After distributing the energy, I commanded my undead to form a safety perimeter around us. I can’t forget that we’re deep into the woods. If another level 10 or higher beast appears before we’re ready… Well, let’s avoid that.

Next, I need to deal with the body and summon the undead as fast as I can. In addition to the ‘quality’ of the body, the undead initial level is also influenced by the time difference between death and summoning, so I need to do it as soon as possible.

Carefully, I use my knife to separate the hide from the body and quills, then I move to the meat and organs. One hour later, I realize that processing this body will be more challenging than any other before. However, I’m not discouraged. Quite the contrary, I’m very excited.

The work extends to a little over three hours, when I finally clean the last bone. I stand back and admire my work for a whole minute. The bones were thoroughly cleaned and detached before being arranged neatly at the side. A pile of meat was already portioned and stored inside a carrier. It was wrapped in a layer of skin to delay spoiling and to keep it clean. The core was stored and the rest was carried away by the undead to be discarded in another place.

“Rise!”

The purple mana leaves my hands and blends with the bones’ own energy before binding them together to form a skeleton.

Lesser skeleton L3

Finally! I can barely contain my excitement, and only the sudden changes inside my body prevent me from jumping and cheering. I don’t even need to see my stats to know that I leveled. However, I still pull the screen to check it.

CLASS

NECROMANCER

LEVEL

5

HEALTH

69 (90)

MANA

31 (50)

SKILLS

BRINK OF DEATH

YOU CAN BRING YOURSELF FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH (X).

COST: HALF OF YOUR TOTAL HEALTH (PERMANENT)

RAISE SKELETON

SUMMON AN UNDEAD FROM THE BONES OF A DEAD BEING (II).

Cost: 9 mana and 4 health.

I was right. The moment I managed to summon a level 3 undead my level increased. My health was finally nearing what it once was, and the extra mana would come in handy to summon more undead. I took a moment to appreciate the upgrade and then finally observed my new summoned attentively.

Fortunately, the skeleton kept the spikes as part of its bony structure, or else this new undead would be pretty much useless. Spiky, as decided to call it, was actually smaller than a wolfie. However, its quills would make its reach wider and taller than a carrier. Although it wouldn’t match the attacking power of wolfies, nor the blocking ability of a carrier, the spiky was a battle unit on its own. It would be able to bait and then distract an enemy without assistance, which could be something crucial in certain situations. Anyway, the undead would add versatility to our lineup, so it was worth it.

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With the pressing matters dealt with, I could finally focus on the upgrade of my minions. Starting from the strongest, I called them back, one by one, and fed them enough mana to power the upgrades.

Lesser skeleton L5

Skelly-1 finally crossed that level, and he wasn’t alone.

Lesser skeleton L5

Lesser skeleton L5

Lesser skeleton L5

All my oldest undead upgraded to level 5, which made my heart beam with pride. After going through so much together, I was very attached to my summons, especially the old ones. I’m suspecting that this might not be very healthy, since they’re not even living beings, but being hunted and killed wouldn’t be very healthy either, so who cares?

My other two level 4 didn’t level, but they shouldn’t be far. Sadly, my mana wasn’t enough to power the rest through leveling, so I had to wait for an entire day before I could see it through.

In the end, only fifteen skeletons leveled. The experience of a level 10 wasn’t enough to push every undead up. In fact, if wasn’t for previous accumulation, I suspect that only a third of these numbers would have upgraded.

Currently, I have 27 undead; four at level 5, five at level 4, nine at level 3, eight at level 2, and one at level 1. They would cost me almost 120 mana per day, just for maintenance. Fortunately, my mana regeneration also improved when I leveled to a little more than 10 points per hour, which left me with roughly 240 points every day. Therefore, I could theoretically maintain 45 to 50 undead. However, if a spent all of my mana in maintenance, once they get damaged in battle, I wouldn’t be able to fix them, much less powering upgrades. Thus, I decided to keep my undead to 40 until I leveled again.

I’ll be meeting that young merchant in a few days, so I don’t have the luxury of waiting around. Instead of going deeper, I command my undead to search for other high-level beasts in surrounding areas, and it pays up.

“Scout unit, spread and secure the perimeter. Mobile unit, circle the enemy. Support unit, on standby. Diversion unit, engage!”

With so many minions, I can’t command individual undead efficiently, so I separated them into units and establish basic formations for each team. Of course, I’ll still give specific orders as they’re needed.

The scout unit is formed by the minions with less combat power, which currently are the monkeys and foxes. Since they won’t engage the enemy directly, I’ll let them take turns to attack once the enemy is weakened, so every undead can level.

For now, the mobile unit only has wolfies, and they will focus on attacking, pursuing, and restraining the enemy in an area. While the support unit formed by carriers will mostly stand around waiting for another specific command. Fortunately, the undead could understand and follow any simple command. Moreover, they would obey my ‘intentions’ which reduced communication problems.

Soon, a circle was formed around the wildcat, which continued fiercely baring its fangs at us. Unexpectedly, the beast completely ignored the approaching spiky and moved onto one of the wolfies without a warning. I was afraid of the damage that those sharp fangs would cause, but its true power was on its even sharper claws. With only two consecutive attacks, the beast managed to shatter a supporting bone of the undead. Then it jumped to the next target, delivering a similar hit to the target’s collarbone.

“Support, advance on the enemy!” After the initial shock, I quickly reacted by moving the carriers on the beast. If their study bones also couldn’t resist those claws, I would be calling a complete retreat.

Fortunately, one of my strongest carriers succeeded in crashing into the target after the other two missed. The cat was sent flying into the dirt leaving behind a trail of agonizing screeches. After seeing that the beast was severely wounded, I halted the attacks and selectively commanded a few undead to attack. Since the target had been neutralized to an extent, I could afford to choose which undead would gain experience.

From then on, the battle had a foreseeable conclusion. The wildcat has a powerful localized attack, which is comparable with the spikes in terms of damage but much more versatile. On the other hand, the beast has an extremely weak defense, so it would be better used in a hit-and-run tactic, or engaging a single target.

It seems that my little undead army will soon become very strong. I finally understand why necromancers are so feared.