Mark first sought out Leah's corpse again. She had the same unwilling grimace on her face, forever furious at the world. Her complexion still looked vibrant as if she had just died. It appeared similar to the rest of the bodies in his pocket plane.
"Could they have the same background?" he wondered out loud. Portals. Plants. Life affinity magic in a contained space. There were plenty of similarities between his pocket plane and the current druid inheritance plane he inhabited.
For now, he tried to use the corpse as a way to activate any methods left behind. Pressing Leah's hands into the tree did nothing, and neither did giving back her staff. He wanted to drag her body around the entire area to see if anything ended up happening, but lacked the strength to do so quickly. Such an arduous task should be the last thing he attempted.
"If only I had more strength," he muttered, moving the body in a wide circle. It wasn't enough. Mark prepared to bring out his pocket plane, but before that, he checked his status screen and brought up the tutorial's timer.
Tutorial Time Remaining - 427:18:32
It had confused him that the astral being had mentioned three months, and then the system gave him a one month timer. Now it made more sense. There were about two and a half weeks remaining before easy-mode ended, and the mines became unshackled.
That made his time matter all the more. He didn't know how powerful the monsters in here could get, but they would certainly be much stronger than he was right now. He needed to move fast and focus on the important things.
In the center of a grass field, Mark took a deep breath, hoping nobody was watching. A shimmering portal cut through the air. He waited for a few minutes before stepping inside. The grass continued to sway lightly.
With access to his pocket plane restored, Mark had a lot more options. He first walked inside the pocket plane and stood there for another few minutes. Then he came back out and confirmed it was truly quiet. Since nothing had happened, it should be relatively safe. He picked up Leah's body and heaved her inside.
His minions continued to sit still in a corner, though. Mark was fearful they'd trigger some sort of magical mechanism meant to detect undead. It was one thing to have traces of necromancy, but another to wantonly use it inside an inheritance built to defend against the undead.
Mark slowly scanned the plane with his eyes before they came to rest on a pile of equipment. Sat on top of a body used as a table was the wooden dagger from the other portal. He picked it up. A faint hum had emerged from the artifact. Perhaps there was a connection between this thing and the druid's inheritance. That portal had been overrun by undead.
"Is this helpful?" he asked his skeleton mage. But it had no response.
"Ah, it's fine. Just focus on necromancy if you can," Mark said. The Pacified Goblin was fine, still stirring at its Cauldron of Mixtures. It looked very passive.
He took the dagger outside with him, and began attacking nearby objects. Nothing happened, even when he struck the tree at the start. It also failed to do anything when he held it against Leah's staff.
Mark then took a moment to think. He racked his brains for any suspicious points in this place. Other than the two trees and the overabundance of life mana, there was nothing else. Except for the illusory veil draped across the environment, which prevented non-druids from accessing the inner parts of the inheritance, Mark couldn't find other points of interest.
He considered his options and decided to try the least risky one: to make his magic work again. After entering the pocket plane and creating a nice practice space for himself, he sat down and began meditating. Inside here, he had no difficulties at all, even though the life affinity mana was beginning to rival the environment outside.
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As more and more time passed, he noticed his pocket plane had begun to look more lively, for lack of a better term. Some of the corpses were finally beginning to rot, but the experimental plants he had planted visibly grew inch by inch. Somehow, their growth rate increased during the past few hours. This could only mean one thing: an increase in the amount of life mana, some kind of synchronization with the environment while he left the portal open.
But it never prevented him from being able to use necromancy. Why was that?
He needed to start testing the waters. Reanimating an undead, Mark had it creep out the portal and sit there. Clearly, some of the plane's defenses were lacking, since nothing seemed to happen.
"Is it safe?" he asked his skeleton mage. It nodded. Even after a period of thirty minutes, the minion remained healthy. Mark continued to think of a way around the problem.
He considered entering the gray inner space again. Perhaps the key was to manipulate the pocket plane's orb inside his mind, connect it somehow with his magical spark. But that was easier said than done. No matter what he tried, nothing appeared to work.
So that option was still unavailable. He suspected he needed to upgrade Enhanced Magic Manipulation, his magical skill, and the only way he knew how to begin doing that was to upgrade Identify to a Rare quality. Perhaps one of his countless items could give him a clue to make the process faster. However, this was also something he was stuck on.
Realizing this was a lost cause, Mark decided to bite the bullet. He returned to his pocket plane and reanimated Leah's body. Unfortunately, she had no spells she could cast. It was a huge disappointment. Not only that, but she no longer had access to life-attuned magic, which might've been able to activate the artifacts he was about to give her.
They carefully traveled across to the exit portal, where another tree stood. Mark gave her the staff to carry in one hand, dagger in the other, and pressed her hands to the tree with both objects clutched firmly inside. He expected yet another failure. Not for something to move the moment he touched the tree.
The tree's branches shook, and a wide crack emerged from the middle of its trunk. From this gaping maw came a horrific noise - drowning him in rage and sorrow. Tree roots erupted from the earth and malformed into trunk-like legs, giving the monster the ability to stand. It howled at the sky, branches lashing around in an attempt to kill the necromancer.
Mark stumbled backwards. He almost fell to the floor but caught himself in time just as a tendril struck his body. It sent him flying, and he landed with a harsh jolt. Though his breath became ragged, he crawled away while the monster slowly began to move towards him.
"Not good," Mark muttered to himself. He got up and ran a good distance before looking back. The monster tree was slow, but it had near limitless energy. And with the illusory veil preventing him from running too far, the monster tree was bound to catch up with him.
The reanimated Leah had almost immediately fallen, but not before making one last attack with the dagger in her hand. Surprisingly, a gash appeared in the tree monster's trunk, and a green substance frothed from the wound.
He had to hide inside the portal. Since the tree was so large, Mark hoped with all his might that it couldn't enter. He left a single minion outside and tried to wait out the aggression, but the tree monster quickly killed off his undead.
With no knowledge about the outside realm, Mark could only wait. He tested the waters by sending the occasional undead animal outside to die every few hours. Most of them died early, but the time period between their deaths was increasing. Hopefully, it meant the tree monster's wrath was dying down.
He took a deep breath once it became clear the thing was asleep again. His undead animal remained alive even after an hour. Mark crawled out the portal only to come face to face with a tree. In a panic, he rolled to the side, but stopped when he discovered the lack of movement. It had returned to its slumber.
Mark backed away and took his portal with him. Then he retrieved the items back from Leah's undead body. Unlike the staff, the Wooden Dagger contained a greater resonance than before.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Mark said. Whatever substance dripped from the tree had somehow fueled the dagger, activating its powers. But he knew this was temporary. He had to make good use of this.
Mark crept closer to the tree again. He sent his mana out to Identify the new substance, but the monster's trunk had already reformed. Another attack was necessary to open the wound back up.
He gripped the dagger and forced his hand downwards. A solid lump fell into his other hand, and as the monster heaved its roots around, Mark ran for his life.