《Awakening in Ruins》


 00-Prolouge

    The kingdom of Kemnar was a rather small country compared to most others on the continent. It had been at peace for more than a century which was mostly thanks to its surrounding geography. To its west lay a wide mountain range which made it almost impossible to attack from this direction due to difficult terrain and hostile mountain tribes.


    In both south and north Kemnar directly bordered one of the continent¡¯s largest countries: Silphen to the north and the Mimurian Empire to the south. Since an invasion into Kemnar by one of the two would be seen as a threat by the other and neither of them could afford a war between these superpowers, they just eyed each other suspiciously over the small patch of land that is Kemnar.


    The only threat to the kingdoms peace came from the sea which closed it off to the east. Raiding parties which originated from some of the barbarian island nations would sometimes plunder coastal towns, so most of the military, whose size had been reduced over the course of the peaceful decades, was now stationed in the east to ward against such attacks.


    But the lack of military strength proved fatal, when the country was overrun by an army of undead in spring of the year 642 a.f.(in the 642th year after the fall of the last great empire which encompassed the entire continent as well as most of the nearby islands). It began with sightings of small groups of undeads in the mountains and the disappearance of hunters and other civilians who entered these areas. None of the scouting groups that were sent to investigate returned.


    To prepare for the threat of the growing undead forces and the Necromancers which undoubtedly controlled them a large part of the troops guarding the coastal region was set into motion and started marching westward under the command of the first prince Dorian and the kingdoms two most capable generals. However soon after their departure the number of ships that went missing on sea started increasing dramatically without any obvious reason.


    One day after the army started mobilizing hordes of undead began to pour out of the mountains along nearly the entire western border, destroying everything in their path. Those they killed soon became part of the undead army after being resurrected by one of the Necromancers that lead these armies.


    The neighbouring nations too faced an undead invasion, although on a much smaller scale. Most likely they were intended to be diversions to prevent these countries from lending Kemnar support.


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    Shortly before the Prince along with the vanguard of his army arrived at the current frontline of the war the undead started their second offense. The ships that had disappeared over the past days landed all across the shore releasing their freight of undead which immediately started to overwhelm the thinned out garrisons and soon advanced land inwards while steadily increasing their forces. Thanks to this pincer attack the undead army devastated almost the entire country over the course of the next few weeks, being only temporarily stopped by fortified cities.


    After two months all contact with the princes army had been lost and only two major locations were reported to still hold out: The Capital and the royal Castle. The Capital was positioned almost at the centre of the Kingdom and was surrounded by multiple walls, relics of a long war in the past. Below the Capital there were so called `frozen caverns¡ä, caves that had very low temperatures across the entire year and were used to store large amounts food and other perishable goods which now allowed to withstand a prolonged siege. These assets allowed the capital to prevail through this calamity.


    The royal castle was located a few miles to the west of the capital and was the primary target of the undead assault. It was constantly attacked by powerful undead but thanks to its strong magic defences it still managed to hold out for three more weeks until a battalion of liches managed to break through the castle walls and the undead horde stormed into the opening. Less than a day after that the entire castle was dyed red with blood. Besides a few captives such as the royal court magician there were no survivors. The casualties include the king and the queen.


    However shortly before being captured the royal court magician, a man named Kinrow, activated something in a secret room of his laboratory. He then closed the room off so the entrance would look just like a part of the wall.


    After conquering the castle the undead army soon proceeded towards the capital, the last bastion of resistance. Only the weaker undeads stayed behind to guard the ruins, since the forces that besieged the capital already had many of these and the necromancers didn¡¯t want to leave the castle completely abandoned, in case any scattered remains of the kingdoms army should return there.


    Four days later something awoke in the secret room.


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    This is my first time writing so if you have any complaints, please say it.

 01-Waking up

    I wake up.


    I wake up and am immediately overwhelmed by a flood of knowledge. Then it ends. I try looking around. I see a room with many objects made of metal. The walls seem to be composed of stone. Below me there is a large metal plate with a tiny glowing crystal and a small blue cube in some kind of metal construction on it. The word table comes to mind. Interesting. It seems I know the names of some things just by looking at them.


    Then  I think of something. What about my body? I had noticed that my point of view always stayed the same while looking around and I can¡¯t see any part of my body. Maybe I don¡¯t have a body? I try to move. The metal construction on the table twitches. I try again with the same result. Maybe this thing is my body? I haven¡¯t paid much attention to it, but now I give it a closer look.


    The blue cube is at the centre while thin metal bars run along the edges and keep it in place. At every of the cubes corners there is something like a joint that connects it with thin rods each of which is connected to another rod by a joint at the opposite end. These other rods end in what looks like a claw. Is all of that my body? No matter what I do, the only thing that moves is the cube, but since its encased in the metal construction the whole thing twitches. So it seems that I can only directly control the cube.


    Frustrated with being stuck inside this hunk of metal I slowly move myself towards the small crystal that lies nearby since its obviously magical. When I come in close proximity to it, it suddenly moves towards the cube and disappears. And again I am being given knowledge, although this time I wasn¡¯t overwhelmed and I could immediately access the new knowledge. Basically it consisted of three parts.


    The first was information on how to take control of the metal body surrounding the cube and, if I wanted to, change to a different body. It seems that several of the metal constructs in this room are possible bodies or parts for these bodies. Interesting. However, it seems like I would have to ¡®become stronger¡¯ to effectively control bigger bodies with more parts. But since I don¡¯t know what exactly it means to ¡®become stronger¡¯ or how I am supposed to accomplish this, I seem to be stuck with my current body. There also were some Instructions on how to fight with this body.


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    The next part is a message ¡°The room you are in is located in the basement of a castle. The castle has been conquered by an undead army. Try to find a way out. If you can flee from the castle journey north or south. Don¡¯t go east. There the main force of the necromancers will be. Survive.¡± Who is this message from? And is it directed to me? It seems like that¡¯s the case since it comes with the instructions on how to control my body.


    And then the thing about the undead army. According to my information most undead are corpses that have been resurrected to fight. However, there are exceptions such as liches, mages that turned theme self into undead to obtain immortality and special abilities. How am I supposed to fight through an entire castle full of these things? Maybe I don¡¯t really have to fight them. I only have to get out of the castle. And maybe the army has already moved on and joined the ¡®main forces¡¯ mentioned in the message. I will just have to see how things turn out.


    Now about the last part is a collection of descriptions on different types of undead. This will certainly be useful to judge the enemies strength and take appropriate action. After processing this new knowledge I should probably start looking around the room a bit.

 02-Exploration

    But before I can do anything else I first have to learn how to control this metal body of mine. To take control of a new body I must first cover it in my magical energy to bring it under my influence. I then have to enchant parts like the joints so they move according to my will. I first take control of the four lower limbs and try standing up. I fall over almost immediately, but after a bit of practice it is possible to walk.


    Next I try controlling the upper limbs and it works perfectly for the first two, but after activating the seventh, all of my movements become slower and slightly sluggish.  This is probably why I can¡¯t change to a bigger body right now. Because I can¡¯t even properly control all of my current one. Great! So I have to live with four legs and two arms for now.


    Anyway, before doing anything else I have to get down from this table. I move towards its corner and notice something: my point of view seems to follow my body if it moves to far away. But I can freely move it within a certain distance from my body as long as no solid objects get in the way. Upon arriving at the tables edge I keep a hold of it with two claws and use this hold to set my body down onto the ground. That was surprisingly easy.


    I begin exploring the room. There are many possible bodies and a lot of parts that can be equipped by these bodies such as different kinds of limbs or weapons. But there also are a lot of tools. Upon closer inspection the bodies and some of the parts have small signs with numbers like 700, 3000, or 12000 on them. Bigger objects have bigger numbers. Is it some kind of rating? Maybe how difficult it would be to control them? There also is a body similar to mine with a sign that reads 400. It would be kind of depressing if my guess was right, since this would mean I only have a control that equals 300. Maybe it¡¯s better not to think too much about it.


    In a corner of the room there is a stone tablet with strange lines on it. When I touch it the lines move around for a short time and then form the number 312. Damn it! The chance of this stone tablet not being related to the signs on the bodies and the control is rather small. But since there is nothing I can do about it now, I decide to concentrate on exploring the outside.


    Luckily I had already found the exit. It seems to be designed in a way that allows me to open it, which indicates that this room isn¡¯t meant to keep me trapped inside. I take two small hammers with my arms, open the door and walk outside. From the outside it is hard to spot the entrance, but I am confident to be able to find it again, so I close it to keep the inside safe. I stand in a corridor that stretches a short distance in both directions. I decide to go left.


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    I am already getting used to walking with this body but I doubt I could fight very well. I still need more practice with precision movement. The corridor ends at a set of three doors. All of the doors have been broken down and the insides are a mess. The smallest room seems to be a storage for dried plants and herbs, but now most of it is lying on the ground and has been trampled on. They don¡¯t seem usable anymore, whatever their previous purpose was.


    The second room also looks like a storage but in this case for flasks of different sizes and shapes. They too were thrown to the ground and smashed with their contents forming puddle on the floor. I instinctively feel the danger of this unknown substance and kept my distance. But how do I know it¡¯s dangerous? I have no idea what the contents of these flasks were. I should pay attention to feelings and instincts like this in the future. Maybe it can give me some hints about what exactly I am.


