Chapter 32: Necromancy Symbols

While I was meditating, I took a brief glance at my new electricity magic. Thanks to all of the electric spells I had been using when I was fighting the golem, I had finally gained this skill.

Electricity MagicSkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: RareSkill Level: 5Exp: 56%Effect: Allows the user to control electricity.

Although I was glad I had gained this skill, the only thing that I regretted was that I wasn’t able to use it to its fullest potential. Since the golem I was fighting was made of earth, my electric attacks weren’t very effective. Therefore I wasn’t able to figure out how deadly my attack truly was. Oh well. I would be able to find out in a few days when I used these attacks against giant rats that I was bound to fight.

Before my mind wandered off elsewhere, I took a look at my mana affinity skill.

Mana Affinity SkillSkill Type: PassiveSkill Rank: UniqueSkill Level: 10Exp: 7%Effects: Any skill using mana cost 10% less. Anything mana related comes easier to you.

The first thing I noticed about my mana affinity skill was the description. For some reason it was missing some information that it had previously. After thinking on it for a little bit, I finally concluded that the  reason for this was because of a skill that I had just gained. From what I could tell, the only reason I had gained this new skill was because my mana affinity had reached level ten. It could’ve been a coincidence, but I doubted it. I believe the boxes that popped up in front of me at the time looked like this.

Due to your understanding of mana, the skill Mana Sense has been gained.

Mana SenseSkill Type: PassiveSkill Rank: UncommonSkill Level: 1Exp: 5%Effects: Allows the user to better sense the mana in their surroundings.

It seemed that this new skill would help me sense the mana in my surroundings even better than I could before. I also noticed that I was able to regain my mana faster while I was meditating thanks to my new skill. Since I knew where most of the mana in the air was, all I had to do was reach out and pull it into my body. It was way easier with this new skill so I was quite pleased with how things had turned out.

After examining my new skill, I thought more on why I had gained it. Since only one of my skills was level ten, I didn’t know for sure if I would gain a skill each time one of my skills reached level ten. Since my earth magic was level nine, I wouldn’t have to wait that long to see if my guess was correct.  Hopefully it was since more skills were always welcomed.

Once all of my mana was restored, I got up and walked over to where Simon was waiting. Now that my mana was restored, I would finally be able to learn about my necromancy symbols. I had been using them to do my rituals but I hadn’t understood what any of them meant. The process was similar to reading a manual in a different language. Sure you would be able to build the thing you were trying to build, but there was bound to be something that you missed. Thanks to Simon, I would be able to find out just what I was missing.

The moment I got close enough to talk to Simon, he began to speak.

“Now that your mana is restored and your mind has had a little bit of time to rest, we are ready to move on to the next lesson. The next lesson we do will involve your necromancy symbols and the rune on your spear. Although we are going to go over them both, I am sure there is one you would like to do first. The question is which one. Do you want to start off with understanding the symbols of necromancy or do you want to try to decipher the darkness rune on your spear?”

To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t a hard decision for me to make. I had wanted to decipher the necromancy symbols for quite a long time. Way longer than I had wanted to understand the rune on my spear. Sure understanding the rune on my spear would be cool, but I was more excited about the prospect of learning what each of the necromancy symbols meant. After a few seconds of thinking, I made my decision.

“The necromancy symbols.”

Nodding his head in confirmation, Simon began to flip through the pages of a book that came out of nowhere. It looked like the book came from his ring, but I didn’t really trust my eyes. After all, there was no way that book could’ve been inside that ring unless it was connected to an alternate dimension or something, which was highly unlikely.

As his eyes scanned the pages, I peered at the book that was in his hands. For some reason it seemed awfully familiar and I wanted to know why…..Wait. Was that my necromancy journal? How the hell had he managed to get that book? I couldn’t even remember where I lost it yet he somehow had it. My face scrunched up in confusion as I stared at Simon. I had so many questions to ask that I didn’t know where to start.

“Hmm. I guess you’re wondering where I got this book huh.”

Was it really that obvious? I gave him the most blandest look I could as I waited for him to answer my unspoken question.

“Well the answer should be obvious, I got it from you. I found it when I was saving you from that rat.”

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I didn’t think the answer was that obvious since I didn’t know it. From what he told me, it seemed that the journal had been in my possession and I had just forgotten about it. Well at least I had it back now. Kind of. Simon was still reading the book so I would probably have to wait for him to finish before I could have it back. Normally I would be irritated that he was looking through my stuff without permission, but I let it go since he had healed me and he was currently training me.

