Lucas waited and waited, but Faruk seemed to be caught in a trance. His eyes shone, and he hadn’t moved an inch since his last sentence.

Lucas had no idea what the man was talking about when he said “Then I still have a chance,” but if he had to guess, him being a necromancer and all, the man would ask him to do some overly complicated thing to revive him or something. Which, to be honest, Lucas wasn’t really keen on doing it, mainly because he still had his deal with the tree to look after, but also because he felt that he could really lose himself in those side quests if he wasn’t careful.

Still, he had agreed to talk to him, and he wanted to see what the man had to offer before shooting him down, so he decided to indulge him.

“Ahem. You know, I’m really on the clock here,” Lucas said, breaking the silence.

“Oh, yes, forgive me. You have the ability help me. You being on the Second Chance Program means that I still have a chance. I can be brought back to life and find a way to reconcile with my wife,” the man pleaded.

As Lucas predicted, the necromancer wanted to rise from the dead. It was all very cliché and not at all surprising. What was surprising, however, was the way Faruk talked about the Second Chance Program. It appeared the necromancer had more information about it than he did. Deciding to inquire about that later, Lucas replied dismissively.

“I’m sorry, but I’m kind of busy right now.”

He believed that if he wanted to take something of worth out of the man, he had to haggle a little, so he pretended he wasn’t very interested on the matter and rose from his chair.

“I can offer you something that you want! I will not ask for anything for free. And in return, you just need to do something for me once you’re outside,” the necromancer replied immediately.

“Sorry, buddy, but if you want me to raise you from the dead or something, I have to say I already promised someone else to find a body for them, and that’s already plenty for me to handle,” Lucas said, referring to the ancient tree in the woods. At first, the necromancer seemed dejected, but when he heard him talking about the tree, his eyes lit up. “And besides, I left your bones where I found them. Someone else might have found them by now.”

“A body… do you mean the Silvanox?” he asked, a spark of comprehension crossing his face.

“Yes, that tree. You know it too, right?” Lucas said, remembering the words on the last pages of the journal. “Wait, you shouldn’t know that. That happened just before you died.”

“I know of that place since the first days when I arrived on that new planet.” He said, his eyes filled with memories, but after only a couple of seconds, his demeanor became resolute. “So I died trying to retrieve that orb. I must’ve been really desperate to go to such lengths,” the necromancer said, and he seemed to be lost in thought again. Just when Lucas was about to say something, the necromancer spoke. “That orb that was below the ground, were you able to retrieve it?”

Lucas wondered if he should lie, but considering this was one of the main reasons he agreed to talk with the necromancer, namely the possibility of discovering more about the mysterious orb, there was no point in hiding it. He nodded in reply. The necromancer seemed very surprised by his response.

“Can I see it? Maybe I can help you with it,” he asked eagerly.

Lucas thought about his request for a few seconds. He really wasn’t in the habit of showing his orb to the world. The only person who knew of its existence so far was the librarian; not even Aysha knew.

“Do you really need to see it? Can’t you just tell me what it is?” Lucas tried.

“I never knew what it was; it was buried too deep for any grand analysis. Besides, I died trying to reach that thing, and I at least would like to see if I can find out what it’s meant to be. But you don’t have to worry; even if I wanted to take it for myself, I doubt I could make any use of it here, whatever it is. Once you leave, everything will be reset, and I’ll have no memories of anything that happened. Even the orb might disappear.”

Lucas pondered the necromancer's words. He had no expectations that the necromancer would know exactly what the orb was, but if he could at least point him in the right direction, it could save him years of research. Having decided, Lucas replied, "Not here. We need to go somewhere else."

“There’s a forest nearby, on the other side of the desert. No one goes there. How about it?” the necromancer suggested.

“Maybe… but I have this quest that I need to do, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to meet you afterward. However, if I don’t start doing it now, they might kick me out, you know…” Lucas said, trying to avoid mentioning the challenge. Faruk seemed to understand and nodded.

“I might have a way to make you stay longer,” he said with a smirk.

“How?” Lucas asked, intrigued.

“Take me to the location of your quest; I’ll show you,” the necromancer replied. They left the bar together soon after and mounted the turtle that was waiting for them outside.

On the way, Lucas shared the details of his quest with Faruk, and with the speed the turtle could reach, it didn’t take long for them to arrive at the place where Lucas saw the glowing spot coming from. There was only one problem: there was nothing there. Lucas looked around in the desert but didn’t find anything. However, the glow was still definitely there.

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“It was supposed to be here.” Lucas murmured.

“I sense a few souls underground,” the necromancer said, looking towards the ground.

“Can you do that?”

“That, and a lot more,” he smiled.

Lucas looked down and spotted something that was definitely a trapdoor, covered with a bit of sand. He looked towards Faruk again.

“So, what’s that method you have for me to stay longer?” Lucas asked.

“It’s quite simple. As long as you’re doing something towards completing your quest, the system won’t kick you out. But you don’t need to do everything immediately. The trick is, since you have many enemies, handle them one at a time, with an hour gap between them. By my estimates, that should give you around two days’ time. Of course, after you complete your quest, as long as you don’t deliver them to the king immediately, you should have two more days to spare,” he explained.

“Are you sure about this?” Lucas asked, finding the idea brilliant, but still a little afraid of being kicked out.

“Yes, I’m sure. I have done it myself in the past… inside,” he said, and anticipating Lucas’ question that he wouldn’t be able to hear, he added, “Mine was a dungeon.”