    I return my attention to the second room. Upon closer inspection there are a few small flasks that haven¡¯t shattered and don¡¯t lie in the puddle on the floor. I have an Idea and lay down my improvised weapons. Then I climb the wall beside the doorframe, move around the corner while always gripping the wall with at least four claws. This way I manage to enter the room without touching the wall. Once inside I move close to one of the flasks, grab it and quickly leave the room. Success! I repeat the process until I got all of the easily obtainable flasks. However, some of the flasks are stuck between shelf boards or other objects and my grip on the wall isn¡¯t very strong so I would rather avoid taking unnecessary risks.


    I investigate the flasks I found. Luckily they are labelled. There are two bottles with the word ¡®recovery¡¯ written on them, one with ¡®wound closing¡¯, one with ¡®paralysing poison¡¯ and two with ¡®highly flammable¡¯. I can¡¯t really use any of it right now. The first two kinds are of no use to me since I have no body made of flesh and blood. The undead won¡¯t be influenced by poison and I have no way to create fire, so I can¡¯t burn them with the highly flammable liquid. But I might be able to trade these Potions at a later date or gain someones favour by giving them medical aid. And even if that¡¯s not a possibility, at least I got some practice at operating this body under unusual conditions. Before investigating the third room I bring the flasks into my hideout to keep them safe. Then I devote my attention to the last of the three rooms.

 03-First fights

    I changed the time the story is written in to simple past. Also: from now on ''this'' is the MCs thoughts.


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    The third room was the largest, twice as large as the other two combined. Inside there were many tables with glass objects in different shapes on them, although some of them were toppled to the side. ¡®An alchemists¡¯ laboratory? It would explain the neighbouring rooms.¡¯ In a corner of the room there was a strange corpse. It had decayed to the point where only bones remained, but the clothes it was wearing still seem new and didn¡¯t fit that image. The large patch of dried blood showed that this person had indeed died there, but it couldn¡¯t have been too long ago. According to the information I got about undead these signs meant that this was one of the weakest undead types: the skeleton. The flesh had most likely been turned into energy for the newly created undead so the necromancer wouldn¡¯t have to invest as much himself.


    Luckily it was just lying there which gave me the perfect opportunity. I prepared my hammers, rushed close and struck its skull, crushing it to pieces. The skeleton twitched but went limp shortly after the head was destroyed. Then I noticed something: On one of the skull fragments there was a tiny crystal, almost too small to notice. ¡®Could I maybe absorb it? And what would I gain by doing so?¡¯ While pondering about these questions I heard something from the side.


    I turned around and saw that another skeleton had risen from behind one of the fallen tables where I couldn¡¯t see it. I slowly approached the new threat, being prepared to retreat at a moments notice. The skeleton tried to hit me with a knife it was holding in its right hand, but I dodged to the left and manage to strike one of its legs, causing it to lose balance. As it fell to the ground it stretched its arm again to land a hit, but I simply moved out of its reach and smash the outstretched arm between my hammers. Then I got close to it again and crushed it¡¯s skull.


    ¡®Phew. That went surprisingly well. I guess a single skeleton doesn¡¯t pose much of a threat to me.¡¯ After a quick sweep of the room, to make sure it was safe, I investigated the remains. After some searching I found another crystal on a piece of the second skeletons skull. I brought it close to the cube and it was indeed absorbed. It seems these crystals are what operates the skeleton and contains its memories. ¡®According to my knowledge weaker undead aren¡¯t really sentient beings. They just follow orders and react to what happens around them according to their directive. And it seems that all of this is managed by the crystals on their skulls. But that also means that they will fall apart if the area around the crystal gets destroyed. This information will certainly be useful¡¯


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    I absorbed the other crystal and searched through the rest of the room. But I found nothing I could use so I just returned to my hideout for now, since I wanted to try something. After closing the door I went to the stone tablet and touched it. After a short while it showed the number 313. ¡®Yes! I can really increase my strength by absorbing crystals. I should probably try to hunt as many undead as possible before the person controlling them notices my existence.¡¯


    With new determination I leave my room and walk down the corridor in the opposite direction of the rooms I already searched. It ended in a staircase which lead upwards. Climbing stairs wasn¡¯t easy, but nothing I couldn¡¯t do. At the staircases top was another corridor with many other ways forking off and another staircase at the end. Over the next two hours (¡®For some reason I am capable of judging how much time passed. I simply know how long it was¡¯) I searched through all rooms on this floor.


    Most of them were used to store things. I found lage amounts of food and stuff like lamp oil. But almost all of it had become unusable. Someone seemed to have put  put a lot of effort into destroying all supplies in the castle. It wasn¡¯t hard to figure out who. I also encountered some skeletons, 23 to be exact. Some of them were lying on the floor and I could defeat them with a surprise attack. Others were walking the corridors and I had to fight them, but there weren¡¯t any serious problems since they only attacked me one at a time. ¡®I will probably get dangerous when I move further up.¡¯ After returning to my hideout I checked my strength. The stone tablet shows the number 327. ¡®Seems like I will be able to use a new arm soon.¡¯ Content with the progress made I returned to exploring the castle.

 04-Meeting

    The next floor was more crowded with undead. I even encountered some skeleton warriors. Basically they aren¡¯t that different from normal skeletons. They just have some armour and decent weapons which they actually make proper use of instead of just blindly trying to hit their target. But this also means that their crystals are bigger since their movement patterns are more complex.


    Skeleton warriors are usually created from dead soldiers since they already have the equipment. It only makes sense that there would be many dead soldiers since this place used to be a well defended castle. It also looked like there had been some fierce fights in the area, recognisable through burn marks on the walls, which were presumably caused by magic, and many destroyed undead. Luckily nobody bothered collecting their crystals, so I could quickly gain power without actually fighting their previous owners. I still had to be careful not to get the attention of more than two enemies at a time. It wasn¡¯t too difficult though, since skeletons haver neither good hearing nor good eyesight.


    The next floor also had windows which left in light from outsight. This meant that I had arrived on ground level. After roaming the surrounding of the basement entrance for some time I concluded that it was the area where kitchens and other food related rooms were located. There even was a dining hall, but the entrance I found had been barricaded and the insides were swarming with undead. ¡®Seems like a large number of people took a defensive position in there. But in the end they were still overrun.¡¯


    After spending some more time wandering around I found the castle to be too much like a labyrinth. I got lost multiple times and had to carefully backtrack my steps in order to find my way back. It was terrifying. After some time I started scratching signs into the walls to guide me back. Of course I did it in a way that wouldn¡¯t put my hideout in danger. The signs couldn¡¯t easily be understood by anyone else and they only showed the way to a room nearby the staircase, not the staircase itself. With the signs to guide me I ventured farther into the castle.


    As time went on I found more and more ways blocked in one way or another. In some cases the ceiling had collapsed, in others there was a huge hole in the ground. There were many circumstances that hindered my progress. I was able to bypass some of them by walking on the wall, but others were impossible to overcome. After being faced with many of these hindrances I noticed that some of them seemed to enclose a specific area. All ways into this area were blocked by the caved in ceiling. I found it strange and began inspecting the surrounding, but I was unable to find a battlefield that would justify such widespread damage. And even if the fight had taken place in between these collapsed areas there would have been traces outside.


    I began to suspect that it was intentionally caused. ¡®But was it to keep something inside or to keep something out? If it was a powerful undead, the necromancers probably would have dug it out unless it was permanently dead, which would mean I could easily get a big crystal. And there is also the possibility it was cut off to protect something valuable.¡¯ I became curious and tried harder to find a way inside.


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    After some searching I found a hole, just small enough for me to pass through. There was just one problem: the arms I hadn¡¯t taken control of jet got in the way, so I had to get them under my influence first. It worked with hardly any problems. After activating the eighth limb my movements slowed down a bit, but I judged that it wouldn''t seriously affect my ability to fight. And with that I squeezed through the hole.


    On the other side there was a small area mostly consisting of corridors. I found a few skeletons. Most of them seemed to have been inhabitants of the castle, although I didn¡¯t understand how the necromancers were able to revive them in here. After searching for quite some time without finding anything noteworthy I began inspecting the surrounding for a clue as to what happened here. Then I noticed it: A wall that looked the same as the entrance to my hideout.


    Actually it wasn¡¯t that hard to find, since I knew what to look for. The door was marked by unusually symmetric stones that centred around a stone you had to push in order to open the door. Filled with excitement I looked around to make sure there were no undead nearby, before opening the door. Behind the door was a room with normal more door on one side. But what really surprised me were the two humans inside the room. They looked too old to be called children, but they weren¡¯t quite adults either. ¡®Maybe they can tell me more about what happened here? But not beeing able to talk will be a Problem'' Actually I couldn''t even make any kind of sound myself, let alone talk. ''This might be problematic''


    The older human, a female, seemed just as surprised as me, if not more. The younger one, a male, lay sleeping on a blanket and seemed to have a rather serious wound. The girl quickly overcame her shock, grabbed a sword lying beside her and rushed to attack me.  I had plenty of experience in fighting against enemies with swords, because of the skelleton warriors. It didn''t take long until I managed to pull the sword out of her hands, disarming her. Unfortunately she seemed to perceive me as a threat. Considering the situation of the castle it wasn''t a completely unreasonable reaction. Still, if I wanted to get information about what had happened here, I couldn''t afford to fight these humans. I would have to somehow show my good intentions.


    Having lost her weapon, she hurriedly stepped back and stood between me and the boy on the ground. ¡®Maybe I should bring medicin for the boy. It would be proof of my good Intentions.¡¯ After thinking for a short while, I used the stolen sword to scratch a message into the ground: ¡°I am a friend. Will help wounded. Wait here.¡± After that I laid the sword down, left the room and closed the door. The I went to get the flasks labelled with ¡®recovery¡¯ and ¡®wound closing¡¯.

