I used {Tanning} on the other corpses and made my skeletons carry the bodies further into my dungeon. Quickly looking over the leather I can see it’s not normal, it’s way more flexible than it should’ve been, it’s probably an effect of all the necrotic energy around my dungeon. This could be a problem, can I only make necrotic or negative aligned materials? The bones I create are normal but they still absorb necrotic energy like a sponge. I’m going to have to shelf this for now.

It took a few minutes for them to arrive, even though it wasn’t that big of a distance. This is a problem of skeletons, without their meat they are severely lighter than most other beings.

In fact the only reason these skeletons could fight and block the lizards was a skill they got. Two actually, {Line Fighting} and {Hold Line}, skills that make it so they are stronger while fighting together. Normal skeletons can’t really do that. Which is why I am experimenting.

The skeletons arrive at my core room, which is really just an extra big room with a few corridors in random directions.

Here they dump the skinless bodies into a pile of other lizards, sadly these are already rotting so I can’t use the skill on them.

They all stop in formation and I focus and push necrotic energy to them, seeing it suffuse their bones, The blood on the tips of the spears darkens and becomes a sickly color, fusing with the spear. The cracks in their shields and bodies mend, slightly stronger than before.

I have discovered that the skeletons can level up just from this, in fact I have a few skeletons headbutting the wall, constantly healing and making their heads stronger and actually thicker too.

I will eventually destroy a skeleton to dust and use magic to hold it together, to see just how far this bone strengthening goes, right now they just die.

Now then I should do a few things, first I wish to create leather armor for my skeleton soldiers, and to do an expedition. The fact that whoever is sending the lizards to attack me can create magic wielding salamanders is worrying, I can’t create a casting skeleton yet, even though I’ve been trying to.

If I animate that salamander will it still be able to cast spells? Generally the answer would be yes, if it was animated as a revenant. Sadly low tier undead are known to not be magically proficient, most of the time. The quest also intrigues me, as does its reward.

Lucky for me I don’t need to worry about food, water or other normal expedition problems.

I focus, I feel my own energy and pull it, forming fifteen blobs of pure necrotic energy, as soon as they are complete I feel an instinct, it’s as if I see a branching path, or a square and a triangle hole. I can decide if I want these undead energy eggs to be zombies or skeletons.

I decided to create five zombies and ten skeletons. They transform, the skeletons are cute, they have a club made out of modified femur on their hands. The zombies on the other hand are wretched, they are completely naked and rotten, they have no defining features, no hair, eyebrows, ears, eyelids, lips or nose. All of it is missing, in its place, only rotten flesh. They do one thing very well though, and it’s taking hits. They are more of a tar pit than a fighting force.

I make five skeletons stand in the front, followed by the five zombies and then the last skeletons and send them out. As soon as they leave I use {Minion Sight}. I can only have it activated one at a time, but I can switch the target at any time. My vision is overlapped, first I have my most normal vision, which is pretty much just like a human’s, but I can see in the pitch dark perfectly, Then I have what I’m pretty sure is what the skeleton sees: A monochrome world, skeletons and most undead are naturally capable of seeing light, seeing in darkness, seeing life, seeing ghosts and out of body souls, a pretty stacked vision, only really trading color for all of that, which is why undead can be surprisingly difficult to sneak from. One interesting thing is that “my vision” is only a few meters long, after that it’s only the skeleton’s vision I see, meaning it’s kinda trippy. Near the skeletons I see light and color and after that it’s a monochromatic world.

They leave my dungeon and into the cavern tunnel. It’s a big tunnel that goes left and right, and I have a suspicion that it was not geologically made, but rather animal made. I can see that to my right there is a giant whole so I go there first. It’s less than a four minute walk and soon I am graced with the sight of a really big hole… on the floor and the ceiling.

When I say big I mean that a truck could easily nose dive into this thing, it’s got to be at least 10 meters across. I have my skeletons hold one another by the hand and have one of them lean into the hole so they can see its depths better. Then I have an idea, my view comes from the skeleton's head. So I tell them to pop it off and hold it in their hands. They do it and I see it works, I am still seeing normally, I wonder if I could just throw a skull down this whole with {Mision Sight} on it.

I should probably try it later, I have my skeletons go back to my entrance and go the left way now. While they do it my mind is working, I’m still thinking about the skull idea, the mana in this place is very dense and I remember one classic school project: Creating a floating device that worked in dense mana. They tend to be pretty simple, or rather simple to make.

