To explore our theory further we needed help from the teachers. So we asked Gronir and Mary to join us. Then we explained our theory to them.

Gronir was stroking his beard, listening intently. Mary, frowned and consulted some of her notes.

"Gronir, is that true?" Mary asked.

"I admit I have never considered the issue consciously. You can make different undead from the same corpse, depending on the spell you use. The spell certainly contains information about physical changes. However, it does take the corpse into account. If you enhance the bones, that enhancement is integrated into the undead. Is truly all the information stored inside the spell that keeps them going?" Gronir pondered his own question.

"Undead don't have living cells which are fed through blood. There is no distribution system like the pipes in our body. The spell has to manage that, somehow. It has to keep the undead cells supplied with mana." I pointed out.

"Those pipes are usually called blood vessels." Mary added with a smile.

"Hm." Gronir said. "I agree that undead function differently. It is possible that the spell keeping them functioning stores all information and updates itself if you perform modifications."

"That would mean we need to adjust the runes." Mary said. "A living body already knows what to do with mana, you only need some additional instructions. The spellblade runes on a vampire would need to send the information to a spell, not just the cells inside the body."

"Can we do that?" I asked.

"First, we need to confirm your theory." Mary replied.

"We could try to modify a spell that usually does not work on an undead." Gronir mused.

"Show me some of your undead enhancements and I will have a look at the runes. Maybe I can use them to adjust a spell." Mary mused.

"I can also show you some spells that work on me and some that do not." Hatsumi offered.

"That is a good idea." Mary agreed. "It will help narrow down what components we will have to change."

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"A key component will be death mana." Gronir said. "If you want to interact with the spell that creates the undead it will need the death affinity, otherwise it might damage the undead."

"Hm. If I need to use death mana during the inscription process we might have a problem." Mary said.

"Could I help with a joint casting?" I offered.

"We can try that." Mary agreed. "First, let's see if we can modify a spell."

Next we poured over the books and tried to find a way to modify a spell. We settled on something simple that was not dangerous, a spell to grow hair. It only worked on living creatures, with the ability to grow hair. Now we needed to modify it so it would affect Hatsumi.

It turned out that creating a spell was hard, even if it was not the most complex. Mary and Gronir worked together trying to get the spell runes right.

"Hm. It just won't complete. The runes fall apart when I feed them mana." Grornir mused, after the 11th try. He took out his pen and adjusted the runes slightly.

I studied the spell he had drawn and tried it myself. I focused on Hatsumi and imagined the runes in my head. Something did feel off. It was too round. This rune needed more edges. Maybe if I adjusted a line…

"Huh." Hatsumi said, as the hair on her head grew about 5 centimetres.

I gasped. "I did something!"

"Fascinating. How did you manage?" Gronir asked.

"Um. It kind of felt wrong so I made some adjustments." I took a pen and began drawing what had worked. "See, this line here was too smooth."

Gronir stroked his beard. "Your instincts for death magic are remarkable and you have proven your theory."

"Ok. I think I will be able to redesign the spellblade runes with Koyuki's help. We might have to make some live adjustments when I apply them to Hatsumi. This will be an interesting joint casting." Mary sounded excited.

Gronir tried the spell I had modified as well. "Somehow the spell does not quite work for me. Are you sure this rune is correct?"

"Um, yes. That is how I formed it…" I even tried it again. If I kept going like this Hatsumi might need a haircut. Actually…

I grabbed Yoru and sat him on a table in front of me.

"Meow?"

Then I tried my spell on him and it worked!

"Oh, he is getting fluffier!" Helena said.

Yoru inspected his slightly longer fur critically. The other cats jumped on the table and started sniffing him.

"Why does it work for me and not for Gronir?" I wondered.

"The link, perhaps?" Kaito suggested.

"The link! Of course." Gronir agreed. "The link that feeds your undead is connected to the spell that creates them. You are using the link to define the target! I need an undead with hair…"

The dwarf ran out of the room, suddenly sounding really excited. Soon he returned with a zombie rat.

"It's a good thing that the academy has some basic corpses in storage." He chuckled. Then he animated the rat in his hand. After that he focused on it and the hair began to grow. He might have gone slightly overboard since the rat now had more hair than body.

"Ha! This is a major breakthrough!" He declared.

"Indeed." Mary agreed. "I will be the first to create a vampire spellblade! This is actually going to work!"

"I think we should add Koyuki's blood to the ink. It might help with the connection." Cassie suggested.

"A fine idea. Usually we want the ink to connect to the body, this time it also needs to connect to the spell. Using both Koyuki's blood and Hatsumi's blood might be a good idea." Mary agreed.

"That means we only have to figure out the exact runes we want to use and modify them appropriately." Gronir said.

Hatsumi smiled. "I am going to be a spellblade."

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