Two hours later came the notification Bones was waiting for.

ding

You have learned a new Skill: Meditation

Finally! Let’s see what the system's description of Meditation is.

Meditation - Ability to enter a trance-like state. In this state resource regeneration is greatly increased. Improves concentration and deepens relaxation. Passively gathers and absorbs ambient mana into the body, strengthening it and nurturing one's core by filtering impurities.

“Close enough! Wait..core? That’s new. System related? What is a core? Sounds familiar...show me!”

Core is a machination designed by The Creator to provide access to the system and provides a user with an easier path to higher power. All system records are stored within it. Core is created at birth as a seed and is a physical vessel where the soul resides. It grows by accumulating mana over a period of time.

Once the soul reaches the required threshold, dimensional space is unlocked. All in one, a package deal!

“A package deal...what is it with such an aloof description? Core designed to, wait, created at birth? Then… when my soul was infused with a skeleton, my core was created? It did say so right at the beginning!”

Having said that, he did his best to look inside his rib cage where his heart would be. He tried to feel it with his hands but found nothing!

Not a heart, a brain then? Not gonna start picking my brains though. “What a fireball of information this was.”

There was a simpler way to feel the core or at least the only other way he thought of. By meditation. As he was meditating, he focused on the mana, the mana flow and all the way to the source. Once he felt the source, a new notification appeared.

Bones core (Unique) - a unique core created by fusion of ancient soul and undead minion. Soul is weakened at the moment and is recovering within a core. Recovery time unknown.

Meditation recommended

Dimensional space (enabled)

Inventory unlocked

Core sustains and empowers the body with mana (active/deactive)

Empower cost: +1 mp/s per level in race

Empowered state (trigger) increases damage by 1% per point in INT and increases the mana cost of skills by 100% during empowered state

Weakened? I feel fine though. Also, what does it mean core passively sustains the body? Dimensional space enabled? No wait, what would happen if I..deactivated a sustain on the body? Can it be deactivated?

He again focused on the core and tried to see what would happen if he managed to stop the flow. As he did so, he stopped sustaining the core and lost all control of the body. He could no longer see with vision, feel the mana flow running through his body or anything really. Only mana sense worked and emptiness of it all made him feel dread with each second the core wasn’t active, Soon, he couldn’t take it any longer and activated his core back “online”.

He felt like he had held his breath and was near drowning. What would happen if he couldn’t activate his core? The sheer thought of it made him shudder.

Bones musings were interrupted when gurgling sounds were heard from the direction of a camp. Inhuman sounds. Seemed like someone else was at a camp. He got up and was looking in the camp's direction from the branch he was on, trying to get a feel for the situation. After a very brief consideration, he jumped down from a tree and landed in a slightly crouched position. He was practically weightless and started to really enjoy the advantages. Moving towards a camp he could hear more and more screeching, rustling and intangible muttering.

Peeking through the bushes, he saw them. Filthy little green rats. Goblins! Rats of any forest but mostly sewers. They were swarming out of the forest and he counted ten of them. No…one more stepped out, bigger than the others and from his body gestures, a leader of the group. He was commanding them and soon after, half of the goblins spread out and started searching while the other half went through the bodies of kobolds and apparently were ready to set up camp.

Bones reached out, grabbed and pulled back one by the throat as it was passing by and gripped so hard his fingers penetrated the goblins neck. He pulled its throat out and left it bleeding out on the ground, clutching a hole where its throat was. It was dead in seconds.

Bones dismissed a notification, never taking his focus off the mess happening in a camp. He looked down at the body and picked up a crude spear.

Goblins were fast but usually weak and had a shorter reach. They rarely went one on one so they always moved in groups. They were pests before and it seems they still were.

Amazing, after all this time they still look the same and are still easy to kill. *hiss*

“Hiss? Do skeletons hiss? Where did that come from?”

One of the goblins closest to him snapped its head towards the now empty spot where the dead goblin was just a few seconds ago. Narrowing its eyes it snarled, signaling others and started walking towards the bushes. As it got closer, it poked its head through the bush and its whole body twitched briefly and then collapsed. Blood started leaking out the hole at the back of its head. Other goblins now went on full alert pointing their weapons and slowly moving forward. Bigger goblin stayed behind the group, observing the situation. A second later, the spear that was still piercing the dead goblins head was pulled back and from the bushes walked out a skeleton.

Watching every goblin surrounding him, Bones tried to be as intimidating as he could be. It worked though. Every goblin, including the bigger one, tensed up...Half even froze, paralayzed by fear. A silhouette of a figure was running at him from the side and he turned, seeing a goblin charging. It was a naive thought, charging blindly at someone twice your height but he was glad that their intelligence clearly wasn't as improved. Small goblin plus smaller reach equals dead goblin. Poking turned out to be more useful than he thought as his bony fingers reached the goblin head before its crude spear reached him. With the sharp phalanges he penetrated its eyes and with a spear in his hand, impaled the goblin through the torso.