Hell you could make it with just a large surface and some paint. I should probably run some tests for now, when they return I will create some for real, my ability to multitask is vastly improved then when I was a human, but still I don't want to divide my attention too much.

The undead group passes my entrance and continues their little expecition.

As they walk I can see smaller tunnels and holes and I hope they were made by slimes, because I want some slimes. Slimes are very useful beings for a variety of reasons. And they can also be pretty cute, honestly better than cats and dogs.

My thoughts are stopped by an animal roar, my undead speed up in its direction, which is still straight ahead. As they do I see the landscape change a bit, Now there are larger tunnels dotted around the walls. Tunnels that my skeletons could go into just by crouching.

I also see a patch of dark brick wall with a single entrance, and from it, a large rocky shape comes out roaring wildly. The being has the shape of a bear, a small one made out of stones and completely eyeless. If it went on its hind legs it would be taller than my skeletons. But what really catches my attention is the puncture wounds across its body. Mostly they are small ones, but there is a nasty deep looking one on it’s right shoulder.

The bear immediately sees my undead and advances towards them!

These are newbie skeletons, not like my soldiers so I have to tell them what to do. They are pretty good listeners though, even though I’m not really speaking words.

The skeleton frontline goes to the sides while the zombies jump to the bear. The bear just runs over the zombies, not even biting them. In my dungeon I create another expedition group, five zombies and ten skeletons again and send them out.

The bear is swinging wildly, it’s not hitting the skeletons, they are able to dodge out of the way, just barely, the zombies on the other hand are getting cut apart, even a glancing blow from this rock bear is enough to throw them on the ground. I tell them to just grab the bear, its paws or its neck, they are there just as a distraction. While the bear is shaking the zombies the skeletons are clubbing the puncture wounds, to little effect sadly. I am not too worried though, while they are attacking they are also slowly going back towards my dungeon, towards the reinforcements.

I want to see what was in the room, the fact that nothing is coming out of said room only makes my curiosity higher. This bear is sadly too dangerous to be alive and around me.

My initial expedition is losing, the zombies are quickly becoming paste, if they lose their grip they are thrown into the ground or walls, and there’s only so many times that can happen before they can’t move anymore, either because of their mushed insides or because they’ve lost all limbs.

The skeletons can dodge, but unlike the zombies they are KO’ed in just one glancing blow to their chest. The expedition number dwindles to just one brave zombie,well not so brave I can see it crawling away, and three skeletons just as the new undead group appears. I am already creating a new batch, and I am also sending one [Skeleton Pugilist] and five of my experiment skeletons, the ones I told to bash their heads against the wall, each one of them has a {Headbutt} skill.

It’s interesting seeing the bear fight, it doesn’t have eyes, so I’m pretty sure it’s using some form of tremor sense, mostly because it seems to be able to find the zombies much better than the skeletons, and only the whole body zombies, not the torn in half ones.

The bear suddenly stops moving. And then the little places in its armor that are fragmented burst out, sending rock pieces to its sides! The rocks pelt the undead at extreme speeds, the skeletons hit by it have bones completely pulverized and are thrown back, while the zombies lose chunks of flesh or even whole limbs!

But this also makes the armor have bigger holes in them, and I can already see the fur under the rock exterior. Good thing too, if this bear was entirely made out of rock this would have taken a lot longer.

The second reinforcement arrives at the battlefield, I have a specific plan with this one. First I have the zombies all jump at the bear, while my skeleton pugilist gets in position and waits.

I suddenly have an idea. {Headbutt}, five of the skeletons have it, for it to activate all you should need is to make an attack with your head right? Or could just a head work too?

They start going through the corpses and taking the intact heads. They take the head and then throw it activating {Headbutt} and then…. It doesn’t work, well not fully. The head definitely went faster, but after about 2 meters from the skeleton it lost its power.

My plan quickly starts having changes. The pugilist sees an opening and steps in close and {Flicker Jab}, {Stinger Jab}, their arm elongates just a little and hits the bear right in the stone hole, the bear winces for just a second and it’s enough.

My skeletons come in and throw heads point-blank at the bear using {Headbutt}. The pugilist skeleton steps away, if I am right and the bear uses some form of tremor sense then it should have a difficult time sensing my pugilist, since they have {Light Steps}.

The battle continues like this, my plan flowing perfectly. The pugilist’s {Stinger Jab} hurts the bear just like an insect sting would. When it reacts to the pain my other skeletons wallop it, while the pugilist disengages. Even if the bear attacks them, I am not worried, this skeleton in particular is the best pugilist I have, even if the bear attacks my agile little skeleton would just dodge with {Dodge Step} and better yet they could use {Counter} after.

