Alaster woke slowly, feeling slow and tired. Yet his body felt fine. It was as if his soul had been over exerted while traveling between the Mortal and Divine Realms. He just hoped that he would recover quickly enough. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Not one he enjoyed.

He sat up, finding himself in the snow. He must have fallen out of the chair when he passed out. His Black Guard were looking at him curiously, while the Skeletal Apes continued to pace around him mindlessly. The two Night Children looked down at him from high up in the branches. His personal Undead were curious, but also couldn’t detect any visible threat.

Alaster stood up and shook off some of the snow. Once his furs were clear of snow, Alaster opened his status.

[Class Change: Death Knight

Progenitor: As the first of your Kind, you receive Three points per Level in each of the Prime Stats.

The Death Mage builds and creates, but you have surpassed this. The Death Knight brings death upon all who stand in their way.

Stat Changes: +2 STR, +2 DEX, +5 CON, +5 INT, +10 WIS

You have been gifted the Abilities: [Dead Aura], [Flesh Crafting], [Raise Mage]

These Abilities have been Morphed: [Necrotic Bolt], [Bone Crafting], [Raise Undead]

Beware the Dead, or you will join them]

[Class: Death Knight

Level: 20

EXP: 12%

Health: 435/435<460/460

Health Regeneration: 12/min

Mana: 440/440<465/465

Mana Regeneration: 11/min

Spells: Necrotic Bolt, Raise Undead, Bone Crafting, Mana Manipulation, Death Touch, Skeleton Creation, Meditation, Necrotic Heal, Dead Aura, Flesh Crafting, Raise Mage

Bonuses: Horde, Death Pact, Split Mind, Blood Price, Imbuement, Fine Control

Strength: 64<66

Dexterity: 56<58

Constitution*: 65<70

Wisdom*: 100<110

Intelligence*: 72<77

Free Points: 0]

[Dead Aura

Level 1: 0%

Generate an aura that strengthens and heals any Undead within, while hindering the strength and healing of the Living]

[Flesh Crafting

Level 1: 0%

Manipulate the flesh of the dead]

[Raise Mage

Level 1: 0%

Raise the skeletal corpse of a mage

Max Minions: 0/1]

[Necrotic Bolt

Level 12: 42%

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Fires a bolt of condensed Necrotic energy

Can fire two Bolts with half again cost.

Slightly bypasses inorganic matter

Manipulate the form

Mana Cost: 10<5]

[Bone Crafting

Level 13: 42%

Ability to mold bone as if clay

Craft Living Bone

Mana Cost: 5/min]

[Raise Undead

Level 18: 20%

Raise a corpse to serve as your servant

Max Minions: 3/6

Max Skeletons: 3/6

Mana Cost: 30]

Alaster was beyond overwhelmed. He was used to only having or two changes to work with. He was used to being able to think deeply about each change and how to best use it. The young man had known that becoming an Adept would drastically change things. But the Abilities and other changes he had received were amazing. More than that, they felt kinda overpowered, not that he was complaining.

As one of the more popular sayings went, ‘The System is nothing, if not fair’. Tiers of Classes were supposed to be fairly equal. Of course, the rarity of the Class itself as well as the Type of Class would still change things. Death Mage was already a Unique Class, so it was naturally stronger than some of the other Novice Classes. It was also fair to say that Death Knight, being the Pure Class of Death Mage, would also be Unique.

However, no one else had ever received Death Knight, so perhaps it was an even higher rarity? Regardless, the Abilities and other changes he had received were still better than what a brand new Adept should have gotten. He didn’t even understand some of the changes. Living Bone? What did that mean? And then being the Progenitor gives him two points per stat each level instead of two? That wasn’t much, but it could quickly add up.

Now instead of six Undead, plus the [Horde] Skeletons, he could now raise a dozen Undead, plus the [Horde] Skeletons. Slowly, he was creating his own army of the Undead. As it was, he could raise twenty-two [Horde] Skeletons. They wouldn’t be powerful individually, but numbers typically decided battles. Granted, to raise those numbers, he would have to meditate, which would severely limit his own usefulness in the conflict.

