Skull Daze 2_Undeath

[ Skill Gained: Terror 1 ]

I felt something pop into my mind but I couldn’t focus enough to release what it was, and honestly I couldn’t bring myself to care. I was going insane, no, I was insane. I was beyond hope, beyond salvation, and beyond reason. I wanted nothing more than to have everything go back to when I was sane and happy and hopeful. Even those first few days as a skull would be fine, I still had hope back then after all. I would give everything to go back, I just couldn’t handle this. It was too much for me, and I could feel my mind breaking.

[ Skill Gained: Despair 1 ]

Again a flash through my mind, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Everything was over, all that was left was the noise. The noise I could count on. The noise would keep me safe. I could wrap what’s left of my broken mind up in a protective layer of noise and then my mind wouldn’t break anymore, it’d be safe and I could protect it. I just needed to keep up the noise. So I kept screaming, it was the best I could do and the loudest noise I could make. Luckily I didn’t have any lungs to limit me, so I could scream forever. I could keep up my protective noise layer forever. My mind would be safe forever.

[ Skill Gained: Madness 1 ]

I could faintly hear something outside of my own noise, that wasn’t good. If that other noise beat my own then who knew what would happen to my poor tattered mind. That other noise was trying to make me crazier than I was now, and that was just unacceptable. I needed to be louder, my noise had to cancel out the other noise. I screamed louder.

[ Skill Gained: Panic 1 ]

The noise I was making was louder than the other noise, my mind was safe. I was safe. Just needed to keep up the noise and everything would be alright…

[ Racial Class Gained: Undead ]

[ Skill Gained: Mental Bastion 1 ]

[ Class: Undead Level Up ]

[ Skill Gained: Life Detection 1 ]

[ Skill Fusion: Ghastly Wail 1 / Lesser Fear 1 / Terror 1 / Despair 1 / Madness 1 / Panic 1 ]

[ Unique Skill Gained: NegaVoice 1]

I felt my head begin to ache, and that biting pain brought me back to my senses. I had lost myself for a while there, in fact I was totally out of it. I lost time, I had no idea how long I had been… well… screaming to myself. It was embarrassing to even think about what I had been doing, I mean really what could I have possibly been thinking? Screaming will keep me sane? Yeah, that’s the logic of a sane person alright.

I was honestly really glad that no one was here to see my little mental breakdown, well no one but Teddy. Teddy wouldn’t tell anyone, I was sure of it. Advantages of having an imaginary friend, they can reliably keep your secrets.

Still my head ache reminded me of that time all that information was dumped into my head, so focusing on what I was thinking of as my stat screen I checked to see if anything new had popped up. I wasn’t disappointed.

[ Species: Undead ]

[ Race: Skull ]

[ Name: Nox ]

[ Class: Undead LV 2 ]

[ Status: Agility- 0 / Defense- 3 / Intelligence- 8 / Resistance- 3 / Soul- 50 / Strength- 0 / Wisdom- 8 ]

[ Traits: Undeath / Grim Bloodline / Old Soul / Darkness Affinity / Unholy Affinity / Lesser Physical Damage Reduction / Unholy Immunity / Mind Immunity / Negative Energy Healing ]

[ Weaknesses: Lesser Fire bane / Light Bane / Greater holy Bane ]

[ Skills: Lesser Negative Aura 1 / NegaVoice 1 / Lesser Spirit Search 1 / Mental Bastion 1 / Life Detection 1 ]

[ Divinity: Curse of Tongues (Loki) / Blessing of Soul (Earth) ]

I had gained a class, somehow. It also looked like my stat points from the two levels I had gained in that class had automatically been placed in certain stats. What shocked me the most was that each level up had given me five stat points, in Heroic age you would only get one stat point per level up if that so five stat points a level was a bit ridiculous. Still this ‘Undead’ class was one I had never heard of before so I was a bit weary of it. How it leveled up, what perks it gave, how it meshed with other classes, everything about this class was an unknown. I did not like unknown’s popping up when I least expect them, even when they seem benevolent.

Still five stat points a level, that was nothing to scoff at. That meant when I maxed out the class it would end up giving me a total of fifty stat points to work with. Even if were those stat points were assigned was predetermined, that was still five times what I would otherwise normally gain. If the class could be upgraded too, then well it would be utterly broken as a class.

The novice classes usually only gave two or three stat points for all ten of their levels, every other level would usually give you a point at the adept level, and at the master level every new level got you a new skill point or two if it was a high tier class, if there was a grandmaster level to the class then that usually meant two or three points a level. Five points a level at the first rank of the class was just plain overpowered. Not that I’d complain, I need overpowered cheat classes right now like a fish needs water. Without them I’d surely die.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Then there were the skills. I’d never heard of NegaVoice, but detect life and mental bastion were common skills that most if not all undead had. Mental bastion prevented the natural degradation of an undead’s mind, a useful skill when undead had an unlimited natural lifespan and were prone to madness, and was likely what helped me regain my senses. Then there was detect life which let undead sense the presence of the living, the skill was a good counter to stealth skills when I played Heroic Age and I had a feeling that it would be supper useful in my new life.

