Maria’s army had been traveling for around two hours already and, according to the compass on her mini-map, they were heading westwards. To normal people, the journey was rather dull but Maria was excited throughout the march. Her skeletons were growing at a rapid pace and her second evolved skeleton had appeared so, of course, she was excited.
If it wasn’t because of her shadow army and the fact that she was far ahead of the enemy monsters in terms of overall stats, her skeletons wouldn’t be able to level up so fast and experience their first evolution so easily. It was like she was carrying a newbie Necromancer and power-leveling them through a high-leveled area, except that the newbie Necromancer was herself. For her second skeleton’s evolution, it could be said that Maria was once again fortunate.
Her luck wasn’t as godly as it was when the Skeleton King option had appeared, but she was still pretty lucky since the Death Knight option had appeared again and she immediately evolved her Skeleton Soldier into a Death Knight.
Unlike Morte, this Death Knight wasn’t a unique monster, so she couldn’t give it a name. It just remained as a Death Knight, but just like Morte, the Death Knight had evolved from a Skeleton Soldier that was again a VIT-STR hybrid and it wasn’t a surprise that these types of Maria’s skellies were the first to evolve because they had more survivability compared to their counterparts and were constantly at the frontlines so they were able to deal finishing blows and gain more EXP than the rest.
Maria had learned her lesson and remembered to use the promotion option of her undead just before it hit level 50, so it had its stats promoted just once, but upon seeing the Death Knight’s stats, she couldn’t help but notice that it was very lacking compared to her Morte’s stats even though they had the same stat build as him.
Name: Death Knight - Maria’s Undead Familiar Level: 50
HP: 45,000/45,000
MP: 250/250
SP: 1,500/1,500
EXP: 0/50,000
STR: 400
AGI: 175
VIT: 900
INT: 25
Skills: [Death Strike Lv. 1], [Undead Charge Lv.1] Promotion: N/A Evolution: Level 150
When Maria made a comparison of the Death Knight’s stats to Skeleton King Morte’s stats when it was at level 50, she noticed that Morte had an overwhelming 865 stat points lead compared to the former. This was a very significant difference because, unlike Morte, the Death Knight had undergone 4 promotions at every 10 levels that boosted its stats when it was previously a Skeleton Soldier.
If she hadn’t done this, Maria estimated that Morte might’ve been 1000 stat points ahead of the Death Knight, or even more for that matter. Another difference was that Morte had 2 more skills than the Death Knight, one of them being an Ultimate Skill to boot.
Skill Name: Death Strike Level: 1 Rank: B Description: The Death Knight imbues its weapon with dark energy and performs a sweeping attack, damaging all enemies within its weapon range for (STR*2.0) DMG and knocking them back Cooldown: 10 seconds Cost: (INT*1.0) MP
Skill Name: Undead Charge Level: 1 Rank: A Description: The Death Knight commands its steed along with any mounted undead ally that’s within 10 meters of it to charge at an enemy target. The charge deals ((STR+AGI)*10) DMG per undead ally that joined the charge Cooldown: 30 seconds Cost: (INT*5.0) MP
The skills were pretty good but they were heavily focused on the stats that weren’t too relevant for the Death Knight. The Death Knight was mainly a VIT-focused undead and yet its skills scales on STR and AGI, which wasn’t too ideal and the mana cost was pretty high because of it's abysmally low INT stat.
The first skill practically costs 10 percent of its total mana, while the second skill costs 50 percent. The skills were still at level one though, so Maria hoped that as it leveled up, it would get stronger and hopefully have its mana cost reduced.
Now that she saw this comparison, Maria had a broad smile on her face as her gamble had really paid off with her Skeleton King. She had obtained this unique undead familiar that was likely a last evolution type of unit, but for all she knew, it was something that wouldn’t appear again for any of her undead.
"Hmmm...I tried doing the same development route as I did with Morte on one of the skellies, but the Skeleton King option didn't appear again. I guess it's a unique evolution path that only one of my undead can traverse? Oh well, at least I didn't miss it! 1 is enough anyway! If I had an entire army of Skeleton Kings, I'd probably break the balance of the game!"
Imagining herself with an army of Skeleton Kings who each had an army on their own was mindboggling. Maria had a stupid smile on her face when she pictured herself standing at the forefront of such a large army. She could only imagine how sickening it would be if other players or NPCs were to fight her when she had such a massive force backing her up.
"Hehehe, that would be really cool~"
Maria continued to explore the area she was in with her minions after snapping out of her daydream. Just watching her undead grow was very satisfying and throughout the journey, Maria was like a mother who was happily watching her children grow. It was extremely gratifying to her when she saw her evolved undead wreak havoc on the battlefield after their first significant upgrade.
The only unfortunate part was that Maria would have to provide equipment for her undead, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t afford it. She had plenty of random equipment that she obtained through monster drops lying around in her [Dimensional Vault].
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She just randomly chose the most fitting equipment to give to her undead and they were able to start actively participating in the battles without needing the shadow puppets to be there as meat shields, as the stat increase from the equipment was quite significant.
Morte benefited the most as it was now at level 68 from always being on the frontlines and landing multiple final blows on the monsters and gaining bonus EXP for dealing the killing blows. Maria’s Death Knight also began participating in the slaughter and her next Skeleton Soldier finally reached level 50 not too long after the previous one. This Skeleton Soldier was a STR-focused one, so there were new options that appeared for its evolution.
Unfortunately, her luck was rather mediocre this time around and there were only normal options available. She could only choose to evolve it into an Elite Skeleton Soldier or a Skeleton Warrior. The options really were mediocre but Maria didn’t pay too much mind to this particular Skeleton Soldier because she was conducting an experiment with it. She had booted one of her familiars to Morte's Undead Legion and raised a fresh one to test something out.
