Book 1, Chapter 7: A Second Encounter

Alen’s mana slowly reached into the corpse of the freshly slaughtered chicken. It was no ordinary chicken, as the animals on this world had a talent for being born in all kinds of fucked shapes and sizes. This chicken alone was nearly three feet tall, with feathers the color of the sky during a setting sun. It had four legs, and the most peculiar of its features were the teeth that lined its beak. Alen honestly didn’t know why it had teeth. Kind of defeated the purpose of having a beak in the first place. It didn’t matter to him though. What mattered was that the creature had teeth.

A week had passed since Alen started hunting in the forest. He left the barracks just the day before, and was now staying in a cheap-looking inn. He could afford to spend more, but his earnings from commissions have mostly been used for…

He glanced at the small pile of four-legged chicken corpses slumped together over a cloth near his bedside. He’d have the nearby butcher slaughter them and drain the blood before running back to his room with a dead chicken. He’d received some weird looks from the other patrons, but he decided to preserve his little smidgen of self-image remaining by ignoring the glances thrown his way. Alen shook his head and looked back at the corpse. He was adjusting his mana program little by little as it operated inside the chicken’s corpse, something he’d learned to do a few days ago in order to increase his efficiency when it came to experimenting.

Inside the chicken, his mana tugged and enveloped little strings of multicolored light invisible to the naked eye. The lights were slowly dragged into a tooth, the dominant colors being orange, blue, and a bit of purple. The rest of the light that he refused to touch flowed out of the chicken, surrounding a small white orb as it left the corpse and disappeared into the air.

After making sure the lights were gathered inside the one of the chicken’s teeth, Alen exhaled a breath and relaxed his shoulders. Slowly, he picked up a wrench beside him and yanked out the tooth from the chicken’s beak.

Then, with a finger, he injected the prototype mana program he’d been refining over the last few days into the tooth. His mana surged into the purple lights inside the tooth, and forced it to spread outwards at a rapid rate. Suddenly, the tooth’s surface began to bubble as if it was boiling water in a cauldron. Not even a moment later, large segments of the same material that made up teeth began to jut out in all directions, making the tooth unrecognizable from before.

Alen dropped the mass of tooth-matter on the ground and stared at it intently, glancing nervously at the other pile of deformed chicken teeth in his room. The mass of white grew explosively, disgusting shlicks and clacks reverberating throughout the small room as in front of him, a bone chicken slowly formed.

It laid still on the ground, and Alen was about to start screaming about another failure when a thread of black-green mana formed between him and the skeletal chicken.

He let out an actual gasp and formed a simple command, transmitting it through the thread of mana with care. When it reached his new minion, it seeped into the amalgamation of multicolored lights in the chicken’s skull. Then, the skeletal chicken stood up on four legs.

“Yes! Fuck yes!” Alen cheered, kicking the pile of deformed teeth nearby and scattering it all over the floor with a massive grin on his face. His spell worked! He grinned widely as a blue screen formed in front of him.

System Message!

Congratulations! You have created the spell Summon Skeletal Minion! Due to the unique nature of the skill, it is considered a grade above ‘Lesser’. Skill Trees are available for this spell. Improve this spell further to unlock them.

With a satisfied sigh, Alen laid down on his bed grinning all the way. He’d been trying to get this spell to work for days now. First, he tried moving the pieces of consciousness to one of his raised skeleton’s teeth, to see if he could turn it back into a skeleton again, but he realized he couldn’t exactly do that as he had no idea how skeletal anatomy worked. He was stuck in that slump for two days, and just spent that time learning how to have his mana manipulate those strands of consciousness inside his undead with more efficiency.

Then, a few days ago, he found a freshly deceased bird near the boundary of the dead forest, and decided to examine it with his mana on a whim. He could still remember his surprise when instead of just two differently colored strands of light like the ones inside his undead, he found a whole spectrum instead.