For the first time, Lucas realized something that should’ve been obvious: they were on the necromancer’s planet. With all that medieval theme going on in the city, it was only natural for his challenge to take place in a dungeon instead of a tower. The prison must’ve been a real place, too. It was just a pity that he couldn’t take anything out, or the necromancer could show him some good treasure places around the planet. By the way, can I really explore the whole planet from the tower?

“Tower,” Lucas replied, not sure if the man could hear that, but it seemed like he did.

“Well, as I was saying, I knew I had reached my limit going down, so I decided to run a few tests since I had found something interesting and wanted to stay longer. So you can trust me on this. Unless the rules changed in the last… how much time has passed?”

“A thousand years.”

“Uff… Well, that’s not a lot considering a multiverse scale, and I’ll be the one to lose more if I’m wrong.”

Lucas wasn’t sure if he should trust him, but his logic seemed to make sense. As long as he was killing an enemy every hour, that should mean that he was making progress, even if it was slow. So theoretically, it should work.

“All right, be back in a bit,” Lucas said, opening the trap door and jumping inside. As he expected, the place looked like a dungeon, illuminated only by torches hanging on the walls. He only saw one enemy there, and it was human.

After that catastrophe he experienced near the end of his escape from prison on the first floor, he decided he wouldn’t have mercy on his opponents anymore during his stay in the tower. He knew that was partially the reason why he almost died towards the end. If he had killed his witness when he had the chance, maybe he could have avoided that. There was simply no space for his morals in the challenge, and Lucas knew it. It became even clearer when he received his objective for the second floor. It didn’t beat around the bush; he had to kill or give up.

So when the man came running towards him, he didn’t hesitate. If he could kill the Vodyanoy’s in the Training Center, he should be able to do the same with a human. Weren’t all lives the same, in the end?

When Lucas looked at the sword raised in front of him, he saw some sort of mana covering the full extent of it, but Lucas didn’t wait long enough to figure out what that skill did. Taking advantage of the cover that didn’t let the necromancer see him, he dodged and punched with his blade towards the man’s chest, piercing him easily.

*You have killed Human – lvl 9. Experience earned.*

That was as easy as killing a chicken, but it still felt way harder on his conscience. Rationally he had overcome his previous morals on the subject, but emotionally, he hadn’t. He ignored his feelings for the time being and jumped back up to see a very surprised look on the necromancer’s face.

“That fast?” he asked.

“Yes,” Lucas replied dismissively. “So, where are we going?”

The necromancer was still shocked for a few seconds, but he regained his composure. “Hop on,” He said, mounting on the turtle once again.

“Alright, but you have to tell me where you found that thing. I might want one,” Lucas said, smirking and climbing on the turtle.

“Where have I found it?” the necromancer asked, confused. “They’ve always existed on my home planet. They are just a lot faster now… well, were, I guess.”

Lucas stayed silent hearing that. So that’s how it is… I wonder if there is some sort of giant fast slug out there… a picture of him riding a slug forever stuck in his mind.

“Actually, what happened to the planet I came from, do you know?” the necromancer asked after a while.

“Not really. The tree didn’t even know it had switched planets before I told them,” Lucas replied, and they spent the rest of the ride in silence. They arrived at a forest after a few minutes and left the turtle. Lucas was still a little nervous about taking his orb out, but he was too curious about it not to do it. So he took it out, and the old man observed without touching it, like they had agreed.

“So?” Lucas asked, after a while.

“All I can tell is that this object is heavily related to death magic, but I guess you had already figured that out,” the necromancer sighed, shaking his head.

Lucas nodded, disappointed. Just when he thought he was about to get somewhere with the orb, he was shot down. He kind of expected it, of course, considering the mystery surrounding the thing, but it still sucked to hear.

“So this is it then,” Lucas sighed. “You want me to bring you back from the dead, right? What can you offer me?”

Lucas wasn’t keen on the idea of doing that, but after seeing that the old necromancer knew a thing or two about the system, he thought he might have something that could be worth the trouble. And when he really thought about it, it would really be a shame not to hear his proposal after all that.

“I have changed my mind about that”, he said, catching Lucas by surprise. “I previously thought that the reason we met here—you being on the second chance program and having found my corpse—was so that you could give me a second chance, and I could try to do the same for my wife. But now I believe that was not the case.”

“No?”

“No. I have tried my best in my past life and failed countless times. I know that because I wouldn’t try to acquire that orb if I hadn’t run out of options. I knew the dangers involved,” He said with a stern expression. “But you… not only were you able to get a hold of that orb, but you possess that peculiar aura of death that you’ve shown me earlier, and what’s more, you can kill an enemy of about the same level as you in a matter of seconds. That’s way more than I could dream to accomplish when I was at your level.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m awesome. But I don’t understand how that has anything to do with the subject.”

“I need you to do something for me, and in exchange, I will teach you something that will help a lot in your path as a necromancer,” he said resolutely.

“I think you got things mixed up. I’m not a necromancer, I’m not even a mage. I’m a warrior,” Lucas said, telling a half-truth. He was a warrior after all, his class had warrior in its name, it just wasn’t the warrior most people imagined. Instead of being dejected, the old man’s eyes shone even brighter.

“That’s even better. This way, you will have two ways of fighting against him.”

“Him? What are you talking about?” Lucas asked, confused.

“The man who killed my wife. I need you to kill him for me, and in exchange, I’ll teach you how to build an army of undead,” the necromancer said, with a wicked smile on his face.