After I was satisfied with the first humanoid undead, I had crafted, I finished the night by hunting down a few animals with it, and replenishing various parts of my body, and training a bit by using the humanoid undead as my combat partner.
I thought for a few moments if I should change main bodies, and take over the new corpse I had created, but even though I had lost a few stat points here and there due to changing my muscles with subpar flesh, my current main body was simply superior to the one in front of me.
And after returning to town a few hours before noon, I showed the undead I had crafted last night to my goblins, the bishop, and the mayor.
They were impressed with the undead to say the least, and the mayor actually looked a bit disturbed by the weird amalgamation in front of him.
Though the bishop, the priests and the holy knights just seemed impressed. Maybe they were disturbed, maybe not, but I couldn’t tell their true feelings from the short conversation we had.
I should probably question Rifu-san and Ojciec Lasu if they know any charisma based skills that would allow me to tell peoples’ underlying emotions... though, I am doubtful if that’s even possible, but, hey, what’s the worst that can happen by just asking?
And finally, when I showed the undead to the goblins, they were the group most interested in the undead, and it was clear from just the questions they were asking me that they all had seen their fair share of undead.
After 10 minutes or so though, the goblins were all seemingly done with their questions, except 2 people.
“Yes, Gob, what do you want to ask?” I asked Gob, and he turned his head to the undead next to me for one last time before turning his head to me.
“Lord Eternal, Gob wants to know, when will Gob and other Acolytes will be connected to the undead?”
“...What do you mean, Gob?”
“Gob just thinks that if either Gob, or one of the other Acolytes are going to become a shaman, they should know how to control undead, and Gob has seen the old shaman giving control of his undead to Chief Gram, and other goblins around town, so, Gob thinks they should start practicing soon!” Gob said, and all the other goblins nodded along to what he said, and I just stood there, trying to think of a way to quickly make a counter argument to why I hadn’t given them control over my undead... I mean, first of all, I didn’t even know that was possible, but second of all, even if I knew how to do that, I sure as hell wouldn’t give my lesser souls to anyone no matter if they are a potential future priest of mine or not.
But maybe I should’ve assumed something like this might’ve come up? I mean, I know that the darkness and holy magic combination they used for their undead is very, very different from my soul magic in how it operates, so I might’ve been able to guess this from adding things Rifu-san told me, and from how Gram was able to control the Pale Lizard I fought a few weeks ago even though he was not a necromancer himself, but I just... never did it.
So, how do you lie yourself out of this situation William? Do you say that they are not yet strong enough to control your undead? Or that you just don’t want to give them any undead to control before someone is selected as a priest?
...Or do you lie at all?
“...You make a good point Gob, but the Darkness magic used by your old Shaman Krone is very different from my Soul magic, thus giving you—any of you control of any of my undead would be dangerous as I’d have to mess with your souls to connect you to my undead, and then would have to undo the connection afterwards, and as I’d be messing with your souls a lot throughout the process, it is not a risk I want to take before I am more knowledgeable about the goblin soul, its overall shape and characteristics.” I told the goblins, mixing in some truths as I couldn’t exactly lie about something I had no idea about.
And it seemed that the goblins were somewhat satisfied with my answer, and Gob sat back on his seat, and I turned my attention to Grok and gave the word to him.
“Lord Eternal, I wanted to initially ask only single question about when and if you’d ever teach us how to make undead, but I’ve realised that, ever since we’ve entered Lublin, you have not given us any challenges, tested our knowledge, or teached us anything new.
“I believe we all understand that you are busy with a lot of things, but isn’t it still necessary for you to teach us?” Grok said, trying his best to sound diplomatic and not anger me.
And... I agreed with him.
...That’s it. I just agree with him.
It is true that I have a lot in my plate, but maybe I can create a few extra hours in a day somehow?
“...Do I trust the humanoid undead to make new undead for me?
“...I don’t see a reason why it couldn’t, but I want at least 2 more undead that are of the same quality as it, but that means I’ll have to eat into my stockpile of E ranks as I only have a single F ranked undead left...” I thought to myself, but quickly realised that there was a way for me to make a few more hours in my day for the goblins by using their help in hunting random animals from around the forest.
