《Rise of the skeleton king》 Chapter 1: Reincarnation My name is Asashi, I am what you would call an average student. I never stood out in any subject nor did I fail miserably in any of them. My life was looking pretty good, I had just finished university and my studies to be an engineer, the pay was decent, the job itself was not too complicated for me, my parents supported my choice and I think I had hit it off pretty well with a girl I met at a bar. Unfortunately for me the powers that be decided that was not meant for me, I was on my way to the family reunion my mom had organised to celebrate my graduation when a truck suddenly came crashing into me. Whether the driver fell, asleep, was drunk or had some grudge against me I don''t know nor do I really care anymore. After getting hit by a full speed truck I did what any normal human being would have done, I died, or so I thought. When I came to I was no longer in the busy streets during rush hour but in a rather depressing place which I assumed was a graveyard of sorts due to the numerous tombstones around me. Seeing that I was somehow alive I decided to check myself for any injury, when I checked my body I felt a mix of terror and suprise. All that was left of my body were bones, literally no skin, no muscle, no organs nothing I only had white smooth bones, for a 10 whole minutes I froze unsure of what to do. After gathering my thoughts I tried walking around for a bit, the result was me falling akwardly face first into the mud, seeing that walking right now was a bit of an issue I decided to take this time to try and make sense of what had happened to me. What I knew so far was that I had died, somehow came back as a skeleton in some place I don''t know, it wasn''t much to go on but I had to make do. Seeing that I was in no rush I decided to look around myself, from what I could tell it was night time with the moon high up in the sky, the graveyard was covered in a thin fog that, numerous tombstone lay about some looking more recent than others. "What am I?" I asked myself, despite being a retorhical question I recieved my answer in a rather suprising way. No sooner had I finished the question that a window appeared in front of me. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Race: Skeleton Type: Undead Lvl: 1 HP: 30/30 MP:0 Equipment: N/A Traits: Cursed skin Skills: Soul forge So from what I read I am an undead more specifically a skeleton, well thats just great. What intreaged me the most was the cursed skin trait and the soul forge skin. I decided to touch the writing, as soon as I did the window shifted and what I got was this. Cursed skin: Due to the nature of the undead any healing spells harm the undead and health cannot be recovered over time. Soul forge: The ability of skeleton to craft magical items from the souls of its victims and the raw materials. This was starting to really look like a video game, although the soul forge sounds really cool I don''t think I can bring myself to hurt anyone I never had to fight before. Cursed skin on the other hand I wish I didn''t have seriously not healing damage done to you over time, who would want that. Well anyway it didn''t seem like I really had any choice in the matter. With that done I decided to try walking again, the first few tries ended up with me falling over again, but I slowly managed to get the hang of it. Right now I can manage a very akward shuffle in the direction I want, with my means of motion secured I decided to explore the rest of the graveyard. For the most part my exploration was rather boring, nothing exciting happened and with my snails pace it wasn''t very interesting. It was after 30 minutes of searching that I came across another skeleton, unlike me this fellow seemed to be able to walk just fine. I tried calling out to him but no sound came from my non existant lungs, I tried waving my hands but he simply ignored me. Since he didn''t really seem to care about me I decided to follow him to learn how to walk properly. With that decided I chased after the skeleton clumsily attempting to imitate his walk, this was going to be a long night. To be continued Chapter 2: First blood After a good 30 minutes of observing I had managed to master the walk of the skeleton, I decided it was time for a little celebration dance. I shouldn''t have done that as I tripped over a log and smashed my head on a tombstone. "-1 HP" a little notice appeared, crap I lost 1 health point because of that antic. As I was cursing myself I noticed something shiny in the mud, I grabbed it and pulled, what came out was a rather nice dagger, a bit rusty but nice nonetheless. I decided to keep it, you never know there might be suspicious people seeking to take advantage of a poor innocent skeleton like me. I quickly chased after my fellow skeleton who had created quite a gap between us, why am I following you ask? Because I have no where to go, I''m simply tagging along to see if he is going anywhere interesting or that might explain exactly where I am. We continued to walk together for a good hour, I honestly don''t know how this guy manages to walk around for 1 hour without any kind of entertainment, I tried countless times to engage in some