Five weeks passed like a blur. Alaster couldn’t even remember the last time he had actually slept. Richter simply beat the boy until he passed out and woke him a few hours later. Alaster’s clothes turned to rags, except for the cloak, which had hindered his movements, so he had stored it in his Ring.
The sword he had since Onigas had shattered long ago, but Alaster had never cared much for material possessions, except for the Wooden Ring from his Sister, that he had also stored in his Ring of Holding. Instead, Richter pulled old and dull weapons out of his own Ring of Holding. Which confused Alaster.
To access his Ring, Alaster had to feed it a bit of his Mana. So how did Richter, who couldn’t use Mana, access his own? Apparently, Richter had been forced to special order a Ring. Anyone was capable of opening the Ring. There was a small button that would trigger the Ring to pull ambient Mana to open. Rings of Holding were expensive, but Richter’s had been worth a fortune, and it was less secure.
Alaster used whatever weapon Richter tossed him. In this way, he became experienced with numerous types. He had once attempted to make his own Longsword out of bone, but he had immediately been beaten to an inch of his life once more. Since then, Alaster hadn’t dared to use Magic around the Knight.
In the fifth week, the training changed. Richter told him to fight with everything he had, including Magic. So Alaster had. All his greatest Abilities, even his Undead. He finally thought he had a chance to inflict even one blow against the Knight. Instead, he lost all twenty of his carefully constructed Undead within a single minute.
At this point, the clearing they had spent the last two months in was soaked in blood, Alaster’s. [Blood Aura] seemed to have twice the effect when it was his own blood, and with the amount that was spilled and frozen, Alaster’s strength had the same effect as being over three hundred. Even [Imbuement] did nothing, Richter only matched whatever increase it gave. Though, Alaster did learn quite a bit about [Imbuement].
While [Imbuement] was active, the effects were similar to [Death Embrace], He didn’t bleed out, get concussed, or stunned. And he also healed extremely quickly. [Imbuement] had slightly different effects depending on the type of Mana used. While Earth Mana might make it harder for the user to receive damage, it seemed Necrotic Mana only repaired the damage. Similar to Life Mana, except while the Life Magic would heal the damage, Necrotic Mana simply repaired it. Similar in effect, but very different. Healing would return it to peak condition. Repair would only reverse the damage done.
Regardless, despite the increase in strength, speed, reactions, and healing factor, Alaster was still unable to get even close to landing a blow against Richter. Using all of his Abilities and Bonuses, Alaster was still but a child in front of the Knight. Even the Parasite of [Death Pact], while usually a quiet observer, mentioned how impossible it was to face Richter.
Nonetheless, the Parasite still did its best to defend its Master. Its armor was as strong as iron and now covered the entirety of Alaster’s chest from all the Goblin deaths, but it was still shattered with only a single blow. Each time, it took several hours for the Parasite to recover.
Despite the one-sided massacre that Alaster was being subjected to, his Levels and Stats were seeing benefits.
[Class: Death Knight
Level: 37
EXP: 52%
Health: 745/745<1,065/1,065
Health Regeneration: 17/min<29/min
Mana: 905/905<1015/1015
Mana Regeneration: 20/min<22/min
Abilities: Necrotic Bolt, Raise Undead, Bone Crafting, Mana Manipulation, Death Touch, Skeleton Creation, Meditation, Necrotic Heal, Dead Aura, Flesh Crafting, Raise Mage, Dead Bomb
Passives: Pain Tolerance, Blunt Resistance, Regeneration
Bonuses: Horde, Death Pact, Split Mind, Swap, Blood Price, Dead Embrace, Imbuement, Blood Aura, Fine Control, Dark Sight
Stats:
Strength: 118<172 Wisdom*: 200<228
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Dexterity: 114<160 Intelligence*: 165<183
Constitution*: 127<193 Free Points: 0]
[Wisdom 100 Bonus: Death Pact
Level 9<12: 74%<23%
An Undead Spirit has bound itself to you, pledging to protect you.
Nurture it, and there will be none better.
Allows the Pact to assist]
[Constitution 100 Bonus: Death Embrace
Level 3<6: 91%<72%
Forsake life, embrace the dead.
Mana Cost: 50/min]
[Strength 50 Bonus: Imbuement
Level 6<9: 39%<83%
Infuse the body with Mana to strengthen it.
Mana Cost: 100/min]
[Strength 100 Bonus Unlocked: Blood Aura
Level 3<8: 58%<83%
Grow stronger as blood is spilled.
Radius: 5 meters]
[Dexterity 50 Bonus: Fine Control
Level 8<11: 32%<9%
Better Control over body and mind.
Predict the path of moving targets]
[Dexterity 100 Bonus Unlocked: Dark Sight
Level 4<6: 63%<58%
The Dark has no effect on you.
