So much progress in such a short amount of time, it was dizzying. With the knowledge Tyron had gained from the vampiric text, along with the treasure he had received from the Dust Folk, he was finally in a position to develop the most difficult aspects of the Raise Dead ritual.

Naturally, Tyron threw himself into his work, feverishly scribbling and theorising in his study, only emerging when he was forced to.

Several social engagements demanded his time. One with Filetta, another with Victor, but he was too distracted to properly engage with either.

Even focusing on his shop and ensuring the smooth running of his business was immensely difficult. He felt as if he’d been stalled at the starting line for so long, but now he was finally ready to race.

Secluded in his basement, Tyron continued his experimentation as he built out his ideas. Testing on the remains he sourced from the thieves had never ceased, and he continued to see minor breakthroughs. Attempts to develop a method that would allow him to accurately determine the suitability of a specific skeleton were finally bearing fruit.

Almost by accident, he had discovered the location of death magick first began to accumulate in the bones. In the last set of bodies he had received, one must have been incredibly fresh, since it contained extremely small trace amounts of death aligned energy.

After he inspected the remains carefully with the lens, he quickly butchered the corpse so that he could examine the bones more carefully. In this examination, he determined that the highest concentration of power was located in the ribs on the left side of the body, closest to where the heart had been.

Further tests had led him to develop a metric for working out how long a particular set of remains had been deceased by measuring the accumulation of energy in this particular area, and by the spread. The complexity came in when he learned not all corpses were created equal. Some spread death energy much faster, not only to the remains around them, but also within themselves.

Thus, the Tyron quotient was born. A formula by which he could not only calculate how long the remains had been dead, but how quickly energy spread throughout the corpse. Although he hadn’t been able to test the theory yet, it would make sense that those remains which were more receptive to Death magick would make better and stronger minions, or at the very least, cheaper to maintain ones.

Furthermore, his earlier experimentation with alchemical substances, namely the mixture used to cleans rift-kin cores that he’d applied to the bones to remove every trace of organic matter, had led him down another avenue of study.

After spending a suspicious amount of time talking to Alchemists and doctors, he was finally able to concoct a method that allowed him to determine bone density, as well as produce a solution that actually improved the density of bones when they were submerged in it! Again, he would need to actually raise some minions to test how effective it was, but it was yet another feather in his cap.

Naturally, all of this progress had him extremely excited that he was closing in on his goals, but he found himself strangely hesitant to conduct the status ritual and check how far he’d made it. The thought that he would learn he was still far from maximising his Skills was a crushing possibility, and it was far too easy to allow himself to be distracted by his work on the Raise Dead ritual.

The ritual itself comprised of three main components, a conduit between himself and the undead he created to funnel arcane energy, an artificial mind to allow the undead to ‘think’, and a binding that effectively enslaved the undead to his will.

The text the vampires had provided dealt with the final part, the binding of undead entities. Although there wasn’t much he found he could do to improve this aspect of the ritual, full and total control over basic undead was already full and total control, after all, he was able to understand it much better.

He also felt this knowledge would be much more useful when it came to binding more complex undead, such as ghosts and revenants. His control over those was far less robust.

What Shadda had provided allowed him to gain insight into the second aspect of the ritual, the construct which formed the ‘mind’ of the undead. Finally able to place many of the sigils in their proper context, his understanding of them grew by leaps and bounds. After several weeks of study, he could finally say he fully comprehended how the mind was constructed and how it functioned.

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The first element of the ritual, the conduit, he’d already completely rebuilt from the ground up using everything he’d learned from his enchanting work.

Finally out of excuses, Tyron could no longer put it off, and he conducted the status ritual. Drawing a nervous and shaky breath, he pressed his hand to the page and spoke the words, not even watching as his blood flowed over the paper.

When it was done, he snapped his eyes down and read quickly, greedily, desperate to see if he’d finally reached his goals.

Past the dozen notifications of the progress he’d made, he saw something that caused his heart to skip a beat.

Undead Weaver had reached level 38.

Two whole levels had been gained from his shenanigans with Dove and his improvements to his craft. Only two left before he would need to advance his Class.

He bit his lip in frustration.

That meant he couldn’t perform the status ritual again until he was certain he’d achieved what he needed, lest he risk triggering the advance early. A frustrating position to be in, but it was inevitable that his level would increase. He’d known it would happen eventually, though he’d hoped it wouldn’t be this soon.

Still, there were two notifications that caused his heart to leap inside his chest.

Corpse Appraisal has reached level 19.

Corpse Preparation has reached level 19.

So close! He was so close! One final push and he’d have reached the first of his requirements. He was so pleased he pushed himself away from his desk, pumping his arms with glee.

Even better news.

Raise Dead has reached level 24.

Six more levels and he would reach the cap which had been increased by his Undead Specialist Feat. To do that, he’d need to make substantial improvements to the remaining two aspects of the ritual he was the least comfortable with, but at least he had a chance now, thanks to the help he’d received.

Some minor improvements to his enchanting didn’t help much, though he was a little surprised to see his Bone-Soul Melding and Spirit Binding had improved dramatically. In fact… they’d both reached their maximum level.

Bone-Soul Melding has reached level 10 (Max).

Spirit Binding has reached level 10 (Max).

Advanced Death Magick has reached level 17.

Which had to be a result of his work with Dove. Or, more accurately, his work on Dove. It was true, his understanding of how to bind spirits to objects had advanced spectacularly, as had his knowledge of fusing those objects to a bound spirit.

A welcome reward for the work he’d done. Besides making Dove happy, of course. The more abilities that reached the max level before his Awakening, the better a position he would be in.

There was nothing else major in terms of improvements, so he turned his attention to selecting another Necromancer ability.

Anoint Undead - Bequeath a portion of your power to a set of remains before it is raised, empowering the ritual.

Purify Bones - Purge the bones of impurities as preparation for the Raise Dead ritual.

Yet again, the Undead Weaver Class knew exactly what Tyron wanted and gave him two options he didn’t want to pass up, but only let him choose one of them.

Choosing either one of these would add an extra step to the preparation of his minions, and likely tip his Corpse Preparation Skill up to twenty immediately.

The descriptions lacked detail, as always, so Tyron did his best to intuit what the words meant. What did it mean to ‘bequeath’ his power? Was it a simple infusion of magick, or something more dramatic, and permanent? How did it empower the ritual? What effect did it have? So many questions about this one ability!

Purify Bones, on the other hand, he understood much better. Within this realm, magick infused everything to some degree, slowly corrupting everything it touched.

How long until rift-kin native to this realm were born? Nobody knew the answer, nobody wanted to think about it.

This Skill would enable him to remove that influence from the remains he was working with, purge every trace of foreign magick from them. What effect would that have? Likely, it would enable the bones to more readily create and receive Death Aligned energy, hastening the process.

He brought his hand to his chin and considered. It would be a worthwhile addition to his current abilities, and it suited his needs, fulfilling his primary goal of creating better and stronger undead… but.

Now that he knew such a thing was possible, he could attempt to recreate the method on his own, saving a skill selection. There were sigils used to drain magick power, they weren’t too dissimilar from those used to absorb energy from the atmosphere. He didn’t know them, but if he asked Master Willhem….

The fact that the possibility existed was enough for Tyron. He placed his mark next to Anoint Undead. Whatever this skill did, he had no idea how he could replicate it.

Ending the ritual, he sat still as the power of the Unseen flowed through him. After five minutes, he felt ready and pushed himself up from his seat, destroying the ritual paper with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“It’s close,” he muttered to himself. “Very close.”