activity with him but the only thing he seemed to care about was walking. Despite walking around for 1 hour we still remained in the graveyard, I couldn''t tell whether the graveyard was simply huge or whether we had been walking around in circles, time really goes by slowly when you have nothing to do, the moon hardly moved and the weather hasn''t changed either. We kept going on for 10 minutes before hearing a scream shattering the silence that had reigned for so long. My skeleton buddy seemed to know where the scream came from and broke into a semi sprint, I tried to follow as best as I could. When we arrived to the source, the scene before me was far from pleasent. A woman wearing somekind of half torn brown medieval robe, was being pinned down by a rather disgusting looking man wearing what I could only call peasent clothes. It didn''t take a genius to figure out what was going on, but before I could do anything my fellow skeleton charged at the man and sank his teeth into his neck. It gave a nasty cut to the man''s neck but due to the poor condition of his teeth my friend couldnt cut deep enough. Releasing a howl of pain the man let go of the woman and diverted his attention to his assailent. The man retaliated to the bite with an elbow to the face, knocking the skeleton to the ground. The man wasted no time and pinned the skeleton with his weight and proceeded to unleashe a flurry of punches to the skeleton''s face the cracking of bones was clearly heard alongside the man''s various insults aimed at his opponnent, "You fucking skeleton, you''re gonna regret ever showing that face of you''re in front of me. Who the hell do you think you are!" I could only watch as the skull of my friend slowly gave way as the blows continued to rain onto him, splinters were flying everywhere. I had to do something, anything, then I remembered the knife I had found. I decided to take action, I charged the man knife raised, he seemed too busy to notice me, I brought down my knife aiming for the elbow but it seems my aim wasn''t particularly good. The knife found its way in the back of the neck of its target, the man fell over instantly without a sound blood dripping from his mouth. But that wasn''t the worst part, it was only a second later that I noticed his eyes were still moving, he was paralyzed but not dead. I was shocked and confused, I had only wanted to stab his shoulder and scare him into submission but instead caused him to become paralyzed, I quickly turned to the woman hoping for some hint of what I was suppose to do but the only answer I earned was her terrified gaze before she broke off into a sprint and out of sight. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. My skeleton friend was unmoving, although I felt a hint of sadness I couldnt really mourn him since I didn''t really know him. I turned my attention back to the man, the knife still imbedded in his neck, I couldn''t anything to help him, there was no hospital around and even if there was they might not be able to fix this kind of damage. I turned my gaze to the knife in his neck "the best I can do is put him out of his misery", I slowly pulled the knife out it''s fleshy prison blood began trickling out of the hole, to be honest I felt sick through the entire ordeal if I still had my organs I would have probably thrown up. I slowly raised the knife over my head, the man''s terrified eyes slowly following, it was clear he was trying to move with the moans he was making. I brought down the knife with all my strength directly into the mans head. It was done, the man''s eyes ceased moving and he had fallen silent. It was then that the realization of what I had done hit me, I had taken a life, sure it was a despicable one but still. I remained there for god knows how long trying to take in this information, the silence was broken by a window popping up infront of me. Skeleton lvl 1 has slain Human: Ivan lvl 2 XP earned 35 LEVEL UP: Skeleton is now level 2 Soul points earned: 3 Trait earned: Backstabber lvl 1: deal 5% extra damage when attacking from the back Stats Skeleton Lvl 2 HP: 40/40 MP: 0/0 Equipment: Short rusty dagger Traits: Cursed skin, backstabber Skills: Soul forge After reading through the window I remained there for a few minutes trying to decide what I should do now. I must have remained like that for a good 5 minutes, before I decided to search the man for anything useful. The only thing I found was some animal skin hanging from the man''s shoulder, picking it up I wished to myself if there was somewhere I could store it. As if to grant me my wish the skin suddenly disappeared in a blue light with a window popping shortly after. Wolf skin x2 has been stored in the inventory. Well thats good to know. I offered a quick prayer to my victim and my fallen friend. Now with no one to rely on I decided that staying in the graveyard wasn''t going to help me. After barely 10 minutes of searching I found the gate, I am honestly starting to think my freind had been leading me around in circles, the gate was wide open with a small path leading into a forest shroudded by the night. With a final mental push I stepped out of the graveyard and into the wild. To be continued Ps: I am planning