Here's Chapter 17!

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Chapter 17: The Red Spirit Transforms!

Finding a nicely lit spot near the central mana crystal, Kaz set his knapsack down on the ground and sat against the nearby wall. Bringing out the final book that he had taken from the library, Kaz sent four of his eight spirits to scout for dangers. Letting his injured spirit near the mana crystal, Kaz directed it to absorb the abundant mana saturating the atmosphere in an attempt to heal its ethereal body.

“Hmm this last book might be the most important one. Actually, I believe that the second book detailing the manipulation of spell incantation is the most important. However, this last book may very well be the second most important.”

{For once, I actually agree with you. “Manipulating Undead Minions,” is a core text of any student of the Necromantic Arts. Why, I remember reading it when I was just an apprentice like you.} Humming a long forgotten tune to himself, Ahriman seemed to finally be at least content with Kaz’s choice of reading material.

“You read this? How old are you, exactly? That’s a question that’s been bugging me for quite a while now, actually. You didn’t appear to be over the age of sixty when you were alive in the service of Lord Zhakar. However, the things that you have shown me seem to be long, long lost.”

{Well….I’m….older than I looked when I was alive, this is true. After a certain point of concentrating necromantic energies in order to strengthen one’s body, the aging process slows considerably. Cold and death energy permeate our bodies, and the aging process is slowed to a halt once the necromancer’s mastery of his or her magic reaches a point. However, that isn’t to say that we are completely free from time’s grasp. Not until we release ourselves from our mortal bodies, anyway.}

“...You just forgot, did you not? You really should have said just that, your explanation just raises further questions in my mind.”

{Let’s not get hasty, now. There’s nothing suspicious about my answer, it’s a well crafted answer. And I definitely did not forget how old I am. I’m just choosing not to answer you directly right now since my age isn’t relevant to your training.}

With a dubious expression on his face, Kaz slowly opened the heavy leather tome that he held in his hands and started to read.

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“Gods above! I thought that the forest was dark, but the inside of this crumbling compound is darker than I have ever imagined. I guess there’s really no choice. Men, consume a single portion of your Felis concoctions. We’ll use more if needed.”

Without hesitation, each member of the six member hunter-killer squad took out a yellow flask from their utility bags and consumed it. Very quickly, their width of their pupils narrowed and a strange yellowish gleam seemed to seep from the eyes of the hunters.

“Ahh, that’s much better. Now there’s no need for torches and the like. Karel and Harken, you two scout the entirety of this complex. Report back within an hour or when you’re done. Find out that these crumbling ruins are actually for. The rest of you can secure our current perimeter. Don’t let even a mouse out of your sight.”

Nodding crisply, Karel and Harken shot off silently into the dark, the darkness a hindrance no more. Very quickly, even the enhanced vision of the hunter-killer squad were unable to see their silhouettes.

“So the hunt is finally in session. I wonder if you’ll be able to evade us, little magi? No matter. Not many criminals have been able to evade my squad once. Even those who have evaded us have eventually been caught, and they were far more experienced than you. You may have some trifling magical spells on your side, but how will those help you when you have nowhere to hide?” Licking his lips in anticipation of the conclusion of this boring hunt, the sergeant unslung his bow and laid it across his lap as he sat. Waiting in the dark, the hunter’s glowing eyes gleamed.

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Oblivious to the going-ons of the hunter-killer squad at this moment, Kaz was deeply immersed in the information that he was absorbing from the book.

“It seems that undead minions can be ranked in terms of power. There appear to be two main types of undead minions, the physical and the ethereal. The spirit is the most basic of the ethereal undead minions, and has a lot of potential to grow. The determinant factor in how each spirit develops as a minion is dependent on the spirit’s previous life. It seems that a person’s skills and personality determines what kind of undead minion it will be most effective as.”

{Heh, it’s more complicated than you thought, isn’t it? You can’t just kill and collect every single person that you come across and expect them to all develop into one kind of undead minion. For example, some of those hunters that you’ve enslaved are more suited to be Bone Archer minion line while some of them are more suited to be Bone Soldier minion line.}

“How can you tell? Is there some sort of test that I can subject these spirits to in order to determine their optimal minion affinity?” Frowning, Kaz realized that figuring out how to develop his entourage of minions just became a whole lot more complicated. If there was a test involved, would he have to do it every time to determine his spirit’s affinities? How mana intensive was this test, if it existed? Many of these questions ran through Kaz’s mind as he thought about it. Chuckling to himself, Ahriman reassured Kaz.

{There’s really no test. It’s quite simple really. Remember that the text said, that the spirit’s previous life determines what kind of minion affinity it has. What do you think you need to do, given this information?}

“Is it really as simple as just ripping through the memories of the deceased and analyzing their skills from there? Doesn’t that take too long?” Puzzled, Kaz put the tome down and started to eat the last of the dried food that he had.

