Upon emerging from the storage space, Rody realized that over a year had passed within the spatial fortress, equating to over a month in the real world. Time within the fortress sped by tenfold, yet its impact was minimal. Nicholas, Marcus, Emma, and the old witch, being dark slaves and undead, were unaffected by time. However, due to the isolation of the fortress, their injuries couldn't heal and remained as they were. Rody was surprised to find his man-eating vine, 'Tiger Claw', had grown longer, greener, and more sentient.
Rody, enduring the soul-burning divine fire, used his tiny soul fire to successfully fuse Emma with the beastly head of Catoblepas. With the help of the soul fire, the fusion went smoothly. Despite Emma's monstrous appearance, featuring the beast’s horns and teeth, Rody was thrilled to retain Catoblepas's soul-capturing eye - his main goal. If Emma couldn't fuse, her lower abilities and potential would've made her the first dark slave Rody would abandon.
Observing Emma through the obsidian magic mirror, her stats showed as an unconscious dark slave with a strong magical contract, dark energy of 495, limited in close and long-range combat, possessing basic martial arts and magic, weak martial arts damage, minor magical effects, a poison damage of 162, light poison, special skill of the soul-capturing eye, ordinary soul attack, hidden skill of soul burning. Overall, she was assessed as a basic undead, equivalent to a human sixth-tier Iron Fist Earth Warrior or a five-star magician, with two-star soul potential.
Rody's delight was in inheriting Catoblepas's soul-capturing eye and soul burning from Emma, pleasantly surprised by her two-star potential, making her the strongest among all his dark slaves. In his joy, and to honor Catoblepas, Rody renamed Emma to ‘Aika’.
Aika's successful fusion sparked Rody's interest in learning necromancy. The necromancy in the ancient magic tome hall differed from what Rody had previously learned, being more profound and termed as 'Dark Magic', a subset of dark magic. He tentatively explored a spell called 'Undead Resurrection', a common necromancy spell for summoning skeletons.
Although Rody had never learned to summon skeletons, only more advanced dark slaves, mastering this spell made him realize its purpose wasn't for battle but for paving the way for more advanced necromancy spells. Alongside 'Undead Resurrection' was 'Zombie Revival', turning corpses into zombies. These spells weren't for creating fighting puppets but for laying the groundwork for subsequent necromancy spells.
Further spells included 'Corpse Revival', allowing a recently deceased body to stand again, seemingly unchanged but soulless, and 'Body Remodeling', repairing the defects of skeletons, zombies, or revived corpses, making them appear more human.
After reshaping their bodies, necromancers can sign contracts with skeletons, zombies, or resurrected corpses to evolve them into dark warriors or dark knights. They can also transform them into undead puppet mages, or even further enhance them to become formidable death knights, avenging knights, or dark dragon knights. The ultimate spell of summoning skeletons isn't for humans, but for dragon skeletons, turning them into bone dragons. Rody now understands that dark slaves aren't randomly contracted.
Of course, that's due to the constraints of the dark god's laws. As a counterfeit necromancer, Rody could sign as many as he wishes without the blessing of the dark god. His only disadvantage is his dark slaves won't automatically level up or think independently. Without his control, they would only follow instinctively, neither fighting nor defending, completely devoid of thought.
All necromancers' dark slaves have a simple consciousness. They protect their master in battle, and after growing stronger, they may negotiate contract terms with their master. Even more powerful slaves may rebel and become free undead knights.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Another major branch of necromancy is the curse series. Rody had only learned 'Weakening', 'Harm', and 'Blindness', but now he found an overwhelming number of curse spells, including 'Blood Drying', 'Exhaustion', 'Aging', 'Stiffness', 'Paralysis', 'Weightlessness', 'Deafness', 'Suffocation', 'Bitterness', 'Dementia', 'Disability', 'Despair', 'Brain Damage', 'Weakness', 'Lust', 'Impotence', and many more. Any person afflicted with any of these curses would suffer greatly. The curse of impotence, in particular, could drive any man to suicide.
