“Lefie. I have a really important question so I need you to answer honestly and as genuinely as you can, alright?” Riza asked Lefie, her hands on Lefie’s shoulders, trying to fully get across the immensity of what she was going to say.

Lefie didn’t say anything but eagerly nodded her head like a bobblehead, eyes wide as she looked into Riza’s own.

“I have a few options for what skills to buy. Firstly, I can take [Animate Critter] which would allow me to bring back demons from the death to fight for us,” She wasn’t aware it was possible but Lefie’s eyes got even larger upon hearing that.

“Secondly, I could take skills to make myself more like Skerry and Artiv; a close-quarters fighter.

“Thirdly, I could continue looking for new skills to take my build into a completely new direction.” Riza finished up, not letting go of Lefie.

The teenager didn’t respond straight away, clearly giving the question a lot of thinking.

“I think,” She began, speaking gently and calmly. “Continuing to explore the life aspect is the best thing you can do.” Riza’s expression urged her to explain herself.

“It’s common knowledge that skills get stronger the higher their tier. Each skill point is worth more the higher the tier of the skill you purchase,” Lefie elucidated.

I suppose that makes sense. It also opens up the way for even higher tier skills, as well.

So, I’ll take [Animate Critter]. All that’s left is to figure out how to mitigate the essence drain of the skill.

What combinations are there? [Heal] (passive) and [Essence Transformer]+ gives me 10 essence per second but requires me to purchase [Rejuvenate] as well. All four skills are necessary for the package to work otherwise we’ll just starve to death so that’s the lowest priority for now.

What about if I upgrade neither of those skills? I’ll need my health to be above 200 to be able to gain essence from the combination, which would require my 5 stat points to go straight into power or to buy [Well of Power].

The combination would take 11 seconds total for the quickest time and gives me a net profit of around 10 essence, so that’s less than 1 essence per second.

More than double my regular regeneration but nowhere near close enough to cover [Animate Critter].

Instead of [Well of Power], which also increases my health, I could take [Alteration Mastery], making the whole process not only faster but make my other skills more efficient as well.

The upside is that it would only take 1 skill point.

What would I do with the remaining one or two skill points? Take another skill from life or get a foot in the door for chanting to see if the cost reduction chant is 1st tier.

Actually, since I’m going to take [Animate Critter] anyway, I might as well do it now. See what other skills there are.

So, Riza navigated to the skill tree and finally purchased the [Animate Critter] skill.

Finally. I can see what tier 2 skills there are.

Life

0th Tier

Heal (10/10)+ -Learned

Restore 190 points of health to a living entity

Cost: 10 es/sec

[Leech](10/10)+ -Learned

Drain 110 points of health from a living entity

40m range

Cost: 10 es/sec

[Cleanse (Passive)] -Learned

You have immunity towards any toxin, disease, or contamination

1st Tier

[Sapping Curse] (1/10)

Prevent a living entity from recovering health for 2 hours

Casting Time: 1 sec

Cost: 5 es

[Animate Critter] (1/10) -Learned

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 0 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 5 es/sec

[Life Sense] (1/10)

Scan for either a general or specific form of life

2m radius

Casting Time: 1 m/sec

Cost: 1 es

[Last Words] (1/10)

Extract thoughts from an entity that died within 2 hours

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 5 es

Hidden Skill

Requirements: [Heal] (10/10)

[Rejuvenate] (1/10)

Restore 100 points of health and regenerate any wounds to a living entity

Cost: 15 es

2nd Tier

[Reanimate] (1/10)

Raise a corpse into a level 0 zombie

Casting Time: 1 min

Cost: 10 es/sec

Requirements: [Animate Critter] (5/10)

[Inanimate Life] (1/10)

Bestow the gift of simple life to an inanimate object

Cost: 100 es

[Remnant Memories] (1/10)

Summoned entities are created with a 10% higher level

Cost: 5 es

Hidden skill

[Leech](10/10)

Animation skill (1/10)

[Parasite] (1/10)

Implant up to 2 parasites in summoned entities. When your health drops to 0, automatically drain all the health from a summoned entity regardless of distance

Cost: 100 es per implanted [Parasite]

[Reanimate] is definitely not something I’m taking anytime soon. It’ll probably allow me to raise regular demons into my zombies but it doesn’t solve the essence issue.

