After we finished our first meeting, I let the goblins go and stayed back to talk to the mayor and the priests about what we had planned, and asked that this room be left as is, and mayor accepted as this was apparently just an unused storage room the servants had quickly cleared up for this meeting.
After saying our goodbyes, I realised it was starting to get late, and went towards the corpse carriage to take a single F rank corpse and some bones with me and set off towards the forest.
I knew that I just needed more undead right now instead of stronger undead, but I wanted to see what different types of undead were there.
The undead I had sent down south were “Lesser Undead”, so, is there “Intermediate” and “Advanced” undead? Or are there different tiers of undead all together?
And what happens if I spend a month working on a single corpse? Would it be hyper charged and become a “Perfect” or “Paragon” undead, or would it simply be just another higher or advanced undead?
“...System could you do me a solid and just tell me the different tiers of undead?”
...
...
...
“...Eh, I’d like to act disappointed, but that’s what I expected honestly...” I muttered as I reached a random clearing in the forest, and ordered the F ranked undead to sit down and put the bones I had brought with me down.
And, while I was going to experiment with making the best undead I could, and seeing what tiers of undead there were, I wanted to also make a humanoid undead to help me with construction.
I wasn’t going to be building villages or proper longhouses in the middle of the woods, but I’d at least like to have the option to build something half decent instead of a hole in the ground that you crawl into.
Though I am going to have to go all out to make that POW camp, or camps, and the supply point HQ that all the refugees will reach before Lublin.
In the supply point HQ, I may try to make proper longhouses or just simple wooden houses that can house many people, but I am not one for architecture, so it is going to take a few days of trial and error to make a design that just doesn’t collapse in on itself, or I’ll have to ask Rifu or Ojciec Lasu for help... wait, couldn’t I just make undead houses?
Hear me out. I can put turn anything without a soul into undead, right? And whenever I’ve touched any building, I’ve realised that they did not have any souls, which is pretty expected, so, couldn’t I just gather all the necessary organic building materials, attach a few brains to them, and, as I go along and build the house, order them to keep it together?
That... may or may not work. On paper it does, but I don’t know if I can warp wood enough to do something like that, I mean, even controlling small bushes is a problem due to their woody constitution, so a tree’s trunk would be nearly impossible to control, but it would be possible, so I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work... and, on the bright side of things, even if trying to build a house like this is an absolute waste of time, I can still use this to make prisons.
Afterall, I can use mana strengthening on my plant parts, and thus I can harden them, which would, hopefully, be enough to stop any prisoners from just kicking down any prison cells I make, and escape!
Afterall, I do not doubt for a moment that I’ll encounter at least a few E rankers in the whole of Prady, and when I capture them, I’ll have to keep them locked and confined using conventional methods instead of using slave collars to stop them from using their mana and skills, as I just... don’t have any of those... well, that’s a lie.
I have one given to me by Rifu-san, but that’s back in the goblin village, which is a week’s journey away, and north worth my time to go back and take it just to be able to, perhaps, stop an E ranker from being able to use mana.
But an E ranker would probably be crafty, and strong, enough to just break the damn thing anyways if given the chance, as the slave collar can’t do anything to pure stats.
And E ranks happen to have quite a bit of those.
“Though it seems enhancing wood with mana strengthening is the only option I have for keeping any POWs I get from escaping, as I don’t have access to stone and metal right now, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have a way to use them as I am still a bit lacking in the earth and fire magic department... not that I haven’t been trying to learn them, but the easiest way Rifu-san knows to casting elemental spells is by using a magical language to help guide your mana, and I’ve just been unable to learn any magical language through just talking.” I thought to myself as I started dissecting the F ranked corpse I had brought with me, and started melding the bones I had brought with me to the best imitation of a hand as I could make.
“And, though I’ve been unable to cast any elemental spells, as I am yet to learn any generalised magical languages and grasp the concept of any elements other than the soul “element”, that’s not to say I am completely unable to use mana at all.” I muttered, looking at the bony claw in my hands that had 5 misshapen digits, but they’d be enough for the first humanoid undead I’d be making, so I put it down, and looked at my hand for a moment before looking around me to see if there were any targets I could use for magic practice.
“...That branch looks weak enough...” I muttered as I saw a short branch sticking out of a tree, and pointed my hand at it, my brass claw shining faintly from the light of the rising moon.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
And then, I willed the mana in my arm to coalesce into a small ball just a bit in front of my palm, and spined it a fast as I could, and while small streaks of mana were still escaping from the ball, and causing the grass below my feet to swing gently, most of the mana still remained tightly kept within the ball.
And then, using a small amount of mana, I pushed the spinning ball of mana forwards, and it shot forwards, the wind shwooshing a bit due to the speed the nearly invisible ball of mana was going at.
*Swoosh~*
And after a short moment, the ball of mana hit the weak branch of the tree, and snapped it off, and I checked my mana to see how much I had used.
Mana Points: 4.385/4.400
“15 points missing, huh? Not bad for just a ball of mana, but if I want it to do any real damage, I’ll have to put hundreds of points into it, as it can’t really do anything to anyone or anything in this stage.” I muttered, as I casted another ball of mana, nearly the same as the one before give or take a few points of mana, towards the trunk of the tree.
And as it hit, it didn’t do anything other than just dissipating around, making a few leaves and blades of grass sway a bit more than usual, but nothing more than that.