on making him have conversations so don''t worry I will make it clear who is talking, and the point of view of the story will change to different characters from time to time. Chapter 3: Evolution I was calmy walking through the dark forest which was suprisingly bursting with activity as nocturnal predators came out to hunt. Bats, owls, mice, spiders they were all coming out of their dens looking for a meal, I envied them to be honest. In my world being hungry is taken for granted, with my lack of hunger I sometimes wish I had those daily activities to act as a compass or mental relief. Since I had plenty of time I discovered a nice amount of interesting things I could do, I could activate a map of the world, the parts I hadnt visited remained blank while those I had were drawn as I visited them. I had been walking in the same direction for a good hour and the dot that represented my location on the map hadn''t moved at all. Luckily I could call up a map of the region or continent I am in if I need to find my way. Another thing I noticed is that I can analyze any being getting its species name, its lvl and it''s health. What I knew so far was that the world I was in is called Azar and the region I currently am in is Mangor valley, I have explored very little of it but I am steadily getting a clear map of the region. As I continued my exploration I got what people would call the "sensation of being watched", no matter how much I attempted to find my observer I found nothing but shadows. Speaking of shadows being undead seems to have it''s advantages such as being able to see quite well in the dark, I continued my exploration for 30 minutes, but the feeling of being watched continued to gnaw at me, worst of all was I had the impression the number of observers was increasing. I finally broke into a clearing my dagger firmly clutched into my hand, as soon as I entered the clearing my stalkers finally revealed themselves. Out of the forage came 3 black wolves of rather impressive size, their fangs were visible a clear sign of aggression. I wasn''t a genius butI could tell that I was simply trespassing on their territory, they were hunting me. No idea why though considering the little nutritional value my body has compared to a live meal. I knew wolves could outrun a human, so there was no point in trying to run, my only option left is to fight. If there was only one I think I could handle him but three is going to be difficult. I decided to analyze them to know what I''m up against. Species: Mammal, type: black wolf LVL: 3 HP: 60/60 MP: 0/0 Traits: Pack hunter: this monster always hunts in pack. Skills: None So all of them are lvl 3 and they don''t seem to have any skills I have to watch out for, thats one good thing. They probably though I was an easy meal as one of them charged me without waiting for the others. For this one I was ready, once within range he leaped at me, I countered by side stepping and retaliating with a knife jab to the back fo the head. He went down instantly, the second was upon me, by the time I turned to face him he was already flying towards me jaws wide open. I did the smartest thing I could of at that moment, I lunged my dagger at his maw. The result was brutal for both sides, the knife pierce his skull with a disgustingly audible crack, my left arm on the other hand couldnt take the shock and shattered from the impact. I attempted to quickly retrieve my knife from the wolf but the third one tackled me to the ground. He shut his jaws on my right shoulder luckily there was no pain but I did feel a sensation that told me I was getting hurt, without any weapon available I bit it''s nose it didn''t make it let go but it was having some effect. Using my still usable right arm I plunged my finger into it''s right eye. The wolf howled from the pain releasing its grip on my shoulder. I sought to press my advantage but that hope was short lived. The wolf recovered from the pain and snapped my right arm clean off. Now armless I had no way of removing the wolf, I attempted to bite him again, but it was completely futile. Realising I had no means of defending myself anymore I realise I was going to die, the wolf opened its jaws ready to end this, I couldn''t close my eyes due to having no eyelids, but the new sight before me confused me nonetheless. One second I was looking at a wolf, now I was looking at a wolf with half its head missing, its lower jaw hanging uselessly, the body fell sideways and I looked behind me to see what had done that. If I could have shat myself, I would probably have done that. What was before me was a massive grey bear, with it''s left paw covered in blood and some parts of the wolf''s head, it was clear that is was responsible for the wolf''s death. Thats when I remembered the advice to play dead when encountering a bear. I thought it was a stupid decision but it was the only one I had, I remained motionless as the bear lowered its face to mine, I could feel its breath on my face somehow. The bear gave me a low growl before seemingly losing interest and walking off with a wolf''s corpse tightly hel in its jaws. It was clear it knew I was alive and that growl it gave me was probably some kind of warning which I planned to listen to by getting out of here as fast as possible. I ran further into the forest, luckily I encountered no further wolves. I finally came to stop next to a large oak tree. As I sat to think of how to deal with my missing arms and lost knife, a familiar window popped up. