Putting down the last book, a robe wearing skeletal figure took a step backwards and watched over its collection with a tinge of sadness.

These books had been its teachers and friends pretty much since the moment it woke up, they taught it lots of things and accompanied it through its life till now, but it was now time to say goodbye...

Another two weeks had passed, one of them almost entirely used just to heal up from the last fight and the rest of the days filled with training: after it discovered the way it could almost completely freely manipulate pure mana, it practised the ability to the point of being able to use it the same way it used telekinesis and passively sensing it anywhere, resulting in being able to move, throw and manipulate any objects by just willing them and also use it to sense the surroundings by feeling the mana's movements, without requiring any chant;

And while sharpening its mind, it also improved its sword skills by using the knight's movements as an example, it replicated them and complemented the result with the informations on its books, resulting in it being able to fight at the level of an average soldier, at least in theory.

And whenever it had time in between all of those, it practised something relatively impossible for something of its nature: it was trying to master light magic.

Yes, it wanted to learn the most dangerous magic to its existence, why? Because that was still knowledge, and it wanted to know everything.

Checking one last time that all the books were present, the skeleton's face almost looked sad, having killed the last two people it realized that the ones who sent them would probably come search for them in the near future, and there was a high chance that a bigger squad composed by stronger people would arrive, and even though it mastered all the magic spells available in the volumes, looking back to what happened last fight made it shiver slightly, so, in order to avoid the possibility of death, it had to go.

And after extensive use of its newfound scouting powers, it noticed that many humans were already traveling back and forth from the battlefield transporting bodies away, probably to bury them, meaning that even if no holy soldiers came for it, sooner or later someone else would and, seeing as some of them could use law bending teleportation magic, it knew better than to mess with them just to stay here.

The undead checked its equipment to make sure it was ready to leave: it was donning a large dark grey hooded cloak made by rags of tents clumsily tied together, this would help it sneak around quietly, unlike armor, and since it still couldn't stay under direct sunlight the whole day, it would also provide solace during the moments where shadow wasn't available;

Inside of it, it kept a small pouch filled with mana crystals tied to one of its ribs and a book complete with feather pen and a vial of ink secured to its spine inside the ribcage, it didn't want to leave bookless and as it didn't have a bag to bring with it all of its collection, it chose to keep its book-diary so that it could keep track of its discoveries around the world;

To top it all, it kept two daggers tied to its femurs and the two handed magic sword looted from the enemy, wrapped in cloth strapped to its back, while it was painful to hold and slightly burned its hands when wielding it, it would definitely come in handy in tight situations where magic was unavailable.

A sad sigh escaped its mouth, it was already the fifth time it wasted checking itself and re-organizing the books, the undead really didn't want to separate from them, they were special to it, it read them so many times that it remembered them word by word, but he had to leave them in order to survive.

After another wasted hour, the skeleton, finally resolved itself and walked up to the tent's entrance, after gazing at the ones that accompanied it until now one last time, it stepped out.

Thanks to a world map it found in the commander's tent, it had a general idea of where to go next:

[https://imgur.com/pmPKqR9.jpg]

The world could be divided in three major mainlands controlled by the three most numerous races on Somnium and a large achipelago governed by a merchant guild.

Right now the skeleton was in Altria, home to the human race and considered by many the center of the world, on it, existed three kingdoms by the name of Valian, Sanctus and Arkan: Valian was a small but very powerful nation well versed in the art of war and fighting, that was because it was the only one to have refused the Holy Lord's way, and as a result, it became the target of countless crusades from other kingdoms, having fought off each and every last one of them made its inhabitants incredible warriors and gave birth to many history changing heroes;

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Sanctus was instead the home of the Holy Lord's religion and as such, it was the main culprit behind the many wars against Valian, according to the books it was a monarchy were the king was usually also the head of the church and had the ability to "speak" with their god through oracles and revelations, the most notable features of the kingdom was its vast knowledge and skill in handling light spells and their powerful "Holy army" that was, luckily, only used to fight "heretical" creatures such as high ranking demons and undeads;

And lastly Arkan, the city of magic, home of the largest library of the entire world, it was a nation that valued knowledge over all else, many aspirant mages journey to this kingdom in order to find enlightment and learn the way of magic and many great sorcerers began their stories from here.