And this... was the best “magic” I had in my arsenal as even the system didn’t recognise it as a type of magic, but I guess that was fair as I was just relying on my control mana skill to do this.
Could I cast other “spells”? I have once casted a spear of mana that was the same as the ball, just longer, and I can make really strong gusts of wind that may cause someone to loose their footing, but just shooting a ball of man at them is probably more efficient.
And about how I learned to cast these “spells”... well, they are really just results of small improvements I’ve made on my first “spell” over the course of weeks and months.
Remember the time I casted my first spell, which only caused a gust of wind? Well, after that I began to think, how would one contain the mana, so it doesn’t dissipate as soon as it leaves one’s body?
I didn’t know anything about channelling magic via the usage of magical languages then, and I still don’t know how to do that as I still don’t know a magical language, so, I improvised, and this fun thing called centrifugal force.
If you have a string, and attach a ball or anything to the end of it, and spin it, you’ll see that it goes around in a perfect circle, so I thought about just swinging/rotating my mana as fast as I could to keep it in a circle, and I was able to do that!
But I didn’t always do it right, and as the whole thing with the goblins, the demon, and the dungeon dive came about, I just didn’t have the time to improve upon it.
But now, after more than a week of only doing things that didn’t require that much attention, I’ve managed to figure out how to cast these “spells” with 100% success rate.
Tough, the sad thing is I can only cast these spells from my main body, as my lesser selves just do not have the mana to waste on this.
...Well, not until I make an abomination out of brains, which can go one on one with a god and win due to the sheer amount of mana it has.
Or, at the least, replicate whatever that golem in the dungeon did by just swinging its mana around and causing a small storm.
I could probably do that myself too, but... not enough mana, you see. I haven’t yet perfected my form into that of a brain dragon.
Or better yet, brain Cthulhu.
*Clank~*
“...That should do it, right?” I muttered as I looked at a humanoid skeleton standing beneath me.
It had the head of the F ranker I had brought with me, but other than that, it didn’t have anything in the flesh and skin department.
It was more than 2 meters tall, and had 2 pairs of arms that had 5 digited claws, and, though I am calling them claws, only the very tips of the hands are actually claws, the other parts are just normal bones that extend to the wrist.
And, after I cover it with all the flesh and skin, it should look like a hand... I think. I hope.
And I gave it 2 pairs of arms because... well, more arms mean more work done, right?
...Maybe not. I may have to remove the extra pair of arms later if they don’t prove beneficial enough as they are still a good pair of arms, and I can attach them to other bodies if need be.
And the legs are... well, normal legs, with the feet just being normal paws that have been a bit extended forward.
Though there is a chance that the spine may not be able to hold all this weight on it, as the creature I made this out of was a Quadro pedal animal after all... eh, just strengthen it with mana. That should do it.
It’s a band aid solution, but if it works, it works.
Inspecting the skeleton to see if there was anything wrong with it, like any cracks and all, I started carefully layering it with patches upon patches of muscle, and when I was finished, I covered its exposed flesh with the skin of its parent monster, and finished it with a generous layering of bushes and vines.
“Rise.” I ordered the lesser soul mentally, and it obliged, rising up as quickly as it could, taking care to not hurt itself much.
And as it rose up, it started using some mana to keep its spine strengthen its spine as it was having a hard time keeping itself up, but that was to be expected.
“Move around. Do summersaults or whatever. Let’s see if this body is stable.” I ordered it, and it obliged once more.
It ran around the small clearing, did a summersault as I ordered, then jumping jacks, push ups, squats, and finally, after I was sure that the body I had crafted didn’t have any big problems that were clear from a few minutes of exercising, I handed it my mace and short sword, and asked it to wield both at the same time.
It had a bit of a problem with them, as I myself hadn’t ever used both of them at the same time, but after a few minutes, it got used to using both at the same time, and was able to grasp them and swing them with full strength.
Then I ordered it to switch hands a few times, and gave it 2 branches I had cut off of a tree, and ordered it to wield all 4 items at the same time.
And it did without problem.
“So, none of the arms get in front of another... that’s good...” I muttered, and opened its system window to check what tier of undead it was.
Afterall, I had spent half a night working on its body, just to make sure that it wouldn’t crumble down the first step it took.
I deserved to have an increase in undead tier now, did I not?
Name: None Race: Lesser Soul (Chimeric Abomination)
Level: 1 Exp: 0/ 36 Rank: F
Health Points: 0/1.373Mana Points: 1.100/1.100
Strength: 150 (8)
Vitality: 137 (8)
Agility: 117 (8)
Intelligence: 110 (8)
Wisdom: 83 (8)
Charisma: 93 (8)
Free Stat Points: 0
Skills: Ethereal Body (S)
Titles: Lesser Self (A), Intermediate Undead (E)
“...Well, that’s an increase from... 6 extra points to 8...” I muttered as I looked at the status of my first humanoid undead, and looking at the title Intermediate Undead, I saw that it was talking about how it’s creator, aka me, had given it more attention than any of its other craft, but due to their inexperience in crafting humanoid undead, this undead had come out as subpar...
“...Ouch. Did the system really have to take shots at me? I mean, I know I am not an undead crafting savant, but I bet I am better than at least 60-70% of people on this planet... mostly because that 60-70% chunk of the world isn’t even slightly interested in undead crafting, but I digress!”