 05-Conversation

    On the way to my hideout I encountered a group of wandering skeletons, but the fight wasn¡¯t challenging in the least. I already knew all their reactions and movement patterns. It was partially through gathering their crystals, partially through already having fought many of them. When absorbing the crystals of this group I discovered a few things in their memories. They had been patrolling the castle since their resurrection. I was able to gain some information about the castles general layout.


    My base was somewhere in the area that was providing food for most of the inhabitants. The directions in which I had been advancing recently were the accommodations of the high ranking officials and royal family. Not far from there was the place where the undead had broken the wall and flooded into the building. There the undead were far more concentrated. A bit further to the left the throne room was located. There the necromancers seemed to have put up their camp. ¡®I should probably stay away from this area. At least until I got a stronger body and more information about the nature of their troops.¡¯ The rest of the memories were not enough to make a guess about the remaining parts of the castle.


    However, there was something that I found very interesting. Close to the throne room the skeletons had seen an undead speaking with a necromancer. The undead had been a spectre. Spectres look similar to normal skeletons except that they don¡¯t have anything below their spine. They can fly and are capable of using simple magic. Most likely the spectre had used magic to speak.


    ¡®I was able to gain the knowledge of skeletons by absorbing their crystals. Maybe I could learn how to speak with magic, if I absorb the crystal of a spectre. But I don¡¯t have any weapons to use against flying enemies. I will have to either find a dead spectre or get a body with raged weapons¡¯ Neither seemed likely to happen soon since spectres weren¡¯t common undead and hard to kill without magic, while a body with ranged weapons would need a lot of energy to use. At least 1400.


    While thinking about spectres I returned to my hideout. After touching the stone tablet, which showed the number 412, I took the flasks I needed and began my way back. When I traversed the storage area I had an idea. I went into one of the storage rooms and took the ledger that had been used to keep track of their stock of supplies. I couldn¡¯t carry any weapons while holding the flasks, the ledger and a pen, but since I had already killed all undead in the area I wasn¡¯t too worried. Even if I were to encounter wandering skeletons, I could just take a different route.


    In the end I got to the hidden room without any problems. Getting through the hole in the rubble was a bit complicated. because I could only use the legs while carrying multiple objects. Finally, I reached the door and entered the room. The girl was sitting beside the wounded boy and was chewing on a piece bread. She had recovered her sword while I was away.


    When I entered the room she took hold of her sword and observed my movements closely, but she didn¡¯t show aggressive behaviour. I moved a bit into their direction and laid down the flasks. Then I retreated some distance to give her the opportunity to take them without feeling threatened. She slowly approached the bottles and took them, while constantly keeping an eye out for me. Then she returned to where she had been sitting and inspected the flasks. It looked like she was using some kind of magic, but I could only assume it was to check them for poison or something along those lines.


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    After she seemed to have ascertained the contents, she started treating the boy. She took the bloody bandages around his chest off. The wound was truly horrifying. It was a broad cut across the entire breadth of his body. It started to bleed again as soon as the bandage was removed, so she hurriedly poured some of the ¡®wound closing¡¯ flasks content along the entire cut. It stopped the bleeding almost instantly. During the treatment the boy had woken up from the pain, but he didn¡¯t let out a sound. Noticing that he was conscious, the girl made him drink almost half of the ¡®recovery¡¯ flask.


    After confirming that he was okay she turned towards me again. I came closer, opened the ledger and began writing. ¡®Greetings. May I inquire about your friends¡¯ condition? I can¡¯t speak, but I can hear, so you should just talk normally.¡¯ It wasn¡¯t the best way to start a conversation, but at that moment I couldn¡¯t think of anything better. It was my first time communicating with someone.


    At first the girl seemed surprised to see me writing in a book, but she soon got over it. She began speaking. ¡°I think he will be fully healed in a few days. Thank you for your help¡± The boy who hadn¡¯t noticed me until then looked at me curiously. At least he didn¡¯t seem to be afraid. She hesitated for a moment before asking ¡°What are you? Are you some kind of golem?¡± Questions that I too would have liked to know the answer to. ¡®I don¡¯t know what I am. I woke up not too long ago in a hidden room in the basement. I don¡¯t remember anything prior to that moment. But many things point towards the fact that I have been created by someone.¡¯


    After reading this she asked another question: ¡°Do you know what happened to the castle? Have the undead won?¡± After considering how I should answer I wrote ¡®The entire castle seems to be filled with undead. You are the only survivors I know about, although there might be other rooms like this. The main army of the undead seems to have passed east after conquering this castle. The entire building is filled with skeletons, but they don¡¯t pose a threat to me. The only dangerous undead are guarding the throne room, where the necromancers reside.¡¯ After reading this she was silent for some time. It seemed like the news was rather shocking. I gave her time to accept her situation, before continuing the conversation.

 06-

    After the girl had calmed down I started asking questions of my own. ¡®Who are you exactly? I don¡¯t think you would be hidden in this room unless you were someone important.¡¯ She hesitated for a moment before answering. ¡°Our parents are, or were the rulers of this country king Keldian and queen Amelia. We were hidden in this room after the undead managed to break through the castle walls. But since no one came to get us we already guessed it ended the way it did.¡±


    I wasn¡¯t too surprised about their identities. In fact, I had already suspected that it was something along those lines.  The circumstances I found them in made it somewhat guessable. It also explained the cave-ins. They were probably caused to protect this room. Since the skeletons inside the barrier wouldn¡¯t be able to find the room and there were no other survivors, the necromancers wouldn¡¯t have a reason to dig through the rubble. The plan wasn¡¯t bad. But it also meant that the people inside would have a hard time getting out without outside help.


    I continued my questioning. ¡®How old are you? And can you fight? I couldn¡¯t guess their age well since they were the first humans I had seen. And I had seen using a sword, but that didn¡¯t mean she had the strength or the skill to effectively fight with it. ¡°I am 16 years old. My brother is 14 years old. Both of us had to learn fencing. I can also use a bit of magic, but it¡¯s mostly to protect myself¡± At least they weren¡¯t completely defenceless. But they would never be able to survive on their own.


    I thought about my situation a bit. I didn¡¯t have a clear goal. The only aspiration I had was to become stronger and find out about my origins. The former could be achieved by simply defeating undead, but I had no leads towards the latter. After reviewing the facts in my mind I decided: ¡®I will help you to get out of here.¡¯


    It wasn¡¯t much of an additional burden. I would have destroyed all undead in the castle anyway. And being around these two would be a great opportunity to learn about human behaviour. The information I had on humans was surprisingly lacking, so learning how to handle them was very important for my future. Besides, gaining the favour of members of the royal family was a nice bonus. If I managed to bring them to a safe place, they would surely show their gratitude. For these reasons I offered my help.


    The girl smiled and said: ¡°Thank you. I¡¯m really happy to know that we aren¡¯t alone in this situation. And I am sorry if I¡¯m being impolite, but how can you help us? You don¡¯t seem like you can fight against the stronger undead. I know that you managed to disarm me, but I wasn¡¯t prepared for a fight and against the kind of undead that attacked the castle I wouldn¡¯t survive one minute, no matter the conditions.¡±


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    She wasn¡¯t wrong about my lacking fighting strength, so I explained to her how I could absorb the undeads crystals and that I could use the strength I gained from that to use better bodies. Since I was already talking about the topic I also mentioned my theory about being able to speak after absorbing a spectres crystal. She seemed intrigued by the idea.


    Then the boy surprised me by speaking up ¡°There might be a way to kill a spectre. On the castles central tower there was a construct that we used to fire a fire stream at the undead. The centre of the construct was a magical crystal. It was destroyed during the siege, but the shards should still be up there. You might be able to absorb them, but even if not, you can still kill a spectre with it. A shard would be weaker than a crystal and the range would be short without the construct, but with some preparation it would still work.¡±


    I found the Idea to be worth a try. Just because it was a transparent stone, it wasn¡¯t necessarily the kind of crystal I could absorb, but I wouldn¡¯t lose anything by going for it. ¡®Thank you. I will be back later. Is there anything you need?¡¯ ¡°Not right now.¡±, the girl replied. ¡°But if we have to stay here for a long time we might need additional food and water. This shelter wasn¡¯t equipped for a long stay.¡±


    Luckily I didn¡¯t need to eat. But was that really the case? I couldn¡¯t be sure I didn¡¯t require some kind of sustenance. Only time would show how the situation truly was. With these thoughts I left the room and started walking. I didn¡¯t know the central towers exact location, but I would just have to kill a few wandering skeletons and search their memories. With this plan I started the search.


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    Sorry about the late chapter. I didn''t have much time on the weekend so it got delayed and is a bit shorter. To compensate, there will be a little extra later in the week. But somesthing more important: I have concluded that I am HORRIBLE at writing this story. Propperly writing the MC of this story is really hard, if I want to convey his charakter correctly. I can only hope it gets better later on. Until then I apologize for my inability.

 Glossary: Undead

    Glossary: Undead


    Here I will list the different types of undead, and what they are capable of. The Glossary will be updated as the story progresses.


    Low-tier Undead: These undead are individually weak, but since they are easy to create they often appear in huge number. Their actions always follow a not pattern. After their creation they are self-sustaining.


