The next day in the afternoon after finishing his daily chores, Mortimer was in front of the shelves in his room, browsing through the titles of the books. “Introductory enchanting manual by Straverra Bloodworth...Basic Runology by Chudrem Dreadmore...Inscription Insights by Mardomri Ironarm...Soul Scouring by Porael Magnus...Common Wildlife anatomy by Thaleus Juwyn...Human Anatomy by Alistar Norberg...Neophyte's guide by Dalekai The Mentor.” While he roughly knew the contents of these books from his inherited memories, they were hazy. He felt the need to refresh his memory on these fundamental topics if he wanted to build upon them and increase his masteries in the future. He plucked Neophyte’s guide by Dalekai the Mentor off the shelf, deciding to start off with something informal. Mortimer sat down under a lit candle and started reading through the thin booklet in the dim room. Neophyte’s guide by Malekai The Mentor Neophytes are at a preparatory stage, composed of three steps they must progress through before attempting to become an official Rank 1 Necromancer. The undead that can be commanded by neophytes are all Rank 0 and are differentiated by their soul size and amount of Spirit they reserve to be commanded. There are five soul sizes at Rank 0. Petty souls inhabit small critters and reserve only 1 Spirit. Lesser souls belong to unintelligent beasts or monsters and reserve 4 Spirit. Common souls occupy the average members of intelligent races and reserve 8 Spirit. Greater souls are those of powerful intelligent races leaders and reserve 14 Spirit. Grand souls belong to those just below the Rank 1 threshold, and reserve 28 Spirit. One of the most important skills for a necromancer is to know how to pair the soul and undead body together. Soul and body compatibility plays a big part in making an effective undead, you’d want a soul that was originally humanoid and had close body proportions to the body you’re planning to bind it to. It’s almost always best to use the original body and soul for an undead, except where the body is extensively changed. If you were to bind the petty soul of a mole rat to a huge abomination body, you would end up with an unusable heap of trash, the abomination wouldn't be able to coordinate to take a single step. Once a soul is dead, it’s impossible to add to it unless you were a powerful necromancer with grandmaster soul scouring attainment. The correct way to use a petty mole rat soul would be to bind it to its original or another mole-rat body. A skillful neophyte could change it further, for example, someone with attainment in alchemy could fill it with firebombs and use it as a disposable pawn to burrow out the ground under the enemy’s feet and explode. The best way to use petty souls is most often as cannon fodder. For an abomination, you’d want a soul that’s roughly been the same size in its life, the most important thing for elite units is their soul’s mastery. Mastery can be anything that the soul was proficient at while alive, and it doesn't need to be combat-related. It could be proficiency with a weapon, special techniques, or movement skills. You'd then want to have fitting armor and weapons forged for it, enchant them, use alchemical baths to toughen its skin, fill its veins with poisonous ichor, or even combine artificing with alchemy and have it blow poisonous gas from its mouth! Mortimer stopped his reading when he heard someone knocking on the door. He put the book down on the desk and got up. Twisting the key in the lock, he pulled it open and faced a smiling Melissa. “You’ve finished?” he looked at the satchel flung across her chest, avoiding eye contact. “Hmph, I’m doing you a favor and you won’t even say hello first.” she glowered at him. Mortimer blinked at her outburst. “Come in.” She pushed past him and got inside, sitting in the chair he was previously in and narrowed her eyes at the title of the book on the desk. “You haven't read this before?” she was browsing through the booklet while talking to Mortimer. “Last time was a year ago, I forgot most of it.” he sat down on the stone bed, a few meters away from Melissa. “Right, the potion.” she shut the booklet and took off her leather satchel, browsing through the inside with pursed lips. “This one.” she pulled out a glass flask stopped by a cork, filled with a clear gray liquid. She set it on the desk next to the booklet, then crossed her legs and turned to look at Mortimer. “So… how are you going to repay me?” “What is it you want?” he raised his eyebrows. “I have an arena match tomorrow, come encourage me… and you’ll enchant one thing for me when I need it.” “Sounds fair. Who are you up against?” “Some shmuck with a skeleton bear, it’s a one versus one lesser soul match.” she smirked. Mortimer nodded his head lightly. “What’s your undead then?” “You’ll see it when you come to pick me up tomorrow afternoon.” she flung her satchel over her head and got to the door with a spring in her step. After she was gone, he took a spare set of robes from his wardrobe, along with a bar of honey soap in a small basket. Taking a shower was one of his small pleasures since he came here. The underground was just too stuffy. He leisurely strode down the corridors with his basket in hand, towards the men’s communal bathroom. It was midday and there were just a few people around. The floor was covered in stone tiles and the room was lit by wall lamps powered by energy crystals. The shower cabins looked like over-sized mechanical contraptions in the shape of boxes, the hot water was produced within by water and fire crystals, they even had a built-in body dryer powered by wind crystals. It was one of the most popular gnomish inventions on the market. Mortimer spotted a familiar face just when he was about to head inside one of them. It was an acquaintance he made himself, a senior neophyte called Gregory. He was in his