But Alaster was quickly learning just how desperately factions recruited Necromancers and similar Classes. Death Mage was supposed to be a middle ground between the Necrotic Mana using Novice Classes, as such, the Death Knight should be the same for the Adept Classes. So if he could already raise thirty-four Undead at the same time, how many could a Necromancer raise? A Class designed to raise large numbers of Undead.

He could now change the form of [Necrotic Bolt]. He was not quite sure what that meant, but he suspected that he could make it wider to do have more of an impact, or better chance of hitting, or thinner to have more piercing power. Of course, he would not know for certain until he experimented with it, including against a living target. After all, [Necrotic Bolt] worked exceedingly well against living opponents.

Alaster moved onto the next Ability he had just received. Against the pure numbers of the Undead, this one seemed to pale in comparison. But, in fact, it was much more valuable. The Undead Alaster could previously raise were fairly simple. Against similarly simple Monsters, that didn’t matter. But against smarter enemies, it could be lethal. None of his Undead had any Abilities of their own. If they couldn’t reach their enemy, they were just fodder, not even very durable fodder.

Alaster had considered making an archer Undead, but that was very complicated. Not only because the bow would have to be strong, but flexible, but also the string. Of course, he could buy a bow the next time he entered a Settlement. However, he was hoping to avoid other people until he was a solid Adept. Arrows broke quite often, and Alaster simply didn’t want to deal with making more bone arrows constantly.

But a Mage would drastically diversify his minions. Even if it was only one. Alaster wondered how it would work. The wording hinted that the corpse had to already be a mage. That alone significantly hindered his selection. He couldn’t just get some random bones and craft them into a similar shape, like he had done for the Black Guards. Under their armor, they were still very clearly not human. In fact, Alaster wasn’t even sure if the way he had customized the bones, their shape, size, and location, would even be realistic in an actual living creature or not. He simply didn’t have the knowledge of the proper bone structure of living creatures, let alone humans.

However, it required a corpse of a Mage. Not a Monster with Abilities and could form a Mana Core. The System designated between the two. In this instance, it had specified Mage. Humans and the other Humanoid Races were the only ones that could be designated Mages. Alaster would have to use the Corpse of a Human. Of course, he could use an Elf or Dwarf, but they tended to stick to their own lands. The chances of finding one in the area were very slim. Of course, he didn’t have to kill them.

He could find an already dead body of a Mage, but he doubted that would be as effective. The System was fair. Alaster had a feeling that if he was the one to kill the Mage, it would provide a better reward.

On a moral basis, Alaster was not against killing. He was already planning to butcher the people who took his sister and killed his parents. However, he did have an issue with killing innocent people. Not that anyone really was in his mind. But unless they did any something directly to him, he was hesitant to kill them.

Unfortunately, Alaster had no ‘materials’ to experiment with a Mage. Besides, he had plenty of other things to experiment with. As well as an entire Platoon of Undead to assemble, equip, and get used to. He was already running different compositions of the unit through his mind.

For a while now, the Night Children have been fairly…useless wasn’t the right word, but less valuable than the Black Guard. He considered making the entire unit Black Guards, but that would make them fairly single purpose. He needed Undead for multiple needs. The Night Children weren’t as useful in a straight battle as the Black Guards, but they were much stealthier.

The new Undead didn’t even have to be Humanoid anymore. Perhaps he could keep the four Black Guards and create mounts for them? Making a cavalry unit certainly appealed to Alaster, but once again, his lack of knowledge was limiting him. He had no idea how the skeleton of a horse worked. He didn’t really need to know, as with the Black Guards, he could just get something close, but he had been pushing the limits of his Ability with the already familiar, if not known, humanoid shape. If he wanted to create inhumanoid Undead, he would have to learn more about how the Skeletal system worked. He could already imagine himself leading a skeletal cavalry charge atop his own Undead Horse.

Nonetheless, Alaster did not have enough Bone to experiment with his options. Luckily, he had a Dungeon right behind him, with an unlimited amount of Bone he could harvest. Smirking as the possibilities ran through his mind, Alaster disassembled the chair he was sitting on and entered the Dungeon yet again.