    -Skeleton: The most basic undead. Upon creation all flesh remaining on the corpse is absorbed into the skeleton. This reduces the mana the necromancer has to invest and makes the skeleton stronger. Although it can use weapons such as weapons such as clubs, daggers and short swords, it just tries to hit the enemy without any hint of technique. Physical strength equals around 1/4 of an average human. Travels at walking speed.


    -Skeleton Warrior: An improved skeleton. Created from fresh corpses with most of their flesh remaining. Can wield bigger weapons due to higher physical strength (1/3 of an average human). Shows some skill in fighting. All movements are slightly faster than that of a normal skeleton. Often wears some kind of light armour from when it was alive.


    -Zombie: Unlike the skeleton this undead kept its flesh. In return it has very basic fighting capabilities. Instead of using weapons it fights with bare hands. Its physical strength is 1/3 of a human, but since it has to support flesh unlike the skeleton it moves slow. Often used as the first line of attack, since it¡¯s hard to kill. Their lifespan is limited by multiple factors. Their flesh rots as time goes by, causing its strength to slowly decline until they completely fall apart. In hot environments it tends to dry up, making them unable to move.


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    Mid-tier Undead: Undead that can equal or even surpass a human in a one on one fight, although they can¡¯t take on well trained or equipped soldiers or magicians. Their creation requires some time, a magic formation and a suitable corpse. They can understand and execute complex orders. Some of them can speak or even use simple magic.


    -Spectre: The body is like that of a skeleton, except it doesn¡¯t have anything below the spine. Flies by using magic. Can also use other spells to attack and defend itself. Hard to kill since it flies relatively fast and uses spells to weaken the impact of projectiles. Creation requires the corpse of a at least a novice magician and a magic formation. Performance depends on the quality of the corps. Capable of human speech, although the vocabulary is limited.


    -Fighter-Zombie: Almost completely unlike the normal zombie. Its creation requires the corps with bodystrenghening of the first level as well as a magic formation. Because of the bodystrenghening flesh and bones are very resilent. Additionally, its physical strength is roughly 70% of when they were alive, equalling the 1,4 to 2,1 fold of a normal human. This makes it a dangerous to regular soldiers. It rots slower than a zombie, but it¡¯s lifespan is hardly ever longer than one or two years.


    [What exactly bodystrenghening is will be explained in one of the next chapters]

 07-Searching for the tower

    After roaming around for some time I felt that something was amiss. I hadn¡¯t encountered any undead even though I hadn¡¯t been in this area before. After noticing this I paid more attention to my surroundings. There were neither corpses nor undead. I pondered about a possible reason for a bit, but It didn¡¯t take me long to find it.


    While I was walking through a corridor three skeletons came around the corner. I prepared to fight them, but they were followed by more skeletons. Five, ten, then twenty. Altogether it was twenty-seven undead.  I couldn¡¯t hope to defeat that many enemies, so I turned around and began running. It wasn¡¯t hard to get away since I moved faster than the skeletons, but it didn¡¯t serve to alleviate my worries.


    ¡®Have the necromancers noticed that someone has been destroying undead?¡¯ It would explain why the skeletons began moving in groups. If the enemy was capable of destroying small groups without casualties, then gather a large force and start a search. It was a valid strategy.


    Unfortunately, it made it very hard for me to collect crystals. I would have to gather from destroyed undead and acquire a stronger body before resuming the hunt. My growth would slow down a lot. These new circumstances also complicated my plans for reaching the central tower, since I couldn¡¯t rely on the undeads memories.


    While mentally grumbling I continued to search the castle. It was the same everywhere I went: Broken doors, devastated rooms, destroyed furniture. Damages on this scale couldn¡¯t come from only the fight for supremacy. The undead army had to have put a lot of effort into making the castle as uninhabitable a possible. Maybe they wanted to hinder anyone who would want to retake the castle. I couldn¡¯t be sure about the reasons and while the living quality of the castle didn¡¯t affect me, I still wasn¡¯t particularly happy about it.


    Despite the general destruction I managed to find some books that seemed interesting. There were books about history, fairy tales, military strategy, politics and a many other topics. I gathered them in a few of the smaller rooms and marked these rooms. This way it was easier to collect them later, if I ever felt the need to do so.


    Luckily I didn¡¯t encounter the undead hunting groups too often. Sometimes I managed to destroy one or two undead by attacking the ones at the back of the group, but this method was inadequate to completely destroy these groups. I would have to constantly follow them and after every attack it would have been necessary to run away. It was better to avoid them until I could fight on equal ground.


    I continued my search. It was harder without the skeletons memories, but since I already knew the general area the tower was located at, it was only a question of time. As I wandered further from where the undead had entered the castle, the places where fights had occurred became sparser, but the number of participants seemed to have increased. Presumably because the defenders had opportunity to organise in groups.


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    These spots were littered with destroyed undeads, giving me great opportunities to collect crystals. The some of the memories had a bit of useful information because the undead had come through ways I hadn¡¯t been to yet. But since the central tower was somewhere in the opposite direction, I couldn¡¯t get clues regarding it.


    At least I managed to slowly piece together a map of my immediate surroundings. There were still some white specks but I made good progress in mapping out the building. It brought me a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. It was similar to when I won a difficult fight. Overcoming a challenge was fun.


    This also influenced my decision to help the humans. I wanted to set myself a challenge, since it didn¡¯t seem like would have any problems if I simply wanted to survive. Taking care of the humans would increase the difficulty and therefore make it more interesting. In a way the changed behaviour of the undead also provided a challenge I would have to overcome. It only motivated me to think of new tactics and ways to fight groups. Still, currently I couldn¡¯t hope to win so I had to find other ways.


    On my way I came across an area that opened to the sky. At the time I was on the second floor, but quickly climbed out of a window and down to the ground. The open field was a flower garden. Or at least it had been. The flower beds were disrupted by many footprints and a few corpses, too damaged to become undead. The trees and many of the flowers were burned. The place was a mess. There was hardly an unaffected plant.


    At least it gave me the possibility to get a quick outside view of the castle. This gave me an idea. I began climbing the wall and, after some difficulty got onto the roof. From here I could see more of the castle, but not everything. There were many roofs located higher than the one I was standing on, blocking my view. But, and that¡¯s the important part, I could see the castles towers, including the central tower.


    It was a huge construct, but had sustained heavy damage. There were multiple holes along its height. But now I knew where to go. Bad news was, the spectres that were patrolling above the castle also saw me and immediately started their attack.


    At first I didn¡¯t notice them because they were relatively small compared to the outstretched castle scenery. Unluckily they didn¡¯t have the same problems. When I became aware of their presence, I already could see projectiles coming my way.


    I hurried to climb down towards the garden and jumped into a window on the third floor. Then I began to run. It didn¡¯t take the spectres long to follow me through the window and give chase.

 08-Hunted

    At first I thought it wouldn¡¯t be too hard to escape my pursuers in this maze of a castle. I would just have to flee around a few corners, go down a floor and then hide in a room until things had calmed down. Unluckily I had underestimated the spectres.


    They followed me through the window sooner than expected and instantly began splitting up. While most of them followed me deeper into the interior, some went to the left and right, presumably to cut off my escape path.


    Because of this I didn¡¯t dare to deviate from my current direction for some long time. But I couldn¡¯t continue like that for long because the spectres were steadily catching up to me, all the while shooting some kind of projectiles. Luckily I soon arrived at an area I had already been to. Knowing the layout of the rooms allowed me to plan a route that would hopefully allow me to escape the spectres.


    When the opportunity arose, I made a sharp turn left, then right into a large room with multiple exits. From what I had seen it had been some kind of meeting room with a large number of armchairs set up in small circles. But now all doors beside the one I had entered through had been blocked with them. Some of the doors had been smashed, but the armchairs were still in place.


    I crawled through the gap under one of them and exited the room. If my plan worked out, the spectres would have to either find a way around the obstacle or invest some time to disband it. Determined not to let this head start go to waste, I hurried to get as far away from the room as possible. I changed directions a few times, so they wouldn¡¯t be able to find me easily. After finding the distance  sufficient I slowed down a bit.


    I had already left the area known to me some time ago, but I knew that the tower had to be somewhere nearby. Even though I had only seen it for a short time, I had memorized its position compared to the former flower beds pretty well. Thinking about it, I got the impression that my memory had improved since I started exploring the castle.


    Back then I had to mark the walls if I didn¡¯t want to get lost. Now I could map out parts of the castle in my mind and even constantly remember where the tower was from my current location. Was it also the result of absorbing crystals? If they allowed me to exert more power, then they might also increase my mental capacities.


    At this point my thoughts were cut short by the sound of steps from an intersection ahead. I wasn¡¯t too worried since steps meant it weren¡¯t spectres, but I still turned around and hid behind a corner to wait until the enemy had passed. As expected it was a group of skeletons, sixteen altogether. But what I hadn¡¯t expected was, what they did upon reaching the intersection. They split up into three groups, each of which went down one of the corridors.


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    This behaviour was new and very inconvenient considering my situation. I was confident in being able to win against five skeletons, but the fight would cost me time and might attract the spectres searching for me. I decided that, for now, it would be best to retreat and find a different path. And so I went back a bit and then choose a different path. But it wasn¡¯t long until I came across other groups of skeletons. I managed to sneak past them but after the third I was seriously worried about what was happening. That¡¯s when it struck me.


    The spectres must have ordered the skeletons to search for me. They are capable of speech, so it isn¡¯t too far off to assume that they are able to command skeletons. Considering the tactic they used, it seems like spectres are more intelligent than I gave them credit for. I should be more careful not to underestimate my opponents.


