《Insert Coin To Continue》 Chapter 1: Meet Mr. Skeleton (Edited) Author''s Note: Second Edit of the first chapter! Hopefully its a better introduction into my writing and give a better backstory to the character.
Black text lay across a white screen, a blinking line waiting for me to input more. Code strung out looking like an archaic language meant to confuse the gods with its complexity and simplicity, though it was finicky enough to be something created by them. I was a code writer¡¯s spell check since most of the programs that the company I worked for didn¡¯t have anything that worked as effectively as a human. Long days followed this type of work, working for ten to fifteen hours was the status quo even if you only got paid for an eight hour day, there was no way to put in only eight hours and finish on time. ¡°Salary jobs really do suck.¡± I muttered under my breath as I rubbed my tired eyes. My cubicle, if I was to call it mine it was only because I owned most of the decorations around me in this space, was about ten feet long, and the same wide. A pink flamingo sat in front of me, every few seconds taking a sip of my coffee with a backdrop of a beach somewhere I couldn¡¯t afford to be. I took pleasure in having the most tacky, and stereotypical decorations in my cubicle from the plastic Hawaiian girls that hips jiggled when you bumped the desk, to the plastic palm trees above my computer screen. Being deemed the ¡®King of Tacky Cubicles¡¯ three years running wasn¡¯t really an accomplishment at the yearly Christmas party since the award was specifically made for me but I hung them up proudly despite that. The code in front of me wasn¡¯t actually my work, it looked like it which was enough to keep the bosses at bay, but it was actually a code directed at the coffee machine. I doubt anyone knew that it was hooked up to the network, and could be controlled remotely, and I¡¯ll be damned if I don¡¯t abuse that as quickly as I could. Making a pot of coffee was more time I had to spend around my ¡®peers¡¯ that constantly looked down on the person who just cleans up their messes. I should be paid more than them in my opinion, it takes more knowhow to keep their gibberish scripts running then any of them have any right to complain about. My main goal was to keep my head low for now, three years inside an actual company helping with code would look good on my resume for a guy who had ¡®no prior experience¡¯. Being the top of my graduating class didn¡¯t help as much as I thought, everyone referring to that little detail with a look of indifference. I was just a number, a number that had no work experience, so I was a risk to hire. It made me wonder why I studied so hard during those classes if being first, or last in the class meant the same thing so long as I passed. Saving the file onto the desktop, and giving it a cheerful mug as an icon, I launched it as I gathered up my stuff. The clock informed me that it was the earliest I could leave this place, and I wasn¡¯t going to wait for more work to end up on my desk because I ¡®look bored¡¯ or some stupid excuse like that. Five minutes I was out the door, with a fresh cup of coffee in my hands, god bless the Italians for making such good joe. A homely looking Ford was waiting for me, a knight in shining armor if I had ever seen one, with a click it opened letting me into its worn down seats. As I started the car there was a bang at the window, a quick look showed it was Fred, one of the lead Programmers, which meant that he relied on me a lot more than others to make sure his code had no errors. None of the credit for these error free programs ever made it to my desk, but an optimist would assume the bosses know. Looking out the window I wave, pulling the car into reverse leaving him there dumbfounded. He pointed to a USB stick, obviously something he wanted me to work on during the weekend, feigning ignorance I gave him a thumbs up and drive off leaving him confused. Looking back, I half expected Fred to be running after the car waving the USB stick in his hand, instead a man stands in the middle of the parking lot. He had the vibe of one of those men that sold you ¡®Rolox¡¯ watches, and other knock off brand items, with his long dirty trenchcoat clenched close to his body and seeming far too baggy. Our eyes met, at least I felt like they did as a baseball cap seemed to hide his face in an impossible way, but the feeling sent a chill down my spine. A blaring horn brought me back to my senses as a car went by, the driver being nice enough to wave at me with his middle finger extended. Two birds found themselves on my hands in response, and I set course for home. It was a quick drive home, a mere hour of travel sadly like the statistics say, most accidents happen close to home. A car horn blared, a white light, searing pain, I assume that was all from the car crash, but that might have been my life flashing before my eyes since most of my actual free time was spent sitting in a car getting to and from work. It was sad, because I had major plans this weekend, the unopened game case will have to be opened by someone else. That should be the last thing on my mind, but sometimes you just don¡¯t want to think of the immediate, ¡°I just got hit by another car, will I survive?¡± immediately. I¡¯ve always thought of myself as a pessimist so thinking about things like my survival that¡¯ll only make me depressed. Time seemed to slip by, though it wasn¡¯t a concept that my mind could grasp with the pain, and the even worse numbing feeling around my arm, and ribs. Hours may have passed, or minutes, but I know I wasn¡¯t awake for most of it. It seemed as though my consciousness was a drowning man, only breaking to the surface every once in awhile to scream for someone to notice him. Gasoline was all I could smell, and taste, a faint tapping sound of a liquid dropping onto metal in the distance was probably the source of the smell. The twisted metal carcass of a car lay slain, like some mythical beast bleeding it''s black blood onto the ground, it''s bright eyes flickering in and out as its breathed its last mechanical breath. I would have laughed, if the pain in my ribs would have allowed it at the thought of driving a mythical beast to work every day. A man quickly came over, and his face went pale with horror letting me know my condition, followed by the loud bang of his truck door, as he speed off fleeing the scene meant no one was coming to help me. Gagging on my saliva, and blood it seemed like nothing was working as it should, tears streaming down my eyes, the hot trail down my cheeks left me with a calm feeling. I understood that there was nothing I could do, and resigned myself to my fate, I guess this was the stage of acceptance that people talked about when you knew you would die. I assumed by fuzzy almost peaceful mind was due to blood loss, or maybe lack of oxygen since my lungs hurt too much to fill them much more than one or two small breaths. Time seemed to flutter, ash falling down like snow slowing down in front of me until it halted in mid air. I waited for the final rerun, your life flashing before your eyes like everyone seemed to mention in every story where the main character has a brush with death. Life for me was in essence my job, sinking ten hours a day on average, four hours on travel time, all so I could pay for the things I wanted, it seemed rather sad once it was boiled down to its fundamentals. The games, the drinking, my car, my computer, it all seemed rather pointless now, though I would probably buy more games given the chance. Taking a sideways glance at the wreckage of my car I tried to shake my head, but my neck refused to listen, my fingers gripping at a piece of metal trying to help my body turn if just a little. ¡°Do you want to live, no matter the cost?¡± A voice whispered in my ear, I tried to turn my head again in shock to see who it was, only to stare at the tire to my right, a blank unfocused look coming over my glazed eyes. ¡°What dying man would refuse?¡± I thought not able to mouth the words. ¡°You must be the angel of death to bring my soul away.¡± A laugh echoed behind me, it reminded me of those Santas at the mall. ¡°An angel? Me? Never, those detestable beings are play things of a god with too much time on his hands. Though your stories have called me death. You¡¯ve heard the tales of people staking their life on a game with death right?¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Does that mean you want to play a game for my life?¡± ¡°Yes, you get to live if you pass my game, now then, should we start? I am quite a busy man and you will die in a few moments, I can only play my game with someone who agrees¡± As I nod my head one last time, the darkness at the corner of my eyes swallowed everything, my consciousness fading, but the last thing that I saw was the ballcap I saw earlier. Now that I was closer I could make out a characters on the front of it, NY. It didn¡¯t mean much to me other than New York, so I couldn¡¯t help but think, ¡°Fuck New York.¡±
A man in white platemail armor sat in a beam of sunlight that broke though an opening along the roof of the throne room he was in. The glow of the air, mixed with his arrogant attitude made him seem like a mighty angel sitting upon its ivory throne. His blonde hair rippled down his shoulders, coming to light curls upon his back if standing one would think of him as a painting. He looked too much like a stereotypical prince in shinning armor to be real, if it wasn''t for the two black horns that twisted out of his hair at least. A pair of black wings lay behind him, and they stretched out as he awoke on the throne. ¡°A hero is being brought to this world once more,¡± With a proud expression that seemed to always hold in it a hint of boredom, he scanned his throne room, Demons flew through the air flying past one another. The sky was bright under the sun, and he squinted up at it in thought, ¡°This¡¯ll be the tenth time this year, what is that old man planning?¡± He tapped at the throne as his mind raced at what the implications of this could mean, he had never seen so many souls cross through the boundary into his world before. Demons noticing the rousing of their master descended, all of them kneeling before him with a mixture of respect and fear, anyone witnessing the scene would know that the man''s rule was one through power. Demons scattered as he waved his hand at them, shooing them away to leave him to think about the matters, and if this threatened his position. Heroes came and went, always fighting and killing the ''Demon Lord'' of the time, but heroes have always been few in number. With a large number of so called heroes, they might actually pose a minor threat to him if the problem isn''t looked into. The man sighed deeply, and sat back in his throne staring at his subjects. "This will be bothersome."
The sound of movement could be heard, clicking like wood against wood as words spilled into my consciousness the darkness of death still lingering in my eyes. ¡°Body pieces found, stabilizing a body, collecting mana and twisting it into fibers to aid in movement. Body complete, soul attachment complete, activating soul.¡± ¡°Hello, please state your name for further introduction to your new situation.¡± A voice echoed from inside my head as I opened my eyes, groaning at the feeling of grogginess, and sickness that filled my stomach. Sitting up, the feeling of a late night drinking as my eyes adjusted to the piles of bones around me. Wait, a pile of bones? Confirming my surroundings I looked about, there were indeed a sea of bones around me, on top of the sea was even more bones, though these ones resembled skeletons. They weren¡¯t all human like, but they all shared something in common they all moved, wondering around aimlessly and slowly. A few of them roamed in packs holding rocks, sticks with rocks attached to them, or sharpened rocks, it seemed as though the only weaponry was rocks. Those few that stuck in packs seemed to be more intelligent, and they moved with purpose along the bones under their feet. The voice repeated, ¡°What is your name, please state your name.¡± I looked up to the skeletons passing and ignored the voice, everything was happening too fast for me. Putting things in order, I stated the obvious in my head, this is not my world, if I wasn¡¯t convinced by the walking skeletons I was positive my Earth did not have three moons at night. Maybe the man I spoke to earlier was telling the truth, I¡¯ve started to play his game, did that mean that this was the beginner''s town? ¡°At least I¡¯m still alive,¡± I said as my head felt an impact another skeleton bumping into it, it''s boney knee making the sound similar to the wood on wood sound earlier. A hand quickly went to my head, but it stopped in front of my eyes. Before me was a bunch of bones held together by who knows what that resembled my hand. Flexing and moving it, it seemed to follow my commands confirming one thing without a doubt, ¡°Well fuck my previous relief, I¡¯m a Skeleton.¡± ¡°Skeleton accepted as name, Mister added to identify you from other skeletons. Welcome to the world Mr. Skeleton.¡± The voice seemed cheerful, taking on a feminine voice instead of the emotionless robotic voice earlier. It was then that I took notice of the voice, it didn¡¯t take long to figure out that it was a disembodied voice. Due to my situation a thousand questions formed in my head, ¡°I''m a skeleton? Why am I a skeleton? Who are you?¡± Disembodied voices usually have the answer in most of the stories that I¡¯ve read, and if it was like a video game she¡¯d send me on a quest. ¡°Me? I am tutorial, a guide to this world. As to why you''re a skeleton, this is the best body that fit your wishes for how you wanted to be reborn. The potential to grow, and change as you see fit, with control over yourself and your destiny. Are these not your innermost wishes?¡± ¡°Tutorial? Like a video game?¡± I couldn''t help but tilt my head, at that tilt I noticed two timers at the side of my vision one of them showed a skeleton puking on the ground and the other the word menu. I ignored both for now, pressing the voice for answers once again, ¡°But why the video game mechanics? Doesn''t this seem strange?¡± ¡°It was elements from your world you would feel comfortable with, having hundred hours per week invested in video games it was the most continuous thing you did other than work. In work you didn¡¯t seem engaged in it, so that was left out of the equation. A few of the others from your world have also adapted a similar setup.¡± The voice paused, as if to think, ¡°Though of the others most of them didn''t have a role playing game as their focus, your game of choice was New Origin Online correct? You''ll find many systems from that implemented into your body.¡± ¡°And why am I here? I vaguely remember someone talk about a game for my life.¡± The memories from the crash seemed like a haze, especially the events leading up to it after leaving the parking lot. ¡°You are here to earn enough points to stop your death from happening.¡± Tutorial said in a matter-of-fact tone. Pondering over the game mechanics, ¡°Points? Like experience points or something else?¡± ¡°Something else entirely, it¡¯s basically your value to this world whether through infamy or fame.¡± I listened, taking it all in as I noticed a few of the skeletons had taken interest in me. It must be because I''m talking, I have yet to see any of the skeletons talk yet then again I have yet to see them do anything other than move from place to place. ¡°What is my character status then?¡± A screen pulled up in front of me, the three skeletons watching me taking a step back as it appeared. ¡°Level 0?¡± ¡°Yes, using a human of a weak condition as a base level 1, you are currently at level 0, the equivalent of a ten year old human child.¡± Masochism not high on my list of priorities, the cheerful voice of a woman telling you how much of a bug you are did not help out my mood. Tapping through some of the menu settings, I noticed the skeletons got closer, one of them seemed to have ran off but the last two sat down to watch me go through the menu, the soft blue glow on their faces. Chapter 2: I need a hand (Edited) The sun was slowly setting, a soft blue glow coming over the horizon the sun was coming over the bone hills around me casting a blue hue on the bones around me. I questioned if this was because of the atmosphere or if the sun itself was blue, the hordes of dead were starting to become more active as the sun rose. It seemed as if the stories were untrue in this world, the undead was not nocturnal, almost immediately the smarter skeletons that were looking for something started a small scale war off in the distance. Hundreds of skeletons bashed into each other like a light blue wave of people, a few had weapons mostly sticks and rocks even less actually had had actual weapons. Other skeletons off to the side seemed to just watch in a daze, a lot of them seemed to be rather docile if not provoked though the stragglers that did get caught up in the battle fought back with vigor. The numbers were staggering as I watched them pile up on each other, some losing body parts and gathering them together to use them as weapons as well. It seemed as though they had some relative control of the dislodged limbs. I flicked through the tabs, making closer examination of the words on the sides, the characters seemed to scroll through over a couple hundreds of types of letters before settling on english, tabs signified character, skills, equipment, and spells. Currently character, and skills were lightly blinking as I curiously looked at things, ¡°Tutorial, do I get upgrades to my stats from leveling, or do I get status points that I have to assign myself?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± The voice said cheerfully, a silence following it. Thinking about it, I reworded my question, ¡°How do I increase my stats?¡± ¡°You have several ways of increase your stats, they usually fall into four categories Skill Increases, Title Increases, Passive Increases, and lastly Level Increases. Your character screen will only show your Level Increases. Level increases will be affected by two things race, and class. Your race at the moment is lacking strength, constitution and dexterity due to your current body.¡± A pulse of energy runs through my body making me shiver from head to toe. ¡°The easiest way to increase those aspects of your body would be to control the density, construction, and flexibility of your magic reserves. This will increase your power, and control over magic in later races should you evolve.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re saying my body is the reason for the strange results on my character status?¡± I scrolled up once again to look over my ability scores.
Mr. Skeleton
Class: NoneSecondary Class: NoneRace: SkeletonLevel: 0
XP: 0
Mana Strength:6XP Needed: 0
Mana Flexibility:10
Bone Reinforcement:3Skill Points: 1
Wisdom:10Alliances: 0
Intelligence:9Magics: 0
Charisma:4Skills: 4
¡°Yes, it have been specialized for your race, and will change each time your race changes. I would suggest taking a look at the tables when your race changes.¡± Tutorial spoke. The combat had died down while I was reading, a few of the skeletons standing where the ones with weapons, it gave them a rather big advantage. There was one that didn¡¯t fit in the group, a large skeleton that was covered in extra bones, they almost looked polished armor with a skeleton¡¯s skull at the end of each fist. The strongest of the group seemed to be these ten, the combat seemed to be a big event for the skeletons, I looked away something more interesting and personal in front of me. Switching over to the skill tab, I was slightly disappointed as there was only four even though the previous menu had already said such, and I was more disappointed by the actual skills themselves.
Skills
Bite (Level 1)To use teeth to cut into something in order to eat or damage it.
Movement (Level 1)The agility of the joints, as well as flexibility correction when moving.
Bone Collector (Level 1)Find bones to enhance your body. Durability of bones can also be enhanced by stat.
Monster Regeneration (Level 1)Gains a monster core, life is intact as long as core exists.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. My head turned to the two skeletons to my sides, they looked humanoid in nature, though I didn¡¯t know enough about anatomy to tell if there were extra parts or not, but they were in mostly human form as far as I could tell. Trying to smile, I found it a bit hard without facial muscles but I tired, ¡°Seems like I lack anything of importance. Maybe I can hunt down bones like a dog till I get something good.¡± ¡°Skill level will rise independently from your level, so that might not be such a bad idea. After the level of the skill reaches level ten it can expand into different skills, some skills will stay at level ten until another skill reaches the same level forming into a skill group,¡± I nodded, Tutorial¡¯s words were very self explanatory to anyone who¡¯s played an RPG before with similar elements. There weren''t any surprises other than the unique and racial skills I was given. ¡°Honestly I could use something that will take my mind off of things, I did just die.¡± I said optimistically. Video games were always my escape from the stresses of the world, so this power might just be the perfect to let his mind wander and forget the car crash that happened not too long ago. There was a soft phantom pains from my previous body, I knew that there wasn¡¯t any injuries on my body, in fact I did not have most of the body parts that were in pain at the moment. Assuming stretching wouldn¡¯t help, I stood up, staring forward at the combats that were scattered around me. Looking at the two skeletons beside me, I shrugged, ¡°Want to help me fight some other skeletons?¡± One of the skeletons nodded, flexing his bony arm, as the other gave him a thumbs up. ¡°These bones are too quiet, reminds me of mimes.¡± I shivered at the thought, grabbing a rock from the ground, it seemed to be the most common weapon of the skeletons.
Ding!
Negotiation (Level 1) skill gained!
¡°How was that negotiation?¡± Curiously asked Tutorial but I could almost hear a shrug in the silence. ¡°Now like a videogame can I add these two to my party?¡±
Ding!
Skeleton (1), and Skeleton (2) added to party!
Gripping my rock, and rushing at one of the other skeletons I slam my arm down like a hammer on the skeleton¡¯s head. I heard a cracking sound from both my arm, and the skeleton¡¯s head as both of them shattered leaving me armless, and the skeleton in front of me headless. It turned towards me, reaching for its head as it started to freak out. Personally this would have been funny if I wasn¡¯t freaking out that my arm was now gone, picking up another rock I quickly jumped at the skeleton bashing down at the body. The ribs, shoulder blades, and other bones were broken under my sudden unexpected rage at this skeleton that made me lose my arm. The final crash of the rock hit something that made the whole body of the skeleton¡¯s body clench up in pain. A growth about the size of my thumb was against its spine I brought down the rock on the growth and heard a snapping sound as my hand breaks apart leaving me without a hand on one side, and without an arm on the other. Fear fell through me, if I didn¡¯t have these body parts it¡¯d be impossible to continue in this world. I sat there, breathing deeply to calm my nerves, I knew I could evolve so maybe I could gain them back through evolution. Then I remembered the Bone collector, and regeneration skills that I had to test the skills to see if they actually worked.
