He was of two minds regarding his choice. Rogue was out, simply because he thought the other two classes had more to offer. He was mulling over choosing an Arcane Mage for a moment but Bonemancer class kept popping up in his mind. He was drawn to it and he didn’t feel like either choice would be a wrong one. So he chose a class which he felt he was meant to be.

You have chosen a class: Bonemancer

Congratulations on choosing your first class!

Recommended attribute distribution: INT

ding

You have learned a new skill: Bone Spear

“Show me!”

Bone Spear (basic) - Summon a piercing projectile made of bones with increased piercing power. Piercing damage reduced with each pierced target. Damage and durability of the spear is increased if the bone is used as a material..

Cost: 10 mp

Level up: +1 bone spear per 5 lvls, +1 mp cost per lvl

Having learnt the aforementioned skill, Bones checked his status after a while to see how far he had gotten.

Status

Attributes

Name: Bones

Race: Undead Skeleton lvl 5

Class: Bonemancer lvl 1

Profession: ???

Hp - 108/130

Mp - 89/130

Sta - ∞

STR: 9

AGI: 5

END: 5

VIT: 13

INT: 13

WIS: 5

Free points: 1

Hmm…tiny cracks and scratches here and there did reduce my health points. They do recover slowly over time. Mana on the other hand? I don’t remember using any skills or abilities that cost me...ah! I see. I should've thought of it before. I AM using mana constantly, aren’t I? Just by moving I’m losing mana and with how much I moved during combat, no wonder. If I had to use skills like Bone Spear often I'd be out of mana in no time. Now what should i do with my free point...

He contemplated where he should spend his free point. Should he follow the recommended distribution or make his own choice?

There’s no reason not to follow as recommended. At least until I know more about my class and paths to follow.

After placing his free attribute point in INT, a sense of power washed over him for a brief moment. He really liked the feeling.

Half an hour had passed since the battle had ended and silence spread out through the forest once again. Only the sound of wind could be heard accompanied by rustling of leaves. Bones thought about where to go from here but decided to stay for a while. He wanted to try out his new skill and test the difference with and without a bone as material.

He got up and went back to the now empty camp filled with corpses. What he needed was right there in abundance. Lots and lots of available bones. Using bone manipulation he felt the bones around him, he willed his mana to spread around the closest corpse and seep into the body. He felt mana coursing through the now dead body, through flesh, organs and finally attaching itself to bones. He tried to Will the bones to move but they didn’t budge.

Tsk tsk, his annoyance was showing for he knew he had to get the bones out the hard way.

He tried one more time, yanking the bones out of the body but as he “pulled”, the upper body of a corpse suddenly moved to a sitting position. Startled by the sudden movement, he lost focus for a brief moment and his mana control went awry. Corpse falling back to how it was.

That was disturbing, he thought.

He knew he would have to get even dirtier, correction, bloodier. He searched for anything sharp he could use until his gaze fell over the bigger goblin. If any of them would have anything remotely useful, it would be the big guy. He searched the body and found an iron knife, still sharp, stuck in its loincloth.

"It would have to suffice for now", he said, with a tired undertone. He was mentally tired with so much going on at once. He went back to the corpses, chose one at random and went to work…

After an hour of gruesome cutting and pulling and more cutting, he was finally satisfied with the amount of bones he could use. They were bloody, with tendons still attached to some bones, but that was the best he could do for now.

Gathering all the bones in a pile he expanded his mana to encompass one of the bones, activating a skill Bone Spear. Tendrils of mana attached themselves to the bone and the bone started to levitate. Mana dissolved all the grime still on bone until there was nothing else but a clean white bone slightly shaped like a spear!

Bones smiled as best as the skeleton could as the bone spear was levitating at his side. He noted his mana went down when he made the spear and now it was only draining him mana required for bone manipulation.

It seemed optimal and practical for combat at medium distance from a target. He wasn’t confident he could hit a target from a larger distance, at least not for now. In fact, he chose to practice targeting on a nearest tree and much to his displeasure at mutilating bodies any further, on the bodies of the fallen. He needed to see the destructiveness of a skill.

Spear was about half a meter long. Bit short for a spear he mused, but would improve with level in skill, or so he read. He assumed a stance and willed a spear to impale a tree some ten meters away. Spear moved in sudden jerked motion for about five meters and then plummeted down to the ground where it kept sliding for two meters more.

“Hmmm...right then!”

He walked up to a spear, used manipulation to pick it up and went back to his starting position. This time, he extended his arm and with a flick of his wrist willed a spear to fly. Spear sprang into motion like an arrow from a bow and embedded itself deep in the ground next to the aimed tree. Bones grinned, “much better!”

It went much easier the second time. He found that hand motion was necessary to guide a flow of mana and, for some reason, made aiming easier. All things considered, Bones was satisfied. Finally he had means to attack from range! Damage wise, spear impact was enough to simply demolish anything he had seen so far.

(Flashback bringing him back to summoned skeletons)…well almost anything.

Looking around he spotted somewhat clean clothes on one of the corpses, a goblin was using them to cover it's torso and lower parts. Disgusting and small as they were, they were still enough to provide some cover to his bones. He did feel naked walking around with nothing on. Boots and a hood, nowhere to be seen.

