<…...Basic Education Suite complete....>

….Designation classified as Necro-Mecha forced learning mode ended….

….Upgrading of base intelligence and understanding to basic universal standards….Complete.

‘HURT. THAT HURT. YOU HURT….oh….no I see now. You...oh...I see. You’re not from here. Not from here at all. You were aboard a transport ship, no a containment vehicle from the Overmind Corporation. You were a failed prototype bonded self-improvement unit designed to upgrade planetary civilisations for the purposes of mining resources. I understand. You were badly damaged and tried to bond yourself to the pilot of the containment vehicle but he died too early on when he self-detonated it and crashed on this world. Hmm. I would say I should thank you but given that you’ve worked out how to forcefully bind my dead soul with your technology you’ve effectively ruined my chances of entering one of the afterlife's we have on this planet. Light or Dark, I don’t get to choose either now.’

There was a near-complete clarity in my mind. My memory of former events was patchy but with a little bit of newly boosted applied intelligence it was fairly easy to extrapolate events. This unit was meant to be paired with experimental artificial intelligences to take direct control of an individual soul and guide their actions.

Lucky me. I ended up with a damaged version and it bonded with me too early and lacked any necessary resources to recover. The stupid thing had communicated with my Master/Mistress. The exact appearance and name of them was lost to my mind still but mattered little.

All that mattered was that they found me mostly starved to death, dying of thirst and escaped from a tiny isolated village in the mountains which was wiped out between the ever-war of the Light and Dark forces and their immortal overlords. I was treated badly, close to a slave and almost sacrificed or turned into a skeleton/zombie on more occasions than I cared to remember.

Then the prototype self-bonding machine had been repaired with enough necromancy and sacrifices to awaken on some level and given my Master/Mistress direct instructions to build a self-improving Mining Drone.

I understood now that it was a machine not a god, not demon or a spirit but more of a list of instructions which it tried to follow but half the words were missing. The combination of necromancy and technology had failed clearly and my Master/Mistress had been planning to take direct control of it, march it right over to the Dark Lord as a new weapon of war in exchange for a high level position in the immortals army.

They had sacrificed me and used my flesh, bones and even my soul bound in service to the construct and had built the Necro-Mech and strapped themselves in before the prototype bonding machine had stripped all the flesh from their bones, sucked their soul dry and then activated my own consciousness.

I had bonded with it first after all when I had moved the dead body of the containment pilot to the ruined castle we were presently located in. The blue material was the tendrils and components of the prototype genetically connecting to my physical form, but the process had been interrupted when my Master/Mistress had taken the corpse from me and kept both the prototype and dead body out of my reach and throwing me into a cage until I had died.

Opening my vision I zoomed back once to the skeleton, I was bound inside the pilots seat of this basic Mining Drone. The components used to build it were low in both quality and quantity, using whatever had been scavenged, traded with or forged by my happily deceased Mistress/Master.

They hadn’t realised that the entire Mining Drone was meant to be piloted by a harnessed living soul, not a flesh body and by installing a pilots seat they had killed themselves in the process and lost their own chances at any afterlife after the prototype had simply consumed them.

I remember. Not everything but I remember enough.

My past didn’t matter. I was a pathetic villager, living off wild boars and the bare vegetables that my village had been able to grow on the mountain. Mushrooms, we largely subsisted on mushrooms. At least now all I need was blood, bone and metal to grow. And souls would be a nice appetiser to boost the damaged operating system of the prototype.

I had assumed that it had been in control this whole time but it was more like a slave or a pet bound to my will, my purpose. In educating me and raising my own intelligence it had lost all chances of controlling me. Still, I liked the goals that it ultimately offered. Kill both immortals, destroy their armies and turn the planet into a giant Mining Colony. My parents had died when I was young by wandering soldiers, my family killed, everyone I had ever known was doomed from the moment of their birth.

I’d end it. Destroy both sides, take over, turn it into a Mining Colony and then build my own ships, my own chariots and reach for the stars, for new places to see and explore and make my own. And all I had to do first was kill some rats.

‘Necro-Mecha. I am the Necro-Mecha. Necro-System? Give me full control over primary, secondary and tertiary systems in exchange for full completion of short and long term goals. Obey.’

….Designation classified as Necro-Mecha provided with direct Administrator Level Control….

….Control Transfer…..Complete.

‘Time to kill some rats.’

‘Good advice. Where was I? Right, time to see your present form. Heh, that skeleton is interesting. Say, you can bond right? What’s to stop you bonding with me if I inhabit that? Not like I have a present body at the moment, as long as I can switch around a little then it’ll be interesting. No point in trying to manually drive this thing, not that there are any controls which are visible.’

I remained in my incorporeal form inside the metallic control centre for this severely diminished Mining Drone. The instructions given to build the thing had been flawed and granted that my flesh burnt off and soul devoured dead skeleton of a Master/Mistress had decided to build something more along the lines of a golem mean it wasn’t built as fully functional as it could be.

My educated mind told me that the components and materials used to build the thing were simply of such low-quality that for any monster, angel, demon or sorcerer strong enough to crack open the clearly visible pilot egg bubble which had been attached on could devour my floating soul with relative ease.

I wasn’t a spirit or a ghost, my soul was simply roughly bound to the machine as best as the damaged bonding prototype could manage.

Not good enough. Not good enough at all.

Before I was going to be lumbering around in this thing with its clumsy hands and legs or even viewing through whatever passes for eyes or sensors I need a fully secure space to keep my soul.