Ding!
Blunt Weapons (Level 1) Skill Gained!
Ding!
Blunt Weapons now (Level 2)
Looking back at the two skeletons, I raise my handless arm, ¡°I think I need a hand.¡± The two skeletons shook their heads turning their back on me as if ashamed by what I just said. Using the stump of my arm to touch the dead skeleton¡¯s hand, a snapping sound echoed out as tendrils of a black liquidy substance wraps around it before attaching it to my arm, wiggling my new fingers I look up. It seems like I can repair myself after battle, so that makes losing an arm or two a bit easier to deal with. Chapter 3: First Equipment? Notes from the Author: Hello, this is ZeroProxy. I would like to thank all of those who are reading Insert Coin to Continue. I would like to say, the first 5-6 chapters will come out quick as I already have them done and I''m just adding light modifications to them before I submit them. After that my posts will considerably drop as I can not write a chapter a day. I do hope for constructive criticism as this is my first submitted story ever, and I would love to level up my writing skill to at least level 10. Thank you once again, and I hope you have as much fun reading this story as I had writing it!
Feeling exhausted I sat there, my bones resting against a pile of bones that littered the ground, breathing out a sigh of relief. My first battle, though one sided had gone well. I knew what I had to focus on now, as I stared at the tendrils of mana weaving together like fibers. Trying to feel how they were created, doing my damnedest to recreate the feeling of when I attached the hand. Blue streams of light merged out of my body like weaving snakes creating complex patterns reinforcing the threads already there.
Ding!
Mana Reinforcement (Level 1) skill gained!
¡°Explain this skill tutorial.¡± Another blue message popped up in my sight replacing the last one.
Mana Reinforcement
The ability to reinforce the structural integrity of your body, decreases the chance of the body breaking. Increased level, and mana spent increases durability.
¡°How much mana and health do I have?¡± ¡°Would you like to show health and mana in your sight? Be warned too many options listed in sight will hinder your vision.¡± Tutorial warned. ¡°Yes, I don¡¯t have anything else up there at the moment anyway.¡± Soon two bars appeared in my vision.
Health: 5/5
Mana: 100/100
Blinking at the reading my body shook a little, having five health seemed a bit suicidal to me. Gripping down on another rock, I slowly gathered mana in my hands the blue tendrils bending and twisting to my will as I fashioned it to a long straight bone. A few more blue boxes came up, but I pushed them to the side for later, leveling held a higher priority than anything at the moment. ¡°I have to get out of this danger zone, I feel like a mouse could probably kill me right now.¡± Finishing my small makeshift weapon I wrap the tendrils around the arm holding the weapon, attaching my hand to the weapon itself as well. Tossing rocks to the two skeletons behind me, they grip them confused for a moment, ¡°If you¡¯re going to be with me, I can¡¯t be the only one getting us stronger. Life comes at the price of death¡­¡± I stopped myself, maybe talking about life to a group of skeletons wasn¡¯t the most effective. Contrary to my beliefs though, they seemed to be pumped up, one of them even gathering up some dirt to create a dirty face mask that could be confused for war paint. The other went a bit far when it went to beat its chest though, a rib falling to the ground. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°Fine then, if we¡¯re set, then let up turn this boneyard into a graveyard.¡± The two skeletons took distance from me immediately, once again looking ashamed.
Two hours passed since we set out, my body covered in dirt and bits of bone was laced throughout it. I learned who not to offend in the boneyard, it seemed that the groups of Skeletons, like my own were the stronger ones, and slightly more intelligent. We only managed to scrape by against the first group we ran into due to the fact we had weapons, with little to no harm. Though it did take ten or so minutes to reattach one of the skeleton¡¯s heads. We continued on until we all three got level up announcements before we took a break. The skeletons of the boneyard seemed to actually be of three types humanoid, insectoid, and frankensteins. The frankensteins were the hardest to deal with, and from what I could gather were the oldest of the skeletons, switching out various pieces from their core bodies for something better. The insectoids had really high defenses, their bodies just one large shell that houses a core in the center. The humanoids were the most numerous though, and the weakest, their cores fully exposed to the world. Flexing out the new arm, it was mismatched from the other as it had a layer of crystal along it which reinforced the arm further than my tendrils could. It didn''t feel right having only one strong arm so I had taken both of his arms, I was just waiting for my other to break. Not being a masochist I couldn¡¯t bring myself to actually snap off my own arm. Regeneration seemed to level up as I attached them as well so having backups, and pushing them to their brink seemed like a viable strategy. In front of me lay a pile of bones that were better according to my bone collecting, and I planned on switching out various bones that my bone collecting told me were better than my own. Included in my collection was a bone chest plate that obviously wasn''t from a human skeleton to experiment. Lifting up the chest piece I tried adding it to my ribcage, and a window popped up.
Level 3 Bone Chest Armor equip to ribcage?
Yes/No
Quickly pressing yes, I saw a timer appear as a blue light wrapped the chest piece, it seemed like the bone armor would take some time to place on my body. This did make me question if I had to break off my arms, legs, and everything else, just to replace my body parts. The timer counted down from five minutes as I sat there thinking about the day. Skeletons seemed rather weak as a race, but their customization could lead to them being stronger than most, a rather good late game race. Though the race as a whole was too stupid to implement this, so it balanced itself out. I looked to the two skeletons, they seemed to be going over the leftover bones, and trying them on. ¡°Tutorial, can I increase their intelligence?¡± ¡°You are in a world of magic now Mr. Skeleton, once you kill something part of its magical essence leaks out strengthening the killer. Everything is enhanced eventually, even the weakest of stats. In short, yes.¡± I smiled at the explanation, throwing one of them a rather long stick that I had found, walking to the other to hand him a smooth stone hammer like mine. They both looked at me, then saluted, a voice whispering, ¡°negotiation leveled up.¡± ¡°How the fuck was that a negotiation?!¡± I asked frustrated. Chapter 4: Flying Food As the sun rose in the distance, I laid there, my mind a bit hazy. Apparently I didn''t need any sleep, though my body becomes sluggish after a while. The bone chest piece was firmly in place, and I had convinced the other two to find armor pieces for me during the night. I figured running into humans, they might accept a man in armor over a skeleton walking around, even if it was a disguise. They were both lazily coming back as I stood up, and if I could frown it would be easier to see my discomfort. In the piles of ¡®armor¡¯ that they pulled up, and gathered behind them were mostly trash, one of the items seemed to be a parasol, a shoe, it looked like a homeless man¡¯s home had been ransacked for supplies. Shaking my head as they placed their haul, looking quite proud I sighed, starting to look at it to make them happy. It wasn''t a complete loss, a helmet, a rusted chain shirt, and enough pieces to cover up the rest of the body with old armor pieces. I looked a mess, skinny and famished, but at least no one could see that I was a skeleton without looking closely. ¡°Thank you, you guys helped a lot.¡± They gave each other a high five, one of their hands falling apart, as he looked down at it. Shrugging he reached down putting back on his hand. After he did he paused, looking up to the sky, he suddenly seemed worried, frantically pushing me to the ground. Before I could catch my footing, a pile of bones landed on me. One of the skeletons moved his finger to his mouth motioning me to be quiet as he crept forwards, eying the skies. I could barely make out two figures both of them larger than a human, their skin stretched over muscles making it look like it might rip under the pressure. Red fiery hair was in disarray upon their heads, they both seemed to embody the ferocity of fire, eyes glistening in bloodlust. My breath would have felt heavy if I had the lungs to hold them, both of them had a visible layer of energy about them. They were worth hundreds of me, even if their armor and weapons weren''t counted in I doubt I could survive for a second even if they waved their hand in my general direction. A deep pressure filled the air as they descended, causing the bones to pick up around them crackling beneath their feet.
Ding!
Magic Perception (Level 1) skill gained!
I hurriedly pushed the popup away, I knew they could see the menu when it formed, I had yet to confirm if they could see the blue messages when they came into existence. Soon around me the flow of mana could be seen as blue wisps seemed to flow in the air and around everything, creatures seemed to be the highest concentration. These two demons looked like two blazing blue suns, dwarfing any other mana source in the area. ¡°There should be a very powerful source of magic around here, the last heroes brought with them strange weapons, so be vigilant against flying copper.¡± The smaller demon seemed to be talking to himself, wondering forward, but he paused as he looked to the two skeletons. ¡°Hey, when was the last time you saw a skeleton with a weapon brother?¡± The skeleton with the long stick pointed to it, shook his head and started moving it around like a broom. It started to blow wind through its teeth, starting to whistle as it moved along trying to get out of sight. Sadly the movements of this skeleton brought more attention to it, the two demons staring at it blankly. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°What¡­ Is this skeleton doing?¡± The bigger one looked at the skeleton quizzically, the smaller demon shaking his head. ¡°Either way, this skeleton is of no concern, we just need to find the hero and leave. If we can get in a small fight that would be good too, heroes are considered the top fighters in the world.¡± The small demon smiled a bit as he turned away from the skeleton, ¡°The magic in this area is the strongest, but it is too weak to be a hero. Maybe he¡¯s already left?¡± The skeleton wiped fake sweat from his brow before looking at his hand, some of their actions were starting to seem more human. I¡¯m thinking that leveling them up might actually give them clues into their own past and background. ¡°Who would want to hang out with a bunch of skeletons anyway? At most they could take down a warrior with a group of ten or twelve.¡± The bigger skeleton scoffed, pushing over the skeleton with the stone hammer in his hand, smiling as it scrambled away. The cowering skeleton moved back and watched through, the magical density in the air was too tempting, and too rich to not want to bask in it.
Ding!
Gained 2 points in Bone Reinforcement!
It seemed like just being around these two, and the pressure they put off strengthened me. I wondered if being around strong creatures like this would always result in gaining strength. Tutorial ruined my dreams though, ¡°Demons are considered the cause of creatures like yourself since the residual energy that radiates from their body is nourishment to your kind.¡± I¡¯m going to have to get myself a demon to carry around some day then, it seems like a nice way to strengthen yourself, my thoughts drifted as I stared at these two. ¡°Either way, we should continue on, our prey isn''t here. Heroes always come in at their peak, but it''s like giving a battle axe to a child.¡± The bigger one grinned looking away from the skeleton crawling around. ¡°Hey, maybe he came back as a skeleton?¡± ¡°Improbable, even the strongest one wouldn''t pose a threat to even a farmer.¡± The smaller demon¡¯s wings unfolded from around his chest, spreading out to catch the wind as he took off. The bigger one watched for a moment before looking over to the pile of rubble that I was in, smiling, ¡°Picking a fruit before it''s ripe is never any fun. Little brother doesn''t like games though, it''s sad. Get strong little skeleton, the Demon Lord has great plans for you.¡±
Ding!
Negotiation is now (Level 3)!
As the demon took to the skies the sound of its wings covering up my soft curses to Tutorial. Chapter 5: Mr. Skeleton Learning to Breath Author (God) speaking: And... the last of the pre-written/rewritten chapters! From here on out the posts will be slower than the past couple of days!
My mind raced, frowning as I looked towards where the two demons left to. My lack of a face made frowning really hard to pull off, but in my mind I was frowning. ¡°I already have people hunting me?¡± I sighed. The two skeletons helped me to my feet, brushing my armor free of dust as I sat down on a breastplate. ¡°I wonder how they found out that I''m here, is there an announcement or something that a hero has arrived?¡± Tutorial spoke up, ¡°It''s the high magical concentration in the area.¡± Thinking about the magical concentration, I remembered the popups I had pushed away without reading them. I remembered one though that I did read, Magic Perception might help me explore the concentration. Pulling up the menu, I paused at my character stats, they had raised a lot more than what tutorial hinted at.
Mr. Skeleton
Class: NoneSecondary Class: NoneRace: SkeletonLevel: 2
XP: 2340
Mana Strength:9XP Needed: 630
Mana Flexibility:12
Bone Reinforcement:10Skill Points: 3
Wisdom:11Alliances: 2
Intelligence:12Magics: 0
Charisma:8Skills: 12
Changing tabs over to my skills, I noticed a blinking white plus sign over in the corner, tapping at it without looking at my skills out of curiosity. A blue popup appeared with a blinking line waiting for an input above it.
Please describe the skill you wish to have:
¡°Teleportation!¡± Happily I yell at the blue screen, which it replied with, insignificant skill points. ¡°Invisibility?¡± No, ¡°Mindreading?¡± No, ¡°Flame on?¡± Elaborate, ¡°Turning my body on fire, and being able to fl-¡± Denied. ¡°Am I arguing with a menu?¡± Yes. ¡°Fine, can I have something interesting?¡± Denied. Angrily hitting the x on the menu, I glared at my skills like they were the ones who offended me. My eyes glanced over the skills, with a bored expression until I reached Magic Perception, tapping it to get a skill description.
Magic Perception (Level 1)
The Ability to see the magic in the surroundings, and creatures around you. Higher perception allows you to see more about the area around you, including the property of such magic.
Relying on the feeling of that massively powerful aura that surrounded the demons, I tried to focus on the small amounts of energy that surrounded me, in everything. It wasn¡¯t that hard since according to tutorial the air was filled with massive amounts of energy as compared to usual. Blue lights flickered into existence around me as I concentrated covering everything, it seemed like a fog that seeped out of the very ground itself. One thing I noticed was that with each breath I seemed to consume the energy around me, blue lights twisting and pouring into my mouth. This is what apparently fueled us instead of food, and was the reason more powerful creatures were in areas where the earth provided a lot of magical energy. Taking in a deep breath, I felt rejuvenated, like the first drink of coffee in the morning. My mind buzzed with thoughts, as I tried to do things with the magical energy that I was breathing in. ¡°Magic? If I can sense it maybe I can do spells like a wizard?¡± I concentrated on my breathing, seeing how, and why my breath moved the magic. Hours passed as I sat there, my hands on my knees as I breathed deeply pulling it all the way to below my ribcage to where my stomach would be if I had one, bathing my bones in the magic energy that surrounded me. My perception had raised three time since I sat there, and I could now see with each exhale an almost black energy was being pressed out of my body that seemed tainted in some way. I found that breathing deeply wasn¡¯t the most efficient way of doing things it seemed as if breathing to about eighty percent was the best. With the rhythm and movements of my breathing, I spread out my own magical energy to force the energy around me to swirl like a whirlpool or a back hole with me as its center. Stolen story; please report. As the sun started to set, four blue boxes showed up in my vision, breaking me out of my concentration.
Ding!
Qi Breathing Technique (level 1) skill gained!
Ding!
Mana Manipulation (level 1) skill gained!
Ding!
Level up! Level 3 obtained!
Ding!
Race Change from Skeleton, to Skeleton*
I stared at it for a moment, then got up, training this when I''m fatigued or injured seemed a better use of my time than just sitting there. Hearing a crackling sound from under the armor I had on, I looked to the gauntlet as it seemed to fill up, holding better on my arm. Removing it I found the tendrils on my arm had weaved together tighter, and as I moved my fingers they seemed like I had gained magical flexors, and extensors weaved out of thin blue streams of mana, instead of red weaves of muscle. As I stood there I flexed and moved my hands and arms feeling as if my body had completely gotten stronger in mere moments. Looking at my companions they looked at me with a look of¡­ well the same face that they always have, a skeletal expression of ¡®I lack the facial muscles to show feelings¡¯. Turning off my Magical Perception skill, I looked again at my arm which looked like a regular skeleton¡¯s arm. Testing out my new body, the three of us went out to hunt which turned out to be disappointing already. With my increased abilities nearly no one stood a chance, it seemed as though we¡¯d have to leave the boneyard and explore further to find worthy prey. Something, whether it be fear of the demon from earlier, the thrill of a gamer, or the want to achieve more was screaming at me that I need to become stronger. Gearing up the other two skeletons, and putting what I could into a tattered bag that I found not long ago, I looked like a necromantic soldier with his skeletal servants from an outside perspective. With the limited metal gear that I could find, I couldn¡¯t fully cloth both of them, so I settled on at least giving them all defensive abilities so they could survive better. I was looking to enhance myself, and the idiotic attacks, and defenses of the skeletons I was killing wasn¡¯t making me any better at fighting, even if I am becoming stronger. My first thought was to find a teacher, someone to guide me in the way of the blade, or hand to hand fighting, but it was dismissed for now unless I found one that wasn¡¯t human. Much of fighting seemed to need knowledge of one¡¯s body, which I currently lacked only being a skeleton now for about a week, since my human body can¡¯t compare to one that could interchange parts like a Ken doll. At that thought I looked down depressed at my groin. ¡°We¡¯re off brothers, to explore the lands that are beyond the boneyard. I feel strangely excited, its one of those days where I wish you two could speak.¡±
Ding!
Used three skill points to gain Speak With Dead (Level 1)
¡°You asshole!¡± Chapter 6: Mr. Skeleton Eats a Sword Author (God) Apparently I missed one last chapter on my google docs, it was half way done so I tried my best to finish it before the day ended. Hope you all enjoy! If you have any questions, or suggestions for the chapters in the future feel free to drop me a message! If not me, then I''ll have tutorial answer your questions.
