We kept fixing up the village and tending to the wounded for a few hours straight. By the time the sun was setting the village had been almost completely repaired, with only a few buildings left damaged. We had managed to make a rather solid stone wall that surrounded the village with a gate as well. Man magic was convenient. The villagers that were left alive were all treated and had been helping as well after resting for a bit, probably to distract themselves from the disaster that had occurred but we didn't stop them.

I had heard that the bandits captured didn't know the exact location of the main group of bandits but they knew one of the hideouts used by the bandits. The location deviated from our path to the city of Modran so the elder thought on this for a while, but from the general sentiment of the group, al of the moon elves wanted to go rescue the villagers. They had been prepping their weapons and getting ready once the repairs of the village were done.

While this was going on I had been trying something out farther away from the village. I had collected a few bandit corpses and wanted to do an experiment for a while, but getting human corpses is rather hard. I pulled out a few golem cores and you guessed it, tried to make the humans into soul caged zombies. It was far harder than I expected as one had outright exploded in a shower of blood and guts, but after another attempt I managed to make a soul caged undead with the human corpse. The undead still had a timer but it had a timer of 2 hours. That was far longer than the other soul caged undead I had made.

"Hmm, what happens if I make them into undead soul warriors. Ooh now that's an idea, gotta try that out!" With my enthusiasm flared I dismissed the soul caged undead and tried to make them into undead soul warriors. Again this was far harder than I had expected and ended up destroying 4 of the 6 remaining corpses I had brought along. I was getting very frustrated with this and was thinking of giving up and trying at a later date but I tried another idea. Instead of regular iron I infused the iron with mana and made the metal into a watered down version of mana infused iron. I didn't have enough mana to make it completely mana infused so this was going to have to do.

"Alright, now lets try this again.First, lets get the core and wrap this thing in mana iron, crap that's hot, gotta be careful." I carefully wrapped the 2 cores in heated mana infused iron but I tried to do something different this time as compared to last time. Instead of a glob of molten metal I made a lattice cage of metal, and made several wires of mana infused metal flow through the body. I didn't know why I should do this I just did. I had'nt even noticed when I had fuzed with my Nercon Heart, but at some point I had. I ignored that and continued with this knowledge that came from who knows where. I guess you could call it intuition? I didn't know.

I implanted the whole thing into the two corpses. The finished product was a latticework cage of mana iron wrapped around the golem core with strings of the metal going through the limbs and sort of randomly through the torso. I let the thing sink into the bodies and watched as my magic did its job. I watched with anticipation as the magic continued to work. I was so into my experiments that I didn't notice the person sneaking around the woods near me. I cackled a bit and some red mist poured out of my mouth before silently being absorbed by my skin as it dissipated. The magic took a bit of time to finish but once it did I was really excited

What stood before me was no longer the corpses of two bandits. The undead that stood before me looked far fiercer than my other undead, and the notification that came up agreed with me. I looked at the undead, they now had black armour that had a dark mist waft off of them. The armour made them look far more sinister than before. The armour wasn't the only thing that changed. They undead now had claws of the same black metal as well as black swords in sheathes on their hips.

"How the hell does my magic give them armour and equipment? I still don't understand that bit. I didn't even give nearly enough mana for it to make metals. Weird." I decided to check the pop up now to see what the system thought of my new creations. I laughed in glee and unknowingly let a wave of red mist fly out of my mouth as I laughed. The leaves in the trees rustled as I still hand;t noticed the presence lurking around. My hood was falling off so I resecured it back in place and then checked the notification.

Shadowsoul Undead: Undead that form with cores in them, as well as veinlike structures of metal within their bodies. These fearsome creatures can use shadow magic depending on heir strength and type of undead. The metal forming their armour and claws is very strong and can take several blows from more powerful foes, being resistant to blunt and slashing damage. The armour negates light magic up to a certain extent, making them truly fearsome. One last trick up their sleeves is that upon death, these undead burn their flesh and become Shadowsoul Skeletons, rising from the dead a second time to catch any unaware foes off guard.

