As I opened the first scroll I saw that it was a map of this continent. Apparently named Imerith and not at all like the mental map I had in my head after Campbell’s geography lesson when I first woke up in Deepguard. I sucked in my teeth a little before I had to chuckle as I noticed there was a small note written on the very edge of the map.

“So apparently I’m a little directionally challenged.” He wrote and I had to laugh at that. He hadn’t just been a little directionally challenged he seemed to have been giving me references from almost the completely wrong map!

Not only was Wolfsguard almost in the middle of the map but its main capital was situated on a large island in the middle of a large inland sea. The merits of the locations already apparent to me as it had a single land entrance that was easily fortified. Not only that but the island seemed to be a raised bluff with steep cliffs all around it.

Wolfsguard had expanded outwards from this island and controlled a rather large swath of land now. I even noticed that the area I had helped them conquer had become rather lucrative for them. It allowed them to have a full port with access to the southern jungles of the continent. Thankfully there was a huge river that blocked them from expanding more to the west without large ships.

What was interesting and something I hadn’t been able to see while I was in Aona’s “service”. There was a huge bridge city that connected two peaks over that same massive river named simply the city of bridges. According to the map, it was a Dwarven city.

Over the massive river was a collection of small nations that became split up by a small mountain range leading to a dessert. Owning a part of the desert and then up north towards the MASSIVE Deep woods was the Alocian empire.

I was rather shocked actually. The deep woods almost dominated the entirety of the north-western part of the entire continent. I could see why the Alocian empire wanted to expand into them. This was a huge swath of land with untapped resources after all.

I also noticed that the map only seemed to show large rivers that connected to the ocean. That and that even despite the Deep woods the northernmost parts of the continent seemed uninhabited.

In the bottom left corner seemed to be the start of a large archipelago and in the right corner seemed to be a large island with a tiny one south-east of it. I didn’t believe that there wasn’t much more explored by these people but the handy legends tap almost dominating the right part of the map. Then there was the other thing that dominated the eastern part of the map, mostly the northeast at least.

Something named the veil of aeons. A little ominous a name for certain but I felt there must be something there. This planet couldn’t be just these simple landmasses after all. There had to be a reason these people hadn’t explored more of their world.

I hummed and made little squeaking noises as I poured over the map a bit. Then I put it down and smiled a little at the gift that Campbell had given me. I really had to find the man to thank him for looking out for a fellow reincarnator after all.

My eyes were then drawn to the other scroll on the table and the tiny label on top of it. Gently picking the label off I read it and then gasped as my eyes went wide.

The label read as follows. “I decided to give you a bit more of a leg up. Since many necromancers never manage to get out of the first twenty levels. This is one of the secret skills of necromancers that unlock with specific actions and insights. It can lead to a rather powerful skill which I have already but I want you to figure it out yourself.

I made this skill scroll by sacrificing all the progress I have with this skill as well as sacrificed two skill points I had saved for a rainy day. So make this count kid! Good luck and I hope you manage whatever you set out to do.

- Campbell.

Ps. I suggest using a mask or something whenever your doing necromancy out in the open.”

I was flabbergasted at the label. What had he just done for me?! I eyed the scroll and analysed it.

Item Type: Skill Scroll.

Description: Imparts the skill Basic Raise Minor specter lvl. 1. This skill allows the user to raise minions of the spectral variety.

Holy… I took the scroll into my hand and opened it, accepting the learning prompt and then reeled at the new notifications that came to my mind.

Congratulations! You’ve learned Basic Raise minor specter lvl. 1!

Basic Death Sense lvl. 4 has mutated! It now allows the user to feel for soul fragments and spirits that can be raised with minor raise specter! Basic Death sense lvl. 4 > Advanced Death sense lvl. 1

Damn! I reeled a little but then calmed down a bit as I began to seek out with my new death sense. The spirits around were numerous and seemed ravenous. There didn’t seem to be any human spirits but there was an abundance of wolf, wolfman and Lycan spirits.

I decided to raise two as that was half my limit on spectral minions. While I wanted to spend the next few stat points I had into intelligence as it seemed to count towards my minion maximum I instead wanted to at least bring my perception up to twenty at the least. I knew it might be foolish of me to do that to my build, as it were, but I had a hunch that it might apply to my observation oriented skills and abilities.

