The next morning after his daily meditation Savani went and checked to see if anyone responded to his herb placement. Luckily it looked like he had several offers, primarily thanks to the fact both herbs were increadibly useful if properly processed. For the Lullaby Daisies the other party was offering three fresh cave goblin bodies, one for each Daisy. As for the Demons Dream it looked like the highest offer was 15 knowledge points! Savani had no doubt it was because the person offering the points was an Alchemist. They were probably going to try and refine it into potion for the Spirit.
Savani went out and met both parties before lunch. After some negotiating Savani got the buyer of the Demons Dream to throw in about 100 gold coins after promising to tell him where he found the mushroom. With this Savani refilled his coin pouch making his finances more stable for the time being. As for the bodies of the cave goblins, Savani had the apprentice help him bring them to his room.
The cave goblins were all in relatively good condition. They were all around 3 feet tall and had thick builds with long arms. Their normaly grey skin was increadibly pale in death. One had a wound in its chest around where its heart should, another had its throat slit, while the final one was gutted. Still none had any broken bones like Savani asked when he put the Lullaby Dasies up for trade.
Once that was done Savani went back to the library and used his new knowledge points to borrow every book on necromancy left along with a book on underground humanoid anatomy that had the cave goblin in it. While he was at it Savani went and got the spell Preserve Corpse so the bodies he aquired wouldn't start decaying in his room. With that Savanis points dropped from 15 to 4 over the course of the day. However now he was far more confident in raising his first undead minion.
After a good nights rest Savani meditated and ate a hearty breakfast before locking himself in his room. Lying on his desk was the body of the goblin that had its stomach gutted. Savani took out some thread and a sewing needle he bought to close the wound. In all honesty it was more messy than it should have been and Savani needed to clean himself after but the goblin finally had everything shoved back inside and the wound sewn shut.
Next came the hard part. According to the knowledge that the chip had managed to gather, it would probably take multiple castings of Create Undead to fully convert the goblin into an undead minion. The important thing would be to finish whatever bone he was on before canceling the spell. That way the Darkkness essence would stay contained and not disipate into the flesh rotting it even further. Sadly Savani couldn't practice in the Virtual Training Room like he could with Acid Shot. The chip may be able to simulate acid eating through something but it had no data on how Darkness magic affected a body.
Savani's plan was simple. He would use the first body to experiment casting the spell, all while the chip scanned the body and gathered information. Then if he failed Savani could simply use the chip to practice until he was able to do it properly on another of the bodies. This would leave him a third body as a back up in case anything happened. After positioning the body Savani had the chip start recording the process.
"Adaru Vortuk Codelaras!'
Chanting the spell while weaving his fingers over the corpses head Savani felt the Darkness elements in the air start to form little strings that began to dance along with his spell weaving. Slowly these strings fell from his fingers before piercing into the skull of the goblin. Once inside Savani felt them weave together to form a kind of core that began to pulse to a strange rhythm. This rhythm began to echo in the back of Savani's head distracting him slightly.
However this distraction is all it took. The previous threads that were once bound in a sphere began to unravel and pierce the sides of the cranium randomly. Once these threads got into the actual flesh of the corpse Savani saw, through his connection to them, that the threads started to cause any flesh they came across to start to rot at a speed visible to the naked eye. Savani could tell this was another aspect of Darkness magic he hadn't come across before, and he made sure to make a note to have the chip help him research it at a later date.
Once the spell started to rot the flesh it was over. Somehow the decaying flesh strengthened the strings so that even after Savani cut his connection with the spell the flesh on the goblin continued to rot before the entire head of the corpse was a half melted mess. Quickly Savani took the corpse and shoved it out his window. Since he hadn't spent any points on upgrading his living arrangements Savani still lived on the first floor. He knew he would have to take the body and properly dispose of it later but for now he simply wanted that disgusting smell out of his room.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Chip did you manage to get all that?"