He spent the whole day keeping those strands inside the bird with his mana, examining them one by one. Some made him feel the sensation of flying, some made his taste buds remember the taste of numerous insects, and one even made him feel like seducing a female bird for a short few moments. Finally, he found a strand related to the unconscious part of the body that dictated how bones were repaired and reconstructed, and with it, the correct skeletal anatomy of the creature he was trying to raise. To him, it was a fun and equally terrifying experience. Eventually, he found the white ball of light inside the small bird’s corpse.

When his mana touched it, he felt… something. He heard chirping in his ears. He felt, saw, tasted, and experienced everything he’d examined before all at once. Only after the experience ended did Alen realize that the small white ball was something like the bird’s life; the bird’s soul. Or at least the manifestation of it.

Seeing that his skeletons didn’t even need it, he left it alone. Even this little bird deserved to pass on, however the hell that worked in this fucked up place.

Reveling in his newfound discovery, he watched, or rather, felt with his mana as the colors faded into the air, the faint sound of chirping still present in his ears.

With this knowledge, he met the local butcher and had him kill a chicken for him. After the blood was drained, Alen would rush to his room to experiment with the spell. That, along with the commissions he completed over the week, resulted in a stockpile of chicken corpses in his room. Alen had found a way to fix that problem though.

He left the inn after stuffing the corpses in a sack he’d prepared beforehand and headed to the center of the city. Then, he paused, paling. He’d forgotten about the skeleton chicken in the inn. He checked the mana string and found that it wasn’t present. In a panic, he ran back to the inn, only to find his chicken standing still, staring at him. Alen frowned and checked the string. It was back.

“No fucking way,” He said, slowly walking out of the inn. When he passed thirty meters, his Control Undead’s distance limit, he checked, and sure enough, the string was present.

He walked farther, and only after passing a little bit over a hundred meters did the string disappear. When he walked back into that range, it would come back, allowing him to send orders over to his undead in the inn.

Alen sat beside a fountain in the center of the city, a sack full of large dead four-legged chickens beside him. He was somewhat stunned at the spell he’d created. He didn’t have a distance limit for skeleton minions he created. He looked back at the direction of the inn. “Holy fuck,” He said, laughter in his voice.

After bathing in the glow of his new spell for a while, Alen stood up, carrying the sack with him to a small store.

There, he spotted a man in his fifties. He greeted him. “Hey Gren.”

The man nodded and smiled lightly, taking the sack from him. “Good morning. As always?”

“Spicy, as always,” Alen said, remembering the amazing meat this man could make. He’d preserve the chicken meat, put on some spices, and not only was Alen able to cover his food supply, he also didn’t have to worry about it going bad. He’d only been eating chicken jerky for the last few days, as the chickens took up most of his expenses, but he didn’t regret it. This man’s meat was legendary.

With a gesture, Alen said goodbye after paying. Gren usually took a few days to process a whole sack, and Alen had enough containers full of the jerky in his bag.

He didn’t bother to return to the inn. His chicken wouldn’t cause any trouble, and he still had to finish a commission he picked up, a different brand of the usual subjugation ones. This one demanded he clear a section of the forest of undead so that workers could come in and harvest lumber from the trees with commissioner escorts. So far, he’d killed a good amount of skeletons, enough that he barely saw any in that part of the woods, and set up (buried) his minions in various parts of the forest so he could go on a patrol and cast Control Undead on them one by one without worrying about mana expenditures.

Thanks to his heightened control stat, he was able to take charge of up to nineteen skeletons at a time, which greatly sped up his hunting. From what he felt, he wasn’t too far from the next mana threshold, which was understandable considering he’d killed way over a hundred skeletons over the past week. It seemed that the more he absorbed mana from the skeletons, the less it gave, but for now, he wouldn’t have to worry. He was planning on leaving this city as soon as he had the means and finances to travel to the nearest town anyways. The Com-House sold information as well, and with a few coppers, he was able to get a map of the area. The closest city was about a hundred-forty kilometers to the west, with a few stops and villages along the way.

It was a bit of an intimidating journey, but he’d make sure he was prepared before he left the city. The sooner he could meet up with his friends, the sooner he could find the feeling of stability he’d lacked in his time here.