As I left the house I searched around for something I could raise. I knew I had too many wolves so I had my eye on a wolfman or lycan. I walked to where I had fought on the wall and gathered my death sense towards myself and then let it out in a pulse. I felt and then began to half see the spirits around me.

Wolves, wolfmen and Lycans all snarled and snapped at me but their ire was impotent in their current state.

I fixed my eyes on two wolfmen and reached out to them. I activated the skill with a mental command and immediately felt my will battle theirs. It was like fighting a python covered in grease and about as physically intense for me.

I fell to one knee and grunted as the two wolfmen snarled at me, coming forwards to roar at me. Though being spectres they were simply silently roaring.

As I began to exert my mind more and more I saw that the wolfman began to gain cracks or veins along their bodies and then suddenly burst into light. I felt like a horse had just kicked me in both the head and chest as I fell back and breathed loudly.

Basic Raise Minor Specter lvl. 1 has failed to activate!

Seeing that notification I groaned again. Seems that I have to battle the wills of the spectres as well to raise them? Or am I missing something? I felt a little dejected at my failure and continued to try until I lay on top of the wall, covered in sweat and panting.

My head felt like it was about to split open. I hadn’t managed to raise a single spectre and what was worse? The damn souls or soul fragments were destroyed when I failed so I only had a few more spirits around me left.

I groaned a little as I turned over to get up on all fours before I finally stood up on wobbly legs. “I think that’s enough for today.” I grumbled as I made my way back to Campbell’s house.

As I was about to take hold of the doorknob I heard loud clopping sounds and turned to look at the gate. I smiled a little as I saw my skeletal minions returning and all had grown by a rank. Svadilfari looked a little like a slightly emaciated horse but with bone plates that made him look as if he had leathery skin.

He reminded me a little of deaths horse from that Darksiders franchise of games. Except he was missing the cool green ethereal flames and effect. I saw that on top of him where three bone crows and all squawked at me. I’m going to have to remember that once they become bone versions the silence is ended.

The Ravens seemed to still be flightless which rather annoyed me. With a gesture for one of them to come before me, I watched one hop down and glide a little. So they could glide but not fly, well at least some progress has been made.

Once it was before me I breathed in a little and then reached out with my hand towards it and breathed out. “Here goes nothing.” I muttered as I used shadow infusion on the raven.

So good news and bad news. Good news shadow infusion went up by a whole two levels, seems it was very close to a level up and doing it to this raven was worth pushing through that level and the next. So now I had basic shadow infusion level 5. Bad news? Well, the thing began shrieking horribly and attacked me.

Svadilfari had stomped the raven hard enough to crack the cobblestone tile his hoof landed on. Then he simply snorted and raised his head up and down a little. I figured he was demanding a reward so I scratched him extra well.

Then the other wolves and ravens wished for scratches and pets so I had to spend almost five minutes rewarding them all. I still found it so fascinating how they had personalities despite being supposedly minor level undead.

I looked at what remained of the shadow infusion experiment and grimaced. Why didn’t this work? I mean I could do it to my carapace and supposedly my weapons, though I’d have to try to find out for sure. However, I wasn’t getting why it didn’t work with my undead minions.

Was it that I wasn’t strong enough as a necromancer yet? Hmm perhaps. That might also possibly explain the spirit-raising failures I had been having.

I had to just get this done somehow, to figure this all out. I mean Campbell had sacrificed quite a bit for me to learn the skill after all. I felt bad not being able to use it to any particular effect. Not to mention it had actually told me that it had failed to activate. Was I missing something as a medium? The way I found the skills to work at least when I got them at the very base level. They let me know how to use them on an instinctual level I just sort of knew how to use them.

Once I had managed to get a skill to get to the highest of the basic type levels it was like second nature to use the skill. Above that in the advanced rankings and most likely higher, the instinctual knowledge began to grow deeper and I had more insight and understanding of the skill and what it could do.