I don’t really see what the point of [Inanimate Life] is. What does that even mean? Is an ant ‘simple’ life? I don’t think any kind of life can be described as ‘simple’.

[Remnant Memories] could be interesting, letting me get more bang for my buck. Assuming it increases by 10% each level, that’s 100% increase at level 10. That, in combination with [Animate Critter], which would probably max out at 9, doubled to 18, would be a level 36 spider. What. The. Fuck

That's stronger than a greater demon. That's stronger than literally anything else I've seen.

[Parasite]. That helps patch up a weakness my low health exacerbates, though it doesn’t really synergise with [Leech] or [Heal]. They work better with large health pools.

Not to mention if I go down to 0 health but could still [Heal] myself; would drain a summon unnecessarily at that point.

Nothing that helps with essence, unfortunately.

Back to [Meditate]. The two choices I have hinge on whether [Animate Critter] is an active skill or not so, let’s test it.

Even without needing to use a skill, Riza could bring up the skill on her interface and see the effect [Maximise Mastery] had on it. It worked for [Heal], [Essence Transformer], [Leech], and even cleanse.

So, when nothing changed with [Animate Critter], she felt quite certain in her conclusion.

Not an active skill. That’s brilliant; means I can use [Meditate]+ all the time. Brings my total essence regen to around 1 per second, and so I would be a net 4 per second down with [Animate Critter].

What I really need is a skill that multiplies my essence regen by 4, actually.

Or a boon. [Source of Spirit] multiplied by 3, didn’t it? That’s only one more level until I can take that.

Would mean I could use [Animate Critter] for half an hour. [Animate Critter], [Meditate]+, [Remnant Memories], and another skill. At level 15, that’s half an hour of a level 18 zombie fighting for us.

More than enough for any fights, and we wouldn’t even need to lug around a large corpse to do that. It wouldn’t even need to be the same corpse; any spider would work.

How to kill greater demons without [Leech] would be solved.

If, god forbid, I encounter something stronger, bam, two huge spiders. Halve the time but double the damage. Even groups wouldn’t be an issue, as long as we kill them quickly enough.

It seems too strong to not take.

[Meditate+] -Learned

Regeneration is multipled by 3 while one sense is subdued absolutely

[Maximise Mastery+]

Multiply intensity of an active essence skill by 7

Cost: variable

[Remnant Memories] (1/10) -Learned

Summoned entities are created with a 5% higher level

Cost: 5 es

Riza did not think this through.

This wasn’t a game but reality. She had gotten too used to simple magic like [Heal].

She hadn’t anticipated what ‘reanimation’ would actually imply.

Giving life. Life so unnatural even pregnancy would not have prepared her with the knowledge necessary to get the skill to work.

Riza and Lefie were sitting around a corpse of a spider, out in the open and before the wall of fog. Although it had been a little while since she had killed it, Riza was mildly surprised at how the corpse didn’t let out a disgusting odour.

In fact, it smelt like nothing at all.

But those thoughts were distractions; she had to get back on task.

Giving life to the corpse.

Riza breathed in deeply, trying to centre herself. She sank into [Meditate], collecting her thoughts.

[Animate Critter] takes five seconds to cast. Let’s break down life one-by-one and see if that helps.

Resting her hands on the body before her once more, merely going through the motions, Riza began to list everything she could.

A spider like this is quite a bit different from what I know of but hopefully it’s similar enough.

Firstly, breathing. Respiration. The spider inhales oxygen, sucking the air into its lungs where it’s absorbed through the alveoli, hitching a ride on red blood cells through the hemoglobin where they arrive at their destination cells to be turned into energy by mitochondria. Simple enough.

Brains and a nervous system. Electrical signals get sent through nerves and this tells the various parts of the body what to do.

