Alaster was woken numerous times throughout the night by the sounds of monsters consuming the corpses, but none of them approached the bone covered hole. When the sun rose, so did Alaster, still exhausted.

The Black Guards had kept the fire going through the night, which Alaster was immensely grateful for. He wrapped the blanket tightly around himself and tried to thaw his hands by the fire, which he built up slightly. Alaster ripped off a chunk of bread, putting the rest back into his Ring. As he warmed the bread, he considered his options.

He finished eating his light breakfast and opened a small slit in the wall so he could look out. He didn’t see anything, not a monster prowling around, nor any Goblin corpses. Cautiously, Alaster opened a doorway and sent one of the Black Guards out. When nothing attacked it, nor did it ready its bill, Alaster considered it safe.

The second Black Guard went out, followed by Alaster. He carefully looked around. The peeking slot he had made had a limited view. And just as he had thought, there were no corpses left. Not one. Alaster stretched his back and neck, quietly groaning with each pop. The hole was very defensible, but the height of it was smaller than Alaster’s, requiring him to bend his head. It was even worse for the even taller Black Guards, but they didn’t have any sense of pain or discomfort. At least not one that they displayed.

Alaster sensed the Night Children above him, so he looked up, seeing both of them peering around the thick branches at him. So far, the Night Children had been invaluable. But they were not the subject of today’s hunt. Alaster opened his Ring, noticing that it opened nearly instantly, and dropped out the Goblin Bones he hadn’t turned into cubes.

They cluttered into a pile before him. He had left fifteen of them. It had pretty much filled the Ring, but it was worth it if he could have a group of Undead around him so quickly. Currently, the bones were just normal Goblin Bones. Very weak and very fragile. The Undead Goblins would have a much greater advantage than a living Goblin, but Goblins used numbers to hunt, numbering he didn’t want to risk.

‘Nothing said that I couldn’t modify the Bones before I rose the Excess Skeletons.’

Alaster sat down and got to work. He gave them a similar style to the Night Children. With a sharp blade attached to their wrists, but he didn’t give them sharp fingers or spikes on their shins and forearms. He didn’t need them to climb. He strengthened their bones, to take a blow if needed. Unfortunately, because they weren’t already raised, Alaster had to sort through all the bones to find the ones he needed. He could have raised them, but he needed the Mana Regeneration to work on them.

Simply stronger bones and a blade attached to their wrists. It was simple, but it still took several hours and plenty of mana. Because they were more of a temporary minion, summoned as the need arose, he was unable to give them a mind.

Finally done, Alaster raised them, watching his Mana Regeneration drop. The sickly green mist of Alaster’s mana coated the bones, and they began to move. Rattling over each other, each trying to get into the correct place. In just a few minutes, the Skeletons began to stand. They all still looked like Goblins. The only differences in the appearance were the darker bones and the bone blades attached to their wrists.

Each of them stood like normal Goblins, but differently. Alaster struggled to find the word for it. Stupid. Each of them moved like they were still alive, but less. More than a statue, but less than a creature with a heartbeat.

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“Go out together and hunt single monsters, and bring the body back here.” Alaster ordered.

He had previously noticed that while he could order the Undead mentally, the order had more impact, and they seemed to understand it more the way he intended it if he spoke it out loud. The ten Undead didn’t hesitate as they ran deeper into the forest. As ordered, they stayed together in a close group, but without any intelligence or further orders, it was more of a mob.

Alaster watched them go with a sigh and a roll of the eyes. They crashed through the foliage like a raging herd of bulls. They weren’t going to run into anything that didn't want to face them. Alaster only hoped that they wouldn’t be wiped out completely in the first encounter.

While he did not know his exact location, Alaster did know the area. The average monsters were High Novice to Low Adept, and most were Beast Types. Bug Bears would be fairly common if it wasn’t winter, instead they would be fairly rare. However, if the Undead stayed together, He was certain there wouldn’t be many monsters in this area of the forest that they couldn’t handle themselves.

While the Undead were mindless, completely devoid of intelligence, they all seemed to have an innate understanding of how to fight. It wasn’t anything amazing, even a standard trained village Guard would be much better trained, even if their stats were the same, which the Guard’s would be much higher.

Alaster could not do much. He had to keep meditating to have the Mana Regeneration required to maintain the Undead. Luckily, it seemed that if he was meditating to maintain Undead, it also provided EXP for [Meditation]. So the time he spent waiting for the Undead to return wasn’t a waste of time. The rate of its leveling was slow, but it was constant. And the longer Alaster meditated, the easier it became for him to think, plan, and even move slightly while still keeping the Ability active.

The thing about meditating? It is very easy to lose track of time. In a way, that is the effect you want to strive for. To lose yourself in the calm. It is what allowed for the mana to enter the body in greater amounts. With fewer things in the way to impede it. It was due to this that Alaster personally believed that Mana also Regenerated faster while the person was asleep. He had built this belief from the numerous lessons he had with Colius, but Colius had stated that he did not know of any research about that topic.

Alaster was drawn out of his trance by his Undead coming closer to him. He had kept his Black Guards at the entrance of the Hole, and the Night Children in the surrounding trees. The other Undead were expendable, but they were not. They were stronger and more suited to protecting him.

Alaster stopped meditating and stood up, hunched over, leaving the hole through the doorway in the bone wall. He had yet to hang anything over it. His Black Guard exited with him, standing slightly behind and to either side of him. He watched as the mob of Goblins emerged from the darkness of the setting sun. They were dragging something, many somethings.

He still counted ten, so they hadn’t lost any. But they had all taken damage, some more than others. Alaster met them a few meters away from the hole entrance. His Black Guards behind him and watching the surrounding forest, searching for a potential threat.

The Skeletons dropped their prey before Alaster and took a step back. There were five bodies. Each of them with numerous cuts of various depths. The bodies were all the same type of creature, but Alaster did not recognize them.

They were slightly larger than wolves, but their heads were more shaped like a rat’s. Their fur was thick and black. The only reason Alaster didn’t think it was simply an oversized rat was that its tail was still a wolf’s. Its claws were razor sharp and its jaw looked powerful. Three of the Skeleton’s wrist blades were shattered, and it was no mystery as to why.

But the thing that drew Alaster’s attention, their paws were too large for their bodies. Colius had taught him that for many Beasts, that meant that the creature was still growing. These things were already as large as a wolf, and they were still growing.