And not like I needed a lot of new corpses anyways, just 2 deer carcasses or carcasses of animals that are large as a deer would be enough to for me to be able to create 3 near peak F tier undead from a E ranked corpse.
And as I made the undead, I could teach the goblins about how I made my undead, and give them a few other lessons on the side.
“That could work...” I thought to myself before turning my attention to Grok and the other goblins.
“Hmm... you are right that I’ve been really busy for the last few days, but I still should’ve made some time to teach you all as it’d be quite problematic if I had to return from this trip with no suitable priest candidate... then, how about this?
“2 hours after todays meeting, which should start in half an hour and be over in 2-3 hours, we will be heading out of town with the corpse of an E ranked monster, and we will go to the place where I usually make undead, and spend the night there.
“And while we are there, you all will help me with preparing for the undead creation process, and while I am creating the undead, you all will have the chance to watch, and help me in certain parts of the undead creation process.
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“And while we are doing that, I’ll also be asking you questions, and teaching you more things about how my Soul magic works, so when one of you inevitably becomes my first Priest, you’ll be able to at least understand how to use the new type of magic you’ll have access to.
“Are you all fine with that?” I asked the goblins, and they all nodded along, not complaining.
And I just hoped they all were really fine with that and not merely acting like they were.
Then, we had a meeting that lasted for a bit more than 1.5 hours, which was shorter than yesterdays’ meeting, but we honestly didn’t have much to do after today other than waiting for my lesser souls to inspect the areas where we planned to set up supply lines and safe houses in, and making new supply routes as I went ahead and sent undead to observe more and more villages.
If I had to take a guess, we would be done with determining the supply routes for all the villages I was observing with my lesser undead in 2 or at most 3 meetings, which was shorter than the week I initially thought it would take to determine these routes... though actually building up the small houses along the supply lines, the POW camp, and the supply HQ is going to take a few weeks by itself...
Anyways, that’s something I’ll have to bother with later, as I do not have enough humanoid undead to start the process.
And, on that note, after I make 2-3 more humanoid intermediate undead, I’ll probably make a few dozen that are just lesser undead as I need numbers right now, not quality.
And my soldiers decompose after 2 weeks, so their quality doesn’t matter that much.
Informing the mayor and the bishop that me and my men, and my golems would be gone for the night for a training exercise, I started preparing the food and drink we’d need to last the night, and also the tents and the various other tools we’d need.
And in a few hours, we were off to the forest!
And I did not forget to tell the goblins to inform me if they saw a large animal while we were walking by, and when we came to the camp side, which was just the area I had used for the past few days to make undead, and then told them to go and hunt 2 large animals because I really needed 2 brains for the undeads, and helped them hunt the animals down.
After an hour or so, the goblins had captured 2 undead, and after having a break, that I used to gather some vines and bushes from the surrounding forest, we started with our undead making lesson 101, in which I talked about the details of undead crafting that I had come up with myself, which was that, most organs are useless, so either eat or throw them out, be careful with the spine, use the empty chest cavity left by the lack of organs as storage or as places for extra brains, etc.
And while I was talking, all the goblins had attentive but confused faces. It was as if they were hearing about undead creation for the first time, and trying their best to understand it.
I mean... that wasn’t that farfetched of an idea, but I’d hope that this is not their first foray into undead crafting as, if it is, they are going to need a few more classes as... I am definitely not explaining things as simple as they could be explained.
But I am not a teacher, and honestly, I just didn’t think of what I’d do if I had to teach the goblins how to make undead beforehand, so, if I had to rate my teaching skill with absolutely 0 preparation from 0 to 5, I’d give myself a 3.
No need to lie to myself or anyone here, the goblins were definitely understanding some things, but not everything, and I’d have to hold a lot more classes for them... including a couple classes of anatomy, which was something I was just winging for the most part, but I guess I can always buy a few books from Ryuji...
“Oh, I get it!” Grok suddenly screamed as I was teaching, which made me stop, and turn my face to him just in time to see how his face quickly changed from absolutely beaming in happiness to embarrassed as he realised his scream had just caused the lesson to stop.
“S-sorry...” He added, and everyone started turning their faces towards me again, but I wanted to know what revelation he had come to as if it made him understand what I was trying to teach better, it would at least help the others as well, no?