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Skeleton has slain Black wolves LVL 3 x2 150 XP 3 Levels earned HP: 80/80 MP: 0/0 Traits: Cursed skin, Backstabber lvl 1, Beast killer lvl 1: Take less damage and do extra damage against beasts. 12 soul points earned Evolution possible: would you like to initiate evolution With my level up my arms were restored, I pondered what exactly what this evolution was but no matter what I said there was no window showing up to explain it to me. With no other choice I decided to say yes. Evolution initiated: Skeleton to Black Skeleton My body suddenly vibrated slowly burrowing into the ground, I honestly panicked but my body refused to move no matter what I did. I was shortly buried alive, and for the first time since I came here I felt tired and let my mind wander to sleep. To be continued I know the fight was really short but I wanted to make it a short but brutal fight not one of those dragged out ones. By the way if you ever notice I get the amount of souls points or HP wrong don''t hesitate to warn me I might sometimes mess uo the values. Little bit of info Sorry but I might not be able to post any new chapters for the next week or so as I am at currently studying at university and have a very big piece of work to complete. However, I may or may not get a week of holiday if I do I will try to write the next couple of chapters for rise of the skeleton king. Speaking of writing I am planning on starting 3 other fictions. All of them are rencarnation into monster stories (sorry I find them to be a bit more interesting than other stories right now.) THe first one will be a person reincarnated into a bipedal reptile called a decaton. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The second one will be a person reincarnated as a dungeon. (this one might not be very long as I have very little idea of how to keep the story interesting while remaining in the same spot, and I do not want the MC to take human form and stop being a "dungeon".) The third one came to me really recently so I haven''t given it much thought in terms of possible story development but it will involve being reincarnated into the spider family. (Yes I know spiders are used a lot but I really like spiders and they allow the MC to create some interesting things.) Chapter 4: Making some friends I finally woke up, I have no idea how much time has passed since I''m still underground. A slowly start moving and begin clawing my way towards the surface, or at least I hope so, this kind of reminds me of the game minecraft where digging straight down will end with you falling into a pit of lava. How dumb would that be, "ah" I finally see some light means near the surface. After a couple more minutes I am out of the ground, I must have slept for a while because the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Its a nice change of surrounding to be honest. Well now I decide to check myself out to see what all this evolution was about. After a quick scan of myself the only difference I have noticed is that I got a new paint job, apart from that I am not physically different from before. At least my new bones are nice and smooth chicks probably dig that. Since I hav eno physical difference I decide to check my stats. HP: 100/100 MP: 20/20 Traits: Cursed skin, Backstabber lvl 1, Beast killer lvl 1 Skills: Soul forge, Raise skeleton. Souls points: 15 Well I seem to have recieved a tougher body, and that skill raise skeleton looks interesting. Raise skeleton: Raise a skeleton from a corpse to fight for you. Note: Raised skeletons are loyal only to their creator and will die if he is killed, natural skeletons have wills of their own and may rebel against their master. Well thats nice to know, I can make my own little entourage without having to worry about betrayal. I wonder if this body is any stronger than the previous one, I decide to test myself by trying to break a log I found on the floor just like in those Kung fu movies. Dumbest thing I ever did, as soon as my hand slammed into the log my hand bent out of shape before falling off my arm. Although the log didn''t break completely it did bend inwards a bit, so my strength seems to have increased but not tremendously and neither did my resistance. Since it would be stupid to walk around with a missing hand incase I ran into more wolves and I seem to have a good amount of soul points I decided to take a look at what I can make with the soul forge. The only thing I seem to be able to make is armour made from leather since I harvested the wolf pelts, there were a lot of magic enchantements I could choose from such as ice resistance, fire resistance etc. However, the only one I needed was something to heal me, there was one enchantement called Darkness regneration lvl1 which grants a passive healing to an undead wearing the equipment while it would drain the life of any living creature that wore it slowly turning