So that left me at a loss when it came to the raise minor spectre skill. I only knew instinctually how to activate the thing but that was pretty much it. I had no idea how it worked or any understanding of the skill either.

A sudden epiphany hit me. Maybe to find out why shadow infusion wasn’t working I’d have to increase it to the advanced stage? Worth a shot.

I opened the door and waited until all my minions had piled into the house, Svadilfari decided to just lie down in the first room and snorted at me as I raised an eyebrow at him. I chuckled a little and petted him just a little more before leaving him and entering what had been my bedroom for a few days now.

Garmur and his pack all moved around the house, exploring and searching it while the ravens simply hopped after me into the room. Once inside they decided to take up perches on the chest at the foot of the bed.

I hummed a little and then raised them up onto the bedposts that came out of the foot of the bed. It would give them a little better view and I suspected a little protection from the pack’s playing.

I sat down at the desk and began to pour over the books Campbell had left me. The first one was rather aptly named “The guide to beginner necromancy – by Darwin Campbell.” I chuckled a little at the rather simple naming sense Campbell seemed to have but I had to admit he had one hell of a name.

The second was something I was a little wary of. “Martial arts, weapon styles and movement techniques. A guide to surviving combat.” There wasn’t an author for this book listed but I decided to open the massive book and smiled once more as I saw a note from Campbell on the very first page.

“Vlad my boy I left these books here for you to read over and learn while you have time to try out the things in them. I recommend you not begin reading the guide to necromancy until you’ve learned at least one movement, martial and weapon arts.

I know I can’t really tell you not to open the necromancy book and flip through it but I want you to be able to deal with things without your necromancy. I hope you listen to my guidance on this matter.

Pick one of each of the three I mentioned before at least. Also, remember to read through the descriptions and pick those that suit you and the direction you wish to grow in. Secondly, even mages are taught how to do hand to hand, movement and weapon styles up to the advanced level before they are let out of their schools so I’m not being unreasonable here.

So study hard and I hope to meet you one day again. So don’t you dare to die on me or I’ll raise you as a skeleton to scrub my toilets!!!”

I laughed at the note and impishly checked the first page of the necromancy book. As I suspected there was a simple note there as well stating rather simply. “Go read the other book first!” I laughed a little before I put the book away with the other books I had taken from Dunleavy’s house. I’d check on them once I had at least begun to learn something.

When I thought on it I already had a movement technique with wraith step so I’d have to learn a martial and weapon art. I paused a little as I thought this whole thing through again. “What is this a wuxia world or something?” I wondered out loud but then simply shook my head.

I just had to take what I had been given and not look the gift horse in the mouth as it were.

I began to pour over the martial book and decided to go for a martial art that allowed me to use my fists and legs but would also allow for moves with my claws. I stopped then and thought for a bit. Why not try two different martial arts? I mean one which would focus much more on my claws and another for when I can’t use them. It would be good if both were rather different as I’d most likely use my full carapace to disguise myself when going all necromancer and stuff.

So having two different styles of fighting hand to hand would help keep up a disguise at least. “Maybe tiger style or something?” I wondered aloud as I thought on those old kung fu movies I had watched when I was younger and how those guys used their fingers to tear flesh. Imagine using my claws for that! I shuddered at the thought of being on the receiving end of that type of attack.

I poured over the book, skipping through the diagrams of movement and instead simply read the introduction parts for each art. I noticed one weapon style that had a peculiar weapon. It was named the reapers scythe style which made me chuckle a little.

What was interesting about this style however was the peculiar weapon required for its use. It was a combination scythe and glaive weapon with a sort of trigger to flick the blade either to the side to make the scythe or straight ahead to make a glaive. I became rather fascinated by this weapon and style. I’d like to learn it but I not only didn’t have this switch scythe type weapon but I also only had swords on hand so I couldn’t really learn it properly.

I continued and noted two different sword styles I found interesting. One was known as the Death’s aegis style and was primarily a sort of juggernaut style used by death knights in the past. Granted I rolled my eyes at the edge lord name but then again it was also rather aptly named.

The second style was named the sweeping hatched style. Now, this was a rather interesting style as it switched between the old murder strikes, were a wielder grips the blade and strikes with the hilt of their sword usually with armour piercing results, and sweeping strikes which flowed rather well together.