“Grok, can you tell us about the realisation you came to?” I asked him, which put him in the centre of attention again.
“W-well, it’s just... I realised that Soul magic and Dark magic are different. Very different.”
“...Wasn’t that clear from my rejection to connecting you guys to any of my undead? Or has there been a misunderstanding Grok? Others?” I asked around, and they shook their heads, Grok more so.
“No, no, there hasn’t been a misunderstanding, it just that... I am just now realising how different the undead creation process in both types of magic truly are.
“For me, and the rest of us, who have grown accustomed to hearing and seeing undead being created by Dark magic, understanding the undead creation process of Soul magic is really hard as it seems that even the most basic type of undead, skeletons, are not possible to create with Soul magic!” Grok said, and I thought about the subject for a few seconds as, while I knew skeleton undead creation was definitely a thing in this world from just seeing the inside of a dungeon, I had no idea on how to create one, or to give it the ability to move without just making a zombie.
Sure, just putting in a big brain in its skull would give it plenty of magic, but just thinking about the amount of mana that you’d need to spend to get it to move without any muscle tissue or any substitutes made it seem almost impossible to make a skeletal undead.
“...I wouldn’t exactly call making skeletal undead impossible with soul magic, but it certainly is not worth the effort of creating one as it doesn’t have muscles or muscle substitutes that would give it easy options of locomotion, and relying on solely mana to give locomotion would be... incredibly stupid to say the least, just creating a bone golem at that point would be more sensible... but do continue please.” I told Grok, and he did.
“First of all, as far as I understand, in Soul magic, there simply is not an option to put the undead to sleep to preserve your mana usage, so every single undead created requires a constant supply of mana, and differently from undead made using Dark magic, majority of mana in Soul magic, if not all of it, that is used to preserve and make an undead move comes from the undead itself, which necessitates inclusion of organs such as brains in the final undead design, and as you need more brain space, throwing out many of the organs of the carcass, which would normally be left as is to soak in as much kinetic energy as possible, is simply more beneficial to keep the undead always moving as there is no option to put it to sleep.
“And as far as I understand, unlike in Dark magic, Soul magic cannot be used to fill in the cracks between bones with elemental mana, allowing them to function as usual, right Lord Eternal?” Grok asked, and I nodded.
“...Yes, you are right, if the spine of an undead is damaged I need to replace is as soon as possible, though it is possible to make band aid fixes by using plant matter to fill in the cracks between bones, but in pieces of bone like the spine that needs to be flexible, this is a solution that will only work for a few hours.” I said, and Grok nodded.
“And that is one of the reasons, if not the main reason, why something as simple as a skeleton can’t be made using Soul magic! In Dark magic, an apprentice necromancer has to first make a working undead to be even called an apprentice necromancer! And the simplest way to do that is to make a skeletal undead as they weight less than any other undead, and the small gaps between their joints can simply be filled with mana, and then the skeleton be willed to move!
“Of course, the first skeletal undead made by any necromancer is usually a barely moving mass of bones, but experienced necromancers can make skeletal undead that can move twice as fast as their counterparts, and, while I haven’t seen any myself, I’ve heard from my father that some arch-bishops even have entire brigades of heavily armoured skeletal knights that can move as fast, if not faster, than their fleshy counterparts while being more than twice as cheap to maintain!” Grok said, adding a fun fact at the end for his friends, and while I batted an eye at that, due to my heavily armoured figure it couldn’t be seen.
Though, what he was talking about probably shouldn’t’ve been as surprising to me as it was, as Soul magic and Dark magic were types of magic that used 2 very different of elements, so it should’ve been clear that, while both magics could make undead, they wouldn’t have the same principles and ways of making undead.
One thing that was as easy as breathing in one was basically impossible in the other.
“Though this makes me wonder, what are the other differences between Soul and Dark magic in the undead making department? Afterall, Soul magic, so far, seems to be an element that is entirely based on undead creation... or I’ve been using it like that so far, while Dark magic seems to be more of a stealth and undead focused one...
“Welp, lets just hope Krone is as pragmatic as his son, because I highly doubt he can give me the answers I want to hear...”