Author (God) speaking:
And... the last of the pre-written/rewritten chapters! From here on out the posts will be slower than the past couple of days!
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My mind raced, frowning as I looked towards where the two demons left to. My lack of a face made frowning really hard to pull off, but in my mind I was frowning. “I already have people hunting me?” I sighed.
The two skeletons helped me to my feet, brushing my armor free of dust as I sat down on a breastplate. “I wonder how they found out that I'm here, is there an announcement or something that a hero has arrived?”
Tutorial spoke up, “It's the high magical concentration in the area.”
Thinking about the magical concentration, I remembered the popups I had pushed away without reading them. I remembered one though that I did read, Magic Perception might help me explore the concentration. Pulling up the menu, I paused at my character stats, they had raised a lot more than what tutorial hinted at.
Mr. SkeletonClass: NoneSecondary Class: NoneRace: SkeletonLevel: 2XP: 2340Mana Strength:9XP Needed: 630Mana Flexibility:12Bone Reinforcement:10Skill Points: 3Wisdom:11Alliances: 2Intelligence:12Magics: 0Charisma:8Skills: 12
Changing tabs over to my skills, I noticed a blinking white plus sign over in the corner, tapping at it without looking at my skills out of curiosity. A blue popup appeared with a blinking line waiting for an input above it.
Please describe the skill you wish to have:
“Teleportation!” Happily I yell at the blue screen, which it replied with, insignificant skill points. “Invisibility?” No, “Mindreading?” No, “Flame on?” Elaborate, “Turning my body on fire, and being able to fl-” Denied. “Am I arguing with a menu?” Yes. “Fine, can I have something interesting?” Denied.
Angrily hitting the x on the menu, I glared at my skills like they were the ones who offended me. My eyes glanced over the skills, with a bored expression until I reached Magic Perception, tapping it to get a skill description.
Magic Perception (Level 1)The Ability to see the magic in the surroundings, and creatures around you. Higher perception allows you to see more about the area around you, including the property of such magic.
Relying on the feeling of that massively powerful aura that surrounded the demons, I tried to focus on the small amounts of energy that surrounded me, in everything. It wasn’t that hard since according to tutorial the air was filled with massive amounts of energy as compared to usual. Blue lights flickered into existence around me as I concentrated covering everything, it seemed like a fog that seeped out of the very ground itself. One thing I noticed was that with each breath I seemed to consume the energy around me, blue lights twisting and pouring into my mouth. This is what apparently fueled us instead of food, and was the reason more powerful creatures were in areas where the earth provided a lot of magical energy.
Taking in a deep breath, I felt rejuvenated, like the first drink of coffee in the morning. My mind buzzed with thoughts, as I tried to do things with the magical energy that I was breathing in. “Magic? If I can sense it maybe I can do spells like a wizard?” I concentrated on my breathing, seeing how, and why my breath moved the magic.
Hours passed as I sat there, my hands on my knees as I breathed deeply pulling it all the way to below my ribcage to where my stomach would be if I had one, bathing my bones in the magic energy that surrounded me. My perception had raised three time since I sat there, and I could now see with each exhale an almost black energy was being pressed out of my body that seemed tainted in some way. I found that breathing deeply wasn’t the most efficient way of doing things it seemed as if breathing to about eighty percent was the best. With the rhythm and movements of my breathing, I spread out my own magical energy to force the energy around me to swirl like a whirlpool or a back hole with me as its center.
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As the sun started to set, four blue boxes showed up in my vision, breaking me out of my concentration.
Ding!Qi Breathing Technique (level 1) skill gained!
Ding!Mana Manipulation (level 1) skill gained!
Ding!Level up! Level 3 obtained!
Ding!Race Change from Skeleton, to Skeleton*
I stared at it for a moment, then got up, training this when I'm fatigued or injured seemed a better use of my time than just sitting there. Hearing a crackling sound from under the armor I had on, I looked to the gauntlet as it seemed to fill up, holding better on my arm. Removing it I found the tendrils on my arm had weaved together tighter, and as I moved my fingers they seemed like I had gained magical flexors, and extensors weaved out of thin blue streams of mana, instead of red weaves of muscle.
As I stood there I flexed and moved my hands and arms feeling as if my body had completely gotten stronger in mere moments. Looking at my companions they looked at me with a look of… well the same face that they always have, a skeletal expression of ‘I lack the facial muscles to show feelings’. Turning off my Magical Perception skill, I looked again at my arm which looked like a regular skeleton’s arm. Testing out my new body, the three of us went out to hunt which turned out to be disappointing already. With my increased abilities nearly no one stood a chance, it seemed as though we’d have to leave the boneyard and explore further to find worthy prey. Something, whether it be fear of the demon from earlier, the thrill of a gamer, or the want to achieve more was screaming at me that I need to become stronger.
Gearing up the other two skeletons, and putting what I could into a tattered bag that I found not long ago, I looked like a necromantic soldier with his skeletal servants from an outside perspective. With the limited metal gear that I could find, I couldn’t fully cloth both of them, so I settled on at least giving them all defensive abilities so they could survive better.
I was looking to enhance myself, and the idiotic attacks, and defenses of the skeletons I was killing wasn’t making me any better at fighting, even if I am becoming stronger. My first thought was to find a teacher, someone to guide me in the way of the blade, or hand to hand fighting, but it was dismissed for now unless I found one that wasn’t human. Much of fighting seemed to need knowledge of one’s body, which I currently lacked only being a skeleton now for about a week, since my human body can’t compare to one that could interchange parts like a Ken doll. At that thought I looked down depressed at my groin.
“We’re off brothers, to explore the lands that are beyond the boneyard. I feel strangely excited, its one of those days where I wish you two could speak.”
Ding!Used three skill points to gain Speak With Dead (Level 1)
“You asshole!”