them into an undead. I decided to make myself a piece leather chest armor with darkness regeneration to recover my lost hand. The leather pelts dissolved into blue orbs that fused together making one large ball floating in the air, 15 small white spheres coming from my body proceeded to fuse with it. Suddenly it simply "popped" and out came a fine looking piece of leather armour that I quickly equipped before anything else decided to take it. As soon as I put it on I could feel my hand slowly growing back, it would take time but it was better than nothing. Having no reason to stick around I continued through the forest, it was 2 hours later that the trees finally gave way to a bright and sunny plain covered in trees, bushes, flowers, rabbits. There was so much life compared to the forest to the point that I thought that I had stepped into another world. I felt a bit safer here than in the forest an quickly set about exploring, there were so many plants I had never seen before unfortunately the animals seem to be terrified of me and scampered off at the sight of me. An hour later I fall upon a road, a very primitive road but a road nonetheless. It was just basically a long trail where all the grass had been removed and replaced with simple dirt. This could only mean one thing, civilization, of course I wanted to run down the road until I reached a town but thinking about my current appearence the occupants would probably freak out at the sigh of me. I decided to follow that road but be ready to hide if I encountered someone, after around 10 minutes of walk I come across a rather gruesome sight. On the side of the road laid 12 dead humans blood splattered across the grass, what seemed to be the remnants of tents could be seen lying around, at first I thought they might have been traders of some kind but after observing their weapons I discarded that idea. They posseded crude armor made from leather along with some shields made of would and some even had steel swords and maces, I did a quick survey of the area to make sure whatever claimed them was not wandering the area. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. After spotting nothing dangerous apart from the overly cute bunnies around, I decided to test out the raise skeleton skill. As soon as I cast it on one of the bodies, his flesh began disipating like a black fog leaving nothing but his bones, weapons and armor. The skeleton proceeded to stand up still clutching his weapons and looked at me as if waiting for orders. I had no idea how I was meant to communicate with him due to my lack of lungs, the first thing I wanted to try out was make him move forward. No sooner had that though been finished that the skeleton proceeded to march forward bumping into a tree and tenaciously pushing against it as if expecting it to make way for him to continue marching forward. I quickly sent a mental signal telling him to stop. Another suprise came to me in the shape of a skill window. Skill earned: Lesser control lvl 1: Allows a being to control lesser creatures based on his wishes, higher levels allow for a more fluid control and allows the controlled to decide on a course of action best suited to fulfilling the given order. Sweet, I proceeded to raise three more skeletons before the spell refused to work. I checked my stats and noticed my mana was depleted, meaning casting that spell costs 5 mana each time. I notice that my mana is slowly refilling, so I decide to continue to pratice giving orders to the already existing skeletons while waiting for my mana to recharge. I continued this process until I had raised all the dead bodies. In the end I had 12 skeletons at my command, 4 had swords and shields, 4 had maces 3 had a spear and a shield while one had two daggers, all of them wore simple leather armor on most of their body. Feeling a bit left out since I have no weapon I order one of them to give me his sword while the one with the daggers gave him one as a replacement. With my troop all set up I decided to check my skills and traits one last time before setting off. Traits: Cursed skin, Backstabber lvl 1, Beast killer lvl 1, lesser control lvl 3, Skills: Soul forge, Raise skeleton. With everything in order I set out happy to be accompanied by 12 trust worthy but maybe not reliable skeletons. To be continued I hope you liked the chapter I tried to follow you''re feedback by spreading out the writing and making it a bit longer than usual. A little annoucement I have is I am going to be alternating between this story and a second story. However, I want you guys to pick which story you want me to work on and that is why I have set up a poll. Poll 1: The main character is reincarnated as a dungeon in a world where dungeons are a source of income, entertainement and training. 2: The main character is reincarnatedinto the hot desert of the world of Rishka as a member of the dangerous and armored dune worms Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. 3: The main character is reincarnated into a world as a member of the giant spider family. 4: The main character is reincarnated as a member of the hydra family (newborns start with one head and new ones grow depending on the strength of the hydra)