Alen entered the forest, the feeling of dread he’d associated with the place slowly fading as he got the hang of hunting undead. Well, just skeletons and zombies, as he tried his best to avoid the areas where ghoulbears and apparently stronger undead were located, but he was comfortable where he was at regardless of that. He didn’t see a need to force himself to fight that bear again, at least not in his current state. Just remembering the way one of those bears destroyed his undead last time made him shudder.

He’d undoubtedly do better in the future though, as with his new spell, his skeletons would be made of dentin and enamel, with the parts of the bones previously occupied by marrow and empty spaces would be filled in by the same material that made up teeth—material much more resilient than normal bone. Alen wouldn’t be surprised if a skeleton made from his new spell could take on two zombies at once without any difficulty, with how tough it would become.

How would he be able to make a skeleton with this spell though? He still needed the purple strands of light that contained information regarding the creature’s anatomy, which was vital to his spell.

Alen frowned as he spotted three of his buried skeletons and casted Control Undead on them, getting them out of the ground with a bit of digging. There was no way he’d murder someone just to make one of these skeletons. It would be better to stick with animals. There were a lot of powerful creatures in this world anyways. To him, murder wasn’t something he wanted to do, nor take lightly.

His undead moved forward, towards the next group of buried skeletons in the distance.

Eventually, he managed to gather ten of his skeletons after an hour of patrolling around the forest. In that time, he managed to kill three skeletons, all of which were stragglers left over from the groups he’d exterminated over the last few days. He went deeper into the forest, where zombies usually started to show up. Alen didn’t find any though. He exterminated them first and made sure to vent his anger towards the rotting sacks of shit as much as he could a few days ago. If he hadn’t gotten over that first battle he had, he’d be a sack of shit dead in that little crevice right now.

Alen gritted his teeth and moved forward. He refused to let himself pussy out like that again.

Eilynn stalked through the woods, trailing behind her party as she leaped from one tree’s branches to another. Below her, walking tensely through the forest, was a young man in a magician’s robe—Sen, their fire mage and most reliable source of damage against undead. In front of him stood Roland, an orange-haired human warrior covered in a mixture of leather and iron plate armor. She’d met the two after they’d assembled for the first training program a few days ago.

Most of the recruits were human as expected, as this part of the continent was their territory. A snow elf like her was a rarity around these parts, but it was a pleasant surprise to see that no one was too surprised by her uncommon snow-white hair. It truly was different in large cities like the Undead Bulwark.

These two were put together in a group with her, and they’d been doing the same thing for two days now; splitting up from the rest in three-man groups, and eliminating as many undead as possible. It was a tedious task, but the results did not lie. She’d passed her third mana threshold just a day ago, and she wouldn’t be surprised if she passed her fifth—maybe even her sixth, by the time the training regime was over. She jumped once again, pausing at a branch and staring ahead in confusion.

Just a few meters away, the heads of two skeletons poked out from the ground.

They were fairly deep into the forest, a place where skeletons would usually stop appearing. This territory usually housed zombies, which were their targets for today. She knocked an arrow as Roland approached the skeletons, but relaxed as he crushed its skull without experiencing any kind of resistance. She sighed as the disgusting, numbing feeling of necrotic mana flowed into her, her two party mates sharing the same reaction as the system functions distributed the mana equally among them.

The three of them proceeded forward in the same fashion, but Eilynn worried that they were wandering too deep into the forest. Stronger variations of zombies were already starting to show up, which caused her to take extra caution in placing her shots, as arrows were precious in the forest.

She whistled and her two party members paused to turn back towards her.

“What’s wrong?” Roland said, his hand always ready at his sword’s hilt.

“Don’t you two think we should go back?” She said, motioning at the sky. “It’s getting late, and we don’t want to stay near ghoulbear territory when the sun sets.”

Roland shook his head. “I’d rather try for more mana. The sooner we reach the fifth threshold, the sooner we can start preparing for the expedition. I heard the volunteers that’ve passed their thresholds are being tutored by Sedan, and I don’t want to miss out.”

The mage, Sen, nodded. “Sedan’s from the south like me, and I can assure you his reputation’s even better where I live. If we can manage to learn a thing or two from him, even ghoulbears won’t be too much of a problem to face.”