    While advancing I had to be careful not to be seen by any of the skeletons. Sometimes I hid in a room or a niche until they had passed by. Luckily the skeletons were only walking through the corridors without paying much attention to their surroundings. Most likely they were intended to intercept or at least slow me down, so the spectres could then find me in a more thorough search. But this just made it more important to leave this place as soon as possible.


    It was an exhausting journey to the tower, despite the fact that the actual distance wasn¡¯t even that large. The constant fear of being discovered took its toll on me. But there it finally was, the central tower. I entered it on the fourth flour, since I had gone up a floor on my way here. A spiral staircase in the middle of the room allowed access to the other flours.


    I was somewhat surprised a place like this wasn¡¯t guarded, but decided that any possible guards must have been tasked with searching for me. If that was really the case it might have actually been beneficial to have been seen by the spectres. The first seven flours were littered with remains of fierce battles. After these came a few flours without anything of interest to me. Soon I ascended to the fifteenth flour. Much to my dismay this one wasn¡¯t as empty as the previous ones. There was a spectre and it was looking right at me.

 09-The Power of Fire

    The spectre had seen me as soon as I came up from the lower floor. Before I could even leave the staircase it already fired projectiles at me. I evaded the first shot and managed to leave the stairs before the next shot was fired.


    Upon surveying my surroundings, I notice that the spectre was flying close to the ground. Until then, all spectres I had seen had been flying just beneath the ceiling. This was just too good of an opportunity to let it pass. After evading one more shot I charged at it in the interval between its attacks.


    I wasn¡¯t carrying any weapons, because they would have slowed me down too much while avoiding the hunting parties. Besides, I with my current strength I was perfectly capable of killing a skeleton by ripping it apart with my claw hands.


    I quickly passed the distance between us while accelerating. I was planning to begin with ramming the spectre so it wouldn¡¯t be able to regain its balance and float away as easily. Of course I didn¡¯t know how exactly spectres were flying, but it never hurts to mind all possibilities.


    But just when I jumped off, I suddenly felt a strong wind blowing against me. Its force slowed me down and in my surprise I forgot to grab the spectre when we collided. I heard a crack and we bounced apart. It immediately began to rise upward, apparently unaffected by the three ribs that had partially broken off.


    Dammit! I had lost the chance to kill a spectre. And now I had to deal with its retaliation. I turned and rushed towards the stairs, but the spectre had already recovered and fired a projectile at me. But just when it was about to hit me it suddenly stopped in mid-air. Then it simply fell to the ground.


    Strangely I still felt an impact that threw off my balance for a second. But I soon recovered and continued running. At the staircase I hesitated for a second before going upwards. I would definitely need magic to defeat the spectres in the castle and if everything failed I could still jump at this one from above.


    While climbing the tower I analysed what happened during the previous fight. The wind I faced when I charged the skeleton was most likely a defensive spell. It should be meant to slow down or divert attacks. Human skeletons are fragile and spectres are hard to make, so of course it would be given a way to protect themselves, even if it¡¯s of limited effectiveness.


    But there was also the mysterious barrier that protected me. I couldn¡¯t be sure if it had always been there or if it was something new, since I had never been directly hit before. While hunting skeletons I had always prioritized safety, because I didn¡¯t know how resilient my core was. If it truly had a barrier protecting it, then that would be a huge relief.


    Still, I couldn¡¯t afford to get too relaxed due to its unknown nature. It¡¯s important to always remember the possibility of things going wrong. Otherwise you might not be able to react appropriately if it really happens.


    Finally, I reached the last floor. Here the staircase in the towers centre ended. Instead there were stairs on the outer wall that lead to the roof, where the magic crystal was supposed to be.  With the spectre still some distance behind me, I climbed these last few steps.


    I reached the top of the tower. Its surface was flat with two large circles, that centred around its middle, scratched into it. The smaller one was maybe two metres across. It was filled with a large number of complex symbols and patterns. The larger one that surrounded it was at least four times as large, but its inscriptions were far less complex.


    Above the ground was a large construction made of thin metal bars that looked like they could be at least coated in gold. But now the construct was heavily damaged and parts of the circles had been destroyed. This was probably the effect of whatever spell had hit the tower during the siege.


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    Much to my dismay I was confronted with unexpected situation: the magic crystal was nowhere to be seen. Simple guesswork could reveal that it had most likely either been hidden by the castles defenders or was taken by the necromancers after their takeover.


    But there was still something that gave me hope. I could see small red grains on the floor.  According to what the boy said the crystal had been shattered long before its removal, so fragments of it would naturally be scattered in the surroundings. Seemingly nobody had been willing to gather all of them, probably judging it to be unnecessary. I could only hope they were wrong.


    I brought my core close to one of the grains and to my delight it really was absorbed. But my joy soon faded when I realized that the information in it was completely useless. At some point it might have formed a spell formula, but now there were only tiny fragments left with no clues as to how they were connected.


    I continued collecting them but the results remained the same. Just when I was about to lose hope I remembered the cracks in the ground and began searching through them. Just maybe a shard has slipped into one of them and hadn¡¯t been taken out.


    Soon, the spectre reached the roof, but just moments before I had found what I had been searching. A small piece of crystal. Still, it¡¯s size was incomparably large to the grains. I absorbed it and immediately began processing the information. This piece was also damaged, but I could easily grasp some of the most basic formulas within.


    I prepared to use magic for the first time. I ould be using a spell that collected special parts of the air around the target called ¡®gas¡¯, compressed them and then ignited them by increasing the temperature. While avoiding the spectres attacks I began concentrating the required gases.


    While doing so I unintentionally entered the circle. Suddenly the circle glowed and I could feel myself losing control of the magic. It far exceeded its intended scale, sucking far too much energy out of me. I could feel myself getting weaker and could only think of one way to stop it...


    The spectre exploded with a rumbling sound, ripping apart the metal construct and everything else on top of the tower. I myself was flung off in a high arc.


    The high altitude would have been perfect to make a proper survey of the castle and its surroundings, but I was too preoccupied with my impending doom to make use of it. Soon I started to fall downwards with high speed.


    Surprisingly I didn¡¯t shatter to a thousand pieces when I finally hit a roof. The invisible barrier around me seemed to transfer most of the collision force into the roof tiles, causing them to show an almost explosion-like reaction by scattering in all directions. Oh, and the roof caved in too.


    But the shield couldn¡¯t completely save me. I still hit the ground pretty hard. Two of my arms got bent and my core got a tiny crack, but I was still alive. Praise the strange invisible shield I only discovered less than fifteen minutes ago!


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    This chapter was very late. Mostly because this week, there were three written tests at school. But also because I''m lazy. Sooooo lazy. I made it a bit longer to compensate for the delay.

 10-Return

    As the dust began to settle I took in my surroundings. I seemed like I had crashed into someone¡¯s bedroom. Knowing that the noise of breaking through the roof would have attracted the more intelligent undead in the surrounding, I quickly left the room.


    Two of my arms had become unusable, so I had to rotate my body by 90 degrees in order to walk properly once again. The weakness from casting the spell still slowed down my movements.


    I had been too distracted with my imminent destruction to have paid much attention as to where exactly I would be landing. Therefore, I only knew the general direction of my flight, but a little bit of disorientation wouldn¡¯t be much of a problem.


    At least I didn¡¯t have to deal with the spectres hunting me, since they were in a different part of the castle. And even if, I figured that I would now be able to would one of them if he was alone. It went way out of hand last time, but without the circle to mess it up, I should be able to do it.


    My only concern was the cost of the spell. Did the feeling of weakness mean that it consumed the power I worked so hard to amass by collecting crystals? If that really was the case, then I would have to be very cautious in its use. I decided to investigate this matter as soon as I returned to my hideout.


    The time until my arrival would be spent on trying to piece the spell fragments together, that I gained atop the tower. The explosion spell was nice and all, but its uses were still limited. A fast moving target would be able to avoid it.


    Content with this plan I headed where I believed the known part of the castle to be. Unlike my previous habit I didn¡¯t look into the rooms I came by unless I had to evade a patrol, because I wanted to return home as soon as possible. Despite walking by some interesting looking rooms, including a library, I just made a mental note to return at a later date.


    After continuing like this for half an hour I finally found a place I had already been to. It was one of the marks I had left on the walls to guide me, before my memory became as good as it is now. I still didn¡¯t know my exact position, but I simply followed the markings until I managed to figure out where I was by comparing the surroundings with my memories. From there, I returned to my hideout as fast as possible.


    The area around it was still seemed devoid of undead activity, but that only meant that I hadn¡¯t encountered any. With the undeads wandering the castle in groups, they were bound to come through here at some point. I couldn¡¯t afford to be careless just because I had cleared the area once.


    Finally, I arrived at the staircase to the basement. Now I only had to go down, reach the door, pass through it and then I was at home. Only when the built up tension was released, I realize how much of a strain this trip had put on my mind.


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    The long search, being hunted by the spectres, the fight in the tower, the explosion with the following flight, the crashlanding and finally the long journey home without knowing how to get there.


    It was by far the most dangerous and lengthy adventure I had been through in my short life. But now that it was over I felt satisfied with what I had accomplished. It wasn¡¯t perfect, but I still like to think that I did well enough.


    Anyway, now that I had come home it was time to experiment with the magic I managed to acquire. A human might have needed rest, but exhaustion was unknown to me.


    On the way back I had also pieced together another spell. This one just created and sustained a flame at a point close to my body. It wouldn¡¯t be very useful against an undead, but for the experiments I had planned it was perfect.