According to what it could gather from the remains of the territory map from the same tent, destroyed during its last fight, the undead was currently located in a space semi-surrounded by forest in between the two kingdoms of Valian and Sanctus.

By reading through the reports and the many copies of their "Holy book", the skeleton concluded that it was most likely on the Sanctus' army side in the south, and that was a problem.

While it had to go there for its search of knowledge as the country had the largest library after the kingdom of Arkan, going there right now would just spell its death, so it had to wait and train until the day it would have enough power to either enter undetected or subjugate the whole nation.

So, crossing out that one, the only remaining large sources of knowledge on this land was Arkan, and unfortunately that was also out of question as it was way too far and between them was Sanctus blocking the way.

This left it no other choice than to try its hand and search for anything in the other encampment and Valian.

The moon was out and the undead was steadily marching trough the silent battlefield while checking the mana for any possible human sign to avoid, almost halfway through the night it was finally getting closer to its target, looking around it noticed several wooden poles stuck on the ground, growing in numbers as it got closer to the camp.

Disappointment appeared on its face as it understood what they meant: there was no camp, everything had already been taken down and all of the bodies buried with a wooden marker to indicate their grave, they got here before it and thanks to that, its hunger for learning had to starve for another day.

This was bad, this discovery meant that the only immediate source of knowledge available was at Valian, if it even had a library or anything of the sort, luckily, according to the data gathered by Sanctus they only knew basic spells such as [Fireball] or [Haste], meaning that it at least had an advantage in the magic department.

Resigning itself, the skeleton started walking once again, the start of its journey would be much harder than anticipated: it now had to devise a plan to sneak in or take control of Valian and its informations were limited.

 Humans usually pray the Holy Lord for a bit of fortune at this point, perhaps I should also try it... Too bad he's trying to kill me.

----------------------------------------

 Walking away from the main road, in order to avoid any other grave digger that would come to honor the fallen, its mood improved as the excited skeleton approached something it only ever saw in the background:

Trees! Woah, they really are big! And there are tons of them, so this is a forest, it's massive!

Like a child with a new toy, the undead examined the vegetation in awe, asking itself all kinds of questions like: how does it stand up without falling? How does it make its food? Do its leaves really change color through time?

Walking through the forest while touching everything, the first lights of day began shining through the foliage waking up the forest fauna intriguing the skeleton once more.

Oh, animals, of course, there are many that use forests as their home, how could I forget.

I recognise some of them: squirrels, rabbits, deers... I wonder if they work the same as the other ones...

Mana began moving as the undead pointed its hand toward a rabbit in the vicinity, in the following moment the animal floated upward revealing itself to the skeleton.

With a quick chant, a blade of wind slowly and carefully skinned the poor critter causing it to jolt in pain, but unfortunately for it that was far from the end: after exposing the skinless body, the immaterial blade began vivisecting it, revealing internal organs and bone structure; as its life weakened, the undead injected pure mana into its soul to keep it from fading and continued its work, this time separating whole limbs and asporting entrails leaving them in mid air to examine and using its telekinetic mana to circulate blood and other components between the separated body parts.

In the span of a few minutes a horrible painting of blood and meat was on display floating through the air as the skeleton wrote down its observations, experimenting on and testing the reactions of the suffering remains.

Satisfied with its discoveries, the undead removed its magic from the mess letting it fall down and writhe on the ground for a few more seconds before stopping.

A strange looking beast that seemed to shift the mana around it had seen its actions and was glaring it down.

The skeleton turned to face the monster and began slowly walking toward it, chuckling to itself.

But of course, books are not the only way to gain knowledge: you can also learn by just discovering things or feeling them on yourself, that's how I discovered the dangers of the sun or the ability to manipulate mana.

I can study life through these animals and gain combat experience against the magic beasts...

With a thunderous bark, the monster somehow activated a spell granting it supernatural speed, without batting an eye, the undead chanted a sideward rock wall that intercepted the beast throwing it to the side.

Releasing an oppressive aura, the skeleton invited the creature to attack again.

"Mr. forest, I'll be in your care for a while, please teach me a lot."