Muscles contract and relax based on electrical impulses received from nerves.

Riza carried on, trying her best to recall all the different physiological functions she could recall from her education, which was a fair few years ago now.

She repeated it over to herself a few times, trying to hammer the details into her brain, before she opened her eyes and exited [Meditate].

Lefie was staring at her oddly but made no comment..

The corpse was cold to the touch. It’s white skin a disturbing combination of both smooth and sticky.

“Take a step back. This is going to take me a sec,” Riza said off-handedly, pushing up the sleeves on her robe as the heat was starting to get to her.

This time, she envisioned her own pool of essence, as was the construct she used when casting magic. She imagined no such whirlpool in the corpse in front of her and gently began to nudge her own essence to flow into the body, to infuse it with life.

It was slow and reluctant at first, the essence acting like a cat that didn’t want to do something, but as the seconds passed by, her insistent prompting eventually worked.

Going over the mantra in her head, injecting as much understanding as she possibly could about how life, the body, functioned into her essence.

Her face was warming up, mind becoming hazy as she understood less and less of the words she was thinking until, finally, the flow of essence stopped.

Sitting back on her feet, Riza felt exhausted mentally as she looked at the corpse.

The legs began to twitch, popping with jerky movements as they straightened and then bent, gaining coordination, gingerly raising the body off the ground like a new-born mammal, unused to its legs.

Along with the animation of the spider came a subdued feeling in Riza’s mind, not too dissimilar to how she senses demons. It was very faint, and hard to notice, but there was a link she inextricably knew connected her to the creature.

She walked around the room a little bit, feeling the sensation shift ever so slightly but nothing more than that.

The spider reminded Riza of a jumping spider--small body sections with really short legs, though missing the characteristic eyes on the front of the head. They seemed to be replaced with an unusually large mouth.

Quickly, she activated [Meditate], blocking off her sense of smell as a surreal calmness overtook her mind. She checked her stats, seeing what her ‘regular’ essence regeneration will now be.

Name Riza Level 14 Health 100/100 Stamina 56/100 Essence

1800/1800 Power 5 (5) Constitution 5 (5) Endurance 5 (5) Vim 6 (6) Essence

5 (90) Spirit

65 (330) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

120/day Essence Regeneration

96/minute

“Hello,” Riza tentatively said, not quite sure what to do now. The spider moved a little at her word, raising its small head upwards towards her.

Name Unnamed Level 0 Health 20/20 Stamina 20/20 Essence

20/20 Power 1 (1) Constitution 1 (1) Endurance 1 (1) Vim 1 (1) Essence

1 (1) Spirit

1 (1) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

100/day Essence Regeneration

100/day

It has its own stats. All ones, though. Couldn’t be any weaker, could it.

“Has it worked?” Lefie asked, shuffling forwards on the ground to be beside Riza and her new pet. “Is it a zombie?” She leaned towards the spider.

“I think so. Does it listen to me? Take commands? What does it do?” She thought aloud.

“Maybe it’s like a pet? There’s pet taming skills, you know,” Lefie said off-handedly.

Pet Taming

0th Tier

[Tame Pet] (1/10)

Gain knowledge on how to tame a 0th level pet

Cost: 5 es

[Pet Communication] (1/10)

Your pet can understand you

Range: 2m

[Pet Communication]? So, if a zombie is like a pet then I can talk to it.

“Maybe it needs a name?” Riza asked herself, feeling a subdued warmth flow within her, her tiredness quickly evaporating.

“Spidey?” Lefie offered.

“Sure. Let’s go with that,” Riza replied, a smile on her face and with utmost sincerity.

“Spidey,” Riza called her pet, leaning towards it. “Walk over there,” She said, pointing a few metres away from them.

Name Spidey Level 0 Health 20/20 Stamina 20/20 Essence

20/20 Power 1 (1) Constitution 1 (1) Endurance 1 (1) Vim 1 (1) Essence

1 (1) Spirit

1 (1) Health Regeneration

100/day Stamina Regeneration

100/day Essence Regeneration

100/day

Obediently, the spider immediately turned about and dashed towards the spot, quickly coming to a stop.

