Chapter 2 — Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia didn’t have time to process the surprise she felt from reading the weird [Saintomancer] title of her class. She focused on the unfamiliar place in which she had woken up.

She was on a plain but large bed, larger even than what the director had at the orphanage. The bed sat dead in the center of a very wide, and otherwise empty room. The indirect sunlight in the room came from large windows that covered a whole wall. The walls themselves, much like everything else beside the bed, were made of completely unadorned polished white marble like she had only ever seen used for the noble’s gravestones. The whole place felt very cold.

The only other presence in the room was the robed priest that had spoken previously. He was a short and frail looking old man, but he carried himself like he was some high ranking noble.

“Uhm, sir priest… I have a few questions.”

“You may speak your mind, Saintess.” The old man didn’t bother turning to look at her, visibly absorbed by whatever he was looking at through the windows.

“Where am I?”

“This is your new room in our Holy See, Saintess.”

“The Holy See.. in Einsen?”

“Indeed.”

“How did I get here, exactly?”

“You were summoned here by the Magisterium, Saintess.” Sofia had a very hard time keeping her face from contorting.

“Can anyone just do that?!”

“Only the Magisterium, Saintess.”

Loud steps echoed in the corridor outside the room. A gigantic mountain of a man in golden plate armor entered the room. He had to crouch to get under the door frame. Standing upright in the room, his graying hair almost touched the marble ceiling. He kneeled toward the old man.

“High priest, you called.”

“Rise. You may brief the Saintess on her duties.” The high priest unceremoniously left the room after giving his order.

Ovohen closed the heavy wooden door behind the priest. “Your job now is to follow my orders. No more, no less.” He edged closer to the bed. “If you do, you will get more amenities in your room, if not, you will lose them.”

“You should already have the [Summon Hero] skill, dump all your mana into it to train it everyday. It needs to be level ten by the time you can actually finish the cast. It costs six thousand mana to fully activate so don’t worry about summoning anything with the one thousand you have.” He’s already going for the door. “Which is why starting tomorrow we’re going to quickly get you up to level fifty. That will take around three months. That’s it for now. Perform your duties well, God’s grace shan’t be wasted.”

He left.

“What is this [Summon blood] all about anyw-”

“Uh, I worry for nothing, they didn’t even chain me up properly.”

She went through the whole list one by one.

The more she read the less she understood. The explanations made no sense.

These ones at least didn’t change.

What would happen if they died however? Would they be back to level 1?

“I can feel a faint link with it…”

She couldn’t see through the skeleton’s eyes or anything fancy like that. But she instinctively knew the skeleton’s location compared to her, it seemed the [Holy Skeleton] skill could at least send simple orders as she felt the skeleton moving after ordering it to leave the crypt.

The simple order cost her eight hundred mana points.

[Summon Blood] did exactly what the skill said. It summoned some blood mid air that fell off and formed a small puddle near the bed. She could see some practical uses for that, especially with how much mana she had, she could probably fill a whole barrel with the stuff. But it was hard to imagine just that helping her escape. What would higher levels do, summon more?

[Heal Undead] did exactly nothing.

It looked like her mana regeneration was a little less than one point per second.

She sent more commands to the holy skeleton, namely ‘Hide in a corner’ ‘Don’t move’ ‘Be silent’ ‘Escape if someone finds you’. She expected to feel tired from the big mana spending but felt nothing. Maybe the book authors just made up this whole mana exhaustion thing, she thought.

Sofia struggled a bit to wiggle her foot out of the shackle. She was free to leave the bed now. There really wasn’t much to see in the empty room. The windows showed a perfect view of the mountain flank capital down under. The city of Einsen was built on a steep U shaped mountain flank, making it very safe from invaders. The Holy See was a fort a bit higher on the mountain than everything else, named after the very same ‘Holy See’ of the church, composed of the oracle and high priests who led the religion. The only building that sat higher up on the mountain was the royal palace on the opposite side.

If only she had wings, she could just fly away.

She went up to the door. It wasn’t locked.

Someone opened the door from the other side before she could do it herself.