The only problem would be if the bear used its rock shooting again, though because of the constant pummeling there are very few rock fragments on its body, and the attacks are coming too fast for the bear to get a grip and use its power again. Actually now that the rocks are coming off the body this really doesn’t look like a bear anymore. In fact it kinda looks like a mole? That head shape doesn’t look anything like a bear without its stone

My attention is suddenly grabbed and pulled to one of my zombies, in fact one of the first expeditions. while I wasn’t paying attention the zombie started to…to eat its own kind. I use {Analyze} on it.

Zombie LV 9

{Death Grip}

A powerful grip that slowly enfeebles enemies.

{Enhanced Dexterity}

{Death Sight}

This ghoul can see how long an organic body has been dead for.

{Strong Jaw}

{Hard Teeth}

{Ghoulish Regeneration}

Regenerates by eating bodies

Cult Initiate LV3

{Dark Feast}

Improves regeneration when feasting on a corpse, may have other effects depending on the corpses eaten.

Squire LV1

Hot damn, this zombie got a lot of levels for getting knocked around and then feasting on its fellow dead! It even got a skill in Cult Initiate! I wonder what “other effects” means exactly.

The zombie eater is walking on all fours, shoving ribs in its mouth like they are hot dogs eating them, crunching them in between its teeth or just swallowing them whole. And then it happens, the zombie suddenly starts growing.

A ripple comes from its stomach and passes through its body, making it bigger and moving the flesh around. A mass of muscles bulge out and tear out from the skin disgustingly, the eyes drop out of their sockets the nails and teeth of the zombie fall out and start growing again longer and thicker this time, the head splits open cracking itself and almost looking like the skull of a newborn, I can almost feel the skull cracking, growing and realigning itself while watching brain pieces fall from the large cracks before the skull molds itself back together.The ribs and spine tear themselves out of the body while growing larger and thicker, the chest is held open for a few seconds, and I see the inside organs combining, fusing themselves before the skin starts reknitting itself, stronger and thicker than before, now completely covering the body in a dark gray color. The teeth jut out a last time and grow larger and sharper. The nails have become bone claws and the hand is now large enough to wrap around a human head completely.

Zombie to Ghoul

Gained

{Ghoulish Strength}

{Leathery Skin}

{Claws of Paralysis}

Beings hurt by the claws are paralysed.

{Ghoul Gut}

Can fill and digest faster than most guts. Small chance of absorbing certain characteristics from the meal.

The Ghoul screams and then jumps, or rather leaps like some kind of lion towards the rock bear, it sinks it’s hand in it crushing the now thin rock mantle even further. The bear roars back and suddenly all of the rock mantle around its body explodes out! The rock volley hits mostly the ghoul, the few other rocks dismantling my troops. But the ghoul itself only has minor wounds!

And now without the rock around its body it’s clearly a mole not a bear! Is it on purpose? Is this mole using rock magic to mimic a bear?

Before I can think further on that the ghoul bites straight into the bear’s, or rather mole’s spine, severing it. The ghoul then closes its hand around the mole’s stocky neck and starts absolutely ravaging the thing with their mouth!

NO!

WAIT!

I WANT ITS CORPSE.

Goddamn does this ghoul eat fucking fast! Seriously. Bone, flesh, viscera or whatever met its teeth, the ghoul just went through it like it was butter. Damn, I’m really not sure I can raise this corpse as it is, oh well, maybe I can Frankenstein it? I will probably need a brand new spine… and ribs and head, actually pretty much only the paws and pieces of the arms and legs survived.

Anyway, I have some of the remaining skeletons drag the mole carcass to my dungeon. All the zombies died, most of the skeletons too.

Let’s see, I sent thirty-two skeletons and half that in zombies. All the zombies died, with the exception of the zombie that turned into a Ghoul, and only four skeletons survived. The pugilist is now Level 12 and has a new skill {Hard Knuckles}. The other three on the other hand all went to level 10 and evolved.

Skeleton to Thick Skull Skeleton

Gained

{Bonebark Brow}

{Skull Cracker}

{Throw Skull}

In a normal human group this would’ve been a terrible trade and loss of people, to the undead this is a pretty good tuesday.

Oh wow. While I was paying attention to the gains, my new Ghoul just started to eat the remaining organic material in the battlefield, mostly licking and lapping the ground like a dog. That is pretty interesting, my undead have pretty much all been passive until now, they don’t really do anything unless I tell them too. This guy on the other hand seems to have its own urges. You know I should really start naming them.

