"What?" The headmaster asked, looking not as reasonable as I had hoped.

We had just finished explaining our request to him and he did not seem as enthusiastic as I had hoped.

"Let me get this straight, you intend to create the first vampire spellblade and then present her at a convention at the capital?" Erik asked.

"Yes, sir!" I replied.

"And you think you are somehow pulling this off? I guess at least you came to me before you did something…" He muttered the last part.

"Sir, we are getting help from Mary. We are also confident that Gronir and Horas will support our efforts. It would be a very prestigious thing for the academy!" Hatsumi said.

He rubbed his forehead. "I got a letter yesterday. I did not want to trouble you with it just yet, but there has been a request to revoke your tier three licence, Koyuki. Apparently Duke Ashfield has some concerns. Someone is spreading rumours that you are actually part of the Brotherhood and that Karl Hickley was framed. Nonsense, obviously. You do have witnesses, so they can't really do anything. But if you are too reckless with your experiments more people could become concerned."

Hatsumi frowned. "Would they be concerned because of the danger if things go wrong, or because she increases her power when she is successful?"

"A bit of both, but her increasing power makes some people nervous. Although I have heard that Princess Olivia is rather delighted."

"Sir, this project would be with the teachers. It would not just be me and my friends. Any discoveries would also benefit the academy. Maybe they could use it for other creatures?" I suggested.

Erik stroked his beard. "True. Although different creatures would need different runes, most likely. It would be more a proof of concept. Hm."

We watched him in silence as he thought about our request. "Ok, I will allow it, if you include the teachers fully in your experiments. They need to supervise and approve your work. And if you have a new idea for any additional undead in the future, I expect you to inform a teacher before you raise them."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Yes, sir!" I replied.

When we left his office I felt good! We had permission to start our project. Our next stop was Gronir.

As we entered his office he had a large tome on his desk and was taking some notes. A skeleton was busy sweeping the floor. We waited patiently until he was ready.

After a while he put his pen away and looked at us. "Koyuki, Hatsumi, what can I do for you?"

We explained the situation.

"Oh? Now that is an interesting subject. And Erik approved? Marvellous! Of course, now we still have to find a way to make it work. Honestly, I am not certain we will. If we don't make enough progress we can always change your presentation though. Hatsumi and Kaito by themselves would be more than enough to impress the necromancers in the capital." Gronir sounded really excited. He closed his tome, stood up and started pacing.

"So, I assume you know the main difficulties with this project?" Gronir asked.

"We need to find runes that work and create a proper ink." I replied.

Gronir nodded. "Runes are complicated. There are some variations depending on the inscriber, or the region. Ilestria uses slightly different ones for their spellblades than we do. But there are also slight variations based on the person. Runes for dwarves are not exactly the same as runes for an elf, although the differences are not that big. In the end our bodies work similarly. But vampires? Their muscles don't work like ours do. Most of their strength is determined by magic. Their entire body runs on magic, not on food. Enhancing them works differently."

"But there are spells to empower undead. Could we use the runes from those spells?" I wondered.

Gronir nodded. "We can certainly take some inspiration from them. At least Hatsumi has blood. I think our best bet is to focus on that. Vampires can control blood and draw power from it. While her blood is dead, sort of, I think we can still work with it."

"As a magical creature my core enhances my body already. Should we not try to simply increase that effect?" Hatsumi asked.

"That would simply shift you from a more magical monster to a more physical monster. Ideally we want to enhance specific aspects and give you some control over it. I suspect integrating the spellblade runes into your natural enhancement will be a part of the solution though." Gronir replied.

He stopped pacing and walked towards his bookshelf. "I am not an expert on spellblade runes, but Mary is. It is truly fortunate that we have her help." He grabbed one of the books. "I do have a tome about death knights. I will have to refresh my memory a bit. We should meet in a few days and discuss this further."

He walked back to his desk and placed the book on it. "The other part is the ink. This is something where I can't help too much, I'm afraid. I suspect Cassie and Horas will have to solve this with Mary."

"What makes the ink so problematic?" I asked.

"The ink needs to bond with the person. It needs to become a part of them. Otherwise a simple cut would destroy the runes. Inscribers are blood mages because they can fuse the runes to your body, in a way. Since Hatsumi has blood, the usual method might work. But her being undead will complicate the process. Fusing the ink is part healing magic. Something that does not work so well on undead. I am not sure if you can combine it with an undead heal, however Mary does not have a death affinity. Maybe we need a joint casting." Gronir explained.

"I will talk to Cassie and Horas." I replied.

"Good. This will be an exciting project!" Gronir said.

I had to agree. I was looking forward to working on it.

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