We traveled for a day past the boneyard, which ended abruptly into a dense forest area, with a sea of green lush trees in front of us we entered. Listening to the two of them talk behind me as we weaved through the forest, I noticed that there was various woodland creatures were the same, as in my world. Squirrels slipped in and out of view, deer prancing around without any worry, sort of ignoring us. Maybe it was due to the fact that we didn¡¯t eat flesh, but I assumed we could still drain the mana from their bodies, though it didn¡¯t look like a very filling meal. After a while I paused, cutting down a deer just to be sure, watching my XP which barely ticked up at all. Grabbing the meat, bones, and fur, I tried my best to tan them from memory but it seemed like I ruined most of the material handing one of the skeletons a partial shirt to cover the collar, and shoulder bones so less of him was exposed. From their talk between each other while I did this, both of them were calling me a skeleton lord. After they make a bunch of assumptions on my tastes on other skeletons, I yelled at them to keep quiet, they both seemed generally shocked that I could now understand them. It didn¡¯t take long to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or in this case at the end of the forest, it was nearing the end of the first day when I saw something in the distance moving, using the forest¡¯s edge as a guide we came into sight of them quickly. It seemed to be a small grouping of people around two sturdy horses, making their way along a dirt road. Needing directions, I quickened my pace moving outside of the cover of the forest to greet them, closer I could tell that the two horses were covered in supplies without a saddle so it seemed like a guarded small caravan. It made me hopeful that a city may be near, due to the limited supplies that they had, shouting out I hung my hopes on their hospitality, ¡°Hello, I seem to be lost, where is the nearest town?¡± One of the men from the back came forward, yelling out to me, ¡°It is just to the North, we¡¯re on our way to the town if you¡¯d like to join us. We could use three more hands to guard our stuff.¡± I looked over the group with a keen eye, it seemed like everyone had swords, I felt severely under equipped compared to them. Strapping my shield to my arm, and hooking my stone hammer to my side I walked forward, but soon stopped around twenty feet away at the sound of a sword being drawn. My first thought was that I had been tricked, I pulled my hammer, swinging my shield in front of myself moving back quickly. ¡°Dave¡­ I¡¯ve never heard of a talking skeleton.¡± The man¡¯s sword was drawn to the side, as he looked at the man named Dave. It was then that I took count of the people, there was six of them, all of them seemed to be some sort of mercenary as on their breasts held a silver dagger. Looking to my left, I motioned the two skeletons to back up as I took a few steps back drawing more distance between myself and them. ¡°If they come at us, both of you run.¡± Weaving tendrils into the shield, I made my grip on the shield tighter, more secure. Twisting my tendrils upon the shield I poured mana into the shield making it harder to break. ¡°We¡¯re here to help you lord, we wish to be useful as your subjects.¡± I clicked my tongue in annoyance as I shook my head. ¡°You¡¯ll be in the way if you stay here, you should know I¡¯m stronger than both of you combined.¡± The two in front of me couldn¡¯t understand what we were saying as it sounded like a bunch of clicks to mortal ears. My skeleton allies quickly turned and booked it, leaving me alone with the group of six like planned. ¡°Two of them are getting away, quickly catch up to them, skeletons are slow and frail once you hit them just avoid their attacks.¡± One of the smaller of the group rushed forward stepping slightly out of my range to get by me. With a quick twist of my body the hammer lands against the man¡¯s neck letting out a snapping sound as his body goes limp, looks of shock covering the other mercenaries¡¯ eyes. Using their shock I fling my hammer, a loud wet crack could be heard from the man¡¯s leg, cursing that I missed, my aim was his head but a hammer is hard to throw. The mercenaries came to their senses, rushing forwards, bringing down their swords quickly, forcing me to dodge as my shield went up clashing against one of the blades to parry it away. ¡°Are you sure that it¡¯s a skeleton?¡± Backing up one of the mercenaries looked to Dave dumbfounded. Using the opportunity I backed away a bit, another swing coming in from my side, not having enough time to move my shield in the way my arm was used as a sacrifice nearly coming off from one clean swing. Now lacking any way to fight back, my shield moved forward with force mana exploding out behind me cracking the ground as I push, before a snap was heard behind me. Crashing down the shield¡¯s edge against the other man¡¯s leg making an indent in it as I moved away starting to run, one last sword strike coming in make a crunching sound against my jaw as teeth fell out of the helm that I had on. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. They followed behind, now down to two actively approaching people I quickly made my way into the forest trying to lose them, the sky started to pale quickly as we went deeper in before they stopped. The sun was setting in the sky, and they knew that they¡¯d be at a disadvantage against the monsters of the forest if they stayed longer. Gauntlet is lying to my side, tied together with a small amount of mana weaving that was my replacement for muscles, my helm was dented in, destroying my jaw and leaving me unable to talk. My other arm held a shield, gripping it tightly though my arm was twisted in a weird way that if I was human I doubt my arm would be any use. My shoulderblades were both cracked from the force that my shield went through, apparently they weren¡¯t as durable as the shield itself. The sun had set, and that was the only thing that had saved me as I sucked from the mana in the air, revitalizing my body, the twisting tendrils reinforcing themselves as I lay there. Tipping my bag to its side, I pulled out a replacement for my arms, and shoulder blades, as well as another skull, the latter of the three would be rather awkward to replace but if I wanted to be able to talk again I¡¯d need to get rid of my broken face. Pulling at the bones with my mana, I slowly replaced them in the darkness, my back pressed against a large tree. ¡°Ha, I guess I don¡¯t look that much like a human after all.¡± After replacing the bones, I gripped down on a smooth stone breaking up some of the bones I had collected, after I placed them on a rough flat stone pressing down with the smooth one to grind it up into a powder. Taking the bone dust, I add some refined mana into it still grinding the powder turning it into a bluish paste that radiated mana. It was an idea that I had while running to heal my broken bones next time. ¡°How did they find out that I was a skeleton?¡± I mummered to myself as I heard a ding, two blue boxes coming up confirming my accomplishments.
Ding!
Magic Crafting (Level 1) skill gained!
Ding!
Magic Bone Paste created!
Disregarding the two messages, I started to use the paste on the bone armor under my chain armor that provided little to no protection against their swords. It seemed like the bone armor was what had saved my ribcage from being forcefully broken apart instead. ¡°Your necrotic aura isn¡¯t being hidden, they knew you were some sort of undead, and made a guess from your skinny body that it was probably a skeleton.¡± Tutorial spoke up as I pasted together the cracks. ¡°Any ideas on how to prevent my aura from spreading out?¡± Thinking a bit I grabbed one of the short swords from my inventory, placing it down and adding the bone paste to the outside of it before using a stone to sharpen the edges as best I could.
Ding!
Short Sword (Rusty) modified into Magic Bone Sword (Dull) +5 durability, +10 damage.
As I looked over the sword satisfied with the results, Tutorial spoke again, ¡°I am not here to help you think of solutions to your problems, just explain things that you should know about the world should you have lived here.¡± ¡°Fine then, can you explain to me what the star is next to my race?¡± ¡°That indicates you are a unique monster, someone with more strength, and intellect than the average of that race. Usually the mana cores inside of them sell for a lot more, though it can be dangerous to leave some cores in tact, like a skeleton¡¯s for example.¡± Nodding at her words, I pressed on, ¡°Can one evolve further into something else?¡± ¡°Races are usually static unless one absorbs enough mana cores from other creatures, then a unique being can be created. Something along the lines of what you called a Frankenstein is made after enough skeletal cores are consumed. Usually there is a rejection of bones from other species, it seems like your system bypasses that calling it equipment rather than a piece of yourself.¡±
Ding!
Shield (Rusty) modified into Magic Bone Shield +5 durability, +10 damage.
I stop grinding the bones as I didn¡¯t have very many left, and I needed them for replacement parts, I had three small bags full of the paste and two items now covered in it. Feeling like a full blown necromancer, minus the raising dead part, I headed out to find my two companions so I¡¯d fit the role of a necromancer.
Title Unlocked:
Wannabe Necromancer
Chapter 7: Terraforming the Land A crumbling wall behind me, and breathed heavily activating my Qi Breathing Technique, feeling the mana flow through my body. The rejuvenating energies flowed through my body blue energy flowing over the tendrils and twisting like a ball in the area between my ribs and hips. Watching the energy in my stomach area, questions rose in my mind, wondering what I could actually do with the mana in my body. Lifting my hand, I invoked my magic to weave itself around its own weaving structure making it loose at first before confining and condensing it. Expecting it to hold its shape, being more structured and hardened than the tendrils themselves, I tried to mold a face with it thinking about the applications later should I be able to make my mana visible to normal humans. Analyzing the structure, as it condensed more, I felt something in the mana I didn¡¯t before sensing something unique in each weave, something like impurities in metals. Using my control over mana, I separated the mana from each other, the structure of my creation started to condense again as an insubstantial wispy energy ran across my hand. Looking over it, I started to bring out the other impurities, now a red fierce energy, a blue constantly changing energy, a brown stable energy swirled around my arm. There were some other twisting impurities inside the now tannish colored energy that made a face, making it look sort of like an actual face. Letting the energy supply dwindle, seeing if it would maintain itself, what resulted was not to my expectations. My non-existent stomach started to turn as I watched the face twist into a horrifying screaming face looking like the flesh has melting without a skull behind it, deforming as its ¡®mouth¡¯ opens up three times the size of a normal mouth.
Ding!
Terror seed added due to the deformed melting face that you created!
Ding!
Mana Creation (Level 1) skill gained!
¡°Terror seed?¡± Thinking back I remembered something earlier about a seed as well, opening up my menus to thoroughly go through them this time. He had ignored several blue boxes over the past couple of days.
Mr. Skeleton
Class: NoneSecondary Class: NoneRace: Skeleton*Level: 3
XP: 3980
Mana Strength:12XP Needed: 20
Mana Flexibility:12
Bone Reinforcement:12Skill Points: 1
Wisdom:16Alliances: 2
Intelligence:22Magics: 1
Charisma:8Skills: 13
Softly going over the menus, the skill menu came next, which explained a large amount of information that answered a series of questions, and gave me ideas for the future.
Skills:
Bite (Level 1)Use teeth to cut, or tear.
Blunt Weapons (Level 3)Hit harder, and more accurately with blunt objects.
Bone Collector (Level 4)Find bones to enhance your body. Durability of bones can also be enhanced by stat.
Fear Resistance (Level 2)Stops those shaking bones from rattling from dangerous situations.
Magic Crafting (Level 1)Add level to all mundane crafting, chance for magical items.
Magic Perception (Level 5)See and feel the magic essence in the air.
Mana Creation (Level 1)Create items out of pure mana.
Mana Manipulation (Level 2)Control the fibers of mana around you, and weave them to your will. Requirement to use any magic based skills.
Mana Reinforcement (Level 5)Twist your mana to reinforce its structure
Monster Regeneration (Level 5)Gains a monster core, life is intact as long as core exists.
Movement (Level 5)The agility of the joints, as well as flexibility correction when moving.
Negotiation (Level 3)Manipulate people by force of personality!
Qi Breathing Technique (Level 4Regenerate hit points, mana points, and stamina at an increased rate by using the mana in the air to restore your body.
Sneak (Level 2)Hide your presence better.
Speak with Dead (Level 8)Learn the secret language of the dead! Other languages of similar nature learned at max level!
A two new tabs were in the corner of the menu, tapping the first one titled simply ¡®Titles¡¯.
Titles:
Watched by the Demon Lord
Due to his interest in you, you will gain 10% more xp from killing to keep him amused with you.
Wannabe Necromancer
Gain a seed of necromancy, which is considered the beginnings of any necromancer. Build and refine this seed, and you might be a necromancer yet!
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The next tab was labeled magic, which I didn¡¯t think I had, at least I didn¡¯t have any magic but considering my mana manipulation maybe that was considered magic?
Magic Ability
Necromatic SeedA seed of power, that can grow into Necromatic Magic.
Terror SeedA seed of power, that can grow into Terror Magic.
Staring at the screens for a moment as the sun slowly set in the forest, my Qi Breathing Technique kept me from slowing down as I made plans to focus on the various skills, finally getting up from where I was sitting. ¡®They didn¡¯t come to the place where I thought they would¡¯ I thought staring at the increased mana in the air, as I started to move out I tried using the seed inside of me copying the similar energy that made my body, soon after a black peal of energy swirled above my hand. Studying the energy for a few moments I looked up and noticed that there was a faint feeling of necromantic energy in the air that didn¡¯t seem to be my own, which I followed. Following the energy was an easy task, it was a black twisting radiance in a sea of blueish green energy that flowed throughout the world out of everything which seemed to separate itself from the rest of the mana. It seemed like necromantic energy went against the very nature of mana itself. Testing out the theory, I tried fusing my necromantic energy with my regular mana, which they both seemed to null each other out in my hands creating a rather large cracking sound. It wasn¡¯t until after that sound, that I noticed my health had dropped down to half, and a tree was similarly in half as well in front of me, a large crater where I once was.
Ding!
Explosive Magic Seed has been formed inside of you.
Groaning, I looked at my health remembering my old health of 5, and sat there shocked at the increase. HP: 20/40 MP: 204/418 I basically had eight more lives than I did before! I was excited, then tried forming the explosive seed in my hand and a simular cracking sound was heard, this time much smaller than before. When my vision came back, I was staring at a blinking red health bar. HP: 5/40 I guess I¡¯m back to square one right now. I started my breathing technique in the middle of the second crater, the mana flowing around me as I recovered my energy and health. I needed to find out exactly how strong I am, now that I¡¯ve leveled up some. Tutorial¡¯s explanations were a bit.. vague to me at the moment without a reference, and I learned that I can¡¯t rely on her. Looking over my own skills I could have found an answer to my necromantic aura easily, the stealth skill can cover my presence. Feeling like I could kick myself for being lazy, the cracks on my bones slowly healed. ¡°How can you be so stupid?¡± Tutorial spoke up, I hadn¡¯t heard her voice in a while so it startled me. ¡°What do you mean?¡± Closing my eyes, and focusing on the mana building and flowing around me to speed up the process. ¡°First, you nearly blew yourself up, almost killing yourself, and me in the process. Secondly, you are pulling a large amount of mana into your body.¡± ¡°Okay, sorry I nearly killed us both, but why should it matter that I¡¯m healing myself? Isn¡¯t it better than running around without any health.¡± ¡°What¡­ are mana beasts attracted to?¡± She seemed to sigh at the end. ¡°Large amounts of mana in the-¡± I was cut off by a growling sound from somewhere around me, opening my eyes I saw a cat about three feet in length, covered in a yellow fur, the strangest thing was the bright yellow mana that flowed around it. Reaching out my hand, I went to pet it almost out of reflex, ¡°There there kitty¡­¡± Lightning crashed down, creating a third crater in the ground, smoldering with a black glass like substance as the dirt had been liquefied and solidified in a single moment. I was lucky, my savior had tackled me away from the lightning before I could touch the little cat. Looking to my savior, he looked quite like me, and another skeleton appeared out of the forest. ¡°Brothers!¡± I yelled out in the language of the dead. Chapter 8: How to Skin a Skeleton! Spoiler : Hello, sorry about my lateness on adding a new chapter. I just did a lot of work for my job forcing me to stay at a friend''s house for about a week. Getting away from the small crater the cat like thing produced, I scrambled to my feet next to my ¡®brothers¡¯ we may not have been born in the traditional sense, but we were at the very least formed together with a bond that had been formed out of necessity. These comrades were my only true allies in this world thus far my only people to rely on, so as I grabbed onto my sword I knew what my position in this group was. Circulating magic through the sword, tendrils swirling along it connecting, contracting, then crystallizing and forming an ice along the blade filling in the cracks of the sword. I was to be their power, a pillar for them to raise to greater heights, the sockets of my eyes shined for a moment as my right leg slid back the cat starting to charge forward. Lightning crackled around the cat, burn marks appearing along the ground as I stepped forward, a glow of darkness flowing through the air making it ripple as the sword passed through it. There was a connect, an explosion bursting out from my chest as I fly back breaking a piece of the boneplate, a black smoke rising the metal exploding from the electric shock. Moving my leg back again to correct my stance as I glare at the cat, noticing the small amount of blood that matted its fur. Both of us stared seemingly sizing each other up, both taking damage but the cat could see as the boneplate started repairing itself as I breathed in gathering more mana from the air. Carving the sword through the air making it soar up, then twisting it down aiming at the cat¡¯s head it gingerly moved out of the way sending out a pulse of electricity at my body. Pulling up the sword the lightning connected with it pulses of the dark magic seemed to lash out at it flaking off pieces of the crystallized magic, which I replaced with my own mana again. Moving forward, not letting the cat escape too far, each step was met with electricity scorch marks quickly blazing with fire. Each cut of my sword seemed to get closer, giving it a cut here and there but all of them seemed shallow as I moved quicker. My body seemed to move on its own as I twisted over another lightning bolt, moving in the air as my hand let go of the sword sending it like an arrow at the cat. The cat instinctively moved back, it seemed to know something was off as it hit the ground, the tendrils seemed to coil like snakes exploding out like shrapnel. I smiled as the cat seemed to crouch down, bleeding heavily from its sudden wounds, crystals forming along its fur seemingly trying to consume its body. Electricity formed around it like a static cloud forming a membrane around itself as if trying to create something out of an anime before it could send it out though a large cracking sound could be heard. The static cloud quickly disappeared as the cat fell to the ground its face stuck about an inch into the soil, blood coming out of the back of its head. One of my brothers held onto a rock about the size of the cat, with blood covering one full side of the rock. I gave him a thumbs up as slowly lightning hit the tree next to me, blowing off a chunk of the tree, splinters raining down as I ducked from the noise getting a shower of wood. Moving quickly forward, I grabbed my sword out of the ground flicking it into my sheath, using a hand to solidify the magic around the body of the cat I forced it into the air, catching it and throwing it into my bag. Looking back I saw what looked like five more cats, these ones as big as jaguars with long fangs protruding from their overbite. It looked far less cute, and a lot more dangerous than the smaller cat inside my bag now. I was about to turn back to test my luck against them as well, as soon as that thought passed through my head though a tree beside me exploded into thousands of pieces, leaving behind a fiery explosion of shattered wood beside me nearly pulling off my right arm with the impact of the shockwave. These creatures were way out of my league, but I could feel something in me turning, wiggling like a snake in my body before mana exploded out of my body causing a black mist to ripple out. Where this mist touched the trees seemed to howl as a white stream of mana started pouring out of them causing them to crack and wither. This black mist seemed to pour out of my body quickly, my mana rapidly falling as I moved with haste, my steps becoming quicker. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The cats, confused by this mist tried to pursue behind him only to see their flesh start to crack, their fur turning white in the mist. They hissed as they moved back, letting out a roar of pain as they moved back sending lightning, causing explosions in the mist sending ripples out from them making it disperse. The explosions, quickly got rid of the mist but the cats no longer seemed interested in me. Maybe I was just was too much of a hassle, whatever the cause I let out a sigh of relief even if it was just the sound. Leaning against a tree, I looked to my two brothers they seemed to be winded, their mana seemed to be exhausted, and night was quickly coming upon us. It seemed as though they would need to rest, and I looked to make this place more secure mainly by covering us in random bits of dirt and forestry. After I sat down I noticed something glowing out of the corner of my eyes, pressing down at it a screen came up, ¡°Previous Alerts!¡± There was various remarks about me losing health, how much damage I dealt and various other things, looking at it I noticed a few things. I had leveled up a few times from that previous battle, putting my level around three higher, the most important message to me though was that my necromantic seed sprouted becoming necromantic magic inside of myself. A skill was received with that power, ¡°Necro-Mist¡± tapping at that alert a familiar box glowed in front of me.
Necro-Mist
The basic ability of all necromancers, it allows you to gather the life energy from living things which powers your spells. Killing a creature will automatically pull the last of the life energy within the corpse of what you killed.
¡°I was thinking that necromancy was powered by death, turns out it''s the opposite.¡± Using what limited power I had gathered from my mist I let it form in my hands creating what looked like a white crystal. The crystal seemed to shatter in my hands, exploding into thousands of pieces as the white energy flowed into my body forming around my core. Pain stabbed hard into my chest as I heard a pulse coming from my body my core was shivering in pain as the power of life coursed through my body. My core seemed to explode, my spine turning black as it sucked in the life energy of the trees and cats that I stole from them, it wasn¡¯t much but it still seemed to have a drastic effect on my body.
Class Unlocked
Necromancer: Enjoy the hospitality of the undead, ever wanted to be called ''Master'' by a beautiful woman tending to your needs? Well this is the next best thing, having a corpse that can''t speak follow your orders like a slave!