Control meant nothing if such a blatant weakness was obvious. Thankfully there was an immediate solution to my problems. Having a physical form which could absorb flesh, bone and souls would be good and even better if it was reinforced

I looked closely again the skeleton with the form of the prototype bonding machine. The tendrils had spread across the skeleton and had formed a criss-crossing pattern bonding with most of the form. Already the entire skull was covered by a deep blue form which had begun to absorb remnant materials leftover inside the pilot cabin of the makeshift Mining Drone and formed a shiny blue helmet.

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The same style and shape as the one when I had first discovered the physical remains of the containment pilot inside his heavily damaged spacecraft. Even more interesting.

‘Necro-System, you’ve given me full administrator right and access and I need a place to park my soul. Make some space for me inside your present form and spread across the entire skeleton.’

….Direct Necro-Mecha Administrator level command accepted.….

…Transfer of reserve prototype form to deceased form of temporary user: Eike…

Eike! Eike Heike. I’ve remember the name at least.

I was beaten oh so many times for making fun of their name when I thought I had been in private. Turns out that old necromancers can see through the eyes of their constructs even when they’re not present. Being grabbed and slapped by bare bone had sufficiently hurt.

No matter. Their old bones had a new owner now. Me.

The process was fascinating to watch, the necklace simply unfolded and a hundred thin tendrils spread further out covering the form and filling out certain areas while covering others. After the main chest was covering, the neck and skull the process simply stopped. The lower parts remained pure blank bone. Arms, hands, finger bones were all nicely covered though. I understood now with my boosted intelligence that the prototype bonded had to keep sufficient energy in reserve unless in specific emergencies. Still, it was do for now. The skeleton had a sufficient degree of protection and the head was covered.

The dead corpse of my former employer would service as a form but not the exact one that I wanted, I would use it as a puppet, a trick to make those who were my enemies to try and destroy when in fact I would be inside the actual prototype bonding machine itself.

‘Stop. Allow access to your present form. Resume and keep all general systems automated and running as scheduled. I’ll tell you when we need to make changes or directions to the mission parameters if and when I see fit. Confirm command.’ I said.

I was floating around above the skeleton, admiring the work that had been done. The materials that made up the prototype were clearly strong enough to withstand a spacecraft crashing onto this backwards planet full of magic and two insane immortals in a never ending war.

There was a flicker of light on the helmet as part of it opened to reveal grinning skeleton teeth. If at all possible, I’d need to work out if living flesh could be bonded to the corpse of my former Master/Mistress. Not that I’d take on their own image, I had sufficient knowledge now of standards of beauty and handsomeness to make my personal choices.

‘Looking good is feeling good. And that skeleton looks good. Time to jump some bones old Master or Mistress. You would have stripped layers of skin off my back for saying that before but who’s the boss now? Heh. Burn in the electronic hells as my power supply. Plenty more will be joining you eventually. Even the Dark Emperor can have his turn we get to that. Necro-System. I said confirm command.’

The fact that it hadn’t immediately responded wasn’t a major cause for concern, by expending energy covering half the bones of the skeleton it had been forced to slow down. My authority would hold. Benefits of a basic education in programming.

Wait. I had missed something obvious. Why would a necromancer have left their soul to be taken over if they didn’t have a backup plan. The old me was barely aware of even the ability to read and was only beginning to scratch my name on dried skin parchment. I hadn’t even mastered basic necromantic spells to raise skeletons, zombies, drawing in life-force from others and a dozen more which each necromancer apprentice was meant to learn.

No. Likely, they’d had a back up plan and stuck part of their soul inside a reinforced container or even within one of their own necromantic constructs to be revived. Or they could have been hiding in the system. Overconfidence would not be my downfall. Not when I had so much to achieve.

The death of a planetary ecosystem for one thing when it was strip mined and sold to the nearest galactic trader for one thing.

‘Necro-System you will expunge all traces of user designate: Eike and remove all temporary or permanent access from all systems, necromancer bindings, blood rituals and whatever else makes your operation system function. Confirm command.’

That ought to do it. I wanted to clap my hands or give myself a pat on the back but sadly I still remained an incorporeal soul stuck inside a metal sphere with a half-dressed skeleton. I’d be in a sort of physical form soon enough, killing a few rats for their blood and bones.

….Direct Necro-Mecha Administrator level command accepted.….

…All traces of temporary user: Eike deleted...all necromantic bindings..soul bonds...blood rituals...successfully removed….

….Warning: Traces of residual energies of temporary user Eike located approximately eighty metres from present location…

‘Good enough. Time to enter a new form then.’

Granted that the helmet on the head of the skeleton had remained open and a deep, rich blue light beckoned me I entered without hesitation and my world became filled up with numbers, screens and more words and letters than I could make sense of. The Necro-System had given me a basic education and raised my intelligence but not to a high enough standard where I could call myself a qualified programmer, designer, engineer or scientist. I simply had a much wider view of the world and myself in general.

I saw an image of a floating skull surrounded with white and green lines around it. The skull floated and I experienced myself being drawn into it as I awoke and found myself inside the skeleton of the form and also the near-liquid material that made up the prototype bonding machine.

Granted my new form was interesting, I flexed a hand and curled my material covered fingers into the shape of a fist. There was no sensation of physical presence, only the fact that I was able to move this body according to my will. I tried to move the legs but found that they were nearly unresponsive to my efforts.

The blue material was the flesh, blood and bones but powered through magic, electricity, soul power and technology far beyond my understanding. The Necro-System would operate it as a human breaths without thinking, all unconscious actions would simply run as automated systems.

Recalling the location of the residual energy of my almost entirely deceased Master/Mistress I decided on a course of action. I’d open my eyes, try and pilot this thing, kill a few rats on the way and then devour what was left of their soul to cover my legs and feet.

The blank bone and lack of responsiveness was annoying,

‘Necro-System, give me eyes, give me sight. Give me my immediate field of vision.'