“It works,” Lefie stated the obvious.

“Now, we play the waiting game.”

Barely 3 minutes had passed when Riza got another notification.

[Animate Critter] [Level up]

Level 4 reached and, about a minute later, Spidey collapsed to the ground, startling Lefie.

“He’s dead!” She exclaimed, looking up towards Riza whose legs she was currently resting her head on.

They had been watching the spider run around the room as Riza practised a few different orders.

“I’ve ran out of essence,” She put simply. Initially, she wanted to level the skill to level 2 or 3 to establish a pattern so she could learn how it’ll increase from there on out but the skill levelled so quickly, she decided to let it run.

[Animate Critter] (4/10) -Learned

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 6 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 8 es/sec

Happily, it doesn't seem too bad. Cost only increases by 1 each level and [Lone Wolf] doubles the level of the creature. Level 6 already but no boon.

The levels were interesting with how they worked; the spider stayed at level 0 for the entire time, never levelling up at all. She concluded that the level probably applied when she initially activated the skill.

She had used [Remnant Memories] at the start but, obviously, that yielded no increase in skill. Annoyingly, leveling both skills would require opposite approaches; a lot of time spent on just one creature for [Animate Critter] whilst reanimating a bunch of critters for [Remnant Memories], since that was only applied at the start.

“That was quick,” Lefie stated neutrally.

“It was. I can’t keep it on all the time but it should make a huge difference if we encounter a greater demon. Now, move off me. I need to collect my pet,” Riza said, patting Lefie’s head as the teenager reluctantly got up. Riza walked over to the once-again corpse.

She touched it, feeling no decay or degradation. She momentarily released [Meditate], her sense of smell rushing back and nearly making her heave.

The room stank of sweat, dirt, blood, and whatever else permeated the underground. She must’ve gotten used to it before.

I’m keeping [Meditate] on all the time from now on.

She rested both hands on the spider, her mind overwhelmed with a tranquil calmness, as Riza raised the spider once more.

Nice to see it works even with [Meditate] active.

No more than two seconds later, it fell over again.

Riza repeated this for 18 more times until she finally got the notification she was waiting for.

[Remnant Memories] [Level up]

[Remnant Memories] (2/10) -Learned

Summoned entities are created with a 20% higher level

Cost: 10 es

“Poor Spidey,” Lefie said from a few feet away, watching Riza do her thing. “I wouldn’t like being woken up and made to go to asleep multiple times a minute.”

“I suppose he’s dying multiple times,” Riza commented without much care.

If it follows the same essence requirement as [Animate Critter] does, that’s 400 more essence. So, 40 more times. Gonna take me about 400 seconds to regenerate that much.

I should see if I can dismiss it prematurely as well, while I’m at it.

“You know, this isn’t like any pet I’ve ever seen,” Lefie commented idly.

“You’ve been around a lot of pets?”

“Monster pets, yeah. Crows and ravens were quite common where I come from. Good at finding things and stuff. I don’t know too much about them,” Lefie said, a wistful tone to her voice.

“How does Spidey differ?”

“He’s not as noisy, for one,” She giggled, finding it funnier than Riza did. “Very obedient; doesn’t go off and do his own thing. Very pleasant,” She said, giving the corpse a playful stroke before immediately pulling away after probably realising how strange petting a corpse was.

“Like the best parts of a cat and a dog,” Riza mused to herself.

Lefie looked at Riza but didn’t say anything.

A few minutes passed and she got back on task.

Raising the creature--Spidey showed no happiness at being alive again--it stayed alive for a bit as Riza tried to learn how to dismiss it.

A few mental commands, a few random things she imagined, and none yielded any effect.

“Die?” She asked uncertainly, causing Spidey to flop to the ground.

“That worked, though it wasn’t very nice,” Lefie said, eyeing the corpse.

“It’s annoying, is what it is. Can’t dismiss them if they’re not within earshot of me. That means if one escapes, or we lose it, my essence will constantly be draining.”