I also found a style named the wraith’s revenge, which was supposedly an extinct martial art used by necromancers of the past. It was rather perfect for me as it focused on the user to learn bone weapon-making from the death squire class and from there they created sharp bone claws and gauntlets over their arms and grieves over their legs.

There was very little wasted movement and it seemed brutal and almost savagely wild. There was a note that those that practised this martial art alongside the Ghoul’s riposte martial art were rather feared in the past. Perhaps I could use that martial arts philosophy that I think Bruce Lee made, though I’m not sure it was him that made the philosophy. It was that one should take what worked for oneself and discard that which doesn’t.

I decided to try that for those two necromancy related martial arts for when I had to fight as a necromancer. Then I had to choose a simple martial art that still covered all the bases when I wasn’t known as a necromancer. I groaned a little at being so darn careful to even dividing martial arts to these two supposed personas but despite my lack of knowledge from my time in Wolfsguard. I still knew that necromancers were rather hunted down whenever they happened to appear. Heck, I’d killed at least one or two during my time as a “hero” after all.

I sighed as I continued to pour over the book until I came upon a martial art named Blackstone guard. I was intrigued and as I looked over the diagrams I saw it was some sort of hybrid of Muay Thai and I think Sambo? I’m only guessing since it seems a bit like the moves that Russian character in Tekken used. Dragunov I think his name was?

This interested me rather greatly as this seemed to be a style designed to not only utilize all parts of the body to attack or defend but also allowed for the manipulation of the opponent and his limbs.

I poured over the book and the styles I found interesting, reading far into the night. Then my exhaustion managed to catch up to me and I stumbled into bed. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

I felt as if only a second had passed when a particularly persistent ray of sunlight decided to shine on my eyes. I groaned and turned my head only to feel like I was being watched. Cracking open one eye I saw Garm and the pack sitting obediently at the edge of my bed all staring at me.

I groaned once more and was about to just go to sleep when my calves were pecked at by the Ravens. “All right already. I’m up.” I groaned in a defeated tone.

“Some necromancer I am.” I growled as I got up and stretched. Earning a cocked head from the pack and what sounded like laughter from the caws of the ravens. I flipped the birds the bird and got dressed in my shoes and outer tunic.

Most of my clothes were getting rather dirty and even a little tattered. Campbell had told me to look into the chest at the foot of my bed for new clothing but I decided to just use these for the next two or so days while I trained and tired to learn the styles. “Perhaps I should try to learn a movement technique as well?” I wondered aloud only to get Svadilfari’s headbutt into my back as he ushered me outside.

I stumbled out of the house after Svadilfara’s headbutt and turned to glare at the undead horse. “There’s a saying where I’m from Svadilfari, if you don’t behave it’s off to the glue factory with you.” I growled but the undead horse simply whinnied at me and snorted as he walked out of the house.

I watched him walk past me and then sighed a little. “I’m talking to an undead horse… I’ve gone insane at last.” I muttered before I remembered the martial book and went back to fetch it and then left once more.

“Garmur, go get me some breakfast won’t you?” I said with a smile and the pack let out little ‘wuffs’ of joy before darting out the gate. I shot Svadifara a smirk only to get his backside turned to me in reply.

Grumbling and mumbling under my breath I made my way to the training field that Grandon had trained me at. I felt a little pang of guilt as I looked over it but I had to use the time I had to get even slightly stronger or more skilled I should say.

I had decided on going to a magical school so focusing on the more martial aspects of my strength now would only help me out in the long run. I hope.

I decided to slot the day down. Before noon I would practice the necromantic martial art styles and try to divide that time equally between the two. Then for two hours I’d practice the Blackstone guard style before moving on to two more hours for the sword styles.

After that I’d spend either an hour or half an hour trying to get the raise minor specter to work after which I’d spend the remainder of the time playing hide and seek with the pack. Emphasis on the seek as they had to touch me. This would allow me to train up my stealth, evasion, wraith step and so forth until I got dinner and spent the remainder of the evening slowly going through the very basic moves of each style to try and work in some muscle memory.