My body rocked again in pain, the black mist pouring out of my mouth it felt as though my soul was escaping through my jaw. The mist formed loosely around me sucking up the life from every living things around me, the white swirling energy pouring deeply into my body. Letting out a yell that shook my two brothers to the bone, quite literally, my bones turned completely black my whole body becoming a monster core. My second yell rocked my body with the magic behind it as all the life around me turned to ash only leaving me and my brothers at ground zero of the death zone. My consciousness started to become dimmer, as my body fell to the ground, and soon my first night sleeping since I¡¯ve been here came to be. Something changing inside of me, a force slowly forming and developing like a new life within my body. As the night passed no creature dared to come into the death zone around there, making two menus glow in the middle of the night.
Negotiation Leveled Up!
Negotiation Leveled Up!
In my sleep, I muttered under my breath, ¡°That¡¯s.. Not what that means¡­¡± Chapter 9: A Prayer to Remember As my consciousness came back, the blackness seeming to get pierced by a spear of light that slowly, and gradually ripped a hole in the abyss of nothingness, I looked about confused. Feeling around I could tell that light was merely coming out of one or two holes in a material that cocooned my body. Letting out a sigh, I grunted pushing through the crystalline material that surrounded my body, as if fell off of me it shattered like glass around me. The scene that spread before me was a sea of death, withered vegetation barely recognizable under their brown and black colors. Sitting there speechless, I suddenly looked to my body feeling hopeful, the feeling of life force surrounding me and feeding into my very core. My mood immediately crashed when I saw my usual bony body. A change in my body I did note was there seemed to be a black ooze like substance that filled my ribcage now, which had more ribs, and a strange webbing in between them. At the touch if felt exactly like it looked, gelatinous and slightly sticky, searching the rest of my body I found it to be only in my ribcage. What I did find in the search was the appearance of several strange web like structures found throughout my body, no longer needing as much mana to replace the muscles and joints as they seemed to do part of the work for me. The final thing about my body that I learned is that my eye sockets were no longer empty, they seemed filled with crystals that let off a soft blue glow. Stretching my body a bit, the new threads of webbing throughout my body needed to be bent and worked with unlike magic so that its flexibility and elasticity could increase. A feeling welled up inside of me as I stretched, letting out the obligatory yawn feeling refreshed as I did so before everything came to a sudden stop. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ breathing?¡± Tutorial spoke up cheerfully, ¡°Of course, you are partly organic now. After savagely murdering so many plants and vegetation you now need CO2, and sunlight gaining an enlightenment to both necromancy and vegetation.¡± ¡°And if I don¡¯t get it?¡± ¡°Then your core, and new tendons will wither going back to how you were before your awakening.¡± I paused for a moment, ¡°Will I be able to gain these positives back?¡± ¡°Your vegetation is a form of necromancy using CO2, and Sunlight as a fuel, so you¡¯ll never truly lose those benefits. You are just empowered by the sun.¡± ¡°So I¡¯m superman?¡± This caused a great pause in Tutorial as it tried to processed information inside my own head. ¡°He was a being who was supercharged by the sun.¡± ¡°Then you are SuperSkeleton then. You aren¡¯t a man.¡± I felt slightly offended by that, ignoring tutorial now out of a bit of frustration, even if I was a skeleton I was still a guy. Maybe I was still holding onto my old human values but still there was a slight annoyance behind it even if my mini-me isn¡¯t there anymore. Letting out a deep sigh once more I took another look around my surroundings, a large amount of ash seemed to be in the area. Looking over the ash, and the withered trees I noticed that my two undead brothers seemed to enjoy the ash making a bed out of it, maybe this freshly killed material provided them with comfort. Touching the trees, I pressed my hand through the bark making it crumble under my fingers, what was left was more of the ash and a black crystal. Gripping onto the crystal I could feel an aura similar to myself, it seemed to glow with the power of undeath. Searching the area around here I found ten more of such crystals, along with one solid white that was underneath where I collapsed. All of them seemed unique the last one was filled with a mass of life that I could probably use in my necromancy. Pocketing everything, I sat down, looking over my log seeing the slaughter that I caused to the plant life around me which seemed to include every blade of grass at this point. Getting annoyed going through it, I instructed Tutorial to make kills a separate tab within the log eliminating the clutter making it easier to find the important stuff. A few lines interested me, I marked them as important just skimming through the pages of information before pulling up a single blue box with the important information. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Important Log Items
Level 10 reached core stabilized death no longer occurring in the one year time limit of your summoning. Magic will no longer slowly kill you and you can generate mana within your core like living things.
Primary Class: Novice Necromancer
Race Changed: Corpse Flower
Skills Gained: Photosynthesis, Spore Pod, Mucus, Sweet Smell
Class Skills Gained: Necromantic Arts, Life Drain
Skills Evolved: Bone Collector = Reaper''s Bounty, Monster Regeneration = Lich''s Regeneration (Lesser), Magic Perception = Mage''s Eyes
Skills Combined: Blunt Weapons/Bite + Undead Race = Vampire''s Bite, Mana Creation/Magic Crafting = Mage''s Workshop, Movement/Mana Reinforcement/Mana Manipulation = Body Stabilization
Skill Stabilization: Lich''s Regeneration no longer suffers penalties in sunlight due to Photosynthesis
Skeleton Allies have evolved to Skeletal Champions
Created a new Graveyard
Land is now desecrated
Desecration upgraded Graveyard to Unholy Land
Title Gained: Enemy of all Plants
Title Gained: Dryad Killer
Powerful Soul turned into Soul Crystal
Soul Crystal suppressing Undead Aura
Curse no longer affecting you, scrying now blocked
The last one made me squint a moment at it before I quickly went into action, yelling at the two sleeping skeletons to wake up this instance. Their groggy bodies slowly started to lift up as I stared at them. They seemed to have grown more bones out of nothing now having ribs going down to their hips, now tighter together and connecting to what seemed like a thicker second spine. Their arm bones seemed to be thicker, their hips and legs seemed to go the same though they were still much skinnier compared to something with flesh on it, it started to bridge the distance between the two. Hot coals seemed to shine with intellect as they looked to me, actual small red lights deep within the unnatural shadows of their eye sockets. Quickly shaking my head I prepared to leave. Being a skeleton has many benefits out in the woods, you don¡¯t starve, you don¡¯t have to pee on trees, and you don¡¯t carry much with you so the difference between preparing to leave and actually leaving was seconds. As we dashed out of the clearing I could hear a whistle behind us as large demon like monkeys, like something you¡¯d see in a strange Wizard of Oz horror film started to scout the unholy land behind us. I guessed that asking tutorial about a few of these things were out of the question while running for my life so my companions and I ducked down trying to make our tracks as least noticeable as possible. Not having gone to Boy Scouts, or the military seemed very detrimental at this point and I cursed my parent¡¯s lack of foresight in the matter. After my quick getaway, and a few level ups in sneak I felt confident that we weren¡¯t being followed anymore. As I gave a sigh of relief, ¡°I¡¯m glad we got-¡± My skull gets smacked so hard it spins around once before I stop it, looking up at my companion I immediately understand my mistake. ¡°If we make it out of-¡± Another smack as I look confused, ¡°At least that-¡± Another smack and I just stop talking at this point. Putting back on my jaw seemed like the most important concern at the moment, and my two companions watched guard as I weaved the magic to do so. I¡¯m just glad that both of them aren¡¯t women, a tsundere would be very harmful for my well being, I turned my head to the two skeletons now seriously considering their genders but my extreme lack of knowledge about the skeletal system left me with no answers. Hoping I wouldn¡¯t get into the usual reincarnation trope of a harem, I prayed that they could just stay as they are, genderless. Chapter 10: Meeting an Arch-Enemy Spoiler : Felt bad for the small chapter this time, so I made another. Magic, I¡¯ve seen many mangas, animes, movies, and other medias portray the use of magic from the fundamental to the grandiose. It''s a dream, a vision, something that allows you to force your very will upon the world and the world will take it, beg for it, and then crumble before it. Then you get to the most iconic magics of them all roots so deep, so tightly woven into magic it could be the called the source of all magic. Ancient witchdoctors trying to bring loved ones back to life, hidden wizards studying tombs trying to live forever, crashing hordes of undead under your banner. Necromancy is a dark romance, like those out of those dime a dozen vampire novels sell to get women to swoon over their immortal prince. Now though¡­ how is this necromancy?
Thousands of flies covered my body, a sweet smell was raising from me as I yelled out in a rage draining the life force from all the bugs in the area. My eyes were glazed over in pure and utter hatred. Its been a week since I evolved, and all of these problems stemmed from one skill that I got during the evolution.
Sweet Smell:
To attract prey you let off a sweet and delicate smell
It was actually a skill without a level, which I was grateful for since the plant parts of me seem to attract flies and other insects into the gooey mess that is my ribcage. After they come they create a coating of itchy insects that seems like a black squirming mess between each bone. Every few hours I¡¯ve been draining their souls, though it seems as though it is a fruitless war between us, like a hydra two replace every one that falls. Yet.. I still struggle on hoping that one day I will have killed every last fly on this world. Now, I will say that this has given me a few chances I wouldn¡¯t have otherwise, with the demise of so many flies at once they leave decent sized crystals. They are small, and white, looking like a miniature version of the dryad one from earlier. As I held a large amount of smaller white crystals I could feel a slight pull from them all almost like magnets, adding mana to the effect all of them starting to glow and rattle in my hands. They all flash brightly in my hands condensing and turning into a large crystal from all of them. Larger than the Dryad crystal, not wanting to test out my first test of Necromancy on the Dryad crystal. Letting the power of death consume the crystal, condensing it making the raw life and death energy swirl around each other. Crackling could be heard as a familiar shape started to form in front of me, a smooth round sphere with black and white swirling around each other. Crackling was heard again as thousands of fly corpses flew into the air, twisting and blackening the sky above me. This seemed a bit more flashy than I was expecting, I always thought that necromancy was quiet, and something done in the background under closed doors. This swarm of corpses swirled around each other making a black hole of bodies that started to condense and become a more solid mass of dead, taking shape. Two large wings were what I noticed first piercing through the blackness, looking insectoid before splitting into three sets reminding me of an archangel. I gasped as I took a step back already able to tell what it was turning into as its blob-like body started to form started to elongate, stretching and forming separate parts. Two antenna came out of its head as it started to make glass like eyes that looked like chainmail, two sets of arms formed, looking both muscular and solid as it stood there. A screen came up and I stared at it for a second as all of my mana except for 5 depleted from my body. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Customization!
< 08 > Strength
< 06 > Dexterity
< 10 > Body
< 10 > Decay Resistance
¡°That seems the most optimum for now, I¡¯ll accept it.¡± It seemed like a large portion of mana was wasted though it seemed like the further I leveled my necromantic arts the less would be wasted which was all the actual skill did. Further adjustments, and actual spells didn¡¯t seem to be connected to the skill which gave me a hypothesis about my own skills, working on this magical body that I made could allow me to prove or disprove them. This creature seemed like a god of insects, he slammed his right hands against his chest, ¡°We are here to serve you sir.¡± ¡°We?¡± ¡°I am lord of the swarm, Mr. Fly.¡± Tutorial speaks up, ¡°I used your naming sense to name him.¡± ¡°Wonderful.¡± I sigh, starting to gather up mana with my breathing, as well as allowing some mana to pick up dirt. I found this actually provided color and shape to mana to people who couldn¡¯t sense mana, also as a side effect it created more of an impact making my magic more flashy. Golems could be created from this, but their high mana dependency meant you¡¯d lose that mana until you destroyed the golem. ¡°Also what do you mean by the lord of the swarm?¡± He lifted his hand, calling upon hordes of flies more than millions creating a wave of darkness that made me step back. ¡°Fl¡­ Flies?¡± My trauma from the past week made my eye twitch as I start to step back. A mist of undeath started to come out from me as I was about to consume all of the flies that were coming towards me, but one of my brothers touched my arm. ¡°He can control them.¡± The mist dissipated around me as I nodded to my brother, as I used my Fear Magic Seed to drain the fear out of my mind allowing it to grow. Stepping forward, I pulled out my sword facing my fear like a hero, grabbing at my traveler¡¯s cloak and flicking it to get the right atmosphere, cloak flowing in the wind behind me. ¡°If you dare to attack, my sword shall pierce through the heavens.¡± Flowing the mana around me a green light appears around the sword. It seemed as though my fears were true, with this many flies he couldn¡¯t force all of them to not come after me. Hundreds of thousands started to mass together into a black cloud of buzzing, seeing this my eyes glinted with a hint of insanity. ¡°Finally, you have shown your true self my greatest enemy, do you really think that I¡¯d back down from your constant torture? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!¡± Charging forward, my sword in front of me an aura of insanity and power madly radiated off my form. As my vision turned black, I knew the swarm and I had become one in that moment¡­
Legends would be told of the day the sky went black, and the only sounds were the buzzing of millions of flies, and a strange laughter that shook the heavens and the earth. Then at the end of three days when the sun was setting a green beam of light appeared in the skies, piercing the clouds as a grey fog spread out from the origin point. Villages close to there spread rumors of a new Demon Lord rising to prominence, and brought many ¡®heroes¡¯ to the ruins from those days of horror. The trees, the grass, and the very stone itself was scarred, and everything reeked of death filling the small clearing in the forest with a very heavy feeling. The only clue that they had of the events that had transpired on those days was the rather large amount of flies in the area, attracted to the strange sweet smell that lingered in the air even days after the incident. Chapter 11: Mr. Bear, or Just Bear? A sharp light pierced through the forest as I sat at a clearing, my mind wandering as I slowly created a second core using the Dryad core. Crackling could be heard as I slowly did this process, now having experienced this once before I had more control over the process. Forcing out the life force of the trees around me, and grass under me I swirled it along the glass like surface of the core. Blue popups kept asking me if I wanted to finalize my creation making it into a fully formed Dryad, ignoring them I continued to force life force to work trying to test out the upper limits of this ability. A few times the sound of breaking glass was heard inside of it, but as I kept on it seemed to force out bubbles of black energy that made hissing sounds as it touched the air, and smelled of spoiled meat. For hours I sat down as my brothers gathered up various things for me, gathering up small creatures, not to be sacrificed to the core but for further experiments my undead energy leeching only off of plants. As they gathered next to me they seemed to calm down, I knew this was because of the sweet smell that still lingered around me giving them a false sense of security. Mr. Fly was my savior here, keeping flies from around me, horrified by my indiscriminate slaughter of his kind before him. Against his protests, and to be fair screams of terror, I had forced the life force of those uncountable flies that I had killed into his body and that is what started my mad scientist quest into these cores. As I added more life force to his body his duration expanded exponentially until, like me, his duration was removed from the equation. It made me wonder if what I was doing was really necromancy as I think of it or if I was creating new life. It didn¡¯t make a difference to me to be honest, both were the same, the undead and the living I just needed to know the line, and how to cross it. If I could turn undead energy into life energy wouldn¡¯t that basically mean that I could come back to life? Not that I had ever been alive to begin with in this world. Collecting undead energy from my surroundings were cut off from me for now until I find myself another graveyard as I feared gathering from any of us might actually unmake us. That didn¡¯t stop me from studying the energy, gathering it through my breathing exercises, letting it form around my gut into its own mini-core before absorbing it into myself. I found out through this that what I breath in is sort of a pseudo-death energy, until it flowed through me it was in the process of decaying. Though it was sort of trying to figure out the owner of a set of fingerprints without knowing what anyone else¡¯s fingers looked like. I continued this routine for three days, Mr. Fly standing guard on the top of my head, finally I stood as the area around me was in decay for I tried to force out the energy to the last drop. A few of the small animals had died too, merely because I forgot to feed them. Living without hunger for so long I had forgotten about such things, which actually scared me quite a bit fearing I was becoming more inhuman in nature. Putting the core into my chest, inside the oozing place between my ribcage. It was actually rather convenient as I could force items out of it to my hand. I had another core sitting to the side, it seemed as though the Dryad core couldn¡¯t absorb all life, and needed very specific life or it would refuse the energy. I found it couldn¡¯t absorb most molds which I found strange. The core was yellow, and unlike the previous cores this one was more like a jelly rather than glass like, this one I kept far away from my chest in fear they might fuse together making my ribcage into a monster. It might have been a baseless fear, but it was a fear none the less. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. I slightly chuckled to myself, ¡°It seems as if I¡¯m making a monster army with necromancy, I still haven¡¯t found a way to create a skeleton though.¡± ¡°Why would you want more of us?¡± One of my brothers seemed slightly annoyed at my suggestion of making more of them. ¡°To understand myself better. Aren¡¯t you curious about yourself, what makes you tick?¡± I look back to my two brothers and they shake their heads. ¡°No skeleton has ever wondered that, we came to be from the bodies of the deceased, born out of undead energy.¡± ¡°But what makes us evolve like we have? Why is my body so vastly different than others of my kind now?¡± One of my brothers shrugged while the other spoke, ¡°Maybe it is that blue screen you speak with, but all undead seek power. The more powerful you are the longer you live as an undead, it''s a struggle for life.¡± ¡°Is this why you follow me? For more power?¡± I paused, mid stride, carrying two of the cages that held little creatures of this forest. A white rabbit with the head of a bird looked up at me with its red little eyes before pecking at my finger with its beak. The two skeletons looked at eachother, then shook their heads at the same time, ¡°If we wanted that we wouldn¡¯t have followed you. You were weak at first, you¡­ have something about you, something that we lack and we are attracted to it.¡± This made me involuntarily look at their hip bones again, knowing that was the key to figure out what gender they were as I heard the word attracted. ¡°Not like that.¡± One of them spoke up, turning its body so I could only see the side of its hips obviously flustered. ¡°Sorry, just¡­ Nevermind.¡± I shook my head turning away from the skeleton behind me, even if I stared I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell if either was male or female anyway. Though a blue box appeared, I brushed it away before reading it so the others didn¡¯t see it, noticing something about anatomy. The skills were starting to annoy me when they came up, it was just a conformation that I was learning something. Unlike a video game character I wasn¡¯t restricted to my skills, though having them seemed to help, as if some function was helping me. Though the magic side of it did seem to help through reduction of mana cost, also it might restrict me to certain spells when the time comes. The second experiment would happen tomorrow when my mana was at its height, the night was slowly coming as the sky turned to a light red. Pulling up my menu, I used it as a soft light in front of me which set the forest to a soft blue color as the red in the sky dimmed. Flickering stars above me started to brighten into existence, reminding me that this was not my world. A rather loud grunt came from in front of me as a very furry black shadow walked out from the trees, ¡°Hello Mr. Skeleton!¡± Shocked, I stopped, ¡°How do you know my name?¡± The furry shadow pointed forward with a large clawed paw, the tip of his claw pointing to the status menu floating in front of me, ¡°Says.. right there ¡®Mr. Skeleton¡¯.¡± He let out a large husky laugh as his eyes looked down at me, large yellow eyes shifted between my brothers, and I. ¡°Clever, no one would guess you¡¯re an actual skeleton with a name like that!¡± The paw crashed down on my shoulder, making my body shiver, and groan under the pressure. ¡°My name is Bear!¡± Chapter 12: A Change of Perspective! The night was long tonight, a slow mist rolling in as I stood in the ¡®Village of the Bear¡¯ making it a very gloomy night. Village was really used loosely here as there was only one person living here, large stone buildings with entrances that looks like caves loomed over me with very finely carved bear heads with teeth above and below the entrance. Sporadic patches of grass was between the teeth, making it look like loose spinach, and trees wrapped around the ¡®neck¡¯ area of the bears. My glittery gem eyes shifted nervously between the various bear heads that seemed to stare at me from a sea of green. ¡°Grab a fish, join us for dinner!¡± Bear laughed heartily as he walked into one of the bear mouths as I stood there, my head turning slowly to each of the mouths still waiting for the ¡®we¡¯ and ¡®us¡¯ he was talking about. I took a glance over to one of my brothers, and he motioned twirling his finger over his ear area. I shook my head at his gesture, this was the first human that he had made contact with that didn¡¯t immediately attack him and he didn¡¯t want to offend him. Waiting for Bear, I started to get impatient, a few hours ticked by and I finally got up from my sitting position. My two brothers already ran out of energy, laying down in a pile of bones their hollow eyes looking off into the distance. Brushing myself off, starting to explore the entrances, yelling out into one of them a large roar came back nearly knocking me off my feet. Walking into the mouth of the cave, a glint of fire started up in my eyes letting me see in the dark as I moved forward a window came up telling me I gained a new skill, and I used it as a flashlight. These boxes were convenient as I pulled out a knife, my worst fear was running into a bear at the moment. The glint of my knife put off a light blue color, reflecting off the menu as I continued on, the area around me starting to cover in moss. The walls seemed to expand each time, and man sized holes were to each side of me, looking into them I found a stone bed with moldy straw as a cushion. Moving between them nothing changed throughout the journey leaving me dissatisfied, though very curious as to where the ¡®us¡¯ were, and I was started to suspect my brother was right in this aspect. Making my way out, more nervous than before, my knife still firmly at my side as I sat down next to my brothers. Staring at the stars, I knew that it was probably different, I have never thought that the stars would some time change for me. Sitting there sadly, I practiced my breathing techniques to distract myself. I sighed, knowing that most of what I was doing was a distraction from my past, hoping that maybe my past would disappear. My attachments to my previous life wasn¡¯t very strong, but now that it is gone to me I felt at a loss. In my self reflecting thoughts made me lose track of time as the sun slowly crept over the mountains. Bear came out of his cave, eating what looked like a giant watermelon sized peach holding it in both hands. It looked tiny in comparison to him, the big man must have been seven feet tall at least and he stared at me with juices running down his chest as his eyes were wide in shock, ¡°How are you awake? It¡¯s an hour before you should be awake at least.¡± He glances at my brothers as if to confirm his internal clock. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°I learned how to take more energy from my surroundings, and the tiredness went away,¡± Staring at the peach he awkwardly ripped off a piece offering it to me which I shook my head, not wondering where food went when I bit into it. His chest hair seemed to stick together under the slimey, sticky mess of the peach, which he conjured an orb of water above him to wash himself off as he spoke. I was discomforted watching another man shower so I turned my head away. ¡°So, Mr. Skeleton, I am sorry to keep you waiting, I was assuming that you would sleep during the night to sort of recharge like most creatures with a core.¡± ¡°Why at night? Are they solar powered?¡± ¡°Never asked really, most monsters just try to kill me so I speak to them with my fists.¡± He laughed heartedly, ¡°Bear likes his meat so it''s fine with me, but monsters like you don¡¯t have anything on your to eat.¡± He walked to me, smelling faintly of peaches, which I wasn¡¯t sure if it was from before or after his shower. I nodded at this, the glint of my knife in the corner of eye as I gripped it worried that he might attack on whim, considering that he had killed so many monsters before. Though my evolutions from a regular skeleton should turn advantageous should the need arise, and my necromancy could provide me with a Dryad ally. ¡°You¡¯re weak little Skeleton, would you like to join the Village of the Bear? We are druids, passing the tradition of being at peace with nature, and accepting that magic is nature itself!¡± He patted my back with enough force to send my head crashing into a tree in front of me, my screaming lead to my teeth lodged into the wood. My body moved around swinging around both hands, my knife making wild curves through the air. Bear jumped back, his eyes wide again as I tried to spit out the tree. ¡°See? You¡¯re weak! You can¡¯t even stand up against a pat on the back.¡± My yelling was muffled by the tree as my body dropped the knife, crossing its arms as it tapped its foot onto the ground, Bear walking over to my head to rip it off the side of it. As he turned my head towards him, I spit a large chunk of wood into his face. ¡°And how will you train a Skeleton, it''s not like I can do a series of pushups building up my arm muscles?¡± He looked at me confused for a second, ¡°The only way a monster can get stronger is through the strengthening of his core. You need the energy from dying cores to strengthen your own.¡± He stuck my head back onto my body, and I could feel the tendrils slowly tying themselves together with my skull. ¡°I need a hunting partner, and I don¡¯t have a core so all of the energy will go to you. I am a druid, our people believe that nothing can be wasted, everything must be used. A monster is the best partner to have while hunting.¡± I can feel my gamer side smile, ¡®We¡¯re going to power level a lower leveled character with a high leveled one?¡¯ I gripped the knife in my hand only to realize the knife was nowhere in sight. This idiot put my head on backwards! ¡°You asshole!¡±
Ding!!