[Affirmitive. All details of previous spell casting has been recorded. Based on data the host can now practice raising the undead in the Virtual Training Area.]
"Good."
After fanning out his room Savani went to properly dispose of the body he had been experimenting on. Since climbing out his window was against the rules, while also being slightly humiliating, Savani went out the front of the tower and began to circle around it before coming across the body slumped over outside his window. Dragging the body to the wood Savani decided practice casting the Preserve Corpse spell on this body before throwing it into the woods.
Savani quickly had the chip scan his attempt at casting the spell before throwing the corpse into the tree line. With the various creatures roaming thru the trees he was sure that the body would be taken care of.
After gathering information on two different spells Savani spent the rest of the day as well as the next in the Virtual Training Room practicing Create Undead and Preserve Corpse. Once he was profficient in Preserve Corpse Savani quiclkly cast it on the two remaining bodies. Then he once again tried to raise one of the goblins. This time he used the body that was stabbed through the heart.
When Savani cast Create Undead this time he managed to stay focused through the strange throbbing that appeared in his head. Focusing he managed to bind the threads of Darkness energy into a solidified core. Once this was done he injected more energy through the threads into the core causing spikes to emerge and slowly grow till they pierced the skull. This time instead of detatching from the skull the Darkness energy began to coat it completely. Eventualy the skull had completely turned black.
Once the skull was done the Darkness energy began to trickle down the spine coating each vertebrae. Once the vertebrae was covered the energy would seep inside before coagulating into a half liquid half solid energy in the marrow. Then the energy would seep out and re-cover the bone turning it as black as the skull.
This went bone by bone until the entire spine was finished. By this time Savani had to stop the spell as his Spirit had been completely used up. Lying down on the bed accompanied by that throbbing headache that an apprentice who overdrew their Spirit always got Savani passed out. Once he awoke Savani went for a quick meal and meditated until he could try again.
The next time Savani cast the spell he managed to coat the entire chest region as well as the beginning portion of the arms and legs. And finally the following day Savani managed to coat the goblins entire skeleton in Darkness energy converting it into an undead puppet.
According to the knowledge on Necromancy he had collected now all Savani had to do was cast Control Undead. This spell didn't even need any hand gestures. All he had to do was point his hand at the undead he wanted to control and say the incantation. Having the chip record the results like usual Savani pointed to the goblin on his desk and cast the spell.
Savani felt the same throbbing in his head as he felt another string of Darkness shoot from his palm and pierce into the core he had created previously. Once that was done Savani felt his conciousness actually connect to the other body. Curiously Savani focused on that weird connection and tried to send a command to get up. On the table all the body did was twitch ever so slightly.
Frowning Savani focused more on the connection between the body and him. This time he sent an image of the body bending its limbs pushing itself into a sitting position. This time the bodys arms slowly bent and pushed itself up into the same position that was sent.
Looking at the results Savani realized why Necromancy wasn't that popular amongst Darkness users. Just focusing on the connection enough to get the body to move was enough to get him killed by a sneak attack in the wild. Looking back at the now sitting body Savani tried to give control of the connection over to the chip. "Chip have the body get off the table and stand by the door."
Nothing happened for a bit before the goblin stood up and swung its legs over the desk before sliding off and standing. For a brief moment all it did was stand as it swayed from side to side trying to find its balance before slowly walking towards the door. Seeing this Savani couldn't help but feel elated. it seemed his plan now had some chance at success!
Quickly Savani started converting the other body into another undead. By the time he was finished turning both bodies into undead the chip had completed its new spell module.
[Spell module Water Corruption is complete. This spell will corrupt up to 6000 fluid ounces of water into a mildly acidic poisonous substance. The substance will increase in toxicidy the more Spirit the host uses when casting the spell.]
Looking at the new spell and his two new goblin undead Savani decided tomorrow he would go out and find some herbs to help him begin to refine his body.