Taking a spear from a dead goblin he charged towards the nearest two that stood frozen with fear. He drove a tip of the spear through the head of one and grabbed hold of a second one with his other hand. He released his grip on the spear, leaving it embedded in the goblins skull as he turned to the second one and swirled the finger of his free arm through the goblins eye. Blood splattered across his skull but he didn't react. It wasn't his first time being surrounded with gore and corpses, though usually they were folks strapped on his research table.

Taking back the spear he was impaled from behind. He didn’t expect it and reacted by instinct.

*AaaRgH!*

A strange pained sound came out of his mouth by reflex. He slowly turned around, sword still impaled in his back, and looked his attacker directly in the eyes. Attacker, a goblin, looked terrified.

It thought it killed a demon that killed its tribesman only for a demon to turn around, unfazed by the sword still sticking out of him, and looking directly at it with its hollow eyes. Goblin, stunned by the whole situation, didn’t respond and was promptly poked to death.

The carnage happening in a camp lasted but a minute, battles ending in seconds with goblins simply failing to find a way to stop the skeleton from killing them. Bigger one was just that, a bigger goblin slightly stronger than rest and with longer reach but still falling short, compared to human arms reach.

The demon in question was back high on a branch of a tree he was before, taking a breather, metaphorical one. He was still processing what went down there. It's been a long long time since he moved that much. He wasn't very proficient in hand to hand combat nor with weapons but he had the basics drilled down and mostly moved by reflex.

This new body of his proved very proficient in moving around and agile enough to dodge the majority of their attacks. Some of those that hit, hit empty spaces between his bones and those that didn’t miss, left scratches in some places. He hadn't felt them during combat, which might be a bit troublesome in the future if he couldn't feel pain at all. He didn’t even hear the notifications dinging in the middle of the fight. He had a lot of notifications to go through and he started by reading them one by one…

Combat experience gained

Combat experience gained

Combat experience gained

.

Level up!

Congratulations, you are now level 4

+1 STR, +2 VIT, + 2 INT

Combat experience gained

Combat experience gained

Level up!

Congratulations, you are now level 5

+1 STR, +2 VIT, + 2 INT

You have learned a new skill: Drain Mana [passive]

Congratulations on reaching level 5!

You have taken your first step toward infinite power, riches and fame.

Becoming a God, just a step away. All you need is to take the rest of the steps to get there.

Your first step is choosing your class. Choose wisely for it will define your path forward!

There were more than ten notifications he went through. Most were kill notifications, few were skill level ups and he gained two levels in total! One of the notifications was unexpected and after reading the notification, interested him the most. He was about to choose his class, but before that, he almost overlooked the passive Drain Mana skill.

Drain Mana [passive] - Grants a chance to trigger on hit a mana drain effect on your target. Chance to apply the effect and amount of mana drained increases with skill level.

“That actually seems like a useful passive ability...and it’s a racial ability? Meaning all the skeletons have it? Must be hard for mages to fight against them.”

Focusing back on class selection, Bones felt all giddy looking at the options. He would choose and lead a different path this time. They could have named it Path instead of Class, it's a bit confusing.

Classes available: 3

Rogue - You have proven yourself efficient in stealth and ambush tactics. Regardless of the choice of your weapon you have great potential as a rogue and the paths that follow.

Arcane Mage - You have a way with mana. Mana sense and mana manipulation a proof. Arcane Mage class leads to a variety of paths available. Should you choose an Arcane Mage class you will start with basic arcane spells at your disposal.

Bonemancer - You were born as bones and Bones you always will be. You can sense a mana coursing through your bones and empowering you. With bone manipulation learned, you have already begun your journey on the path of a Bonemancer. Bonemancer will give you means to bend, shape and mend bones and above all, golem creation. It wouldn’t be a mancer without minions.

He knew rogues, he knew what they do and he had a pretty good idea of some of the paths the class could lead to. Cloaks and daggers weren't anything new, though perhaps now they were?

Arcane mage was what he wanted to be. Arcane spells, unleashing raw mana, that was a power he urged for! He saw mages manipulate mana in its raw form, slaying foes he couldn’t. Being an arcane mage wasn’t something you could learn. You had to be born into it. Have a talent for it. Most mages had a knack for manipulating elements and their mana type matched their mana affinity. Arcane mages tough, they didn’t have limitations. If you could manipulate raw mana, you could probably manipulate, to a certain degree, any other type of mana. It just required a much higher learning curve.

Bonemancer was something new, something he had never heard of. He figured the class was provided because of bone manipulation but the class just spoke to him. He WAS all bones, after all. A class description did interest him more than the other two classes. From what he gathered, class would give him the ability to bend and shape? Sounds like manipulating bones to him and mend? As in mending aka healing? Would he be able to heal his broken bones? Mend the visible scratches he sustained on his body! His fingers were missing some pieces of bones at this point. Battle was a mess without stopping and he was fighting without holding anything back. Mending bones would prove vital to his survivability if he was to fight the way he did. And lastly, minions or precisely, golems. He didn’t know what golems exactly were but they were tagged as minions and he saw what summoned minions could be like.

Flashback brought him back to the moment when he came to be. The first thing he saw were skeletons, everywhere! And further to the side, a person kneeling, he guessed now, was a summoner. Truly an outrageous ability!