He studied the list, amazed at the options before him. He had expected something, but the changes to his surroundings had baffled him. Now there were new options ones that could have an even larger impact. He sighed as he once more read through the options.

[Territory Governing Options]

[Summon a growing Zombie 6 KP]

[Summon a puppet Zombie 1KP]

[Create first level walls around your territory center, (Dirt) 30 KP]

[Create road to another of your territories, (Currently unavailable amount of territory owned too small)]

He swiped to another panel

[Current Territory EP gained daily: 2]

He frowned at the new statistic and shot a question towards the boxes, which was promptly answered.

[EP = Evolutionary points. EP can be gained by: amount of territory controlled, amount of subservient territories, alliances and trade deals.]

But what did they do?

[EP is used to improve the qualities of your race, this can also be used on individuals instead of effecting the race as a whole: Current EP : 0, Options unavailable untill EP has been acquired.]

So that meant he could change his zombism? If that was even a word, It did open alot of options but he doubted said options would be cheap. He pondered the options a bit before turning back to the previous page and tapping the option Growing zombie for more information.

[A growing zombie, unlike a puppet, has the ability to learn skills and is self-aware. Their combat potential is higher but they start at the same strength as a puppet zombie.]

Seeing as there really were no other options available to him right now he shrugged and summoned two of the growing zombies, turning in another twelve KP. Two pairs of hands erupted from the earth beneath the tombstones, dirt falling away as the new zombies stood to their full height, he glanced at the boxes above their head.

[Unnamed Zombie Tier 1, Common]

[Unnamed Zombie Tier 1, Rare (Magical Capacity)]

He frowned as he read the boxes, so one of the zombies was normal, like him he assumed but not as smart judging by the way it stood staring at him blankly. The other he assumed had the capacity to use magic. It was still just as dumb as its brother by the looks of it. First, he decided to name the two zombies, he named the common one Clog and the rare one Brainz. Not the most elegant of names but hey, they were zombies like him, not much elegance needed.

He spent his remaining six points on puppet zombies and watched as they raised themselves from tombstones similar to the way the growers had appeared. They all stared at him lifelessly, he chuckled at his inside joke, lifelessly... huehue.

Coughing to cover up the awkward atmosphere at being stared at while laughing he motioned them to follow him and to his surprise they did. He made his way deeper into the forest, he was curious how far this territory of his actually went. Walking deeper into the forest after a few minutes he arrived at the border of his territory, at least he assumed this was the border because of the colour of the greenery around him was just that. Green.

The other zombies had just shambled behind him during his walk, no comments, no noises except their staggering steps throughout the forest. Another difference he had noticed between himself and the other zombies was the capability to move properly. Even though his flesh had decayed to some point his body still moved as he wanted it to. The other zombies had that familiar shamble you expected from zombies. He wondered where he got the knowledge of other zombies from, trying to pinpoint the memories gave him the usuall blank and a slight headache. He sighed and started walking along the perimeter of his area.

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Walking past the clearcut border felt... strange. His mind was already trying to process the many ways he could develop and use this territory. Most important as in any situation were you wanted to build something the priority was resources. Normally one would have to worry about manpower but the access to KP and the instantaneous changes it made to its environment made that a moot point. The only way he would need to utilise his manpower was to harvest resources. Simply put he needed to find things to kill. These spiders made a good enemy, they were non-sentient monsters. They did not use any strategy or reason. They simply attacked what was in their territory.

After a few more minutes of circling his now still small territory he could see the changes in the landscape. He recognised the forest he expected, the one that was the area of the spiders. Some of the areas around him were different, most of them not so glaringly obvious as his was however. He shrugged and headed deeper into spider territory, another of his most prominent goals was to check the combat ability of these zombies. He gave a quick order to have them form around him. Six puppets in front and the two growers to either side of him.

Some time passed but then he heard the now familiar sound of spider legs tapping bark. He ordered his units to halt, then proceeded to give a speech of sorts. He told them they would soon be attacked, he told the puppets that they were to protect the growers, he ordered the growers to stay close to him. The dark shadows the spiders created became visible in the mist. Z cracked his neck and grinned in anticipation. He rolled his shoulders as the spiders burst out of the fog. He motioned with his head and his zombies shambled forward to meet the hairy wave of monsters.