A detriment but hopefully one that wouldn’t be that impactful. Certainly shouldn’t be an issue with only one zombie.

[Remnant Memories] [Level up]

[Remnant Memories] (3/10) -Learned

Summoned entities are created with a 30% higher level

Cost: 15 es

The essence requirement was correct, then. Is it the same for all tier 1 skills? Only life skills? Or is it just a coincidence?

Probably the same for all tier 1 skills, considering all tier 0 skills I have follow the same level up requirements between each of them.

Tier 0: 100, 200, 300, 400, ...

Tier 0 level requirement: 100 x level

Tier 1: 100, 400, 900, ...

Tier 1 level requirement: 100 x level^2

There’s a pattern here. Let’s make an estimate for tier 2 as well.

Tier 0: 100, 200, 300, 400, ...

Tier 0 level requirement: 100 x level

Tier 1: 100, 400, 900, ...

Tier 1 level requirement: 100 x level^2

Tier 2: 100, 800, 2700, 6400, ...

So, what’s the general form of this equation?

General level up equation: 100 x level^n where n increases with each tier.

General form: 100 x level^(tier+1)

Looks plausible.

Exponentially more expensive the higher the tier, though. Tier 3 is easily at least… a million essence. What the fuck.

That’s 10,000 days with a spirit of 1 to max out a tier 3 skill. Insane.

Actually, is it insane? My current regeneration is over 100,000 per day, so only 10 days if we round down. Probably more, depending on how much it actually takes to max a skill, but it’s only a matter of weeks. Likely a month, max.

But that’s with [Lone Wolf] doubling how many skills? [Well of Spirit], [Knowable Essence], [Maximise Mastery], and [Meditate]. So two to the power of 4 which is 16. 16 times stronger than someone without [Lone Wolf].

Yep; no regrets over taking that boon.

“What’s this?” Lefie asked, looking over Riza’s shoulder at what she’s scratched into the ground.

“Just some maths. You’re not in any rush to escape, are you?”

“We’re still going to get out of here, right?” Lefie asked, suddenly serious.

“We are, don’t worry. I’m just wondering about whether it’s worth waiting for Spidey to become stronger or not.”

Lefie didn’t respond; she didn’t have time to. Riza’s head turned towards the fog as she shot to her feet, withdrawing her knife.

“Demons?” Lefie asked, quickly getting up as well, throwing a glance at the corpse.

“Spiders, I think.”

Sure enough, Riza was right; a horde of spiders came pouring out of the fog and right into the thirsty blade of Riza’s dagger, stabbing down and piercing through their small bodies.

Lefie, too, partook in their destruction, stamping down on one caught underneath her boot multiple times, pummelling its body.

The swarm subsided but both of them were on edge, waiting for the demons they knew were coming to arrive.

“Do you sense anything?” Lefie asked, body tense as she stared at the fog.

Riza didn’t say anything but she did nod, too focused on what her mind was telling her.

Many signals, all clumped together. A big group, a fair distance in. Too far away? Or just too many?

Doesn’t matter; it’s strong. Either a fuck ton of them or there’s a greater demon riding along.

“How’s your essence?” Riza asked without looking away.

“Pretty good. I haven’t been using it for anything. Should be enough,” Lefie replied quickly, utilitarian in her report.

“Good. I’m out of essence so this will be all on you. I’ll take damage and keep both of us healthy but it’s up to you to kill things.” Lefie nodded in understanding.

[Meditate]+ is probably the greatest skill of the three I purchased. One essence per second means I’m no longer useless when I drop to 0.

Time seemed to pass at a crawl as they waited, the constant presence in Riza’s mind never allowing her to let down her guard--to relax. She was on high alert, muscles tense and ready to pounce, as she clutched her dagger in her hand and kept one on Lefie behind her, shielding the slightly smaller girl.

The sound of the rumbling footsteps began to reach their cavern, the noise of a group of creatures running at full speed came barrelling towards them.

The noise grew louder and louder until the first demon shot from the fog with no indication it was there apart from the sound and the presence Riza had felt.