I knew that Cherobog or the worg would arrive when it was time to leave so I continued to train as much as I was able to in the mean time. The first day ended up as a bust for actually gaining the martial arts as skills and the same could be said for the raise spectre skill.

On the other hand my sour mood at that point lifted at the rather fun yet intense game of hide and go tag as I decided to call it afterwards.

Garmur and his pack were relentless in their pursuit of me. I had to give myself a bit more of a head start after the first time. The second time I promised the wolves that I wouldn’t run along the rooftops after wraith stepping up there and using it to move from rooftop to rooftop.

This game lasted for almost three hours before dinner rolled along and I was panting heavily at the end. I’d have to make sure to get enough time to take a bath at the end of all of this.

The night went as I had planned and the next day I woke up early and went out. This time I instructed the pack and ravens to search the houses for food and valuables while I trained. I showed them what I deemed valuable and useful before I let them loose. I just hoped that everything would work out as I began to train.

At the beginning of the afternoon, I went up to the walls. Sweat was slick on my skin as I had decided to take the training a step further to try and see if I got any gains later in the day. I breathed hard as I got to the top of the walls and closed my eyes, sending out a pulse in my death sense to my surroundings. I saw them as they began to appear in my sight. The wolfmen and Lycans were the only spirits left and they looked ragged.

They looked as if someone had made them into life-like statues made of cotton sheets and had tarred them up before breathing life into them once again. I even felt like two of the Lycan’s and two Wolfmen seemed to be whining at me.

Tentatively I reached out to those four and to my surprise they came towards me. I was rather happy and I began to try and pet them though my hand simply went through them.

“Will you four come with me?” I asked gently as I looked them over as they nodded at me. “Will you help me use my skill on you? How do I raise you as spectres?” I asked them and they looked at one another before looking at me. I got a sudden bout of inspiration and groaned just a little mentally. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

I went back into the town and looked through the valuables the pack had gathered and found two copper rings. I looked them over carefully to see if there was any crack or the like on them before going back to the spectres. Only to find they had followed me.

“Do you want to be separated with one wolfman and Lycan per ring?” I asked them but they split themselves up according to species. With that, I held out one of the rings and focused on the Lycans.

It was rather hard to find tethers for the spirits and I was drenched in sweat when I finally managed to bind the two Lycans to the copper ring. I fell to my knees from near exhaustion as I watched the ring change. The metal seemed to change so that half of it was shiny pure copper and the other the telltale green colour that copper tends to go to after many years.

The ring also morphed a little and two Lycan heads seemed to be coming together to bite onto something. It was a socket for a gem or something but I hadn’t the faintest clue of what I should put into it. Not only that I had no idea if I could transfer the spirits to a better material that could hold a larger quantity of spirits.

The Lycans reappeared and weren’t as ragged as before though they seemed to have morphed a little. Their legs were gone and instead was ethereal flame though upside down as if I was standing on my hands and looking at a campfire. Instead, their claws had extended a little and their eyes held a glint to them I couldn’t identify.

I smiled at the spectres and watched them spin off into the air and out into the woods. I had no idea why they had done that but I looked at the wolfmen who seemed to stare at me expectantly. I took a small water break before I began to do the same to them, finding it a tad easier as I now had the hang of it.

Their ring turned to be two wolfmen heads with their backs to one another with a socket in-between. This ring also had the same colour shift as the first and I felt as if I could put only one more spirit into either ring before they’d be full.

I smiled as the spirits reappeared from the ring as I slipped it on, I had the rings on the middle finger and ring finger on my right hand. The wolfmen seemed to have changed very little other than their outlines were a little more defined and didn’t seem to be made of smoke as it were.

The wolfmen looked at one another and then burst into movement around the village. I thought I could use these spirits as scouts as I knew somehow that they wouldn’t be able to interact with the world in any significant manner. They had attacks certainly but they would target the spirit of the creature which would take much longer to kill that way.

With that done I opened the notifications I had kept in the back of my mind these past two days and almost fainted when the barrage came at me. Note to self, don’t let notifications build up for more than a day during training or hard fighting.

But damn! The spectres are all rank 2 creatures?! HOW!!!