Negotiation Leveled Up!
Chapter 13: Useless Child Author Notes: Was listening to various books over the last two weeks or so, I feel like my writing has improved because of it.
I had never taken the time to look at the sky and judge it, but lying here in the blue green grass of the clearing. My eyes lazily looked up at it, stuck there, my mental and physical energies depleted, Bear looking like a towering figure of demonic, almost child-like energy. The blue of the sky was much more blue than Earth, it was probably due to the blue sun that took up about twice the area of the sky than our own sun. I pondered as I lay there, how much bigger this sun was compared to ours, though the blue tint on Bear¡¯s skin made more sense now. It made me wonder why I never regarded the sky much while I¡¯ve been on this world, though most of my travels were through lush, almost endless forests. Most of the plants in the sun looked a blue-green, like algae, and in most cases seemed to be harder than the ones on Earth. A brush of my arm snapped a large amount of grass in half, I felt like with them being so brittle the grass would die off, but I was informed by a druid which I assume is a credible source, that the broken pieces would grow into more grass. The stones around me glistened with luminescence, if science was involved I would assume the sun gave off a sort of UV light that made certain materials glow under it since these rocks never gave off a speck of light in the night. Three weeks, I scoffed at my previous thoughts of how easy this would be, power leveling as I previously called it turned into something like physical, and magical training from hell. I saw him as a duke now, a grim reaper from the pits of hell that forged the marine corps drill instructors, making me both hate and respect him at the same time. If I ever had the thought or notion that humans were weak in this world, that had been shattered forcefully by Bear. Creatures of both massive stature and power were forcefully brought down like giant gods praying to a man that was not even a quarter their size bleeding and screaming as his powerful punches made the ground quake. I was getting more powerful, but it seemed like my power was stemming from, and reinforcing my actions since most of the creatures saw my magic as a threat it was highly focused on running. Comparing myself to the me of three weeks ago, I was several times faster, my spells in a sense weaker but more precise and much quicker to cast. Bear¡¯s trial by fire made me a silent ninja of death, and necromancy that carved away at life force until there was nothing left but a withering corpse. My cores were numerous at first, though I rarely used them, myself testing the ebb and flow of the energy, destroying most of them in the process to learn more about necromancy and becoming more efficient, plus Bear didn¡¯t like me using the souls of our enemies to create things that defiled nature. I hadn¡¯t shown him the Dryad, thinking he would fly into a rage knowing that I killed such a delicate being of nature, but Mr. Fly showed his face every now and again. Mr. Fly proved one thing, as long as I grew more powerful, his duration seemed to grow until finally, like me, he became a permanent being. He informed me a week ago that he had not only become permanent, but had gained his independence, no longer having to serve under me. He bent his knee, bowing to me afterwards, ¡°My Loyalties will always lie with my master, I was born from you, and will always regard you as my master, and¡­ my father.¡± The last part of that made me really consider never making another being like that again, I was too young to have illegitimate children running around, heck I had almost become a wizard in my previous life, only five small years left. Bear broke my near meditative exhaustion, grabbing me by the skull and standing me up. After he learned of my near indestructible nature as a skeleton he has been a lot more rough with me. Once he had thrown my head into the mouth of a large, toad about the size of a house so I could bite at its innards with viger, acid rather hurts if you don¡¯t know. My head has never been the right shade ever since, too white, like my skull has been bleached. ¡°Enough rest, Skeletons don¡¯t need rest, they don¡¯t get winded right?¡± I shook my head at his reasoning, and sighed, ¡°How many times have we been over this? When my mana is low, I get tired, though not as weak as three weeks ago. Also all of these spells takes a strain on my mind.¡± ¡°Eh, that¡¯s why you should just use your fist. A mighty fist is greater than any spell!¡± He held his fist in front of himself, it was about as big as my head. ¡°Maybe if I was a brute, or a skeletal warrior I¡¯d feel where you¡¯re coming from, but I¡¯m a mage damn it. If you want me to fight all day and night, than let me summon!¡± I grabbed at one of my soul crystals that I hadn¡¯t experimented on. ¡°A true man would never rely on summons, they aren¡¯t your own power. They are¡­-¡± ¡°...a misuse of nature, a corruption of magic. Yes, yes, but don¡¯t druids use everything from a kill?¡± Rolling my eyes, a very practiced motion. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°If you have enough wit to talk back to me, than you can fight.¡± He lifted the body of a large cobra that could summon clones of itself out of acid. If it wasn¡¯t for my ability to detect his soul it would have been a very prolonged battle. Gripping my shoulder with his giant hand he guided me further into the forest. My fingers brushed the hilts of my two swords, the third on my back was much larger than the two on my hips. They were mostly used for defense, you¡¯d be surprised how many creatures develop tentacles, which I¡¯ve happily not grown as of yet. An evolution did happen a few days ago, my bones started to grow an inky black substance that as far as I could tell was a very slow moving liquid. It seems to be tied to the shadow beasts we have been killing mostly in this forest. ¡°Two, one left, one above.¡± Bear frowned, ¡°I¡¯ll take the one above, you can¡¯t fly yet.¡± ¡°You can?¡± I tilted my head a bit, I had yet to see this but he just smiled nearly jumping up the side of a tree to its top, nails clawing into the wood hard as jumped quickly to another tree scattering to the top of the tree out of sight. ¡°I guess he¡¯s shy about flying.¡± Ducking down, and moving through the shadows, and letting them consume me as I step quickly among the brush watching to make sure that my footsteps don¡¯t cause too much noise. My steps were very fast between the shadows, slowing down, and observing the area around me until my prey was in my sights. The prey that was my fight was a large black cat, with horns running down its head down to spines that curled to his tail which ended in something like a morning star at the end. These were minor creatures were weak, moving swiftly my sword clashed against its neck moving it off its balance. Twisting back my other sword slashed at its eyes, forcing my step forward making its vision with my sword, and body. My magic swirled around, piercing into the body though nothing physical happened its life force started to bleed from its body constructing into a core behind it out of magical energy. The fight was only a distraction so it couldn¡¯t resist my life taking power, it was very easy to shrug off and resist in its current form but required concentration. My sword plowed hard into its leg, knocking it down, its skin was far too hard for mundane weapons with my strength, but it was enough to make it stumble. As it went down, the morningstar end of the tail crashed into the ground where I was a second ago making the ground quake and rocks shatter under it. Moving between the spines as my sword suddenly went into its neck slashing blood all over the blade. The creature was weakening quickly, its body becoming soft under my blade as it danced like a silver snake, piercing and thrusting making shallow cuts in several places. Blood, and life force slowly dipped out of the beast as it roared with frustration, biting at air afterwards. My sword hacked at the legs of the creature bringing it down, before it pressed like butter through the withering skin, and skull of this beast. After it stopped moving, I grabbed the orb floating there in mid air, turning my back to the corpse of the big cat. The body wasn¡¯t my loot, though the druid did make things for me, my new clothes were made from a previous cat such as this the material had a natural blending with shadows. Wiping off the black blood from the creature into a cloth as I waited for bear, I knew he was done with his kill, and done with it for a while as the experience from the kill has already been given to me. Starting to move after about a minute, I would tell Bear later that I felt his presence as, but honestly I found out how to pull up menus internally, his dot now behind me around where the corpse is on my map. ¡°Eat up, I need to check on my Brothers. A good soul stone or two should strengthen them.¡± ¡°Those two lazy brats should be doing more than swordplay back in the village.¡± He grumbled as a knife worked the skin off of the meat. I wasn¡¯t sure, but I could have sworn you had to drain the blood before you did that. ¡°They are like leeches you know.¡± ¡°Yes, they drain some of the power that I would gain from killing these beasts. It isn¡¯t split evenly in three ways, but it''s enough. If they weren¡¯t family I would consider breaking them off, but they are my first friends coming to this world.¡± ¡°Vami rasp.¡± He said in a tongue that I couldn¡¯t understand. At first I had thought he was making up words to curse at me since this world seemed to conveniently translate itself into English. Though after listening for a while, a blue screen showed me I was starting to learn Aralic, at a rate of 1% every two hours, this would take some time if I seriously wanted to learn it. What he said though, was often repeated, and often directed at him, ¡®Useless child of mine.¡¯ I hadn¡¯t told him I understand some of his words, so his worry was very touching, even if he is a bit insane. Chapter 1A: Alexander Author Note: Shorter chapter for this chapter, as an introduction to Alexander, and the Church of Phil. I do hope you enjoy, and the changes in POV are the only reason I kept this story in a 1st person. For those that don''t like the POV changes, these will not be frequent, but will be important.
A glint of anger raised to my eyes as I gripped the hilt of his sword, my knuckles turning white under the pressure, two light skinned men stood in front of my lanky figure. I was taller than most, standing little under seven feet tall, a giant in comparison to the people that lived in this region near a foot taller. The two people in front of me had a crazed look in their eyes, they understood that I would not only kill them if they lost, but that I was also a priest. Turning, almost twirling along the ground as the dust pulled up turning to a small cloud around my feet. My sword met a small amount of resistance as one of the men tumbled down to the ground, with a thrust behind me, my cape fell settling behind me, still like the two bodies behind me. I had only a small part in this battle, and the battle would have been won without me interfering, but this was a holy crusade. My appearance was necessary, and I picked the time which the danger was a minimal in the chaos of war. These were farmers, their swordplay minimal, their strength below average, and I was an Outlander. My people were of course the builders of this religion that the people followed, but it was a real god that they raised statues to, the very god that sent them there. Even if he didn¡¯t have an inspiring name, the people saw the priests of Lord Phil, they couldn¡¯t argue that their power was confined to human standards, a healer could heal the impossible, the warriors could topple nations. In my case however I was a thief, and in my opinion a thief was the scariest of those options, my lies could convince nations without bloodshed to bow before the mighty Lord Phil, and those who weren¡¯t convinced¡­ they would disappear without a trace. Breathing out heavily, my swords flicked hard as blood splattered on the ground creating two thick lines of crimson on the ground as he walked back to his post. The crusader¡¯s men cheered as he made it back, their swords now moving with much more fervor than before, this was the religious zeal that was bred in them. ¡°Believe in your god, hold your spirits high, this will keep your swords sharp.¡± I casually said. My words were of little importance, I found that any words that I said would make their spirits burn like a bonfire as long as I said them with enough conviction. Three people waited for me, drinking some wine in this hell hole looking like vampires drinking blood from glasses. Their eyes looked bored, it was reasonable as they had done this hundreds of times, murdering all but the children to bring them up under the doctrine of Phil. They were following some of Earth¡¯s history, loose memories of the raise of many religions from classes that they barely paid attention to. They tipped a glass to me before one of the burly priests threw the glass, I grabbed at it, twirling it in my hand every droplet of wine inside the cup now. ¡°I¡¯ve always wondered how you can do that!¡± The burly man grinned. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Some of us aren¡¯t muscle bound idiots,¡± I twirled around my cup the wine flowing in and out of the cup, like some magic trick, the liquid doubling suddenly as another cup was in my hands. The burly man went to take a drink as he watched, looking baffled at his empty hand then he became angry that I had stolen his cup. I drank both cups smashing them into each other, making thousands of shattered pieces of glass before me like confetti, sparkling in the sun¡¯s light. ¡°How dare you Alexander!¡± He bellowed, grabbing at his large ax that was at the side of his chair. A soft laugh courting his ear, a swift hand moving to his chest, a glass filled with water as it slowly turned red in her hand. ¡°We can¡¯t squabble in front of the minions, there are like NPCs in any game you play. If you see your kings fighting, they will raise their swords to join one side or another.¡± She looked dully at both of us, she was a smaller woman almost mouse like in appearance, her face small and eyes big. She was one of the two that had been lucky enough to actually have an affinity with magic, her an elemental mage able to change the properties of the elements, and the other, even smaller man was a man of healing. ¡°These are real people though,¡± I replied, squinting my eyes at the mousy woman, I had a belief that the lower you were to the ground the more you could use the power of magic. ¡°In numbers I¡¯m sure they could kill us.¡± Frowning at the looks of disbelief in their eyes, almost mockery at my words. Knowing that one day this might come and bite us in this ass, I was the only one that made diplomatic relations with the men and women of these lands. Many of the newcomers didn¡¯t know this, but this world worked a lot slower than their other world, and they aged like that. With this world¡¯s time, I was a little over sixty years older than he was when he came, looking at his body he only looked maybe four years older which was confirmed by the newcomers as they told them the year. This wasn¡¯t constant though, ten years could pass without a day passing on the outside, but five years could pass in one, but it never turned backwards. I was one of the oldest in the group, second only to the leader of the church but none would know that as I was the youngest to be taken into this world, a meek sixteen year old child at the time. They all however were gamers, and that was the only thing they shared in common, perhaps it was the ability to accept another world that was ingrained in their minds. I didn¡¯t like that thought, for children could be accepted into this world as well if that were true, and if so then none had survived thus far. ¡°We will head to the city of Alder soon after this, then all the barbaric cities around the Holy City of Phil will be completely in our control.¡± The mousy woman exclaimed, I had never remembered her name, it was foreign, and exotic, unlike her actual features which seemed overly dull. ¡°Those that have not heard the name of our lord Phil in our country shall bow before it by the last sunset of this year.¡± I agreed quietly, hoping I was fulfilling his mission to make this world better. Chapter 14: Domain Error The clinking of silverware could be heard around me as I looked around vaguely confused, this happened every night and I didn¡¯t understand if this was magic, or something more. Food slowly disappeared, the wines draining, refilling, and then repeating the process with sounds that you¡¯d expect in that area. Various conversations filled the outdoors as mugs slammed against each other cheerfully as laughing broke out, along with loud shouts of praise over the day¡¯s hunt. Phantom smells lingered all around me as I stared at my plate, trying to avoid Bear¡¯s pained eyes as he spoke to one of the other druids that had a very loud rumbling voice like a large drum. My plate didn¡¯t have food on it, instead it held two monster cores of the creatures we killed earlier as someone near me spoke my name. Nodding along with the conversation, I let the person speak, I never knew which of the druids were speaking to me but they were all friendly. Excusing myself once the cores were drained of the small amount of energy that they held, I motioned for my brothers to follow. Not knowing human tongue was an advantage in this case as they didn¡¯t have to hold awkward conversations. Bear didn¡¯t speak of our dinners even though he knew I had questions, his original delusions weren¡¯t as easy to pass off as I had first thought. He wasn¡¯t alone, but surrounded by what was the question was since we knew who they were. They were his brothers, fellow druids of the Bear tribe, which referred to Bear affectionately as a Cub. A druid who had yet to earn his name was named after the children of the animal they follow. ¡°They¡¯re probably dead.¡± Red sighed beside me, the gem-like eyes burned with a red light behind them giving my brother that name. He seemed to like it, he was rather simple, discussing his overall effectiveness he seems to follow a warrior. Very little mana flowed out of him, tightening hard against his bones to make him seem even skinnier but far stronger than me. ¡°You think it¡¯s a Soul Well?¡± Purple let a ball of light flow through his fingers. I didn¡¯t want to question yet, but Purple now had a light voice that was very feminine maybe Purple was a sister instead of a brother like I thought. ¡°A Soul Well?¡± I looked to Purple surprised, and he seemed just as surprised, and vaguely confused. ¡°I always knew you were unique Brother, but to think you lacked a brain bothers me quite a bit. Did you not receive any information of our necrotic nature when you were born? I wanted to question this when you showed confusion over our duration.¡± Purple moved forward a bit, putting a bony finger to my chest to make it a point that I couldn¡¯t just weasel my way out of this topic. ¡°No, I do not.¡± I tried to leave it at that, but even without eyelids I could tell that Purple was glaring at me, pressing me for more. ¡°I have only the memories from before I died, nothing more.¡± Purple¡¯s expression turned shocked from the way he held himself it¡¯s hard to describe to non-skeletons the subtleties of body language. ¡°I have never heard of a skeleton keeping his memories from before death.¡± The finger at my chest softened, and he moved away to examine me a bit. ¡°Like I said, you¡¯ve always been a special case.¡± ¡°Enough of me, what is a Soul Well?¡± I waved my hand through the air, trying to avoid Purple¡¯s examining gaze and looking to Red who didn¡¯t seem to be interested in the fact that I could remember my past. ¡°It¡¯s like the place we were born, if there was enough bones here skeletons would rise. A place where death came so swiftly, and to so many people that the dead refuse to believe that they are dead.¡± Red said taking out a knife to further make himself a shield out of a piece of wood that he had, there were five already scattered throughout the area we slept but he continued to make more. ¡°Then if we gave them skeletons to take over then this will all end, he¡¯d have his friends back wouldn¡¯t he?¡± I asked. ¡°No, to control a skeleton you need to give up on your humanity, your past. You can¡¯t have lingering feelings of wanting to be human anymore, but you have to have a deep desire to live.¡± Purple sighed, knowing that I sounded hopeful. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°That¡¯s the real reason why Bear is having you hunt with him, you¡¯re making a domain, only strong beasts would dare walk into your domain after how much you¡¯ve killed.¡± Red seemed rather annoyed at the battles they¡¯ve been missing. Purple cut off my question by explaining before I could open my mouth, ¡°Look at the auras around this place, not the physical. You¡¯ve been neglecting your magic since you¡¯ve been here, turning you into a muscle head like Red, and Bear.¡± ¡°Bear is a Druid, Druids are¡­¡± ¡°Muscle heads, that reflect nature of the animal they project. Have you seen him do anything magical?¡± Purple retorted. My sight had evolved further even though I wasn¡¯t paying much attention to the magical side of things as Purple said, and the skill had evolved into ¡®Astral Sensory¡¯ which allowed all of my senses take in magic. I ignored him as I let my senses drift into the Astral, everything was tinged with a hint of black that hissed off of it like smoke, the scent was very calming almost like some kind of sweet baking in the oven. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± ¡°You¡¯ve made this whole area into an undead domain, a place where undead will become more powerful. When you take energy from other beasts, a bit of it escapes becoming a domain. Most domains are small, and are washed away by the next predator that comes through, but if you kill enough and turn enough into a fuel to make you more powerful, you leave a domain.¡± Purple seemed to be looking at the auras of the trees, with a pitying look on his face. ¡°It¡¯s to keep the dead from passing onto skeletons of Bear¡¯s hunts.¡± ¡°And everything in my domain? What will happen to the things tainted by my aura?¡± ¡°They¡¯ll become more like you, the trees will become carnivorous, the beasts will start to take more skeletal features until they are undead, everything will strive to be like you.¡± Purple still stared at the trees. ¡°I don¡¯t like it.¡± Red spoke up suddenly. ¡°How does a human know about domains, and how to use them to his advantage.¡± ¡°He¡¯s a Druid. God this is why I don¡¯t want Mr. Skeleton to get influenced by your kind, you muscle brains can¡¯t come to a logical conclusion. How do Druids keep their forests living, and always brimming with life?¡± Red stared at Purple, as Purple faced him crossing his arms. The blank look on Red¡¯s face led Purple to give out an exasperated sigh, ¡°They find a Dryad and give it a domain. I¡¯m surprised that this Druid doesn¡¯t have a Dryad was powered by his Clan members.¡± I touched my chest at that comment, looking to the stars, ¡°Man, the sky is so beautiful tonight.¡± Purple paused, looking at me oddly as a box appeared.