Thankfully, forewarned, the floating cylinder of water immediately released a strong, powerful burst of high pressure water, narrowly missing the creatures head but tunnelling straight through its body.

The sudden impact pushed the demon to the floor but its strong legs easily kept it in motion, its momentum carrying it forwards.

Forwards and straight into another speedily arranged column of water, piercing its head and killing it for good.

The first few bounded on through, nearly one at a time, and swiftly met their demises in a similar fashion. It was only when the last four or five, as well as the greater demon, slowed down and entered together that problems started to arise.

The demons tried to flank them, rushing up together and forcing Lefie to quickly bounce between numerous, simultaneous, floating cylinders of water. Like an orchestra, blast after blast resounded, with not even a second between them, as Lefie struggled to coordinate it all.

All with the greater demon a lingering threat. It was large but even with the size of this place, the corpses proved to be some obstacle hindering its approach.

Sadly, that was not the case for the regular demons. Even as they fell, Riza fell Lefie begin to stumble behind her, almost falling over before Riza turned and caught her, receiving a deep claw along her back--thankfully, swiftly healed.

Riza didn’t even have time before she sensed the greater demon right behind them, forcefully grabbing Lefie and jumping as far away as possible, narrowly dodging a giant paw swiping after. This demon was similar to the one that had gotten Skerry in the night.

Lefie wasn’t disoriented for long and quickly resumed her onslaught, summoning pillar after pillar of water, centred around the demons head like pins in a pincushion.

One-by-one, the water released, tunneling into the demons skull and striking whatever blob of meat it had inside that controlled it. The water fell quickly but regularly, creating a pseudo rhythm to the attacks.

Even with Lefie’s technique, it was undoubtedly consuming a lot of essence to take this demon down but, after some time, they succeeded, the greater demon falling onto its belly in defeat.

Riza and Lefie separated to catch their breaths.

“I-I levelled up,” Lefie informed Riza.

“Save it,” Riza advised, sitting down amongst the corpse laden floor as she silently, indifferently observed the death around her, regenerating as much essence as she could.

The fog consumed them once more as they each took a step into the nothingness.

Riza’s mind was tingling with the pure white essence all around her.

She had no idea where to go. She didn’t even know what the tunnels in the fog looked like. Her only idea was to follow the sound of the wind for that surely would lead to an escape somewhere.

So, she and Lefie walked and walked and walked, carrying a spider corpse with them that strangely refused to decay, as they followed the faint sounds whistling, getting louder as time passed by.

They walked for a while, encountering nothing but the burning exertion of moving until Riza sensed something.

She had felt this feeling enough times by now to know that they were spiders.

Taking a deep, stabilising breath, she mentally prepared herself for what was going to happen.

Riza placed the spider body she had been carrying down on the ground and withdrew her knife.

Together, the pair of them stomped and stabbed at the little critters as they rushed by, swiftly killing them.

Preparing, Riza dropped down next to a corpse, placing her hands on it as she began to cast [Animate Critter]. It had a five second casting time; swift but agonisingly slow when needed.

Anxiety played with her nerves as Riza kept one eye on the sensation in her mind, wary for the first glimpse of the demons.

As soon as Spidey 2 took its first, tentative steps in this new life, she almost fell backwards, knees weak as her mind was assaulted.

She closed her eyes and leaned into [Meditate] as much as possible to process this new information.

She felt Spidey in front of her, similar to how she felt the spiders earlier but clearer and stronger, like it was from a different faculty all together. She felt its location precisely from her--2.5 metres.

Next, she felt herself. Her legs, like towering trees in a forest. She could sense her distance from Spidey 2 as well as feel Lefie with respect to Spidey 2. 3 metres there even though she was close enough to hold Lefie’s hand.

What the fuck?

She couldn’t waste time thinking about it. How she could sense the walls, the floor, herself, and even the roof wasn’t important. What mattered was that this feeling was far more intuitive than her other sense; it was as natural as sight itself.

The demons soon appeared after that, hurtling towards them.