    I began by touching the stone tablet, which showed the number 391. This confirmed my fears. The spell I used on the tower had permanently reduced my power. But my investigation didn¡¯t end here.


    For the next step I created a small flame in one of my claws and let it burn for an hour or so, while checking the tablet every few minutes. The number remained constant. Then I increased the flames size and tested again. I repeated this until the expected result occurred: the number decreased between two measuring¡¯s. From this, I concluded that using magic wasn¡¯t a problem, until the scale got to big. Then it would sap away my power.


    This knowledge was a large relief, because it meant that I would be able to fight spectres without wasting the work I had put into gathering crystals.


    Since the problem of magic usage was resolved I went to replace my arms. There were plenty of spare parts in the room, so finding a replacement wasn¡¯t hard. But before doing anything else I had to remove the bent arms. First I receded my influence from them, then I pulled them out of their socket.


    It was surprisingly quick and painless. I had expected it to be more complicated, but I was lucky. I put two new arms in their place but only activated one of them, since I lacked the power to operate all eight of them effectively. After doing so I began planning my next steps.


    Getting a spectres crystal seemed more attractive than ever before. They could fly, speak, shoot projectiles and protect themselves. And that are only the spells I knew about. There might be even more that I just hadn¡¯t seen yet. I could now use magic, so fighting them was possible. It would be nice to be the hunter instead of the hunted for once.

 11-Spectre Hunting

    Finding a spectre wouldn¡¯t be easy. I hadn¡¯t met a single one of them until my attempt at climbing the roofs. By returning to the area they were searching for me the risk of other undead getting in the way would increase, but so would the chance of finding a spectre. It might have been safer to search somewhere else, but I couldn¡¯t afford to delay this any longer.


    I hadn¡¯t thought of it until then, but there was no way the necromancers didn¡¯t notice me blowing up the tower. Destruction on such a scale must have put them in a state of alarm. They would use all of their forces to search for me.


    And then the whole castle would be swarming with undead, many of them stronger and/or faster than spectre. Getting the crystal of a spectre and learning how to use its spells would be essential for my survival.


    With no time to waste I hurried towards my destination, wishing I hadn¡¯t been so slow at finding my way back. After I navigated through the castle and arrived in the area, I began searching for a suitable target.


    Soon I encountered a group of skeletons, but found it to be too dangerous to engage them. I could have beaten them by keeping my distance and using the explosion spell, but it would have attracted all spectres in the vicinity and I wasn¡¯t confident in fighting more than one of them at a time. This problem wouldn¡¯t appear when directly finding a spectre because I was planning  on luring it far away from where other undead might get drawn into our fight.


    A few minutes after meeting the skeletons I found a spectre. Unluckily it wasn¡¯t alone. It was accompanied by a fighter-zombie. I retreated as fast as possible, hoping it hadn¡¯t seen me. These things are dangerous. Fighter-zombies are faster, stronger and more resilent than a living human.


    If one of these things spotted me then I probably wouldn¡¯t be able to escape. Meeting one of them here also meant that my fears had come true: strong undead were searching for me. I could only avoid them until I found a suitable target.


    After this encounter I was more careful. There was no more benefit to being fast, since the enemy had already spread out. I continued onwards, slowly crawling through the rooms and corridors.


    I had to hide from two more groups of skeletons and one fighter-zombie before I finally found what I had been searching. A spectre was keeping watch over an intersection while hovering just below the ceiling.


    It had yet to notice me, giving me enough time to make a plan before I stepped into its field of vision. As soon as it reacted, I began running in the direction I had discerned to be the one with the least risks of running into other spectres or a fighter-zombie. Skeletons weren¡¯t a problem, since I could just outrun them.


    The spectre wasn¡¯t far behind me, firing an occasional shot in my direction. Dodging them wasn¡¯t hard, since I just had to move slightly to the left or right to let the slide by. My shield might have protected me from taking damage, but the impact would have interrupted the rhythm of my movements.


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    By choosing the route with the least risk I managed to pull the spectre into the vicinity of the basements entrance without any incidents. I didn''t get too close though. I feared that it might attract too much attention if the remains of a spectre were found near it, since the surroundings were already littered with destroyed skeletons.


    Instead I lured it into one of the larger empty rooms some distance from there. Once inside I moved away from the door and waited for the spectre while preparing an explosion within the doorframe. As soon as tried to enter I set off the spell.


    It hit the left side of its ribcage, tearing off a few ribs. The force of the explosion threw the spectre into the room, leaving it hanging in the air. It would have been a good opportunity, but I had to wait a bit after using the spell if I wanted it to work quickly.


    While it was possible to use spells continuously, I preferred to wait and let my mana recharge. This way I could use it all at once instead of stretching it over a span of time. This was another fact I found out while experimenting.


    And because the explosion spell relied on gathering gases at a specific point, it¡¯s target can¡¯t be changed easily without starting all over again. Therefore, I waited until my reserves had recharged before preparing my next attack.


    It proved to be the right decision. As soon as the spectre recovered, it retreated to a point further away and began shooting at me. I evaded its attacks while trying to maintain a steady distance. I hoped the spectre would keep its position as long I didn¡¯t get too close.


    When I could be sure that it worked I started preparing the next explosion. This time I was targeting the neck in hopes of disconnecting head and torso. I continued amassing gas, even after my reserves had run out. It was slow, but I wanted to end our fight as soon as possible.


    After one minute I noticed the spectre beginning to act and I just so managed to set off the spell before it could move too much. The explosion tore the undead apart. Its parts were smashed into floor and ceiling. Dust fell from above.


    When I could be relatively sure the ceiling wouldn¡¯t collapse above my head and everything had fallen to the ground, I approached the remains. Most of the larger bones had shattered and the skull had burst open.


    When I looked inside I could see the crystal. Unlike the crystals of normal skeletons which had random shapes, this one was a perfect round. It had a small crack, but was okay otherwise.


    As I absorbed it, I finally knew that all this effort was well worth it. I acquired large amount of memories as well as five new spells. Not willing to take the risk of being interrupted during integrating this new knowledge, I returned to my hideout before investigating them closer.


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    The undead-glossary has ben updated.

 12-New Spells

    As soon as the door closed behind me I began analysing my new spells. It took some time to find out what each of them did. First was what I came to call the ¡®ice shard¡¯. This spell gathers water from the air and the surroundings. The water is then frozen solid and shot towards a target with high speed. This was spell the spectres use to attack.


    The next was the ¡®air shield¡¯. It isn¡¯t really a shield, but I didn¡¯t want to waste time thinking about the name and just went with something that seemed fitting. What it actually does is to protect an area by causing an intense wind to blow against anything that crosses its boundaries too fast.


    Thinking about it, I concluded that this spell wouldn¡¯t be very useful to me. It¡¯s of limited use against small objects with much force behind them. And of course it can¡¯t protect against attacks from within the field, such as my explosions. But that wasn¡¯t why I had a problem with it.


    The real problem was the mana consumption. While the upkeep of the air shield required a constant supply of mana, it wasn¡¯t so much as to seriously reduce my regeneration. The airwave on the other hand was quite pricy if I wanted it to have any meaningful effect.


    After all, most of my body is made of metal and the rest is protected by that strange barrier. Being hit with a bit more or less force wouldn¡¯t make a difference. Instead I would rather use my mana to attack the enemy.


    After this slight disappointment came the spell that initially caused me to set my eyes on killing a spectre: ¡®sound manipulation¡¯. The ability to speak turned out to only be a by-product of its original function, which is to create and change sounds by manipulating airwaves.


    The spell itself was actually quite easy to understand. The hard part was to use it correctly, at least if I wanted to create anything a human would be able to understand. I realised this after a few failed attempts at forming words. This would undoubtedly require a lot of practice, more than I would be able to invest in the near future.


    With growing resignation, I continued by analysing the fourth spell. It turned out to be the one spectres use to fly. After a bit of testing I decided that I wouldn¡¯t be able to use it continuously unless I was willing to completely negate my mana regeneration.


    This made me wonder just how much mana spectres had to be able to fly, sustain an air shield and shoot ice shards all at the same time. It also led me to think about why my own mana hadn¡¯t risen much after absorbing the spectres crystal. While there was an increase, the change was incomparable to what the spectre must have had.


    There was also the fact that the crystals of skeletons didn¡¯t have any noticeable effect on my mana. There were simply too many things about myself and the ways I work I didn¡¯t know. No matter how much I hated it, I was helpless in front of the secrets of my own existence. All I could do was to hope that I would be able to work it all out at some point in the future. Maybe I would find a clue if I studied about undead or golems. Maybe I would find someone who knew what I was.


    But until such opportunities opened up my best bet was to observe how my body reacts to different situations and draw my own conclusions. No point in losing my mind about something I can¡¯t change anyway, right? Just make one step at a time and eventually you¡¯re bound arrive somewhere.


    By the time I had concluded my thoughts, the last spell was already processed. Doing two things at the same time actually wasn¡¯t that hard, because in my hideout I could focus all of my attention inwards without having to worry about anyone interfering.


    The last spell was a type of telekinesis, although not a very sophisticated one. This was probably the reason for why it was analysed so fast. Its effect was like giving the target a push, including the part of simultaneously shoving oneself in the opposite direction.


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    I could come up with a few uses for it without much effort, so at least this spell would certainly be helpful. Thinking about it, the spectres might have used this spell to improve their manoeuvrability. There were plenty of occasions where I saw them having a suddenly change in momentum. I could probably do something similar, just without the flying.