Range: 5 Meters]
[Death Touch
Level 9<11: 47%<29%
Imbue your body with Necrotic Mana
Leech Health from the target equal to Mana cost.
Mana Cost: 5/sec]
[Pain Tolerance
Level 5<30: 84%<16%
Better able to tolerate pain.
Instead of passing out from pain, experience one minute with no pain]
[Blunt Resistance
Level 3<25: 93%<15%
Better able to resistance Blunt Damage
Twenty percent of Blunt Damage is Negated]
[Regeneration
Level 20<22: 0%<30
Enter a state of enhanced regeneration.
For ten minutes, Health and Mana are continuously regenerated.]
His Constitution especially had improved. Which made sense considering how many times he had pushed to the brink of death.
Due to the strenuous circumstances, as well as the weird food Richter shoved down his throat, Alaster hit a growth spurt. He had always been large for his age, always mistaken as older than he actually was. Now, despite being seventeen, Alaster was now six foot four, and he was pure lean muscle.
“Alright kid,” Richter called to him, despite having to look up now, “I have to go now.”
“I finished training?” Alaster asked, hopeful.
“No. Not even close. But you are competent enough to allow me to move onto more pressing matters. Another will take my place. Here,” Richter held out a folded letter, “Give this to the next one.”
“You are leaving now?”
“Yes,” He turned around to leave, but turned back, “One last piece of advice kid, think before you act, plan for everything, but expect it to fail, and when it does, nothing is better than pure overwhelming power.”
As if to demonstrate, Richter turned around and disappeared with a loud boom and sending everything behind him flying, including Alaster.
Alaster crashed through a tree, causing it to topple. But he calmly stood up and brushed off the snow and splinters. It still hurt, but he had learned to move past mere pain. By now, the small clearing the Hollow Tunnels Dungeon had been expanded to a very large clearing. Alaster simply grabbed the fallen tree and dragged it over to the pile.
He grabbed some of the broken branches and threw them into a pile, lighting it with [Fire Bolt], he then sat down on one of the logs and waited. While he waited for his next trainer, he once again wondered why the old man who had given him the Summoner’s Ring would call in a favor from someone like Richter to train someone like him.
Once again, Alaster simply didn’t have enough information about the old man to even come to a theory. Instead, Alaster began to cook some meat from when Richter had slapped him and a poor boar had been in the path of Alaster’s body. While he cooked, his Second Mind got to work rebuilding his Undead. Anytime he had tried while Richter had been here, he had simply flicked them out of existence. It was very annoying. They cost a lot of Mana to make.
Two hours passed peacefully, for the last two months, Alaster hadn’t gone more than ten minutes conscious without getting slapped around by Richter. And yet, he wasn’t tired. Not physically at least. Even after two hours, his Second Mind had only reconstructed four Blackguards, even with the help of the Blueprint function and the Parasite. Which was amazing to him. That the Parasite could now assist in what he did. It couldn’t do anything by itself, like his Second Mind could, but it could assist it, allowing increased speed and accuracy. But, building a complete and complex Undead was still a slow process for it.
Alaster could have sped up the process by quite a bit, from two an hour, to six an hour. But he didn’t. He simply let his Second Mind and Parasite work while he laid back on the log, next to the fire, closed his eyes, and relaxed. At least, he tried. He felt like he was being watched.
Opening his eyes again, Alaster saw a woman peeking down at him through a small portal midair.
“Is he gone?” She whispered, terrified.
“Is who gone?” Alaster responded, preparing a full force [Necrotic Bolt], just in case.
“The Manaless.” She whispered, even quieter, almost as if she was afraid the name itself could summon him.
“Yeah, he left a few hours ago.”
She sighed in relief and hopped through the portal, landing lightly in the melting snow. Spring was coming. The portal closed behind her with a light pop.
She bounced back up with a bright smile, “Hi! I’m Aila!”
Alaster stood up and noticed that he stood a good head taller, “I’m Alaster.”
“I know that, silly! I was asked to come teach you Magic!”
“Can you actually tell me anything about who asked you?”
“Sorry, but no can do! You currently aren’t qualified to know.”
“So you are supposed to teach me Magic? What kind?”
“All of them! Well, at least all of them you want to learn and can be helpful to you.”
“What do you mean, all of them? How many Magic Schools can you use?”
She put a finger to her cheek and thought for a moment, “Let's see. I think everything below Expert. Yeah! Everything above that would cause your Mana Core to explode if you even tried, so let's not do that! What sort of Magic do you wanna focus on right now?”
Still skeptical, Alaster still thought it through for a moment, “Death Magic, more specifically, Necromancy.”
“Ok! Not the most pretty magic, but you can’t argue with its effectiveness! Let's begin!” She said it so cheerfully, Alaster didn't even suspect that he would soon come to miss the beatings from Richter.