Lefie was stepping back from this fight, utterly useless in her blind state, as Riza withdrew her weapon.

The demons arrived. They clashed. Spidey 2 fought admirably but was ultimately killed, but not before Riza received a notification.

[Animate Critter] [Level up]

It had taken down one demon in the fray, Riza shouting commands at it.

She had managed to kill two demons in that time, utilising the strange knowledge Spidey 2 gave her to not only dodge attacks aimed her way but also allowing her to strike true, killing the creatures with her efficient weapon.

The last of the four demons remained, easily taken care of by Riza.

Her essence was down to a bit below half but, overall, the fight was successful. More importantly, she gained some valuable information from it.

“Lefie. Do pets share senses with their owners?” Riza asked. It was an assumption that what she felt was how Spidey 2 sensed things and it seemed reasonable considering the fact it had no eyes. That, as well as the sensations being stronger whilst in fog than outside it.

“No? Not without any skills, anyway. There was this one old guy I knew--he was blind--but he carried his crow everywhere with him in order to see, so it’s possible.”

Riza rested up for a bit, regenerating her essence, before the two got moving again, carrying a spider corpse with them. It was surprisingly light but still weighed a significant amount; Riza made sure it was her who carried it, not wanting to burden Lefie with it.

Further in, they encountered another group of demons forewarned by spiders and the fight went much the same as the previous, with Spidey 3 lasting a little longer than his predecessor due to his higher level.

Sadly, neither [Animate Critter] or herself levelled up from that.

They rested up and carried on walking. Whenever they came across an intersection, they’d go wherever the wind sounded louder.

Eventually, they both began to grow tired, and as magical [Leech] and [Heal] was, Riza simply hadn’t figured out how to eliminate the need for sleep yet. Not existing in quantified, measurable chemicals or elements, how sleep worked, how it kept you alive, was unknown.

They settled down along a wall, Riza opting to stay awake first whilst Lefie slept. They were both going to be tired when they woke up but hopefully, being healthy in all other facets would help to compensate.

Leaning back against the wall with a teenager on one side and a dead spider on the other, Riza sank into thought, wondering about what she was doing.

It was meditative, the fog occluding her sight letting her mind drift easily.

But thinking alone was boring and she eventually relented to training her skills. At her current regeneration, it took less than half an hour to restore her essence to full. Demon attacks were less frequent than that so there should be minimal danger.

With one hand holding Lefie’s and the other touching the smooth skin of the demon, she grinded up [Remnant Memories], the far more tedious of the skills to level.

Time passed but demons were inevitable. Riza grinded and grinded her skills, both idly and battling against demons whenever they appeared, Spidey getting stronger and eventually, able to last a whole fight before succumbing to his eventual weakness; Riza’s limited pool of essence.

Lefie woke up a few times, the din of fighting hard to ignore, but fell asleep when they ended. She was clearly exhausted, falling asleep almost instantly even on the hard ground and leaning against Riza.

She also got in a bit of experimenting. Spidey's stats increase the higher its level that [Animate Critter] brought it back as but, interestingly, the stat points weren't automatically applied. After the skill was activated, Riza found she had around a one minute window where she could freely edit the stats of Spidey before they were set in stone. She could put them all in power, all in essence, or spread them out.

Whenever she used Spidey to fight demons, however, she had spread the stat points out equally amongst the four physical stats. Now was not the time for experimentation and optimisation, however.

Riza was second-guessing herself but as her skills got stronger, more powerful, resolve in turn solidified.

[Animate Critter] (7/10) -Learned

Raise a corpse smaller than yourself into a level 12 zombie

Casting Time: 5 sec

Cost: 11 es/sec

[Remnant Memories] (6/10) -Learned

Summoned entities are created with a 60% higher level

Cost: 30 es

A level 19 spider in only a couple of hours. Holy shit. Stronger than a greater demon.

She had found herself at a standstill with [Leech], directionless and without many avenues to grow stronger.

That wasn't the case now; she had done the maths.

With both skills at level 10, that was a level 36 spider.

I'm beginning to see why life magic is so forbidden.