As I finished reading that my eyes were basically popping out of their sockets. These guys were badass! "You guys are resistant to light magic AND come back to life after dying? Sweet! I really need to get more human corpses, or at least from some other semi-sentient race to see if I can get the same result with them." I knew that the goblins and ogres wouldn't work with the technique I used for these undead since I had tried it before using the human corpes. The bodies had all violently exploded, turned the mush or combusted into black flames. It was annoying, but I ignored that and focused on my success. Now the only problem was to unsummon them and then store the bodies back in my inventory.

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I was also glad that they didn't have time limits like the other undead I experimented with, but put that thought aside and went back to cleaning up the mess I made. I had tossed all of the chunks of flesh strewn around into my inventory and used water magic to wash away the blood splashed around. I didn't want anyone to find this grisly site for various reasons. While I was cleaning up I accidentally shoved one of the undead into my inventory.

Before I could even panic I realized something. "Wait, they shouldn't even be able to get into my inventory while alive. The hell?" I then pulled the undead out of my inventory and I watched as a completely intact undead came out of my inventory still alive, er undead. This new revelation shocked me. "If I can shove Shadowsouls into my inventory then does that mean I can carry an army in my back pocket, ready to deploy? Holy shit..."

My mind was on overdrive and I sat there stunned at my accidental discovery with my brain frying itself. I heard rustling in the leaves again and my gut feeling told me something was wrong. I quickly looked up at the area the sound came form, with red mist leaking from my eyes. I noticed the mist coming out this time but it didn't impede my eyesight so I ignored it and kept scanning the surroundings.

I saw something start fleeing off to the south, away from the village. I checked with mana sense and only felt one presence fleeing so I tossed the undead back into my inventory and gave chase. I slowly caught up but whoever was fleeing didn't stop and instead used earth magic to fling clumps of rock at me. Most missed me and I dodged the rest, but occasionally a few hit me and bounced off of my armour. I was thinking rapidly on who was there and did they see my face? I reached my hand up and felt that my hood was still covering my head and cast my face in darkness, hiding it. I was glad I took a small modicum of caution but chastised myself for being so deep in my experiments that I didn't notice someone sitting amere 2 metres away in a freaking tree.

"Man how engrossed in experimentation do I get? really need to fix this bad habit, but that aside how the hell do I catch this person? I can't overtake them which is annoying." My speed was enough to keep pace behind them but I wasn't gaining ground. I decided to fire some ice shards at them and released several shards rapidly. They mostly missed since it was hard to aim while running and the person hopped from tree branch to tree branch like a damn monkey.

Frustrated I decided to use mana drain and found they were in range. With glee I kept rapidly draining them as we ran, this started to take its toll on them while we ran with them slowing down after a few minutes of draining. They stopped using magic on me after a minute of draining and kept sprinting. Whenever they tried to drink a potion I would start firing more ice shards rapidly at them, forcing them to dodge them and stop drinking. They dropped 3 potions in this process and I yoinked them into my inventory as we ran.

After a total of 4 minutes of running I finally landed a hit on the fleeing persons leg and they tumbled out of the tree with a loud cry of pain. With a smile on my face I kept running and finally got to where they landed. I saw a person clutching their legs while gasping and showing signs of mana deprivation, They were shaking like a leaf and looked at my face. I finally caught glimpse of who it was that I had been chasing. It wasn't even an adult, it was a child. The child looked at my face, hidden by my hood, with my eyes leaking red mist. I was wondering what I should do now because I this wasn't a situation I had been expecting. I was fully ready to kill an adult if it came down to it, but a child? That was way too much for me, even with the Nercon Heart fuzed with me.

I silently thought for a couple of seconds and eventually spoke with a calm tone, with red mist leaking from my mouth as I spoke. "Who are you and why were you watching me?" I silently stood there waiting for an answer, while the child stared at my face that was hidden in shadows, the only thing visible under my hood being the red mist leaking from my eyes. I silently awaited the child answer and depending on that I might have to do something I didn't want to. I steeled my heart and prepared for the worst.