Eilynn shrugged. “Don’t know much about him, but if he’s as good as you say he is, sure. Just know that if we encounter a ghoulbear, I’m not going down from these trees to save your asses.”

“Hah! You say that Lynn, but we all know Sen runs the fastest out of us three,” Roland laughed and began to move forward again.

The fire mage trailed behind him and complained. “It’s not my fault our front-line has the movement capabilities of an especially crippled statue,” He gestured to Eilynn behind him as he walked. “And don’t think you’re safe up there either, Lynn. Ghoulbears can tear apart these shriveled old trees like paper. Nothing like the forests from where you’re from.”

Eilynn laughed. “If these trees were anything like the ones back home, all elves regardless of ancestry would kill themselves on the spot from shame alone. Plus, all we need to do in that situation is outrun Roland over there anyways.”

The warrior in front of them readied his shield and drew his sword. “You guys should really quiet down. Three zombies up front, but there looks to be two more nearby. Should we take them?””

In response to his question, a ball of fire sailed over his head and slammed into one of the zombies, knocking it to the ground, and spreading the blooming flames onto the zombie beside it. The one on the ground scrambled up with horrifying screeches that alerted the two zombies in the distance further. Roland sighed and channeled the mana to his feet as the sight of a burning zombie and its three friends charging towards him greeted his vision.

He dashed, and with a bash of his shield, he stepped to the side as he maneuvered around the zombie he’d knocked to the side with his shield. His body spun and his blade bit into the next zombie’s stomach, blood spurting out with a wet squelch.

A zombie to his left reached for him with its claws, but an arrow pierced the side of its neck and froze the surrounding area, throwing it off balance from the surprising amount of force within the arrow. Roland took this chance to step back with another swing, slicing open the chest of the zombie who’s stomach he’d just cut. A flaming zombie rammed against his shield from the right, the flames on its body causing him to squint his eyes and the force making his knees buckle slightly. He pushed it back with his shield and retreated further.

“Roland, step back!” He heard Sen’s voice from behind him, but took a bit too long to react, causing the mage’s timing to falter. When he finally made space, the fireball was already late, slamming into a zombie at the back while one charged towards the fire mage.

Before it could reach him however, an arrow shot through its leg and pinned its foot to the ground. The zombie lost its balance and fell, Roland’s sword stabbing into its head a moment later.

The warrior looked up at the snow elf jumping from tree to tree, constantly positioning herself to give them support, and gave her a thumbs up.

She grinned back and nocked an arrow, the sharp point leaving her bow with a whoosh and killing a zombie with a shot to the head. Roland saw this and angled himself near the falling zombie, kicking it forward into the path of the two undead running towards him. He heard a triumphant cry from behind him and watched as a cone of flame bloomed from beside him, lighting the two zombies on fire.

From there, it only took them another minute to mop up the rest. Roland looked at Sen with a slight frown. “You really need to wait before you toss a fireball at one of those zombies.”

The mage smiled sheepishly and wiped the sweat on his forehead. “Sorry. I get excited when it comes to things like this. Never mind that though,” He gestured to Eilynn. “Good job a while ago. Your timing with those arrows is top notch, no complaints here.”

She retrieved her arrows from the zombies’ corpses and shrugged. “A lot easier to do when your enemies aren’t very smart and have the combat skills of a five year old without legs.”

Roland laughed. “The only thing they got going for them is their strength and numbers. I heard this was just the easy part though. From what I’ve heard in my time in the city, there are ghouls and undead with the skills of veterans deeper into the forest. Without even considering the other monstrosities hiding inside, what we’re doing is easy compared to what we’ll face in the expedition.”

“Well, it’s why they’re guiding us with this training right?” Sen said, sitting down near a tree with a sigh. “I really want to increase my constitution so I don’t get as tired, but my mana reserves and spells aren’t good enough for someone who’ll be passing their fourth threshold soon.”

“Spend some time creating stronger spells then. Increasing just raw power isn’t enough,” Eilynn said, yanking out an arrow and brushing the dust of and blood off her bits of leather armor.

