term mana conversion rate."

The students murmured in amazement.

"Of course, there are trade-offs. The Dullahan’s organ is specialized only for raw Jet-Black emission, and its efficiency drops sharply after about twenty minutes."

Just then, the TAs approached and placed something on the table in front of Aaron.

"This," he said, "is the core of that Dullahan."

A palpable tension filled the air. It was a biological organ that looked like a giant, pulsating lump of flesh with a magic circle drawn on it.

"This is the engine that drives the Dullahan’s hardware, the organ that converts mana into Jet-Black. A Dullahan requires two summoning circles, and one of them is drawn on this very organ."

As Simon stepped forward to get a closer look, Aaron gestured, and the magic circle turned transparent.

"I’ll be teaching you this in class, so there’s no need to rush. We will now begin a simple performance evaluation."

At the words "performance evaluation," the students’ expressions grew tense.

"I will provide you with the organ of a Bigfoot, a native monster that can substitute for the Dullahan’s Jet-Black organ. Using everything you’ve learned so far, you will create a magic circle on the Bigfoot’s organ. Try to make it as similar as possible to a Dullahan’s."

The students shifted restlessly, but Aaron continued calmly, "Don’t worry too much. This is a free-form creative exercise before you learn the established textbook knowledge. There are no demerits for failure. However, students who show impressive results will receive extra points."

The TAs moved busily, setting up desks and chairs in the snow. Aaron checked his wristwatch.

"Now then, get ready."

---

The students took their seats at the outdoor desks. On each desk lay a flat biological organ. Some kind of black magic had already been applied to it, causing it to suck in the surrounding mana. However, it couldn’t produce Jet-Black; the mana simply leaked out from a discharge vent below. The goal of the evaluation was to make it discharge Jet-Black instead.

"We will provide the basic template," a TA announced, placing a board with a half-drawn magic circle on each student’s table.

"If there are any materials you wish to use, feel free to take them from the side."

Next to the practice area was a shelf filled with various materials.

Aaron clapped his hands. "Begin."

The students immediately started drawing. They had only one organ; a single mistake would mean failure.

"This assignment is too difficult."

"How are we supposed to make something we haven’t even learned yet?"

Most of the students felt lost. A few voiced their complaints in hushed tones.

"If we could just whip up a Dullahan on our own, what’s the point of classes or professors?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Exactly."

As students began to give up, three figures moved without hesitation: Hector, Aseraz, and Fitzgerald.

"Looks like a one-man show for the rich kids who studied ahead."

"Ah, I’m out."

While the grumbling students sat back and stared blankly, others, despite knowing nothing, watched the top students with keen eyes.

’Hector took the Opel.’

’Aseraz too!’

’Is Opel essential?’

Students rushed to the shelf, grabbing the same materials the first three had taken. A fierce scramble began, with students jostling to secure what they needed.

"Hey, no fighting!"

"There are plenty of materials!"

While the TAs tried to control the chaos, Simon, the top-ranked student, remained at his desk, arms crossed in thought.

"Simon! Aren’t you going to start?" Toto asked, returning with an armful of materials, including Opel. "We might run out, so you should probably grab some just in case..."

"Professor Aaron," Simon said, his expression serious. "Why would he ask us to create a Dullahan’s Jet-Black organ when he hasn’t even taught us how yet?"

"Uh, huh? I don’t know either."

Simon’s mind flashed back to the first day of his second-year Summoning Studies class.

’—To create a Skeleton Knight, you need to master the ’Rune of Memory’ and its related formulas. This rune then becomes a core component for the Ghoul, a higher-tier zombie.’

’—To create a Ghoul, you must learn the alteration formula that causes mutation in a corpse, and the corruption-mutation formula. Afterward, by combining the Ghoul’s formula with the Rune of Memory, you can create the magic undead, the 「Devourer」.’

Aaron had filled the blackboard with the countless formulas and runes they would learn that semester, connecting them all with lines that converged at a single point.

’—Only when you have built all these fundamentals will you finally be able to create the Tier 3 undead, the headless knight ’Dullahan’.’

"...Toto."

The memory faded, and Simon grinned, finally picking up his quill.

"Actually, we might already know how."