He used a different set of clothes to tie the extra bones he prepared, making them more carriable. He turned around and started going back to his spot on a tree. He barely moved when he felt a slight disturbance in ambient mana. His mana sense, picking something up.

Is someone coming?

He lowered the bones he carried, hurriedly laid down, deactivated his core and played dead. Seconds later, from the surrounding trees two humans jumped into the clearing, landing a few meters away from the not-so-dead Bones. They seemed to be some kind of hunters based on the gear they wore. A dark brown leather armor, a hood covering most of their face and daggers sheathed by their waist.

“What a bloody mess. In-fighting or adventurers?” Spoke the first scout.

“Could be either but” seeing the tracks left behind, “seems more like goblins ambushing kobolds. Goblins made their camp here, a patrol considering the number of their corpses. Possible in-fighting.” Pointed at the mess the second hunter.

“Mhm, it seems so...one human casualty. Not recent either by the looks of it.” He said looking at the skeleton not far away

Looking in the same direction, the first hunter replied. “Seems to be one of the newbie adventurers. Few low level goblins shouldn't be able to best a party of adventurers in a newbie zone, let alone kobolds. Maybe a solo adventurer?”

“Let's return and report. Our patrol shift has ended anyway and there's a report of a skeleton army marching and attacking villages. In just two days a village has already fallen to undead and many dead are joining their ranks…”

*sigh*

Both scouts turned their heads towards the skeleton one last time and then left. Skeleton in question laid frozen for a few more minutes after they left. Once he was sure they weren't coming back, he got up and left as fast as he could. Up the tree, sat cross legged and entered meditation. He needed a moment to process everything that transpired.

This part of a forest appears to be a beginners area of sorts, explaining the low level of monsters. They were, after all, an easy kill. Do scouts like them patrol often? There's also that skeleton army…where are they marching and what for? I doubt the summoner raised his army and sent them marching without any reason. I probably would, not many others though. *sigh*

“A lot is happening in such a short amount of time.”

“Can’t say I hate it though!” *grins*

He was looking in the direction the scouts went. He was considering whether he should follow or go in a different direction. He chose to follow. He needed information more than anything. Hearing scouts saying they were going back to report their findings, he concluded following them would lead him out of the forest and into civilization. He had his worries, what skeleton didn't, but he planned to deal with them as they came. Throwing one last look at the now demolished camp, he turned west and started walking through the forest yet again.

Sun was setting and Bones was running through the forest, a couple of oversized wolves chasing after him. It's been two hours since he entered their zone, apparently, because they’ve been chasing him ever since.

At first they wearily approached him, circling around, sensing nothing edible on him. But bones be bones and wolves loving bones, they attacked! It was his first time fighting with a bone spear and unfortunately, yet again it became more of a close combat. Sort of. He dodged their pounces and kept impaling them with both a crude spear in his hands and a bone spear, making short work of them. Four wolves lay around him. Two got impaled through the head, one through the heart and the last one had two holes sticking out of his torso. Their levels being level 3 and level 4, giving barely any experience. Bones didn't mind it much, because shortly after, he could sense more wolves coming.

He summoned a spear and got ready to attack. Soon however he turned around and started running, a pack of seven wolves running after him. He was slightly faster than them, proving yet again the advantage of having a lighter body. Occasionally he would turn around, sending a spear at his pursuers, putting them down one by one. Most wolves died in one hit, only a few at level 5 and higher needed two hits. Experience was low and he needed a lot of it.

At one point while running, he sensed mana building up from his left. He turned and saw the biggest wolf so far charging at him. He readied his spear but before he could use it, he collapsed. He got up as quickly as he could but before he could even start running he collapsed again, barely avoiding the charging wolf. As he was laying he looked down to see what was tripping him and saw or better yet, saw the lack of.

His left leg was gone from the knee down. Few meters behind, he saw the rest of his leg in the clutches of one of the wolves. He got up, jumped as high as he could towards his other leg and used mana manipulation to pull the leg back to him as hard as he could. Leg was sent flying and whilst in the air, he popped it right back in, at an odd angle. As he landed he started sprinting clumsily towards wolves now ahead of him, while the big one was running after him from behind. He jumped over the wolves, killing two in the process and kept running. That’s how it's been for the past hour.

He identified the larger wolf along the way. It wasn't a wolf like the others, but a direwolf like the ones he saw thousands of years ago. He killed two wolves, a direwolf still chasing after him with, hopefully, what was the last of the pack. Five wolves total, counting a direwolf.

He had it with wolves. This was the 11th pack. He noticed packs with a direwolf leading having a larger number of wolves. The packs had wolves anywhere from four up to eight wolves in the last pack. Last pack chasing him had seven wolves with direwolf leading them. It was the largest of the packs. He turned around, impaled and killed two more wolves and then swiftly dodged to the side avoiding another wind blade sent by a direwolf.

One thing direwolves had in common was their level 6 and that they were using a skill, Wind Blade to be more precise. He didn't know how the system named a skill but he was somewhat familiar with a Wind Blade skill.

In a scuffle with a last pack and a direwolf, he lost an arm and a leg but still stood victorious. Well not stood but bouncing, searching for his appendages. Found a leg but arm was…

“Damn oversized dogs”

*crunch sound of trying to pull an arm out of wolf jaws*