The mage sighed. “You and Roland take using magic too lightly. Though I have zero talent in the Enchanting and Augmenting schools, I heard they were hard to get the hang of. You two are gifted, so leave me to struggle with my Evocation magic in peace.”

Roland leaned on the tree beside him. “Ever considered trying out Conjuration?”

Sen shook his head. “I haven’t, and I don’t have the slightest clue on where to start learning it. Books in the city are expensive, you know. Until I get my hands on a Conjuration manual, my dreams of leading an army of elementals are close to fantasy.”

Eilynn fixed her white hair into a ponytail and started climbing a tree. “Well, the sooner we finish this thing, the sooner you get your manual. Let’s get going slowpokes—” She stopped as she reached the top of the shriveled old tree.

The elf looked at the sky and froze. Due to the lack of sunlight and perpetual shade of grey covering the surroundings, it was hard to determine the time of day. However, now that she stared at the dark sky and the looming shadows around them, she was able to realize one thing as low roars began to ring out from directions all around them.

They were incredibly fucked.

Alen walked through the forest frowning. Two batches of his skeleton minions were killed. It wasn’t a rare occurrence, as people often took advantage of their positions while idle, but it was annoying nonetheless. His surroundings were dark, but Alen recognized the area. Some trees were torn to shreds, most were felled, and claw marks lined the dry soil. This was where that bear had chased him out of the forest.

He proceeded forward, contemplating staying a night in his cubby hole as a group of fourteen skeletons followed him.

This place really was gloomy. Alen was determined to get the fuck out of here as soon as he could. He only needed to complete a few more commissions, and he would have enough money to leave Draenys and head somewhere else.

He touched a tree in front of him. It had a small arrow carved into it. Alen smiled despite himself as he remembered his first few days exploring the forest. Suddenly, his hand shook as something like a chill rolled up his spine, putting his mind into a state of alertness. He blinked and listened carefully. Along with a slight thumping in the distance, there seemed to be sounds of fighting and… cursing?

The scar on his palm heated up, and Alen touched it by habit as he stared at the dark woods in front of him. Then, he saw it. A flash of orange light. He frowned.

Another flash, light blue this time, followed by another orange flash. The lights were getting bigger. He took a step back involuntarily. There were four shapes in the distance that he could barely see as the flashes of light went off. Three people and…

“Oh dear fuck,” Alen muttered, hurriedly hiding behind a tree as the figures clashed in the area to his left. It seemed like those people were having a hard time outrunning the bear.

He felt cold sweat on his back. What the fuck were with these bears and this section of the forest? Granted, it was probably his fault that the bear was here, but Alen didn’t want to take up responsibility for running for his life back then. He heard a roar and flinched, glancing back and seeing someone in armor getting tossed back as the bear slapped its arm against his shield, the brief flash of light on the metal’s surface seeming to negate some of the impact.

The bear closed in and Alen grit his teeth and closed his eyes as arrows and fireballs impacted against the bear futilely.

It swiped again, and the warrior slammed against a tree before rolling to the side, dodging an attack and keeping his life. A fireball slammed into the bear again, and this time it turned towards the young man that tossed it.

The young man paled and began to run, and Alen heard the young man scream as the bear ripped off his arm with its disgusting long claws. A white-haired elf jumped down from the trees and barely pulled him away before the bear tore him apart with its next attack. The young man suffered a deep wound to his stomach. The smell of iron reached Alen’s nose and he roared in frustration as he burst from behind the tree, his fourteen skeletons surging forward as he gripped his left fist so hard that his nails dug into the scar on his palm.

“Fucking dumbasses! Give me a fucking break!” He screamed at them and the bear, as his skeletons turned black one by one, and the feeling of his mana leaving his body filled his mind as his undead charged.

The bear turned and bit at a skeleton, but it ducked under the attack, its claws scraping against the bear’s chin and inflicting a shallow wound. More skeletons weaved in, leaving superficial cuts all over its body as two picked up the collapsed warrior on the ground began to run. The bear stood up and roared, crushing two skeletons with its massive paws in the process. Alen shot a Blightbolt at the bear’s mouth. He missed and it ended up decaying a patch of fur in its neck instead.