Ding!!
Negotiation Leveled Up!
Surprised by its sudden appearance, Purple took a step back making him tumble over the smaller figure that had appeared behind him. The muscular looking insect didn¡¯t seem to mind as Purple toppled to the ground, it continuing to walk over to me. Taking a knee, he bowed his head respectfully, making me wonder who taught him such things. Looking to Purple, whose only injury was bruised pride, I looked back to Mr. Fly. ¡°We have a problem Lord, there are two that have entered your domain. They look to be Demon, maybe Devil, or Hellion in origin. If they are Demon, we should be careful not to invoke the wrath of the Demon King at all costs.¡± He said not daring to look up, as if afraid that telling me to be cautious was questioning my power. ¡°Thank you for warning me.¡± Brushing my fingers along my chest, a drop of orange liquid beaded at my finger tips, and I placed it into one of his outstretched hands. This was the things that bugs craved about my body, giving some to Mr. Fly every now and again seemed to provide him enjoyment even if it sickened me a little at be honest. Chapter 15: An Unscratched Itch The moon¡¯s brilliance softly blanketed my companions and me, Bear waiting under a large amount of beast skins. He looked more intimidating than usual a large battle axe strapped to his back its weight making his feet sink a bit into the soft soil. He was scowling, it was obvious that he had dealt with demons, or devils, whichever they were and didn¡¯t like them. He looked back to me with a grim nod as he gripped at the handle of the axe, bringing it down in front of him the blade sinking two inches into the dirt. ¡°Demons, they only respond to strength. You have to show them that you will bite them if they mess with you, and even if you don¡¯t win they¡¯ll be heavily injured.¡± Nodding, I kneeled down lower pulling down a cloak given to me by bear made out of a black tiger creature that had twisting horns running down its head, and neck, making it look draconic. The horns had been filed down a bit, looking more like ivory semi-spheres, leaving a small white trail down my back, neck and head. My swords have been replaced, all three of them replaced by deep purple blades almost black in color. All of this was excessive to me, it made me seem like a goth version of a skeletal barbarian, Bear assured me that it added to the intimidation factor if someone notices me. Red was in plain sight with bear, his large wooden shield was strapped along his arm with tendrils of necromantic energy, armor was given to him, given to him by bear also held on with the tendrils. I could barely tell that Red was a skeleton as he was covered in head and toe with metal, as someone who appreciated freedom of movement I thought it was excessive as well but Red loved it. Purple was like me, wrapped in leathers a large cloak draped around his shoulders it was a strange mixture of dark greens, and browns to blend into the forest around them which is what I¡¯d rather have. Breaking out of the vegetation I recognized the two demons that stepped forward, one was taller with an annoyed look on his face. His white skin looked slightly overstretched over his muscles as his growly voice was heard, ¡°Yes, I saw him, he needed to grow before he was any use. He still isn¡¯t any use to our Lord.¡± The small one, if you can call six foot small, gave an angry look to the larger one, shaking his head a bit, ¡°I bet if our Lord didn¡¯t order us to capture him in ten days you¡¯d let him progress until he was a threat.¡± ¡°That was the plan.¡± The bigger one gave out a smile filled with bloodlust, ¡°That way it¡¯d be far.¡± The smaller one scoffed, pointing to Bear, ¡°At least he gained an ally that looks slightly more powerful than an ant.¡± The demon shrugged a bit, ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate that he¡¯s human or he might actually be powerful.¡± There was a clash of metal on metal, the bigger of the two seemed to disappear in my vision. Bear stepped forward, the ground shattering like glass under his axe the demon moving back into his original position, a cut running down his chest. His eyes showed a look of surprise as he frowned at Bear. ¡°He can¡¯t be a human, maybe one of those ¡®Heroes¡¯ from the other world.¡± Bear smiled a little bit, ¡°No, just a simple druid.¡± He raised his axe again, letting it land on his shoulder as he smiled a bit. The eyes of the smaller one turned to a glare, ¡°Impossible, your kind are dead. We slaughtered your kind a thousand years ago. Shit, you got us into a problem you big bag of pus.¡± His glare moved from Bear, to the bigger demon, ¡°Druids are a pain to deal with in the forest.¡± Bear didn¡¯t give them a moment after that, becoming a spinning tornado of metal, each clash smashing into the demons weapons. Two greatswords flashed with flames, bashing into the axe following a stream of clashes. My magic started to circulate as I watched the fight knowing I had to help, a crystal forming behind the smaller demon, it was all I could do to help. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The smaller demon started to move slower, Bear took advantage of this, his axe moving like a vengeful spirit hunting down the demon. The larger demon yelled out in shock, ¡°He¡¯s a damn necromancer already?¡± His broadsword was suddenly stopped by a large shield placed between him and Bear. ¡°You are not to hurt Bear, Master would not like that¡­¡± Red stepped forward, a gauntlet covered fist smashed into the demon¡¯s face, making him stumble back, spitting up blood. Purple followed up, thousands of skeletal hands raising from the ground gripping at the demon¡¯s legs making him quickly retreat. Bear and the smaller demon exchanged blows, Bear gaining ground with each swing as the small demon tried to concentrate his magic to destroy the connection with the crystal behind him. The demon seemed desperate, the greatsword losing technique with each swing, ¡°This is the legendary power of the druids?¡± The greatsword was struck hard by the axe, sending the sword flying backwards, and sinking into a tree behind him. I smiled, this battle would be over soon. The crystal was almost fully formed behind him, and bear had him cornered, I was glad to have such a powerful ally at a time like this. Pouring more energy into the spell, something seemed off about the magic, it wasn¡¯t that there was no resistance like I expected but a strong suction force, making my spell more powerful than it was. ¡°Pathetic¡­¡± The smaller demon rushed forward, his claws digging hard into Bear¡¯s shoulders, tearing his flesh all the way to Bear¡¯s chest. Blood poured freely out the wound, which hissed with black smoke that turned into small snakes, forcing themselves back into the wounds. ¡°Your people were much stronger than this, what are you, you are not a druid.¡± Bear brought down the axe once more, but his arm kept swinging down still clenched to the axe, but not his shoulder. The demon seemed bored at this point, his hand moving to the other arm, ripping that one from its shoulder as well. Without his arms, Bear went into a fury, leaning down and ripping a chunk out of the demon¡¯s shoulder with his teeth before his head was broken open like an egg. ¡°BEAR!¡± I stretched out my hand shattering the crystal behind the demon in a rage, making the demon look in my direction. ¡°Don¡¯t you know? Demons don¡¯t have souls child¡­¡± With a grip of his hand into the invisible stream of magic from my spell, he pulled at it. A stream of darkness appeared like a string between me and him as he pulled, my mana pools depleting nearly by half before I broke the connection. ¡°We¡¯re here for you, the druid didn¡¯t have to die¡­¡± A crunching noise came from my right, the larger demon letting the body of Red fall to the ground. The skull of Red was crushed in the demon¡¯s hand, Purple¡¯s skull was impaled into the tree behind him, a greatsword running half way through that same tree. ¡°Annoying little buggers, thought the other one was a very powerful mage, instead of a illusionist.¡± ¡°You¡¯re getting rusty.¡± The smaller demon eyed the larger one, then looked over to me, sizing me up. ¡°Since you insist on resisting us, we¡¯ll have to take you in a more convenient way.¡± The demon quickly grabbed me by my neck, picking me up before jamming his claw into my chest. The demon pulled his fist out of my chest holding a deep green core, magical energy twisting around it before my vision went black. Bring out your Polls! So, now I have a few questions! Mainly the one in the poll, as I''d love a numerical value for that question. Now that you''ve seen the development of Mr. Skeleton, and the gang how would you like to see his development (power development, not character) through? Evolutions, skill ability, would you rather he went back to relying on numerical values that his mind was creating through the status menu? The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Any suggestions that you''re willing to impart onto me? Other than of course being more frequent with my postings, which I plan on doing anyway. Also my girlfriend is making something for me reaching 100 followers, which I''ll be posting with one of the upcoming chapters! Chapter 16: Elves Belong in a Forest Snow drifted slowly over the ground, like a blue blanket over the land, clumps of ice fell from the trees. The area was peaceful, the signs of battle, and carnage was long covered by several feet of snow. Everything avoided this area, a deep pressure covered the area any had a sense of magic could tell why, there was domain in the area that was thick with power. The military was called after three scouts went missing in the forest, their stuff found but not their bodies, the area that they were found is now considered a Soul Well. The forest was once considered a druid safe haven, the mage¡¯s guild has hypothesized that the druids were murdered by what killed the Dryad from reports months ago. The officers of the 22nd Elven Division were the ones called in to take the brunt of the work, they specialized in these types of situations. Like Druids, they had an affinity to nature so they could slip through the natural dangers that the Druids might have created to keep their area safe. There was a sense of unease throughout the Elves as they traveled, Druids were considered almost on par with Heroes, especially the Dragon Druids of the North. They haven¡¯t heard from any of the Druids for several hundreds of years, which was normal for the hermetic Druids, but now they suspect otherwise. As the Elves got closer to the domain, the three witches moved forward, the men had large tattoos covering most of their body. They loved nature more than the elves liked to admit, feeling a bit ashamed of the half breeds that come out of these nature lovers. They laid out a spell formation letting the military group see the domain themselves. The area lit up in deep purples, and blacks flames seeming angry, and vicious it only lasted seconds before the formation broke under the violent energy. ¡°This energy, what school of magic is it?¡± A red haired elf asked, his position was a joke to those that worked under him. No one answered, who would take notice of a commander that was vain enough to dye his hair with magic, the black suit that he wore was not fit for military wear, being an elf he could get through the forest without problems but fighting would be out of the question. An older man was smiling, his beard was proof that he wasn¡¯t a full elf, and the reason he would never be in command, ¡°Sir Thomas here asked you guys a question. I¡¯m sure he doesn¡¯t like waiting, wool is too itchy for that.¡± A few of the people laughed softly, Christian was the only one who could make fun of Thomas to his face, he was too valuable to be charged with insubordination. ¡°Necromancy, a deep domain there¡¯s probably a graveyard here.¡± Two of the witches nodded as the other talked, ¡°The thoughts that this is a Soul Well was probably true. The beasts here seem to be afraid, skeletons aren¡¯t this powerful alone so when you see one, there are probably hundreds in tow.¡± ¡°Everyone, bows are useless, drop them here with your backpacks. Witches, mark this place so we can find our equipment easily. One hundred men stay back to create an encampment, we will be back once we check out the center of the Soul Well.¡± Christian raised his voice, yelling at the Elves around him. The hundred that stayed back were mostly male, their speed was inferior to the females and they knew they were less important to military. The army broke into three groups without orders, forty-two females gathered making the scouting unit, strapped around their hands was strips of metal running across the knuckles, and their bodies were loosely covered in black cloth that covered the important parts of their body. Five hundred men carried a crow¡¯s beak, it was the elves¡¯ weapon of choice for the males for its utility, building the warrior section. The last group was the smallest, and the only truly armored group composed of around twenty people, which included the Witches, fully covered blackened metal light chain mail across their chest with a matching shield. The groups may seem to be off balance but each of them were considered to be the same in power, forty two scouts would prove a good match for five hundred warriors, or three witches with guards. Christian motioned for the scouts to go into the woods alone, waiting for thirty minutes before going in with the last two groups. Thomas followed in annoyed silence, he knew he was a formality without any real power while they were in combat, but he didn¡¯t like it. The forest fit the feeling of a graveyard with a heavy silence that was dense with a feeling of dread that filled their subconscious, making people jump at shadows. As time went by, this feeling of dread started to effect moral along with the cold, the army starting to grumble as they walked through the forest. Christian cursed, this wasn¡¯t what he was expecting from a Soul Well, the tension of a soon to be battle has dissipated long ago replacing it was boredom. Thomas was surprisingly the first to point out the problem, which should have been obvious from Christian¡¯s experience but it was too in his face to notice, ¡°This Domain is too damn big, how big would a horde have to be to have this big of a Domain?¡± Christian stopped immediately, staring at Thomas before a look of horror came over him, ¡°Everyone back to the camp! We need more men!¡± The army as a group looked confused, they had yet to fight a single skeleton, why would they need more men. ¡°This Domain is too big for a regular horde! We might have a lord on our hands, Witches get in touch of the scouts!¡± The Witches started casting spells, then stopped, looking at each other concerned, ¡°We.. can¡¯t contact them.¡± One of the Witches stepped forward to Christian and whispered into his hear, ¡°We aren¡¯t sure if its interference or if they are dead.¡± Christian cursed again, he had let his guard down and it may have cost him a full squad of scouts. Scouts were a limited resource, he would have rather lost all five hundred of his warriors but it was too late to regret his actions. ¡°Warriors, Witches, we are to fall back in a full withdrawal, we need to reassess the situation.¡± This wasn¡¯t his first Rodeo as the humans liked to say, he knew that letting them know that the scouts might be dead was a bad move. Suddenly a woman appeared, followed by several others, the scouts that he had sent out earlier which made Christian cry out in alarm. ¡°We¡¯ve come back to report, we¡¯ve scouted the area and have found a place that needs the Witch¡¯s attention. There is only one location which we have found undead, but their numbers¡­ are unexpected.¡± ¡°You found the Horde?¡± Thomas perked up, knowing that the group needed a fight or these people would be in a bit of unrest when they got back. ¡°No, only two¡­ and a Druid¡¯s corpse.¡± The woman shook her head lightly, ¡°Also I don¡¯t think the Druid was killed by the skeletons, the wounds are too clean, not made by bite marks at all.¡± The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Christian nodded, a Druid being killed by a skeleton, or even a few thousand of them seemed impossible their strength was the things of legends. ¡°Very well, we shall proceed.¡± Raising his voice to the hesitant soldiers he motioned to the direction the woman indicated. ¡°Proceed, take caution we seem to be nearing a suspicious area.¡± They continued on with a new vigor, and a bit of blood-lust now that the scouts were back, many warriors took fancy to them and would try and prove their worth in battle. It was open knowledge that the scouts themselves couldn¡¯t have children, but many soldiers still considered it an honor to catch the eyes, and maybe the body of one of the scouts. It didn¡¯t take long to come to the clearing, it was nearing the end of the Domain, the Witches pointed out making sure it was known that they were still important. Christian ignored them, focusing more on the path ahead, the trees becoming less until the clearing emerged. Snow was pushed away from a body, piling up into blue mounds around him with little to no decomposition. ¡°How old?¡± Christian knelt next to the body of the Druid, one of the Witches kneeling beside him. The Witch closed his eyes, chanting a necromancy spell to tell how long the body has been a corpse, when he opened his eyes he seemed solemn, ¡°Six months.¡± ¡°That long, and they only sent us out now. This Domain must have been here this whole time, why weren¡¯t we informed before hand?¡± Christian studied the body, and frowned as he looked it over brushing his fingers along the stump of the neck that was left. It was too clean to be a sword cut, at least one held by anyone short of a hero. Christian stood up, moving his way over to the two skeletons that were uncovered from the snow. There wasn¡¯t any piles of snow next to these two skeletons, and he looked to the scout confused. ¡°We didn¡¯t uncover these two, the snow just melts around them. We think the skeleton¡¯s cores weren¡¯t shattered in the fight they were in.¡± ¡°Yes, they are still alive.¡± The Witch chimed in, ¡°At least¡­ what constitutes as alive for an undead creature.¡± Christian nodded, looking to the one in armor concerned, ¡°Have you ever seen a skeleton in armor?¡± ¡°No sir, they are usually too¡­ skinny for armor.¡± Another nod, ¡°And the greatsword, to pierce that far, what could have done that do you think?¡± ¡°A hero, or one of the demon kind, they are known for their immense strength.¡± A shout could be heard from the army, and a group moved away from an area not far away from Christian near a tree. Looking back, he made his way to what they were looking at and found another skeleton. This one had a blue flame pulsing through his eye sockets, and seemed to be saying something. Seeing how damaged the skeleton was, he knew it was no threat and leaned closer to listen to it. ¡°Hungry¡­ need¡­ energy¡­¡± The pulsing stopped and the flames seemed to condense and focus in the center of the crystals that lay in his eye sockets. The skeleton looked at Christian, and somehow he knew that this skeleton was insane right now. ¡°He¡¯s the source!¡± The Witch exclaimed suddenly. Christian knew what he meant as he suddenly felt weak, a crystal forming of a deep darkness that seemed to swallow the light around it formed above the skeleton¡¯s head. He stumbled back in shock, ¡°Skeletons can¡¯t use magic!¡± Everyone that viewed the crystal above the skeleton¡¯s head started to feel weaker, their bodies trembling as they noticed the trees starting to wilt in the area. ¡°No, don¡¯t let him finish the spell!¡± The Witch tried to chant a spell to attack the skeleton on the ground, but in his panic he learned that his mana reserves were completely gone. Black swirls of energy became visible to even the non-magical of the group, making many abandon their formation to try and escape the spell¡¯s radius. The swirls of energy became larger, spiraling into the sky into a large black beam of energy, a look of recollection came over Christian¡¯s face as the sky turned dark. ¡°The rumors are true, another lord is being created.¡± Drawing the sword at his side, he rushed forward at the skeleton knowing that if he lived, thousands would die by his hand. Two steps away something stopped him, a deep burning feeling in his ribs started to spread throughout his body. ¡°This simple knight can not let you harm my lord, I have already failed by letting him get this injured but I had to follow orders.¡± Looking down Christian saw a very large insect in front of him that came to his waist in height, his eyes traveled further down to the large crimson patch on his clothes that was spreading around the jet black appendage that was stuck into his ribs. ¡°I hope you can accept your fate.¡± He heard a soft crushing sound as everything seemed to slow around him, then in the end faded to black. The area around Mr. Fly turned deadly silent as the rest of the army joined their leader Christian in the afterlife, falling in tens until there were none left. The area seemed peaceful again, though now it looked like an ancient battlefield. Withered bodies littered the ground looking nothing like the beautiful elves that they once were, eyes and mouths twisted in horror. Only two figures stood in this carnage, a black insect standing around two feet tall, and a black skinned creature with elven figures. Elves were beings that filled the description of tall, pale, blessed with beautiful looks and joyous eyes. The creature that stood there was tall, dark, with glassy eyes that seemed to have a pale blue light in them. At six feet tall, he was dark skinned with a blue tint that touched on purple, white hair flowed freely from his head rolling down his shoulders and falling on his mid-back. The figure touched his chest, but felt no heartbeat, it was still an undead but something more than the skeleton he once was. ¡°I guess I can no longer go by the name Mr. Skeleton.¡± He smiled, before walking to Purple and Red, prying out their cores to toss them among the bodies. The leftover necromantic energies from his spell would help them form their new bodies from the corpses left over, and in his Domain their bodies would be much better than the ones he discarded for them. ¡°Mr. Fly, I thank you for your dedication. I¡¯ll need loyal people like you in the future, I hope you can guide them when that time comes.¡± Mr. Fly nodded hurriedly, before bowing, ¡°My lord, I am always at your service.¡± The insect looked very happy, its wings slightly buzzing behind it every few minutes as they searched for the necromatic crystals, his lord was in need of more subjects.