The monstrous creatures leaped towards his zombies, the shambling idiots didn't even bother to dodge and just caught the creatures after they lashed on. One of the puppets was hugging one of the dog-sized spiders into literal pieces. At first he wanted to shout at them to be more skilled but then he realised something. This might actually be the best way for the zombies to fight, they did not have the skill, dexterity or the brain to fight in the way he did. They could use their toughness to take a blow while taking out their opponents. He grimaced as he saw one of his zombies get swarmed as it took the swarm in stride and just bit kicked or grabbed at anything it could inflicting as much damage as possible.

Z frowned slightly and stepped in, kicking a spider of the zombies face as the creature tried to rip its head off. He moved smoothly from spider to spider taking smaller attacks inturn for their lives, using the 'zombie strategy' whenever he thought the loss was worth the gain. The zombies tore through the ranks of spiders wrecking carnage among their numbers. It truly was an unfavourable matchup for them. Immune to poison as they were the zombies were incredibly hard to kill by the short fangs the spiders possessed.

After a few minutes of fierce battle the waves of spiders stopped coming, Z checked his forces and noticed that only two of his zombies had actually stopped functioning. Another thing he noticed was the difference in quality between a grower and a puppet. The growers improved their fighting from watching Z fight, it was a slight difference but it was there, they would let the spiders attack less important parts of their body in exchange for an attack instead of the simple uncaring attitude of the puppets. A small change that could make a mountain of difference. Z grinned as he imagined the growers learning to fight like him eventually.

Z gathered his remaining forces and headed back to his area. He read through the messages and saw that he had received 89 KP, he stroked his chin as he marveled at the number. Gathering KP had been easier than he thought it would be. He imagined summoning a small army with that number of KP. He could do that or he could summoned a sixth of that amount and give them the ability to grow. Sighing he looked through the options available to him once more. On a whim he decided to buy the wall, the earth around his little cemetery mound grew untill it gormed into a half meter-thick and a little over two meter tall dirt wall. He walked over and tapped the wall, it was sturdier than it looked, the dirt was compressed quite a bit. He nodded to himself in appreciation and then walked back.

Clog stood next to the larger tombstone that he had begun to think of as his headquarters. He glanced at the naming box that insistently floated above clog's head. He furrowed his brows as he noticed the appearance of a plus next to his name. He tapped on the box reading what it had to say. His eyes widened as his eyes flickered through the message.

[Clog (Zombie) Tier 1 Common, Evolution Available]

He tapped the message and as expected a new list appeared.

[Thick Skin (available)]

[Regenerative stitchwork (available)]

[Improved Agility (Available)]

[Improved Strength (Available)]

[Evolve to tier Two (Available)]

He tapped all of them to read about what they did, Thick skin did as advertised and simply thickened and hardened the skin of the zombie, making it harder to damage. Regenerative stitchwork gave the zombie the ability to self-heal, according to the message phantom stitches would appear and sow minor wounds back together, keeping the zombie from falling apart or becoming unusable after losing a limb. Improved agility and strength really did not need an explanation, the second on intrigued him the most. After tapping it the boxes showed him a growing branch from the normal growing zombie into other options.

Some of the options were blacked out and he couldn't see what they did, the options only gave him question marks when he tapped them. He assumed that meant he had not unlocked said evolution, Z scratched his chin and decided to click on the only evolution available for Clog. He tapped the option Large Zombie and watched with interest as Clogs skin tore itself a part and knitted itself back together as the zombie grew another feet or two, it became broader and the decaying muscles on its body became more defined and its skin and overall appearance had become less rotten. Z smiled as he examined the zombie, it looked a lot more capable than it had before.

Excited he headed over to the puppet zombies only to be disappointed that they had not gained the ability to evolve, he cheered up when he reached Brainz however. He became jittery when he noticed that Brainz had another evolution option unlocked that had not been available for Clog, it must have been because of the boxes defining him as rare. He tapped the box and watched in anticipation for the changes to appear on Clog.

Only to be slightldisappointeded, the zombie became slightly slimmer and its patchwork hair turned an ivory white. He checked the box above its head.

[Brainz (caster zombie) Tier 2 Rare]

He assumed that Brainz now had the ability to cast magic, but he would have to wait untill their next battle to find out. He shrugged to himself and walked back towards the HQ Tombstone. He tapped it and summoned a veritable army of fifty-nine puppet zombies. He smiled to himself as he watched the group of zombies standing around him. He grinned as he already started thinking up the plan for taking over more of the spiders territory. He tapped his chin as he sank deep into thought. Only to have a message appear before him.

[Z (Zombie?) Tier 1 Unique, Evolution available]

Z grinned, this changed everything.