He ordered another skeleton to drag the injured mage away as he glanced back at the elf behind him. “What are you doing? Do something!” He shouted, but flinched as a boom rang out from the bear slamming an empowered skeleton to the ground.

The elf stood up and nervously glanced at the undead around her before a look of understanding crossed her face. She drew her bow, sending an arrow at the bear’s head. It pierced its unprotected nose, blowing off the right side of it and freezing the area around the wound. After this, she began to back off, shouting back at him. “Ghoulbears have no defenses near their faces, aim for the mouth!”

“Whoa dude, no fucking shit!” Alen grit his teeth as he shot back a reply and ordered his skeletons to move carefully, having them surround the bear and attacking in a melee version of a ranged volley. The bear roared, and Alen heard ringing in his ears. He was panicking. He needed to calm down.

He looked at the skeletons carrying the warrior and sent them into the fray, seeing as how the warrior had woken up. The young man in his twenties wearing plate and leather stood up groggily and blinked, trying to get the focus back in his eyes. The elf shouted something at the warrior, but Alen couldn’t hear it through the deafening ringing in his ears. The elf fired a few more arrows as the bear killed another three of Alen’s minions. He felt the thread attached to the minion carrying the mage fade away.

This was a losing fight, and Alen didn’t want to stay around any longer. He motioned profusely to the other two and ran, taking four skeletons with him. He didn’t look back. He’d bought them enough time, and if they still stayed around to die like dumbasses, he couldn’t do much about it.

Trees and withered shrubs passed his vision in a blur as he ran towards his hiding place, his reliable cubby hole. Every now and then, he’d hear the bear roar, and booms would follow, and he would feel one of the four strings of mana attached to him fade away. In the corner of his vision, he saw the brown haired warrior and white-haired elf running nearby, shooting arrows and blocking any debris that flew towards them.

Eventually, Alen reached the cubby hole and dived in, the two others following behind him as they rolled down the dirt slope grunting.

Alen hit a wall and cursed, getting on his feet as he stared at the entrance.

Boom!

With an explosion, dirt rolled down the slope as the bear’s claws dug into the hole, trying to get in. He heard the warrior cursing and hurriedly checking his bag for something, but Alen was currently in a daze.

He hadn’t been in this cubby hole in a while, but it looked as dreary as ever. He stared at the slowly widening entrance and the sharp claws of the monster tearing it apart, and felt a seed of anger inside of him.

This was a horrible idea. He’d basically led them to their deaths. Instead of at himself though, Alen felt angry at the bear. This thing had been a figure standing above him since his first day here. It had made him feel weak and afraid. Even now, he noticed the shaking of his legs and the pain in his hand as his nails dug into his flesh. This bear wanted to kill him, and Alen didn’t want to die. In order to live, he’d have to kill this bear—make it submit to him.

An image of a spell burned inside his head as he prepared to cast Control Undead. He glanced at his mana. Seventy-seven percent.

He would do it. His mana would reach into this bear and tear it apart from the inside, taking away any shred of bloodthirsty will it had and making it obey him. He would rob it of its ability to fight his commands by completely dominating it from the inside. Destroy and burn away at what was within it until it was his to control.

Alen’s emerald eyes began to glow in the darkness as large amounts of his mana bubbled in his hand.

It condensed, altering the spell as it bunched together into something that looked like liquid darkness. Alen felt like his head was about to explode, his mana surging into the spell at a terrifying rate. The mana in his hand was dripping, curving from the fall and collecting back into his hand in an endless loop.

In front of him, the entrance was torn apart, the bear’s upper body drilling into his safe place. Soon, the entire crevice’s ceiling collapsed around him, falling as dust rose from the ground in tendrils of smoke.

The bear roared and charged towards Alen, leaning its body as it swiped with its massive paw. Alen roared in response and charged at it, feeling its claws digging a whole inch into his side as his hand dripping with the black-green mana clamped shut against the monster’s face.

The spell activated.

And then everything turned black.