Author Note: Hmm.. Names... Mr. Dark Skin! Mr. Lord! The Necromancer Formerly Known as Mr. Skeleton! Mr. I''m Not Dead Yet! Hello, The Second Non-Chapter (Sorry) Hello My Readers, I''ve been editing the beginning chapters to fit more into my current writing style, I''ve currently worked on and edited chapter 1 (again), and chapter 2, and slowly working my way to the front. I''ll still put out chapters even before all of them have been changed, a friend just suggested that I work on the beginning chapters to bring it up to the standards of the most recent ones. I personally don''t think that there is much of a style change, but after editing for about an hour I realized that the text actually doesn''t feel right. Now after both have been edited I hope it brings more readers, and gives a better impression of my writing. I hope you all enjoy it. A new chapter will come out after the fourth of July, which started 24 minutes ago, I hope you have a good 4th for all of those that are in America, if not then happy Monday! Chapter 17: A Fly on the Wall. It was fascinating, the feeling of flesh stretching over my skin even if it seemed as though I was still dead with my lack of a heartbeat. Breathing in a deep breath, and holding it my fascination was filled with something deeper, hatred and sorrow that sank deep into my core like a poison. The death of the men around me should have phased him, it should have made him feel regret, the part of him that still held onto my humanity told me this in a scream but there was just hollowness. ¡°Does one feel regret for killing their food usually?¡± Something was crawling into my hand, a raspy voice that sounded like sandpaper. My arm struck where I thought the noise had come from the tree behind me exploding in the center, and collapsing in on itself before hitting the ground with a thud. ¡°Come out.¡± My voice sounded much more full, having a body helped give it more substance, I tried making my voice sound as demanding as I could but a light almost feminine voice sounded out. In surprise I frowned, it sounded like what I would imagine a prince would, not the princes of actual kingdoms but those romantic ones that more women read than man. ¡°I am, you just aren¡¯t looking for me in the right place.¡± Not going to play into his games, I ignored him collecting the soul stones that lay scattered before me. It wasn¡¯t long before he spoke up again seemingly annoyed that I didn¡¯t want to play with him, ¡°Look for me with simple magical perception! A fellow necromancer, and you don¡¯t even know that I¡¯m a spirit.¡± Switching my eyesight into the astral world I saw many things had changed since the day that bear died, necromatic energies swarmed through this area like a hungry wolf. It seemed as though during my time of senselessness I had expanded, and deepened my Domain by several times. I wasn¡¯t very versed in these things, so I was curious how I expanded my Domain without killing like I was lead to believe from my companions. Looking to them I knew it would take several days for them to reconstruct from their injuries, but ripping their cores from their chests would benefit from fresh corpses rather than healing their old bodies. A cough came from behind me again, and out of reflex another tree was destroyed by my fist leaving my fist elbow deep inside the chest of a rather young man. Luckily his body was astral, or he would have a rather large hole inside of his body that most white mages would struggle to heal even the cosmetic damage. The man stood to my eyeline, judging from rough estimates from my body I judged him to be around five foot tall, he had raven black hair that lingered at his shoulders bunching up with grease. He didn¡¯t seem unfriendly, though he comically puffed out his chest in pride looking at me with a look that was a mixture of curiosity and pity, though I personally thought I was better off than his overly skinny body. The look in his eyes changed from curiosity to horror, ¡°What are you doing you brute?¡± He moved away from my arm, making it pass through his black robes without harm. ¡°So, now do you wonder why you are in the sights of the most powerful necromancer to lay his eyes on this puny world, Jeremy?¡± ¡°Jeremy the necromancer?¡± I tried making my eyes show as little interest as possible which wasn¡¯t a show, tucking the last soul crystal into a bag that I had picked up from one of the corpses. I would need clothes soon, I was getting rather uncomfortable with the wondering eyes of the Jeremy fellow so I gathered some up from the corpses around me. I purposefully let the silence linger as his puffed up, proud chest slowly deflated and he had a look of annoyance on his face instead. ¡°What do I owe the honor?¡± ¡°Well, I see that you have gathered up quite a few soul crystals, I wish to procure them from you.¡± He said with a slight nod. ¡°What will I get in exchange?¡± Though I was not very interested in giving up hard to earn kills to a man I didn¡¯t know, I was curious about the tools of another necromancer. If he offered up a book of knowledge, or some tools of the trade to better use soul crystals it would still be to my benefit since he can¡¯t expect a fellow necromancer to give up all of the soul crystals in his possession. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think you understand, there seems to have been a great battle here and you have been weakened. I only see one minion under your care,¡± His smile turned mocking as he continued, ¡°I want you to hand them all over peacefully to me. Elves are known for their power with a bow, and spear not with magic, me being a human gives me the upper hand over you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a damn Elf, and I¡¯d gladly like to see you try to take them from my cold dead fingers¡± Speaking through clenched teeth, I stepped back knowing that if this was me the treat would be followed by immediate repercussions. ¡°Fine then, I will kill you in one week¡¯s time when my horde gets there. I would have you know, there are no benefits to you resisting, and will only result in your death.¡± He smirked, throwing his robe back to show off a skeletal arm. ¡°I¡¯ll have you know that you are dealing with a half lich.¡± A week, I¡¯d be able to escape or build up a force with these soul crystals in much less than a week. It didn¡¯t seem to be right, so I looked at him confused, talking to myself, ¡°How long does it usually take to create a single undead?¡± ¡°Ha, with your skill probably a month, or two. With my skills I could create a group of three in a mere week.¡± He turned his back on me, ¡°I shall come to see your one or two undead, and make them mine once I cleanse their undead cores!¡± His image vanished before me, leaving me very happy with this arrogant bastard. ¡°I can steal his undead to fill my ranks!¡± Fusing ten of the minor crystals together, I pulled out a rather good sized soul crystal spinning it in my fingers for a moment before pouring my magic into it to summon the creature. A flash of blue floated in front of me giving me a nostalgic feeling, I had been neglecting my necromancy for actual summoning. The menu looked a lot more detailed than the time that I had created Mr. Fly, which might be because of my advancements into necromancy over the months that I spent with Bear. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
Customization of Undead:
Current Undead Type: Elf (50% Variant Rate)Variant Chances: Feral Elf, Void Elf, Tree Elf, Immortal Elf.
Strength: Base (14) Points of Mana for each Point 100
Dexterity: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 50Time For Creation: 1 Hour 23 Minutes with no changes.
Body: Base (10) Points of Mana for each Point 200Mana Cost for Creation: 400 Points of Mana
Body Decay: Base (100) Points of Mana for removing each Point 30
Chance of becoming intelligent: 40% Points of Mana for each Percentage 10Process of Soul Understanding (0%)
After a few minutes reading over each aspect of the menu, wondering what some of the benefits could be from the variants since they weren¡¯t always better than the base creature. Pressing on some of the options I noticed my mana turning grey on the bar to the edge of my vision showing how much it would cost with each upgrade. As soon as my bar turned completely grey the option to increase anything went away, but mana was needed for creatures that were undead to survive so I couldn¡¯t risk using all of my mana. Checking over the menu one last time, I committed to the setup knowing that I had a week to experiment on the creatures before the other necromancer would come.
Customization of Undead:
Current Undead Type: Elf (50% Variant Rate)Variant Chances: Feral Elf, Void Elf, Tree Elf, Immortal Elf.
Strength: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 100
Dexterity: Base (40) Points of Mana for each Point 50Time For Creation: 4 Hour 01 Minutes
Body: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 200Mana Cost for Creation: 6000 Points of Mana
Body Decay: Base (50) Points of Mana for removing each Point 30
Chance of becoming intelligent: 90% Points of Mana for each Percentage 10Process of Soul Understanding (0%)
Personally putting so many points into the chance of intelligence was almost necessary, first I needed more generals even if they aren¡¯t the strongest of my group. I was not able to see from every angle, especially from the battlefield, having a few generals to make up for my absence will provide for flexibility for my army. Needing something to fight against something known as a lord to the beasts that crushed my allies and me beneath its feet without much effort I¡¯d need many allies to pave the path in front of me. A timer appeared over the crystal, and I set it down my mana was already doing its work on the soul inside crafting it into an undead under my control. The timer came with another line above it that read ¡°Soul Understanding¡±, which gradually moved forward much slower than the timer below it. It would take several more Elves before I understood their soul, not knowing what it meant I would have to strive to actually achieve full understanding of their soul. Turning to Red, and Purple¡¯s cores I went to them trying to pull up a menu dealing with giving them certain benefits, to see if I could gradually make certain skeletons stronger than others through use of necromancy. It didn¡¯t seem to work, though after I added necromatic energy directly into their core and it seemed to shine with a swarming of black energy within the core. Expecting another notification, nothing came so I continued to pour the last reserves of my mana, keeping above a solid one thousand using my breathing exercises to gather more energy into my body and force it into one of the two cores. The four hours went by without any event even with thousands upon thousands points of mana went inside of Red¡¯s core, nothing had happened to it though his body did start to create a spine out of the bones around him. A flash came from the soul crystal to my side, the crystal swelling, and bubbling into an ooze monster that grew in size with each passing second. Something in the center of the ooze started to darken, then take shape quickly into the outline of a body. Gripping the ooze, I ripped it open to expose the beautiful elven woman before me. Looking her body over, she seemed to be vastly different than the other elves that were sent here. Her pupils had no iris, her skin seemed to softly glow with energy that seemed to eat at the necromatic energy healing her body in ways an undead should not, and her hair was actually white feathers. I considered killing the woman before she would wake up since I wasn¡¯t sure if I would be able to control a non-undead with my necromancy abilities. The part of me that was looking over her womanly features, her wide hips, muscular stomach, and other things that I didn¡¯t dare look at more than once, was the part that convinced me not to kill her. Knowing that she was fine for now, I started my breathing exercises again no longer pouring energy into Red so I¡¯d be able to create another undead before the sun rose on the next day. Letting the energy swirl around me, and engulf my body I sucked in the familiar feeling of magic into my soul. The feeling was calming, relaxing, and for the first time since I¡¯ve been in this world my body met the conditions to fall asleep, so against my will I did. Mr. Fly, carrying a large basket came running to me with glee before the basket fell to the floor scattering a bunch of soul gems all over the ground. ¡°Master! He¡¯s died once again!¡± Rushing over the gems, he flew up and landed on my chest his sharp appendage trying to slap me across the face which left a tear in my skin which let out a green thick substance. My first sleep, and my first time being rudely awakened in a matter of minutes. Luckily it didn¡¯t take long for me to go back to sleep, another tree gone in my anger with a buzzing in the wreckage. Chapter 18: A Week to Prepare is too Much The next day, a slight pain was in my cheek that I couldn¡¯t quite place, touching it revealed no wound anymore but a green sticky ooze. Rubbing it between my fingers, it was very granular under the ooze and had many small black dots throughout all of it. Wiping it on one of the soldier''s pants, I slowly made my way to my feet my clothing feeling rather restrictive after being mostly naked, or in highly baggy clothing since my first awakening. Grabbing my cloak from the snow, I looked to the woman in the ooze she still wasn¡¯t awake but her lips were turning blue, it took me a moment to figure out she was cold not having the same feeling myself. Wrapping her in my cloak was harder than I thought, not wanting to wake her in the middle of the actions and misunderstanding the situation. Repeating the process with the same numbers on another soul crystal produced another countdown for three hours, and forty minutes this time. My fourteen soul understanding seemed to speed up the process for creating my creatures, at a hundred percent it might almost be instantaneous. Starting into a process of breathing exercises, then starting the summoning for another elf, five of them were in the process of being created when the first one I sat down that day turned into an ooze creature like the elven woman had. Reaching the ooze, I ripped it open to find a man looking up at me, his eyes seemed to be fixated on me in anger. When he pounced, it wasn¡¯t a surprise, his arm being pulled out by his hand as I kicked him through the shoulder blade causing his arm to be ripped off in one swift motion. As it turned to run, I threw its arm at its back the elf falling over quickly from the impact, I wasn¡¯t going to let precious resources run away so I ripped out the core from his body to examine it. If I was to guess this was a ¡®feral¡¯ elf, with the feral variant it seemed to lose any chance to gain intelligence unless I was just very lucky that the ten percent chance at it not becoming intelligent was chanced upon at the same time. I¡¯d need more ferals for any definite answers, luckily I didn¡¯t have to worry about my study sample as three out of the five were feral elves, one of which got away surprising me by running as soon as I ripped open the ooze cocoon. I stopped once the count got up to ten regular undead elves, the count of ferals getting away didn¡¯t increase after the first, two of them saw a display of my power and joined the ranks of the regular undead. They¡¯d be used as the front line since their loyalties seem questionable, their darting eyes seeming to size up everyone around them, since both of the ferals were male they seemed very subservient to the two female elves I had raised into regular undead. Looking to my bag, I could summon around twenty more of the elves but I was looking more into quality rather than quantity so I fused the rest of the crystals together to make a rather large crystal in my hands. Taking a risk, I pulled out other crystals that I had found under the carcasses of trees, and other places that the elves¡¯ corpses were not around. The crystal took on a brown tinge to it, but otherwise looked mostly unaffected by the change to its color or structure. ¡°Tutorial, I¡¯d like to spend some skill points.¡± A cheerful voice came out of nowhere, the voice made me smile as it was my first companion on this journey, ¡°Yes, what skill would you like?¡± ¡°Something that increases how much mana I have to spend.¡± I didn¡¯t know if being vague here would help, so I chanced that she might offer me choices. ¡°How many skill points do you wish to spend?¡± ¡°All of them.¡± I said without a thought, I wasn¡¯t likely to need many other skills that I couldn¡¯t develop myself, and if I did I could always gain more skills. As I stated before, the skill system, other than give me some bonuses to stats or mana seemed to be pointless because I wasn¡¯t limited by the skills provided. There was a long pause from tutorial, so I started to prep for more mana by starting my breathing exercises.