    The next step of my plan was to test out my new arsenal in combat situations. Just when I was about to leave I remembered to check on the stone tablet. Annoyed by myself for almost forgetting something so important I touched it and received the number 408. Content with the large growth the spectres crystal had brought me I finally set out.


    While traversing the cleared zone I began looking through the spectres memories and used them to expand my map of the castle. Unluckily this spectre had only been created after the necromancers victory. I had hoped it might provide me with precious information about the outside world, but I wasn¡¯t too disheartened by it. I would just have to continue hunting spectres until I got lucky.


    At this point my thoughts were cut short by a group of skeletons almost bumping into me when they walked around a corner. I had hardly any time to react before they began charging at me. I quickly used the ¡®Push¡¯ spell against the wall behind the skeletons to instantly gain momentum and barely managed to avoid them crashing into me. Changing from slow movement into one direction directly to fast movement into the opposite one made it hard to correctly move my legs in time, but I somehow managed not to fall over.


    After regaining my balance, I continued running until the gap between me and the undead had grown to a few metres. There I slowed down a bit to match their speed and began attacking them with ¡®ice shard¡¯ while keeping a consistent distance. I kept shooting them down one after another, always aiming for the skull. Of course I didn¡¯t have the experience to aim perfectly and even if I could predict the skeletons movements to some extent, the obstacles on the ground always ended up hindering them and messed up my calculations.


    It wasn¡¯t until I managed to drag them into a zone with fewer hindrances that my hit rate improved, but after that it went pretty much perfect. In most cases it took only a few direct hits until they collapsed. I had to stop shooting a few times because my mana ran out, but after fifteen minutes of constant running I was victorious. All 23 of the skeletons had fallen apart.


    The ¡®ice shard¡¯ had finally given me a way to fight the groups of skeletons roaming the castle. It hadn¡¯t been possible with ¡®explosion¡¯ because the noise would undoubtedly attract spectres, but ¡®ice shard¡¯ hardly made any sounds until the moment of impact.


    I had also figured out that my mana allowed me to cast 26 ice shards in quick succession. By comparing this number with future results I might be able to discern how much my mana is increased by absorbing a spectres crystal. I quickly collected the crystals of the slain undead and returned to searching targets for my tests.


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    So why wasn''t there a chapter last week? There are multiple reasons. Tests at school, sickness, problems with formulating what I want to convey, etc. Sorry you had to wait this long.

 13-Spell testing

    I continued my search for almost half an hour, but all the skeletons I encountered had formed groups with at least two of the stronger undeads. I didn¡¯t dare engage them and in some cases I barely avoided being discovered.


    I got the impression that my general situation was just getting worse and worse every time I took a step forward. The groups of undead became stronger every time I did something that caused a stir.


    At this point it was clear to me that I would have to gather as many crystals as possible before the necromancers rearranged their minions once again, otherwise I might not be able to keep up with them next time. Assuming I could even struggle through it this time.


    Of course there was always the possibility of simply leaving the castle if things became too complicated, but the chances of meeting undead that had spells I could learn and mana capacity I could absorb, such as the spectres, were far lower.


    And if I ever wanted to use any of the other bodies in my hideout, I would have to return anyway. Therefore, I wanted to avoid this course of action if possible. Besides, leaving because I couldn¡¯t beat an enemy just didn¡¯t feel right.


    But at this moment, it wasn¡¯t time to worry yet. With the addition of the new spells I had plenty of potential ways to combat the undead. There was no way I would just give up until I had exhausted all possibilities.


    The next group of undead I encountered consisted of seventeen skeletons and two spectres that were currently facing away from me. Considering myself lucky that there were no fighter-zombies among them, I initiated my attack.


    First was an ice shards shot towards one of the spectres. I made it longer than usual and increased its speed. The combination of more mass and more speed would hopefully ensure that it could pierce the air shield without losing too much of its effectiveness.


    Just before the ice shard was about to hit, I used sound manipulation to create a loud noise in front of the undead. This noise covered the impact sound of my ice shard and caused the second spectre and the skeletons to move forward with the intention of investigating its source.


    Meanwhile the first spectre had been hit and turned towards me to retaliated with an ice shard of its own. I quickly evaded and began running from the group of undead, drawing the single spectre away from them.


    When the distance was wide enough to prevent the main group from hearing the sounds of out fight, I stopped running and faced the spectre that was alone now. What followed was a prolonged fight in which I experimented on how different combinations of mass, speed and shape influenced the ice shards ability to piece the air shield.


    During the tests I noticed that the spectres rate of fire had slowed down considerably compared to the beginning. Thinking about it I realized that the continuous use of air shield had most likely drained its mana reserves. This gave me an idea.


    In my next attack I got close to the spectre and then, instead of a single shard of ice, I created a large number of smaller fragments and shot all of them off at the same time. Their mass and speed were incomparably smaller than that of a normal ice shot, but when they made contact with its air shield, the spectre shook shortly before falling to the ground.


    As expected, the large number of impacts had used up the last of the spectres mana, causing its flight spell to fail. Unluckily this version of ice shard, which I arbitrarily named ¡¯ice burst¡¯, also burned through most of my own mana and it required a bit of preparation time to create the fragments.


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    Just when I was about to smash the spectres skull, it rose into the air again. I could only grab onto one of its arms before it got out of my reach. Burdened with this new weight it couldn¡¯t ascend any further.


    I realized that, at this moment, it used all of its mana to try to fly upwards and quickly shot an especially strong ice shard towards its head before it could escape my grasp. The spectres skull was shattered by the shard and the rest of its body went limp.


    I avoided the falling bones and collected the crystal as fast as possible. Having collected the crystal, I checked the difference in my mana capacity as soon as possible. As it turned out I was capable of shooting 28 standard ice shards in a row.


    The difference was around two shards worth of mana, disappointingly little compared to the spectres original capacity. But considering how many spectres were wandering the castle, the combined effect of all their crystals should still be considerable. At least it would be enough to never again worry about running out of mana because of firing a few ice shards.


    Motivated, I began searching for the rest of the undead group the spectre had belonged to. While I was fighting the first spectre they hadn¡¯t moved too far from their last position. This time I just openly attacked the spectre and drew it away from the other slower skeletons by having it follow me around a few corners until I could be sure they wouldn¡¯t be able to find us.


    The fight itself wasn¡¯t very spectacular. I simply bombarded the spectre with ice shards until its skull cracked. It took a long time, but I got some important targeting practice out of it. The ice burst only worked on close targets because the force with which the single fragments moved was rather small. Being able to accurately hit a moving spectre further away was essential.


    After absorbing the crystal, the last task left was to destroy the skeletons. I considered using the same method as with the last group of skeletons, but decided against it, since there was still something I had to try. I wanted to test how much offensive potential the ¡®push¡¯ spell had. For this purpose, I took a metal rod from a nearby room and grabbed it with two of my claws before returning to the remnants of the undead group.


    I approached the skeletons from behind and quietly climbed the up the left wall to around head height. Then I shot an ice shard to gain their attention. As expected, soon all of them staggered towards me. Just before they reached me I raised the rod and used ¡®push¡¯ behind me with full strength. The rebound catapulted me right through the rows of the skeletons, smashing a few skulls in the process. The momentum caused me to hit the wall behind the skeletons with considerable force.


    Luckily my body didn¡¯t take any damage. Since I had confirmed the effectivity of push, I release the rod and began drawing the skeletons behind me while slowly wearing them down with ice shards. The process went without any difficulties and. Afterwards I quickly collected the crystals and moved on.


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    There won¡¯t be a chapter next week, because I have to learn for the last tests of the year.

 14-Even more Spells

    For the next hour or so, I continued slowly picking apart groups of undead. Altogether I killed 7 Spectres and 68 Skeletons. Using all of my tricks I could defeat them without facing any larger problem.


    Still, there was a dangerous situation when I was hunted by a fighter-zombie. I managed to escape by climbing out of a window, but this encounter only made it much more clear just how superior these zombies are compared to me. If I hadn¡¯t used push to increase my speed every few seconds, it would have caught up to me in no time. There was no chance to beat one of them in my current form.


    During the hunt I also continuously practised the use of spells. At this point, I had a hit rate of almost 100% when shooting ice shards. I had also become more adept at using push to aid my movement. During this practice I also noticed something strange. I couldn¡¯t use ¡®push¡¯ on any of the undead.


    It would have been good if I could have use this spell to interrupt enemy attacks or throw them off balance, but it seemed like the spell just couldn¡¯t get a grip on them. I had considered if it had something to do with the fact that their bodies were controlled by magic, but, as with so many other things, I couldn¡¯t be sure. It¡¯s just depressing.


    Anyway, since my mana pool had increased quite a bit, enough for 41 consecutive ice shards, I decided it was time for me to begin another project. To be more specific, the project of creating my own spells. Previously, I had already recreated a fire spell from its fragments as well as heavily modified the ice shard spell. Because of this, I figured that by just rearranging and readjusting parts of the spells already known to me, it would be possible to create something new.


    But because I would have to test out every one of them, I wanted to get a sufficient mana supply before starting my research. Otherwise, I feared, too much time might be wasted waiting for my mana to regenerate. And since this requirement had now been met, I began this project of mine after returning to the area near my hideout. Being there gave me a sense of safety, probably because there never were any undead around.