Although the effects of curse spells are evident, they all have a time limit and aren't permanent. However, the stronger the caster's mental power and the weaker the target, the more potent and longer-lasting the curse.
Comparing curse spells to mental magic, Rody feels each has its strengths, but mental magic is more terrifying. A person under a curse suffers but remains themselves and won't die. Mental magic, however, can completely control a person, turning them into puppets of others – a truly frightening prospect. Rody eagerly learned the curse spells of necromancy. For summoning spells, given the nature of his unconscious dark slaves, he focused on body reshaping, intending to restore Nicholas and others to their human forms, with flesh and blood, rather than skeletal forms.
Amidst endless learning and growth, Rody lost track of the swiftly passing time in the outside world.
When he came out again, the Sands of Time showed that two years had passed, and in the real world outside, more than two months had gone by.
Rhody suddenly worried that the Power Angel might return any day, and it would be troublesome if he saw that Rhody had freed himself from the Holy Silver Cross. Rhody pondered ways to escape, realizing that ordinary methods were unlikely to work. Moreover, the primary issue to address was the rapid passage of time in the Sands of Time; the tenfold acceleration was too much for Rhody's body to bear, and he was not willing to let his youth flash by like lightning.
"Baby, come with me, I promise you'll live a life of luxury and spice!" Rhody held the hourglass of the Sands of Time, turning it over and over.
But no matter how he flipped it, the sands stubbornly flowed in one direction, and time continued to fly by. Rhody couldn't think of a good way to deal with this little thing and finally tried putting it into his storage space. To his surprise, the hourglass smoothly entered Rhody's storage space, encountering only a slight hindrance, but Rhody managed to place it inside without much effort.
Moreover, once it entered the storage space, it completely stopped moving, and time ceased to flow in the eternal space.
Having secured this treasure, Rhody excitedly set his sights on the Holy Silver Cross.
"Ha ha ha, so you like to judge evil, just like me!" Rhody discovered that the Holy Silver Cross had a principle: it possessed power over all things evil and was extremely weak otherwise. Rhody used the pure fire of his soul to form a hand, easily grabbing it and shrinking it into a necklace.
Rhody couldn't put it into his storage space because it possessed the will of the God of Light and couldn't become part of Rhody's collection.
In the end, having no other choice, Rhody hung it around his neck.
"Why can't I leave if the Power Angel can?" Rhody began studying the space fortress, but no matter how much he researched, he couldn't understand it. Finally, after gathering the Slave of Darkness and other things, he prepared to sleep for ten months in his storage space. But when he took out the Sands of Time, he discovered that although he couldn't change its passage, he could alter its speed.
The Sands of Time had a maximum speed limit of one hundred times. Rhody adjusted it to a hundredfold, and time immediately flew by.
Rhody threw out the beheaded Nicholas who was waiting outside with his head in his hands and hurried back to his storage space to hibernate. Eight years flashed by, and at the end of the ten-year period, Rhody, still studying magic in his storage space, saw the space fortress suddenly shatter into dust, and Nicholas fell from mid-air, crashing to the ground. Rhody's mental power was suddenly able to connect with reality.
When he ran out, he found that a large area of flowers and trees around him was growing wildly at a visible rate, blooming and then wilting.
He quickly adjusted the Sands of Time back to normal and joyfully put it away.
"A hundredfold speed, eight years in less than a month, plus the previous two months, ha ha ha, I regained my freedom in just over three months," Rhody couldn't help but burst into laughter, thinking that when the Power Angel came to check in seven months, he would have already returned to Felik to study and even took away the Sands of Time and the Holy Silver Cross, probably making him vomit blood endlessly.
"Although I'm reluctant, I still have to say 'thank you.' Without everything you did, I wouldn't have grown up so fast!" Rhody chuckled: "See you next time, and I'll repay you well! I promise not to disappoint you, but with your wisdom, maybe you'll even thank me!"