early twenties, with a dark bushy mustache and slicked-back hair. Gregory was sitting in front of a mirror and combing his hair when Mortimer approached him. “Greg.” Gregory squinted his eyes at him. “What do you want?” “I don’t know, what do you have? Mortimer put on a faint smile. He snorted and looked Mortimer up and down. “I got the feydust you asked for, but can you afford it?” “It’s just a little feydust, I’ll pay you next week.” Gregory considered for a moment before nodding. “Fine, I’ll have someone deliver it to you today.” he walked past him and left. Mortimer sighed, feydust was just too useful to him because of its effect to increase concentration. He needed every advantage he could get to increase his success rate when enchanting failure was too expensive for him to bear right now. He then turned to what he was here for in the first place, the shower cabins. Once inside one of them, he undressed and put everything but the bar of honey soap inside a waterproofed shelf inside the cabin. Turning a small valve clockwise, hot water started pouring over his thin body and long black hair, the accumulated grime from the past few days washing off into the drain. Steam was rising in the cabin while Mortimer was scrubbing his white skin with the honey-scented soap. With his body now squeaky clean after rinsing, he twisted the valve and shut the water off. Then pressed a round button with wind imagery on it. The wind started blowing through the tiny holes in the cabin’s walls, drying his body and hair in seconds. With a clean black robe on, he put everything else in his basket and left the bathroom. Back in his room, he dug through his coffer and piled up a set of beige tinted bones in the middle of his room. It took a lot of effort to puzzle the bones into their original shape, but the anatomy knowledge he had helped him finish in a timely manner. Once everything was pieced together, it was on its back and looked like the skeleton of a werewolf. Mortimer looked in satisfaction at the skeleton. It was something that he had inherited from his body’s previous owner, along with a gem that contained a werewolf’s lesser soul, but sadly not the one of this skeleton. Lesser soul gem: Humanoid beast type(werewolf) Mastery: Claws proficiency(apprentice) Leap(beginner) He set the soul gem on his desk next to the resin. It was not the time for that step yet, he still had a lot of work to do if he wanted to make something decent. A knock was heard on his door while he was crouched in front of the skeleton and inspecting the joints. His eyes lit up, and when he opened the door, he was faced by an unfamiliar duergar dressed in dusty neophyte robes with a displeased expression. He was barely tall enough to reach Mortimer’s waist. The duergar’s skin was light gray, he had fiery red short hair and was clean-shaven. He grunted and handed a small cloth pouch over to Mortimer. “He wants you to pay by the end of the week.” he turned and walked away with heavy steps. Back at his desk, he opened the cloth pouch and took out a glass vial filled with a soft blue powder from inside. He pulled the cork and poured a tiny line on the desk, snorting it in with his other nostril pressed. “Time for enchanting.” he snorted. Grabbing his engraving nail, he crouched above the skeleton’s skull and paused when his nail was just above the back of its skull. He took a deep breath and started engraving the lesser strength rune set with his full attention on the task, the muscle memory from the dozens of previous practice attempts guiding him along. His concentration peaked with the effects of the feydust, every movement of his hand firm and precise. He let out a sigh of relief after finishing engraving the last line. He was glad nothing unexpected happened. Taking a single lesser soul essence from his coffer, he mumbled a chant under his breath, the essence melting and filling the engraved runes in the bone, imbuing the entire skeleton in a colorless glow. Mortimer had a wide smile on his face. This glow was the confirmation that the enchantment was a success. The bodily glow dissipated after a minute, only the engraved runes on the back of its head were dimly glowing now. After admiring the glowing runes for a full fifteen minutes with a dumb smile on his face, he broke out of his daze when he remembered he was still not done yet. After sharpening its teeth and claws to the best of his ability, he took a small brush and coated the beige tinted werewolf bones in the gray resin, one stroke at a time. The bones were now colored in a light gray, giving it a much-needed improvement to its appearance. With the lesser werewolf soul gem in hand, Mortimer chanted while holding it above the skeleton. The werewolf’s soul looked like it was getting absorbed by a swirling vortex while it was above it. After the soul gem turned dim and colorless, Mortimer invoked his soul branding spell with the specific hand motions and chant, targeting the freshly body and soul. His body was soaked in sweat by the time everything was done, panting loudly. “It’s done.” The skeletal werewolf stood up at Mortimer’s command. It was two meters tall even with its neck hunched and head brought forward. Its teeth and claws looked razor-sharp and ready to tear anything to shreds. The gray coating made it look like an odd sculpture made of iron and gave it a much-needed resistance to blunt damage. Mortimer admired its appearance with his hands behind his back. “Iron wolf seems oddly fitting, even if it’s not made of iron… or wolf.” Now that he branded its soul, it came under his command and he could see a list of stats for it in his mind. Basic information Mastery Name: Iron wolf Race: Undead skeleton Claws proficiency(apprentice) Age: 0 Class: Werewolf Leap(beginner) Attribute values Body Enchantments Strength: 8(+5) Constitution: 8 Lesser strength rune set(+5) Dexterity: 16 Spirit: 0