    During the past hour I had already identified most of the spell components, so I was able to instantly start off with constructing new spells. My first target was the ability to create ice that was part of the ice shard spell. From it I created a new spell that would allow me to create ice according to my own wishes. It was slower than the ice shard though, because it didn¡¯t have a definite formula. Despite this disadvantage, I could already imagine many uses for it, such as creating a new blockade or freezing a skeletons joints.


    I also began to experiment with the possibility of using Push to increase the destructive power of my ice shards. There was a limit to how much force I could put into the ice shards just by using the spell itself and if I wanted to use it against one of the zombies, it would have to have a far stronger penetrating power than that. I must know, I had tried it when one of them was chasing me. My attacks only caused superficial damage. The bodies of these things were clearly far superior to those of normal humans. Explosion was also useless, because they were running too fast to let me set it up properly.


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    I needed a stronger offence if I wanted to compete with them, and I hoped this combination would provide it. And to some extend it actually did. The ice shards gained an incredible amount of speed.  But even without much testing, I could already see a large problem. If I didn¡¯t hit the ice shard from the perfect angle, it would fly off into the completely wrong direction, spinning like crazy. How depressing. Just when I had mastered aiming with the ice shard, this crap had to appear. In fact, it was even worse this time, because the slightest error would greatly alter the trajectory, while an ice shard might still hit the target. After a bit of internal rambling I managed to cool down. After all, I had plenty of time. At some point it would certainly work. A bit of patience and it would be alright.


    Postponing the matter to another time, I continued my work. My last creation, that I completed after a lot of tedious testing, was the snow veil. This spell created a large amount of small ice fragments and blew them towards a target with a gust of air. It had no offensive potential, but the many tiny pieces were pretty good at obstructing ones¡¯ view. Of course I would also be affected, but I was confident to handle it better than an undead that can only act according to patterns.


    For the moment I couldn¡¯t think of any other useful combinations. I might have been possible to temper with the air shield, but it wouldn¡¯t help against the zombies anyway, so I didn¡¯t consider it to be important. Instead I returned to hunting the undead, but not before checking on my current body strength at the stone tablet. The incredible number 569 was the reward of my dedicated work. If my strength were to continue rising at such a rate, changing to a new body might really be possible in the near future.


    Actually, I wasn¡¯t as urgent about body exchange as before, because I had already found a method to defeat one of the zombies by utilising my new spells. But for this plan I still wanted to increase my mana a bit, so I hunted for another half an hour, focusing on killing spectres. I didn¡¯t dare investing any more time since I couldn¡¯t know what the necromancers would do next.


    By now they had certainly understood that the problem that was me couldn¡¯t be solved by just letting their minions wander around in groups. In order to improve my chances, even if only by a little bit, I had to inflict as much damage on their forces as possible. And since the zombies were the only ones that could seriously threaten me, I would naturally concentrate on them. Therefore, after I had killed six more spectres, I began preparations for my plan.

 15-Bottled Fire

    To kill a fighter-zombie. Even with my new spell, such a feat seemed impossible. Still, even if I wouldn¡¯t be able to do it, I would at least be able to learn something for next time. Always think positive. But of course I wouldn¡¯t pick a fight if there wasn¡¯t at least a perceived chance of victory.


    My previous schemes didn¡¯t need much preparation, but this one was different. In fact, it mostly relied on me creating certain objects and placing them in specific locations. The locations had already been mapped out in my mind, so my main concern was gathering everything I for the plan to work.


    To get the necessary materials I first went to one of the storage rooms in the basement. This room was mostly filled with pottery of all kinds, among which there also were bottles designed to hold fluids. I picked some of those that had a lid, a volume of roughly half a litre and a strap attached, hung them over two of my arms and moved out towards the previously mentioned ¡®specific locations¡¯. While walking I began working on the bottles.


    The theory for this project was created when I made the ice forming spell. Back then I had tried to encase explosive gasses in an ice bubble. The idea behind it was to create an object that would allow me to cause an explosion whenever and wherever I wanted.


    By using the explosion spell normally, I had to spend a certain amount of time to concentrate the explosive gasses at a point before setting them off. And if the enemy moved away from that location or didn¡¯t even go there in the first place, it was pretty much wasted. But by storing the gasses in an easily movable object I would be able to cut the preparation time and activate it anywhere I wanted.  And it worked.


    The bubbles made a good container and were easy to throw. Setting off the gasses wasn¡¯t a problem either. But of course ice didn¡¯t have the highest durability in the face of time, meaning that it would only be useful for short term use. Therefor I began searching for other ways to store the explosive gasses.


    That¡¯s when I remembered the bottles I had seen in one of the storerooms. Even though I wanted to try it out as soon as possible, I decided to first finish the spell creation experiments before trying anything else. And afterwards I thought it was better to first increase my mana. That¡¯s how I got there.


    Since I wanted to use the bottles as actual weapons and not just a plaything, I had a problem that didn¡¯t occur with the bubbles, which was the correct adjustment of gas pressure. I didn¡¯t place much importance on it when I had experimented with the ice bubbles, but I wanted the bottles to have as much destructive power as necessary.


    Because of this, the thin walls of the first bottle were torn apart by the pressure. Luckily I was able to discern the threshold, allowing me to avoid any further accidents. After filling in the gasses I closed the lids and added a lager of ice to the bottleneck, just to be sure it wouldn¡¯t open up.


    By the time all bottles were filled up, I had arrived at the room I wanted to make into a base camp of sorts. It already contained some of the books I had collected for a later date, so I decided to also use it for other purposes.


    I placed 10 of my self-made bombs in a corner and went to prepare an area for my fight against the fighter-zombie with 9 bottles remaining. On the way I also picked up five daggers from broken skeletons and attached them to my body with ice.


    Taking them off afterwards would be a bit complicated, but I intentionally made the connections in a way that covered neither blade, nor handle to an extend that would compromise their use afterwards. My plan was to heavily relied on traps, but having a weapon at hand is always a good idea.


    To construct the first trap, I first had to fly to the ceiling of a corridor. Once there I began to amass a massive block of ice. I only unstably attached it to ceiling and walls and added two bottles to the upper left and upper right corner of the block.


    Then I went to prepare the next two traps, which consisted of a bottle frozen to the ground in the middle of the corridor each. They were placed some distance away from each other and the first one, to avoid any interference. For the last trap I put one bottles on both sides of a doorway, placing them at shoulder height. This one was meant as a last resort if all other options failed. I trusted that it would be able to dismantle the head of any undead being hit by it, including zombies.


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    With this my preparations were completed and I went to lure in my prey. I was targeting a zombie that guarded an intersection near the necromancers¡¯ camp. By eliminating it I might also be able to get a chance to sneak in and take a look around.


    But all that still lay in the future, since I would first have to win before doing anything else. To get the zombies attention, I attacked it with an ice shard. I could have used one of my bombs, but the noise would likely have attracted the necromancers¡¯ attention. The shard didn¡¯t even piece the zombies leather armour, but it still fulfilled its purpose.


    The zombie looked around and, as soon as it noticed me, started charging towards me. Actively using the push spell to increase my speed, I lured it towards the first ground-trap. During this time, I was surprised to discover that my own base speed wasn¡¯t too far behind that of the zombie anymore. The increase in body strength really showed. But I didn¡¯t have much time to be happy, because we arrived at the trap.


    Just when the zombie ran across the bottle, I set it off. The explosion threw it off its feet. But just when I thought it would fall face flat, the zombies arms sudden shot forward and stopped its fall. Then it pushed itself back into a standing posture in an impressive athletic manoeuvre. I could see that the zombies¡¯ legs were badly burnt and there wasn¡¯t much left in regards to boots and leg protectors, but that didn¡¯t stop it from continuing to chase after me.


    I lured it to the next trap, the block of ice. Here I used the explosion to break the block free from the ceiling and make it fall on the zombies head. I judged the blocks weight to be around 10 kilograms and with the additional propulsion from the explosion, I thought that it would be able to kill the zombie. I was mistaken. When the bock had hit it, I heard a cracking sound and the undeads head was bent in an unnatural angle, but after a short reorientation phase, it continued chasing me.


    I couldn¡¯t help but admire how tough and durable these zombies were. Compared to them, the skeletal undeads were a mere joke. The hunt continued, although the zombie wasn¡¯t as fast as before. When I used the second ground trap, the zombie finally fell, its legs being burned to the point where it couldn¡¯t stand up anymore. It still tried to crawl towards me though. Truly a frightening endurance.


    I broke a dagger away from my body and carefully approached the zombie. Evading a strike of its right arm I jumped close, put the daggers tip onto the undeads head and used the full powered push spell on it. On this close distance it was able to exert considerable force and there was no possibility of missing the target.


    The dagger slid into the zombies¡¯ head, but it still continued to struggle. I had to use two more knifes until the undead finally stopped moving. Shocking. Simply shocking. I proceeded to crack open its skull and search for the crystal. When I finally found it, I was thoroughly disappointed. It wasn¡¯t even half as big as that of a spectre. I couldn¡¯t understand where this great strength came from if the crystal was so small.


    I got my answer when I absorbed the crystal. From what I learned, the zombies had most of their crystal spread across, and integrated into their entire body, making it both stronger and tougher. The main crystal acted as a ¡®brain¡¯ of sorts and only controlled the rest instead of directly controlling the body.


    For me this meant that I would only be able to take a part of the zombies¡¯ total crystal mass. This just strengthened the resolve that had formed while fighting the zombie: I would never again fight against one of them unless it was absolutely necessary or I had found a method to easily deal with them. Everything else was nothing short of madness.