After waiting fifteen painstakingly long minutes, Simon was finally done reading. Closing the book with an elegant snap, Simon began to pour his mana into the ground. What was he trying to do?

The answer became quite apparent as the ground beneath us began to smooth out into a flat unblemished floor. Once Simon was finished, he began to carve all of the necromancy symbols that were in my book into the ground. I also noticed that there were some other symbols etched into the ground that I had never seen before. Hopefully he would elaborate on what each of them meant since I was getting a headache from just looking at all the symbols.

The moment he finished drawing the symbols, Simon began to explain what each of them meant. Some of the symbols were meant for stability while others helped the reanimating process. After showing me five or so symbols, he would occasionally give me a pop quiz to make sure I was remembering what he was teaching. If I missed one of his questions, he would make me take the quiz again until I finally got it. After several failed quizzes, I did manage to succeed. Although this success didn’t help my throbbing head.

I was thankful that Simon was here teaching me since he answered most of the questions I asked for him. I learned quite a few things. Some were interesting while others not so much. One thing I thought was interesting was that the design of the symbols weren’t random. They were actually important. If I tried using a different symbol than the one I was supposed to, the ritual I was trying to do would fail.

 I also learned that these symbols were part of an ancient alphabet that few people knew about. I guess I lucked out with finding Simon in these sewers. I also wondered just how old Simon was. Seeing as how he knew an ancient alphabet, he must be older than I thought he was previously. Hmm. An interesting thought to think about, but I would have to do it later since I had other things to do.

Time passed by quickly as I tried drawing the skills from memory. I couldn’t just draw the vague shape of the symbols because it would cause my reanimation to become weaker than it should before. The little lines that I hardly even noticed needed to be there. And if I forgot to add a single tiny line, I was forced to draw the symbol all over again. I knew what Simon was trying to do, but it still irritated me. Who knew he was such a hard taskmaster?

I was forced to take periodic breaks in between since my mind could only take so much. It was while I was doing this that I learned just what I had been eating while I was injured.

Rats.

It wasn’t that surprising since there wasn’t any other meat in these sewers, but it was still jolting. Were the rats even safe to eat? Shouldn’t they carry some type of diseases or something? Although I didn’t know if the rats carried any diseases, I would still be eating them. I didn’t have a choice. Plants weren’t enough to satisfy me with all of the work I was putting my body through. I needed something with a little more oomph and meat did just that.

Once the symbols were memorized, Simon helped me understand how the whole necromancy ritual worked. Just putting the symbols on the ground wouldn’t make the ritual work. The way they were positioned factored into the ritual also. The more Simon talked, the more I grimaced. Man, I had been doing the ritual wrong the whole time. I was luck it hadn’t blown up in my face.

Simon told me many things like not to make the symbols overlap each other. If I overlapped the wrong symbols I might accidently trap my soul into the corpse. I made sure to listen as he told me what not to do since I didn’t fancy living in the body of the dead rat.

After another hour passed by I finally felt confident enough to draw any necromancy symbol by memory. I also knew what they meant so I was beginning to understand just how the necromancy ritual worked. Once were done looking at the symbols, we moved on to the chants.

Unlike the symbols, the chants were actually pretty easy to work with. Most of them were essentially the symbols in word form. Half of the chants I didn’t even need! After a long conversation with Simon, I managed to shorten the chants I needed to say quite a bit. Although I was currently able to recite the chant from memory now, I would probably need to repeat it every day in order for it to stick.

As I was doing all of this, Viola was doing her own thing to the side. It seemed that she was trying to invent new moves that would help her in battle. At first I assumed she would only be creating wind spells, but that assumption turned out to be incorrect. From the way it looked, she was doing something completely different. I needed to remember to ask her what she was doing when I finished my necromancy training.

Once Simon was done teaching me about necromancy, I took a glance at my necromancy level. All of this knowledge that I had gained was bound to be helpful towards my skill level. I could barely wait to reanimate a corpse once I was done training.

NecromancySkill Type: ActiveSkill Rank: RareSkill Level: 9Exp: 6%Effect: Allows the user to reanimate dead corpses. The stronger the skill, the stronger the corpse. Certain rituals will change the corpse’s characteristics.

Once I reviewed my necromancy skill, I waited for Simon to speak. It was time to learn about the darkness rune on my spear.

AN: Sorry for the delay. I just wasn't feeling this chapter for some reason.