Skill Gained!
Mark of an Oracle
The soft blue glow came over me from the menu, as I looked to it, ¡°Mark of an Oracle?¡± I reached out to click on it for a more detailed description of the skill before a white line started crawling up my arm. Before I could start to admire the moving of the symbols a deep pain went through my arm and I started to scream out in my suffering. Mr.Fly, and two of the more intelligent elves came up to me worriedly, they seemed to have loyalty imprinted onto their very souls if they weren¡¯t feral. As my body collapsed under the pain, rolling into the snow it turning quickly to water, than to steam as more touched my body, Mr. Fly tried reaching out to me but pain shook through his body as he got close. Strips of white patterns started to converge around my chest from every part of my body covering me in swirling patterns before creating a unicursal hexagram made out of white before a flower bloomed in the center out of the white tattoo. My body hissed as the last of the tattoos formed themselves around my abdomen creating a series of symbols around my stomach that reminded me of a seal from anime that I watched in my youth. With a final flash my body convulsed one last time, a white smoke coming from my mouth, which made me believe that the process happened inside my body as well as on the outside. Tears rolled down from my eyes, that I hadn¡¯t noticed before, blinking them away, I sat up to begin my breathing exercises again which the energy seemed to be mixed with white tendrils of energy. ¡°Did you have to pick the most painful of the skills for me to gain?¡± My body throbbed in pain between my deep breaths, which made it hard to fully activate my breathing skill. ¡°I only used a quarter of your skill points, there were very few skills that directly affected mana without touching on your wisdom or intelligence which you never specified you wanted to be changed as well. Sadly this skill has other effects as well, but none of them will directly change you.¡± Tutorial explained in her usual cheerful attitude. Pressing the menu finally so I could read it between my painful breathing, I pulled up the description of the skill in front of me. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Mark of an Oracle
You are now a center of all micro, and macrocosmic forces that revolve around you. This will cause you to be the center of attention from many factions should they find out about your status as an oracle. Grants the title: Oracle if you did not already possess it, an additional 20% of mana from your stats, and a familiar!
A blue glow came up beside me as a small woman appeared out of the air, her body only half there completely see through. She wore dark lines of blue around her body, the same dark lips as her clothing, and her hair she reminded me of a hologram from years ago without the lines of electricity going through her body. Subconsciously I knew she was a sprite, a being made of pure magic that was both mischievous as it was intelligent about a little bit of everything. My sigh came out deeply as I looked at the Sprite, knowing exactly who it is, as her voice spoke up, ¡°Hello!¡± Tutorial¡¯s voice as as cheerful as ever as she spoke. Nodding my head a moment, it was to my expectation that she¡¯d be my familiar after reading the skill itself Mr Fly tied to shoo her away. My breathing started once more as I ignored tutorial, her sprite like body flying around the hurridly annoyed Mr.Fly which tried to swat her out of the air, ¡°Why won¡¯t you just die, flying things are not around master other than me.¡± Pouring my new maximum mana inside of the crystal it gave an indication that it was be done in four days, it also marked that due to my complete understanding of the elves¡¯ souls my summon would be an additional twenty percent stronger. I had thought that understanding the soul would make the timer go down a lot but due to how big the crystal was, and how much I was modifying the actual creature down to the soul crystal itself. Letting the crystal form, I went back to Red pouring mana into it hoping something would come from the experiment as I had already spent so many resources on Red¡¯s core to begin with. Ribs were blocking my way a little so it wasn¡¯t as easy to have my hands on the core while I sat there, but the mana flowed through my friend as easily as it did before and I sat there for over a day before I noticed my body heat was slowly rising the longer I stayed in the sun melting the snow around me even more than it was previously. I didn¡¯t feel uncomfortable in the cold, nor did I feel any sort of comfort or otherwise from the warmth that was going over my skin. Mr. Fly gave up after the first eight hours of trying to kill Tutorial, and went back to the Elves instructing them about their new undead bodies, many things he had learned over the time he watched over my unconscious body. Tutorial sat back down on my shoulder, next to my head watching over the experiment I was doing. ¡°You know you¡¯re nameless now right?¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter, I just want to know if you did that on purpose.¡± ¡°What on purpose master?¡± She gave me an innocent smile before shaking her head, ¡°What I told you was true, the skill was the best for the purposes you specified. There was no other skill higher than it that gave mana in your skill point range.¡± ¡°Then the familiar thing, was just an outcome which benefited you as a side effect.¡± I didn¡¯t know how far I could trust Tutorial, but I also didn¡¯t have any way of checking over the skills myself so I was stuck with her whims. ¡°What is she Tutorial?¡± The loosely clothed elven woman with feathered hair, turned a bit in her sleep as if she knew she was being talked about. ¡°She¡¯s one of the variants, one of the most interesting ones that had the lowest chances of getting the feral being the most common. Most necromancers consider ferals to be failures when they use their necromancy.¡± She nodded over to the lady once more, ¡°She¡¯s an immortal elf, congratulations, you¡¯ve created a monstrosity that hasn¡¯t been seen for hundreds of thousands of years.¡± ¡°What¡¯s so bad about being immortal?¡± Being undead obviously made me a bit biassed in this area, but it was a worthy question in my mind. ¡°Being immortal isn¡¯t important, it''s how they are immortal. Stories of other undead originated from them, would you believe that they actually thought that these creatures were undead? No, vampires were never undead, they have always been elves before they started relying on food instead of blood.¡± Looking to the woman, she seemed more of an angel rather than the embodiment of a vampire that I had grown up learning about, at most I could see her as a succubus with how she unknowingly wrapped the cloak around her body showing off enough to make the imagination go wild. He had to admit, that part of his mind was still intact from when he was a human despite trying to deny that by looking away from her body every time he had stared for too long. ¡°How long is she going to sleep?¡± I turned to Tutorial who seemed quite amused by my changing expressions. Annoyed, I looked away from her too to look at Mr. Fly, his buzzing around telling the Elves grand stories about me very much exaggerated made me think of a loyal dog if it was about to talk. ¡°I¡¯d give it another day, immortals were known for their bad sleeping habits. They made a story about it a long time ago named sleeping beauty, sleeping through pregnancy is a bit much even for their kind but their deep sleeps are a thing of legend.¡± ¡°Pregnancy? Didn¡¯t the prince just kiss the woman?¡± ¡°What naive translation is that sleeping beauty from?¡±
Titles Unlocked:
Naive Lord of Undead
Unconfirmed Pervert
Oracle of Calamities
¡°Oracle of Calamities?¡± A flash of light went through my vision as everything turned black, like someone shutting off an old TV. ¡°Why is that the only one you¡¯re surprised about?¡± Tutorial chimed in as the world faded around me leaving me in a sense of vertigo. Chapter 19: Awakening Darkness consumed my vision before thousands of lights appeared overhead, spanning out in a distance that was nearly unlimited gaps spreading between them that only allowed the emptiness of nothing. Time stretched for eternity as I watched in forced silence for words could not be forced out in this dead emptiness. My body flew past a cluster of planets before I realized that I was in space, and I felt a bit of hope that I was going home already. Maybe I had done enough that Death thought to give me another chance at my life, or maybe I had failed him and this was all over. Many ideas flashed through my mind, wondering if I¡¯d keep the magic I had learned from the previous world, and if I did, did that mean that others have been able to learn to harness magic this whole time? A world came into focus in front of me as I passed by a large blue sun, it wasn¡¯t the first planet that I passed but this one I somehow recognized. Mother¡¯s Tear, the planet that I¡¯ve been stuck on after I left my own was very blue, it wasn¡¯t just the waters themselves that created the blue on the planet but large areas of land as well. That feeling of hope, and joy died in that instant and I looked on to the world as if it was an ex-girlfriend I didn¡¯t wish to see again. The land suddenly lit aflame, the blue of the land pulling back as blackened barren lands replaced them, mountains coming from the earth blooming like flowers from the surface and spilling out lava. As I got closer to the world mighty beasts were making their way from under the surface of the lava, they were hundreds of feet in height carrying with them large platforms on their backs chained to the same platforms. The platforms housed castles made out of black twisting metal that shot up into spires, with white robed men and women looking out from the rooms. Cascading from their backs were wings made of pure white, they were all crowned with golden horns circling their heads, and their eyes matched in color. ¡°Angels.¡± I muttered under my breath as the giant creature stepped past me when I noticed something. My body floated up again, it seemed to be against my will but showed me exactly what I had noticed. War was raging when the angels showed themselves, thousands of demons were burning down the villages of humans still locked in their struggles when the angels had reached them. The humans cheered as angels were known in their religions, but their cries soon turned to that of terror as the angels purified the land with a white blinding fire that consumed the land beneath them. Floating near one of the angels that seemed to be some sort of nobility I heard her as she whispered with disdain, ¡°Your heroes banished us to the earth for twenty thousand years to clip our wings, and you expected us to help?¡± Spell formations were already shattered from the war that went on between the demons, and humans, both sides had heavy losses as well so against the unexpected wrath of the angels both fell silent. Another force rose up during the chaos, beasts of every kind joined in attacking at the massive creatures that held the angels castles but they were too disorganized to do anything of significance. Twenty years is when this will befall the world with its current course, angels will rise from the earth once their imprisonment ended. My body started to float up again as I saw the people, and animals start to speed up to blinding speeds as time started to move faster. The whole world was in my view again, blackness spreading like a plague before a white city, visible from where I was, was built in its center. Once that little bit of white showed up reds started to blossom over the land as quickly as the black had consumed it. ¡°The land will be cleansed with fire, purified under its holy flames, only then shall it be able to be reborn. When the first plants grew on this reborn empire lived on only by the angels that wiped out everything deemed unworthy they grew red affected by the bloods of billions that the angel¡¯s empire was built upon.¡± A sweet voice filled my mind, it was light and like a whisper but had a deep power behind it. The universe around me seemed to crack like an egg, splintering patterns going down every edge of my vision until there was nothing but light, then even the light was gone as I stayed in this eternity of darkness. The darkness was shattered like the universe before it as my eyes snapped open, finding me laying in the snow breathing a deep breath and coughing soon after as snow had found its way into my lungs. Tutorial was quickly at my side, ¡°What happened, you weren¡¯t dead or unconscious but your body was unresponsive.¡± ¡°I.. guess I¡¯m an official oracle now.¡± I tried to force a smile on my face but I couldn¡¯t even do that to reassure myself as my body sat there shaking in the snow. My mind was trying to go through the scenes that were placed before me previously, and found that there was much more information on this world in my head then there was before. The rules of necromancy, how to break the limits of the undead species, and how my skeletal body was created. I did the best I could to cope with this new information, and formulate a plan as what to do next in the upcoming days. My current situation called for a fight with a necromancer to strengthen my faces with numbers. I sacrificed that for quality in the first batch, knowing that I could have gotten a lot more soldiers if I had used my necromancy to split up the souls and create inferior bodies like a lot of my colleagues apparently do to fill their numbers. Equipment was taken off of the army that was around me leaving me with various extras to test out the other skills that I have neglected in my time with bear. Due to bear I now had experience in battle, my reactions were much sharper able to grasp a situation before most of the plain monsters around me. Sitting there with crystals that were in the Witch¡¯s bags, they seemed to leak mana to an extent that using my astral sight covered them in a thick fog. Not knowing what they were used for, I just used them as materials for my experimenting melting them down with was surprisingly a high amount of mana. Elements were something that Bear had taught me, how to turn your mana reserves into the different elements that were around you, it gave me something to fall back on should necromancy ever fail me. I had created a mold that I crafted from stones using earth magic, since my actual skill at making molds was lacking it was just in the shape of a staff. Not worrying about the results as there were hundreds of these crystals at my disposal, and even more metal objects to melt down, luckily most was made from bronze. Taking the impurities out of the bronze, I added the green glowing liquid to the melted bronze that looked like glowing orange magma, letting my magic stay upon the liquid to keep it at temperature as I pulled sand from the ground around me. The stone mold was added to the center with a hard crystal wrapping around the outside of the whole mold, I¡¯d be using this later if the process is successful. Grabbing at the magic that encased the melted metal, and crystal within it I poured it quickly into the mold from which a sudden crack was heard. When it stopped glowing, I removed the mold to find it was cracked down its center leaving me with a ruined pole. Experimenting for the rest of the day I ended up only successfully crafting two poles from the bronze that I had melted for the first pole. Overestimating the amount of metal I would need for one was my first problem, lower the heat that I was using to melt the alloy, and I had to find stone that could withstand the heat. After all three of those conditions were fulfilled I ended up with a very strange looking poll. Not knowing what was wrong with my cast at first, I looked to a bronze tea cup beside me, studying it before the answer clicked. ¡°Sanding, and polishing the damn thing.¡± Gathering sand through earth magic again, I sifted through them for the finest sand out of the piles of sand that was in the air, breaking apart others so that they fit my needs. Using a mixture of wind magic, and earth I started to sand the pole the high speed air pressure moving with grains of sand, going from courser sand to more fine sand until it was almost reflective. Combining salt, flour and vinegar, all things found in the elven packs, I created a polish for my staves using the last of the light of the second day to polish it. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. As the night hit, something urged me that I wasn¡¯t done yet and I gathered rope from the packs of the elves, I had found goat milk and smelling a white powder I found it to be baking soda from the Witches. Adding milk, and vinegar into a pan heating it before adding the vinegar making the milk separate. Using a strainer found with the witches, I separated everything grabbing the curds into my hand and moulding the slimy stuff in my palm before throwing it into the pan with a pinch of baking soda, then water, bringing it to a boil. Grabbing a thin rope I started to bind it tightly with the thin rope around the center of the poles almost as if I was possessed by my creation, adding the glue to the rope to make it easier to stay. My hand gripped at the pole adding a generous amount of mana, the pole starting to vibrate almost violently threatening to shatter under the power. I wondered if strength of the bronze pole, or flexibility was needed to add more power from magic into it, somehow I knew the crystals were the only reason why I could add so much magic. This was the end, I knew that the it was done but something was missing from the weapons and I modified the magic inside of them turning one into wind type energy, and the other into terror magic, which I thought was appropriate. Just one thing was needed, ¡°Wind Carver, and the Fear Bringer.¡± The staves started to violently vibrate with power once again, the two coppers started to burn with a bright green, and a ghastly grey warping the color of the copper into about the same as their aura, but faded. As the magic slowly faded away from the two weapons before I set them down, they were beautiful in their simplicity. A menu appears the moment I thought that they were finally done.
Congratulations!
Two magic weapons have been created, naming your weapons will drain your mana by 50% would you like to continue to name them?
Sadly it didn¡¯t tell me the benefits, but I clicked yes immediately, watching my mana slowly drop down to fifty percent then continued downwards. ¡°Why is my mana still falling?¡± The Sprite came over to me, Tutorial sitting at my shoulder, ¡°Both weapons cost fifty percent of your mana, why are you confused?¡± ¡°Your menus should be more descriptive, that was a bit misleading.¡± Suddenly realizing that I would be without mana, I immediately started my breathing exercises not wanting to drop down to zero, even if I only have a few points to myself. As my mana dropped below a hundred my body felt heavy, feeling as though I was several feet deep in oil. Mana stopped at around twenty before starting to rise quickly, a feeling of my relief spread over me as I smiled to myself. The two staves on the ground seemed to have more presence as my mana stopped dropping, feeling as if they had more weight to them. The wind picked up around one staff, as the other started to howl a bit signaling to me that they were full of power. Standing up to grip at one of them, I was planning on using them like one would a baseball bat but it seemed that during my creation I thought that the grip was needed in the center. Thinking about the length of the staff, I think it was the better option of the two since I¡¯m sure the bronze would have bent if I used it like that. After finishing that project, I taught one of the smarter elves how to use the bronze with the molds, creating around six different molds meant for multiple uses one of them being a sword. The sanding process would be done by me since the undead seemed to have a problem with magic, though I created a forge to supplement the need for fire magic. Creating, or finding some high grain stones might work for the project but I had only used sandpaper before, and combination I made with sand, and wind was currently the only alternative that seemed reliable at the moment because of its speed. Iron was another monster all together, I knew that iron couldn¡¯t be casted like the bronze but I didn¡¯t know how to actually turn iron into a sword. The bronze and aluminium of my childhood created many small projects with my tiny forge in the backyard created from a wheel well that I got from a car repair place for free, the crucible was one of the hardest things to convince my mother to get me. This had gotten me into hours of arguments afterwards as my mother didn¡¯t know that I¡¯d need to have glowing hot metals around me to actually use my forge. My father sadly took her side when he found out that all of his sandpaper was going missing to my projects as well so I had to stop only after three months of creating things in my backyard. If my parents had known that this training in the backyard would be used in my next life as a necromancer I wonder if I would have been able to continue my projects. The thoughts of my parents suddenly made me grimace as I was sitting there, wishing that I had contacted them sometime in the past year. It was far too late for regrets though, as it usually is since you never miss what you have until it is gone. Something moved beside me as I tried to identify the other items inside the Witch¡¯s bags, many of it seemed to be scattered nothings that might hold some superstitious rather than magical meaning to these people. Turning away from the herbs in my hands the elven woman with feathers for hair opened her eyes stretching before looking to me, a hint of recollection went through her eyes as our eyes met each other. Then before it could register she suddenly screamed out, covering herself with the pelt that draped across her body. ¡°Clothes now!¡± She ordered, the two feral elves immediately went and grabbed clothes that they had snatched off one of the scouts. She took the clothes, a flash of light filled the area as she blinded all the males but Mr. Fly, who was currently chasing the sprite around. Apparently this was a great offensive measure, as they all stood there for moments rubbing their eyes in pain that seared through their eyes. When I could finally see, the woman stood in front of me wearing the clothes from the scout though she had to cut the sides to fit her hips into the clothing. She had very accusing eyes settled on me, ¡°What.. did you do while I was asleep?¡± ¡°Asleep? You were just born.¡± ¡°What do you mean just born? Is this some sort of game?¡± ¡°Fine, if you don¡¯t think that you were just born then where were you before you went to sleep? Do you remember anything before you woke up at all?¡± I was a little dissatisfied with the creation of her. There were very few undead that I had created and it seemed as though she couldn¡¯t be controlled so she was as good as the feral ones. She stood there, thinking for a very long time before shaking her head, ¡°Now that you mention it, it does seem as though my memory up until now is lacking.¡± Her accusing eyes went back to me, furious, ¡°What sort of magic is this?¡± She demanded. ¡°Necromancy, that¡¯s what I created your body out of.¡± She seemed to take my words hard as she sat down in the snow, looking at her own body and confirming that there was indeed still a large amount of necromatic energy swarming around her body. Also surprisingly the energy was being devoured by her, giving her a feeling of being satisfied which it was impossible to suppress her kind¡¯s constant hunger. ¡°What.. is your name if I may? It seems I owe you my life.¡± ¡°My name? Ah yes, I have to name myself again now that I am no longer a skeleton.¡± Her confusion at that made me smile a bit. ¡°Call me..¡± I thought momentarily, then found the name fitting for the war that was happening soon, ¡°Call me Lucifer.¡±