{I know it takes a while to get used to, but delving into the memories of your enslaved souls is really effortless work after a while. It only seems like an extremely long time since you’re basically reliving their lives as you look through their memories. The actual amount of time that passes while you’re looking through is actually negligible for an individual person’s memories. After a while, you will become extremely adept at sifting through the mess that was once a person’s life.}

Caught off guard by Ahriman’s completely nonchalant attitude over the dehumanization of dead people, Kaz nearly choked on a large piece of jerky.

{Don’t die on me now, hahaha!} Chortling, Ahriman took much delight in seeing Kaz’s minor suffering.

Managing to swallow the chunk of food that was lodged in his throat, Kaz took a long drink from a second water flask to wash down the remnants of the jerky.

“I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be as callous as you are when discussing what makes a person unique, even after death. You can’t just go through a person’s memories time after time and still be unaffected, even a little bit?”

{I’m sure that in the beginning I was distracted by the memories of other people, but that’s really a problem of supply. You have less than a dozen spirits at this point. When you have to sift through the memories of hundreds or even thousands of spirits in order to build up an army, spending the time to go through each of the deceased memories gets really old really quick.}

“You might be right, but that is not now. I’m going to sift through the memories of the spirits that I have so far, starting with the weakest. This shouldn’t take too long….”

Recalling all of the patrolling spirits back to him, Kaz used his magical sense to probea t each spirit. Diving deep into the memories of each spirit, Kaz tried to figure out what sort of physical undead minion each spirit was most suited to be.

“Hmm some of these spirits seem to still have some slight resistance when I try to force my way into their memories. I do understand that it’s possibly the greatest violation of their privacy that they’ve ever encountered. However, their souls belong to me now, starting from when I first enslaved them.”

Shaking his head at some of the spirit’s resistance, Kaz quickly overpowered even the red spirit’s mental defenses and invaded their memoires. Efficiently categorizing the memories by chronological order, Kaz was able to then further divide the memories of the spirits into categories depending on their content. This way, Kaz was quickly able to ascertain the martial dispositions of each spirit.

“Hmm, it would seem that Ranik’s spirit is actually most suited to be in the Bone Archer minion line. The six hunters that were sent after me are split rather unevenly. Four of them are much more dispositioned to use melee weapons, so they should be put into the Bone Soldier minion line. The other two hunters were more proficient with ranged weapons so they should be categorized into the Bone Archer minion line along with Ranik. The red spirit is giving me trouble, though.”

{Ah, is it one of those rare spirits that have equal affinities for multiple minion lines? Those are the best, you can use them to fill what roles are missing among your minions.}

“It’s not exactly that. The red spirit actually has quite poor affinity with any physical minion line. Most of its memories are unclear, and I am only able to make out certain events that aren’t connected to each other.”

{Mm. That’s a side effect of the spirit being too old, then. The memories of any spirit are slow to deteriorate at first, then are quickly forgotten by the spirit. In the end, the only memories that remain are those that are unusually important to it. That would explain why you are only able to clearly see certain events in the spirit’s memories while most others are unclear.}

“Would it be a much better bet to develop this particular minion as an ethereal minion? It seems to have a lot of previous experience as one before I enslaved it.”

{That might actually be the best choice, but do remember that once you enslaved that spirit the ethereal body was reset to the most basic of ethereal bodies. Each undead minion is particular to its master. The development and control of the minion is completely dependent on the master. Once the connection between minion and master is severed, the minion is rendered nearly useless and must start over from the basics.}

“But that’s not to say that each spirit is the same, is it? Different spirits are the result of the souls of different people developing into an ethereal body. It would make sense that some of their traits carry over even after death. Actually, I think it’s really interesting that the development of an undead minion can affect its base even after it’s enslaved again.”

{In theory, developing a minion along a particular minion line is modifying it to suit your needs. These modifications are very similar to the modifications that you made for your spell incantations. However, undead minions do not have the luxury of retaining two forms.}

“What that means is that unlike my personalized spell incantations, the modifications done to undead minions are permanent and transform the minion. That just makes it harder to decide what modifications I want to make to my minions!”

{Oh relax. It’s not like you’ll ever be limited in your selection of minions in the future. The average necromancer goes through souls in the thousands over the course of a lifetime. It’s not uncommon for necromancers to explicitly target a warrior tribe for their souls in order to reinforce their Bone Soldier minion pool.}

“I think it’ll be quite the while before I can refer to genocide as casually as you do. But nevertheless, I think I should try to mold this red spirit into a more powerful ethereal minion.” Cracking open the heavy tome to the section about ethereal minion lines, Kaz greedily began to absorb all the information that was there.

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“Sergeant. Karel and I have scouted out the inside of this complex. It appears that this complex used to be some sort of magi stronghold. We were unable to read any of the runes on anything that we have found, but we think we’ve tracked down where our target went.”

“Details.” Not one to delay the mission, the sergeant got straight to the point whenever possible.

“It appears that the target broke through a series of walls alongside an inner hallway near the kitchens. He then walked down what appears to be a narrow passageway to some sort of cavern. We didn’t enter the cavern, and returned to report to you.”

Grinning, the sergeant signalled the rest of his squad to get ready.