Since it started at level 1, Maria used the promotion option for every 10 levels it gained until it reached level 50, so for a Skeleton Soldier, it had pretty decent stats. Unfortunately, the evolution options it obtained at level 50 were really bad. It was too bad that she couldn’t see how many stats it would obtain upon evolution, but just from the names, she could tell that the evolution options weren’t anything special and she was right about that.
When Maria evolved the Skeleton Soldier into a Skeleton Warrior, the stat increase was really low and the skills it obtained were beyond mediocre. They were so plain that Maria was nearly blinded by how bad it was. She had gotten so used to seeing amazing stuff that upon witnessing this extreme mediocrity for the first time in the game, she actually felt disgusted. She immediately released the summon and had it join Morte’s [Undead Legion] while she raised a new Skeleton Soldier as its replacement.
The Skeleton Warrior she raised was still a level 50 undead unit and it had undergone an evolution. None of the undead in Morte’s legion could undergo evolution, so having the evolved undead in its ranks would bolster its power to some degree. Maria still wasn’t done with her experiment as she had one more thing that she needed to confirm.
“I’ll be able to confirm my theory once my next Skeleton Soldier reaches level 50.”
The experiment that Maria was conducting had to do with whether or not the promotion option had any impact on the choices of the evolution option upon the undead familiar reaching level 50. It wasn’t until another half-hour later did her next Skeleton Soldier reach level 50 and, just like Morte, it hadn’t undergone any promotions from level 1 to level 50. This Skeleton Soldier was an INT-focused one, so when the options appeared for its evolution, it revolved around mage-type undead.
“It looks like I was right!”
When Maria looked at the evolution options, she saw that there were 4 of them, one less than the Skeleton Soldier that had become Morte, but they were amazing.
Please select one of the following options!
Skeleton Mage
Zombie Mage
Necromancer
Lich
Caution: You can only select one! Please choose wisely as these options may not be available in the future!
Without any hesitation, Maria quickly chose the last option. She knew that liches were powerful undead mages and when she saw that option, her body shook with excitement because another one of her gambles had paid off.
“My theory was right! Not promoting your undead will give you better evolution options!”
Name: Lich - Maria’s Undead Familiar Level: 50
HP: 20,000/20,000
MP: 50,000/50,000
SP: 1,700/1,700
EXP: 0/50,000
STR: 100
AGI: 200
VIT: 400
INT: 1000
Skills: [Frost Nova Lv. 1], [Corpse Explosion Lv. 1]
Promotion: N/A
Evolution: Lv. 150
Skill Name: Frost Nova Level: 1 Description: Marks a target with dark energy before causing an explosion of ice on its body that deals (INT*2.0) M.DMG onto the target and inflicting the [Slow] debuff for 5 seconds Cooldown: 10 seconds Cost: (INT*1.0) MP
Skill Name: Corpse Explosion Level: 1 Description: Marks a corpse with dark energy before causing it to explode, dealing (INT*5.0) M.DMG onto any enemies within a 5-meter radius of the corpse. Enemies hit will suffer from the [Plague] debuff for 12 seconds Cooldown: 20 seconds Cost: (INT*2.5) MP
From what Maria saw, the Lich seemed to be much better than the Death Knight, but it was common knowledge that Liches in Unitale were boss monsters that did have a few Death Knights under their command, so this wasn’t a surprise.
With her theory confirmed, Maria continued to level up her undead familiars without ever selecting the promotion option, since it seemed that foregoing the promotion for a better evolution choice was better for her in the long run, since she had a limited number of evolvable undead. They naturally needed to be the best and Maria wouldn’t settle for mediocrity. No other Necromancer had this kind of option available for them, even after they tried to raise new undead, because Maria had something that no other Necromancer player had and that was the Necronomicon.
The Necronomicon was the legendary book of the dead and it had the hidden option of enhancing the evolution options for a Necromancer’s undead familiars. The legendary book was actually common knowledge among the Necromancer community and many players and NPCs were dying to obtain the item.
However, no Necromancer in history was ever confirmed to have possessed the legendary book, so most players and NPCs believed that the Necronomicon was either a myth created from fabricated hearsay or that it was real but was merely unobtainable.
If they all knew that the book was actually in the hands of a girl who wasn’t even a Necromancer but was using the item’s effects to its fullest by building her own overpowered army of undead, the Necromancer community would grow green with envy and red with hate.
The person in question, however, had absolutely no idea that her theory about the undead’s evolution options was only made possible because of the legendary necromantic item in her hand that she would sometimes wield as a flail to beat her enemies with if they got within melee range of her when she was operating as a mage. The Necromancers would cry and beat their chests in fury if they ever saw how Maria handled the sacred book of the dead that was practically like the bible to them.
Maria also didn’t know that at any given time, she could become the target for many Necromancer players and NPCs in Unitale if information about the item being in her possession was to be leaked to the public.
She had streamed a few times already and showed herself using her Sekhem Scepter and her Necronomicon, but no one paid too much attention to it, since Maria was known for wielding a diverse arsenal of weapons.
Her skills with the weapons were the focus-point and not the weapons themselves, so they were generally overlooked, so for now, Maria was safe, but if she showed off her powerful undead army to her viewers the next time she streamed after she cleared her Class Advancement Quest, the players tuning in that were Necromancers or information brokers might be able to put two and two together and deduce that she likely possessed an extremely important item that could enhance her ability to summon undead.
If they looked deeper into it, the Necromancers would eventually be able to confirm that the Necronomicon was indeed in her hands and things would become...interesting. Not dangerous, but certainly interesting.