I felt a bit calmer now, but then I noticed the soul stat and almost had a fit. I had thought that the stat was five, but I had missed a zero. I had fifty soul, that was just about unheard of. Even my old character in Heroic Age only had thirty six soul, and that was with soul being an important stat for summoners that I had invested heavily in. If I had a throat I would have nervously swallowed, as it was I was trying to hold in a burst of insane evil laughter that wanted to erupt from me. Fifty soul, that was enough to not just cow an archdemon but to tame and enslave it outright. It might even be enough to handle one of the sin rulers. As a warlock I’d be unstoppable, and as a necromancer…

I imagined armies of undead numbering in the thousands.

“Oh yeah, this is more what I was expecting for a transmigrated reincarnator. Overpowered and cheat like.”

Still, all the soul in the world wouldn’t help me if I didn’t have the classes, spells, and intelligence to actually use it. Until then it just served as a good mental defense stat which was utterly redundant to me as an undead being.

“I really need to get the mana sense and mana manipulation skills soon…”

Once I had those two skills I could start working towards obtaining the warlock and necromancer classes. And I guess with my weird undead class I didn’t have to worry about picking a third class for my class trinity. I just hoped that the undead class complemented the other two, I thought it might given the way it distributed that ridiculous number of stat points and how plenty of undead casters were also necromancers… Still you could never be sure.

“Alright, so I need to figure out how I leveled up while I was insane and just do that while I’m not insane, simple.”

Skulls could evolve at common level three so I only had one more level to go. One more level and I’d be able to move under my own power. I honestly never thought that there would be a day that I would be longing to be a simple skeleton, but here I am. I was tired of the skull life, the skull life sucked monkey ####. I was ready to be a skeleton, more than ready really. Funny since my original plan had me skipping the skeleton phase altogether with a level three caster class so I could directly become a skeleton mage, but then again life never seems to go to plan for me. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother to plan anything out anymore, all it seems to do is encourage fate to find ways to have the plan blow up in my face…

So, all I have to do is figure out how I leveled up by screaming. Huh, maybe I’m a DBZ character? No, there’s no way someone can power up just because they scream really loud right? There has to be some other circumstance that popped up that I unwittingly triggered while I was insane, or maybe it was just the act of going crazy itself that did it. That said, just from a purely scientific perspective it would be irresponsible of me to not even attempt the method that has been proposed…

“Ok, DBZ power up screaming attempt number one. Go. RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

So screaming was a flop. I knew it would be, but somehow it was a little disappointing. Oh well, can’t use anime logic in the real world. Although apparently this real world functions on video game logic, so maybe anime logic not working out should be more of a surprise. Maybe I need to go on a journey, build up a group of close friends that are like family to me, then have those friends get endangered so I can get a massive power boost. No, nevermind, too much work for too little return…

Regardless screaming was useless, which of course meant I had no clue as to how I managed to level up. It would be great if there was a guide or something to tell me how all this stuff worked, at this point I’d even settle for vague hints from on high about how to advance. Of course I didn’t have that, all I had were my memories of Heroic Age and some common sense stuff. Killing things gets you EXP, get enough EXP and you eventually level up. There might be hidden requirements or prerequisites, but a big part of things is just killing enough until you get the level up prompt.

I didn’t have an experience bar, but I’m just going to assume that in this world leveling up functioned the same as the game. If that wasn’t the case then I was probably screwed regardless of what I did.

Actually that was the same with a lot of what I was thinking about this world, I was assuming that lots of stuff was the same as or similar to how things were in the game because the other option was that I was doomed. Ignorance, sometimes it was bliss and other times it was just straight up frustrating. Still my ignorance was what allowed me to hope, and at this point hope was really all I had to my name.

On the bright side I had plenty of time, an abundance of time really. All of eternity so long as nothing destroys me. Even better was that the mental bastion skill would keep me from going crazy from all that time and loneliness, at least it probably would. It should be a help at least. I really hoped that the skill would help keep me sane, I hated the idea of losing myself like I had before once again. I hated the idea of being out of control of myself more than I hated the idea of Tess hooking up with some other guy, and that was enough hate alone to start all sorts of wars.

So I had all the time in the world to try and level up, what I don’t have is anything to hunt or farm EXP off of. That left me with trying to guess what the random special actions and requisites were to level up the class in the passive way, sadly I had never been good at passively leveling. Things would be so much easier if I could just massacre my way to a higher level, or at least had a class that I understood how to passively level like warlock or dark sage. Then again I wouldn’t be able to passively level either of those classes stuck in this hallway anyway, there was nothing to read so no research can be done and I can’t collect souls or make deals while I’m all alone.

Ah, nothing like being unable to level up when you’re right on the cusp of an evolution.

In the end there was nothing I could do right now to level up right now, but that didn’t mean that there was nothing I could do. There was an often overlooked priest and monk skill that Tess told me about that could help grow your wisdom stat by a couple points and increase your mana pool’s size, focused meditation. Now Tess hadn’t told me how to gain that skill, or if she did I hadn’t paid attention to her which I was now sincerely regretting, but since the skill was called focused meditation I had a few guesses on how to pick it up.

Closing my eyes, or since I didn’t really have eyes I guess I just blinked off my sight but I liked to think of it as simply closing my eyes so that’s what I’m going to call it, I turned my focus inward.