“It appears that the hunt can truly begin in earnest. It hasn’t been too long so we don’t need to supplement the Felis concoctions that we took previously. Take one portion of the Canis concoctions, and let’s head off. Karel, you take point. Harken, you take the rear. Everybody pay close attention to your surroundings. I don’t want this mission to end in failure.”

With crisp, practiced motions the hunters took out small gray flasks from their utility sacks and drank their contents. Instead of their eyes changing, their teeth changed this time. The hunter’s veins became more pronounced on their faces, and their canine teeth slightly elongated. Drawing their weapons, the hunters went into formation as they followed Karel to the cavern.

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Sighing as he closed the book, Kaz rubbed his eyes with both hands as he thought about what he had just finished reading.

“It seems that the ethereal minion lines are no less complicated than the physical minion lines. In fact, the spirit minion lines seem to be much more useful as scouts and guerilla forces. One thoroughly researched ethereal minion line that is described in detail creates spirits that are extremely hard to detect during the day, and near undetectable by any means during night. These Shadow Spirits differ greatly from the Reaper Spirit minion line as well. The Reaper Spirits are ethereal minions mainly suited for battle while the Shadow Spirits are suited for reconnaissance and assassinations. There even is a Magus Spirit minion line, but that is less well researched than the other main two.”

{You’ll find that undead minion lines are much harder to modify than spell incantations. The main minion lines described in that book, which I think you now know by heart, are the result of possibly millions of undead minions being created and experimented with. They are the pinnacle of undead minion research, and you would do well to abide by them. Of course, you are welcome to experiment with your own minion lines, but that would not happen for a long time since your mastery of the undead is still pitiful.}

Acknowledging Ahriman’s words, Kaz sighed and stood up. Sending four his spirits to patrol for additional dangers, Kaz forced the red spirit to materialize in front of him. Frowning in thought, Kaz began to mold the red spirit into a basic Reaper Spirit.

“I don’t really need more scouting spirits right now. The basic unmodified spirits that I have been using as scouts haven’t failed me so far. What I need right now is more battle support from my minions. In the absence of any body or skeleton from which I could make a physical minion, a Reaper Spirit would be the best choice if I wanted additional backup in battle.”

Carefully manipulating the mana in the atmosphere, Kaz went about molding the red spirit to what he desired. The red spirit, under the careful care of Kaz, quickly began to grow larger. The size of a spirit is not that different from the size that the person was when they were alive. In the beginning, the red spirit was slightly smaller than Kaz. After Kaz was done molding it into a basic Reaper Spirit, the red spirit was larger than Kaz was.

“Hmm. The changes that this red spirit went through are astonishing. The change in size is probably the least surprising thing that underwent a modification. Previously, this spirit’s ethereal body seemed to be coming into and out of existence. Now, it’s much easier to visually focus on the spirit. Surprisingly, this spirit also seemed to form a weapon made out of pure mana.”

{That’s just the standard Reaper Spirit mana weapon. When you followed the modification procedure you used mana to form a permanent mana weapon for this spirit. The weapon will exist as long as the spirit exists. Even if the spirit’s ethereal body is badly damaged to the point that it is destroyed, the soul will regenerate the mana weapon once its ethereal body reforms.}

Stepping back in admiration of his work so far, Kaz blew his breath out in excitement.

“That’s just unfair! How does this mana weapon work? Is it like the claws of the normal spirits? It looks like it would hurt a lot more, though.” Walking around his creation, Kaz’s vision was all over the red reaper spirit’s body as if he was recording the characteristics of this undead minion to memory.

Mentally commanding the red spirit, Kaz had it fly around the central mana crystal as he took note of its speed. Running the red spirit through several trials in order to determine its combat effectiveness, Kaz was completely absorbed in this work.

“It seems that the red spirit is now giving off a bloodthirsty aura. While weak, this aura might prove useful in intimidating its opponents, at least the sentient ones. I expect that this aura will increase in strength. Unfortunately, I can’t gauge the effectiveness of the red spirit’s mana sword. Although I think it bypasses physical armor, I can’t be sure it actually does until I use it in a fight against an armored opponent. The red spirit does seem to be much more sturdy than the basic unmodified spirit, though.”

Very happy with his new undead minion, Kaz was in a state of bliss until one of his patrolling spirits returned. The scouting spirit mentally transmitted the images of the hunter-killer squad travelling towards Kaz through the tunnel filled with mana crystals. Signalling his spirits to gather near the entrance to the cavern, Kaz’s eyes glittered.

{Heh, I can see that you’re excited too. It’s always a good feeling when you turn an ambush against the ambushers.}

“I didn’t think that this hunter-killer squad would appear so soon. It seems that they are much faster than I had estimated based on the memories of the dead hunters. No matter, I just need to be careful and I think I can still come out of this on top. Even if I choose to run away, this cavern is a dead end. I guess it’s kill or be killed.”

Mentally commanding his spirits to wait floating in the air above the cavern entrance, Kaz hid himself behind a wall in direct view of where the hunters would appear. Gathering his mana, Kaz waited for the hunters to arrive.

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