Right the ghoul is now…Bob, yeah, fuck it. Bob, the Ghoul. I will give names to the other ones later. While Bob is licking the ground for what I assume is bone fragments and other very small organic material I have ten more skeletons created and make them head into Bob’s direction. I am finally going to see what is in that door frame!

The skeletons arrive and take point, I let Bob a few meters behind just in case. They arrive at the door and see…

Whoa.

Right in front of the entrance is a dwarf skeleton, staring at the new arrivals, those being my skeletons of course. I take a good look at it, it has a certain… girth and thickness to its bones, its skull is also clearly thicker, it doesn’t seem hostile, and by that I mean it’s not trying to attack, because most undead don’t really do the whole face expression thing, specially if they don’t have features. The reason why I am so sure it’s a dwarf skeleton is the fact that it has a really long white beard coming from its face and wrapping around its body, almost like muscles.

There are nine other small skeletons in a room, they are all at least 1 meter tall, all of them have metal pickaxes in their hands and the white beards. The room is also quite spacious, the skeletons are all apart, in the right of the room there is a rack and I can see some engravings on it. The rack has a bunch of metal pickaxes, there is also an open cabinet right under it, filled with metal boots and helmets, the cabinet again has similar engravings. All of them, the pickaxes, boots and helmets are entirely made of metal.

At the back there is a giant, at least 3 meters tall crucible, the crucible also has many engravings on its body. I can see four holes in its sides, a hole in an oval shape, the other in a pickaxe, Two holes side by side in the shape of boots and the last in a helmet shape. Are these molds? In the dead center of the room there is a black diamond shining beautifully, sitting on a pedestal full of engravings.

To the left is… a wall, not a wall of dark bricks like the others, just a pure plain stone with a mining hole in it.

I make one of the skeletons step forward into the room, in case these dwarves are intelligent I also make them slowly raise their hands up.

As soon as my skeleton enters the room the dwarf immediately, and deceptively fast, sweeps the pickaxe and jams its pick right in between the ribs, it then pulls my skeleton off their feet and throws them across the room. The skeleton breaks apart, their bones scattering in all directions, the little ghost light in their eyes fading. The other dwarves don’t even turn to look at it.

All right you little shit. Let 's do it.

I ,once again, send one skeleton inside the room. The dwarf, again, jams the pickaxe right in between the ribs, but right as it does my ghoul grabs the pick and pulls the dwarf out of the room. The dwarf stops dead. I just wait to see what it will do. It slowly turns its head, and tries to go back. As it does it tries to pull the pickaxe, to no avail, then it simply lets go.

I command my ghoul to grab it, then Bob does it and actually lifts it up over his head. The dwarf starts to move and shake itself trying to loosen Bob’s grip, it’s actually quite strong, my other skeletons, or even my zombies, would have some trouble holding it.

I see the other dwarves, they spare one look at their brethren and then go back to their jobs, which seems to be inspecting the picks? Whatever I can look through later.

I make Bob bring the dwarf to my dungeon. There is something deeply comical about the image.

A ghoul running with a dwarf skeleton in his hand, the skeleton shaking and trying to break free, followed by a bunch of other skeletons. Naming the ghoul Bob was a genius idea, now even though Bob looks like something out of a human's nightmare I can’t help but find him cute. He’s almost like a golden retriever, or really any large dog, deeply loyal and also ravenously hungry while you are not looking, he even has his tongue sticking out while running. Bob would also bite the mailman too, that would be quite a bit more lethal than a dog though.

Bob arrives at my dungeon without any problem. He takes the dwarf to my core room, and as soon as they arrive I then pump the necrotic energy in the room into the dwarf skeleton.

I can feel its necrotic energy and almost like a blood transfusion I push it out and fill its body with mine. It only takes a few seconds, which is kinda surprising considering its size, and then… I feel it click and I am able to analyze my new skeleton.

Skulldwarf LV7

{Regenerating Beard}

{Mana Absorbing Beard}

{Strong Bones}

{Thick Skull}

{Tremor Sense}

{Fit Armor}

Miner LV 5

{Inspect}

{Pickaxe Proficiency}

{Detect Value}

{Strong Grip}

{Lesser Shock Absorption}

Now let me see.

{Fit Armor}

Makes armor fit better.

That’s one tough skeleton cookie. I should probably check and test that {Fit Armor} skill.

Damn I feel like I have a lot to do now, but first I should probably expand towards those dwarves, there’s just way too many goodies in that room for me to ignore. And I think I have a plan to quickly expand my domain all the way there.