Merlin sees the lizards advancing, he jumps over the bone palisades, he looks beyond the four large lizards coming his away, looking low to the ground he finds a long being, slithering mostly unseen through the trees.

These are the egg spitting snakes, the lizards have figured out that they can be easily seen by him and other undead, so they are being much more mindful and trusting their natural camouflage less. Their disguise is very good if not for the fact that Merlin can see their literal lifeforce it would’ve worked quite well. Still they have learned that most undead will have a harder time seeing them if they use trees and grass to hide themselves, most undead, not him though and soon enough not many more, the undead can also learn, probably better than these lizards.

He sees the snake lifting itself up behind a tree, its head poking out from cover and spitting an egg. Just as it does the other lizards run to him faster.

Merlin focuses, black mana bleeds out of his crystal body and veiling him like a cowl, it snakes up his arms and clads then in a dark haze. He back hands the egg, breaking it completely.

The black haze around him whirlpools in his shiny featureless face forming two holes where his diamond eyes are. He sends out his {Death Ray} through one of the lizards.

Indeed, through one of them, his magic is getting stronger, when he sends it out with his diamond eyes they are stronger than when normally cast, when through his crystal exoskeleton they get even stronger, and finally with his new skill {Black Shroud} his death rays gain a new power.

He tags a second lizard before the last one jumps at him. He feels the necrotic energy inside of him, he directs it to his crystal exterior making it stronger. The lizard smashes into him, but all that it does is push him backwards a bit.

He controls his {Black Shroud} cladding his arms in dark mist, he uses {Empower} on his crystal arms, making them even stronger and then plunges both of his fists into his opponent. One hand goes through and grips the animal's heart, the other its spine.

Merlin concentrates and uses {Burst Shell} on his fingers, all ten crystalline digits explode out shredding the inside of the lizard and contaminating it with necrotic mana, using {Mana Manipulation} he sends out a wisp of his darkest mana into the heart and spine, using them to spread the necrotic energy throughout the body faster.

Merlin throws it overhead, soon enough the lizard will become a zombie.

He stares at the distance and can vaguely see that the snake is leaving. This has been happening since the battle at the mouth entrance. After that battle his Master told them to advance and increase our territory.

They have created the bone palisades and are protecting and holding the land now, not much though. Both the crustaceans and the lizards have been sending periodic attacks, his Master told him that these are only probing attacks, trying to see where they are the weakest. Merlin then feels his Master calling him. A second smeared image is superimposed onto the monochrome forest in front of him.

He sees a rectangular object in front of him, shining out drawings. He hears a voice coming upwards.

“Dinner is ready!”

He gazes up, and then the vision is broken. He no longer sees the colorful but smudged room. He does understand what his Master wants, for him to go up.

This has been happening since the battle too, before all commands had been… distant, unclear, somehow hollow, he couldn’t quite grasp many of them. His Master did not talk like an undead.

He jumped over the bone spikes and grabbed a skull with his hands. The skull had a large hand coming out from one of its sides, the other side had broken bone bits. He remembered when he saw this, again his Master sent him a vision, it was a “prototype land hybrid drone”, something that would’ve been very difficult to explain before, without the help of a few visions.

On his way back to the base he saw another skeleton coming, this one was one of his students, unlike other skeletons he was coated in crystals, these were made from Merlin himself, he also had two lenses on his eye sockets, which would empower his {Death Ray}. For some reason his Master really likes the lenses, Merlin couldn’t quite comprehend, from the visions she sent they were “Cool”, through the visions Merlin could somewhat grasp the meaning of cool, he just couldn’t quite see why the lenses were cool.

The skeleton also had a skull following behind it, another prototype, this one not broken, it had two large hands that used the digits to walk around, the skull could also fly and float.

The skeletons shared a look, which served as a greeting for them, and kept going their ways.

Merlin wonders if he will understand “cool” better, back when he was a normal skeleton he couldn’t understand much too, even less than now.

Merlin sees a skeleton going his way, Stinger , they both share a look and walk side by side. The skeleton sends him a vision, the same one his Master sent him, it seems both of them are going up.

He stares at Stinger, then sends out his memory of fighting the lizards, Stinger responds, again another image superimposes on his own, he sees a crab, he sees Stinger’s fist punching its joint and breaking it right before tearing it off.

Merlin nods, something that he saw in his visions, all skeletons were divided, some were sent to the lizard border, others to the crab, the division was based on effectiveness against the enemy.

The vision continues with Stinger killing many crabs quite efficiently, then the vision changes, Stinger standing alone at the mouth of the cave, the only skeleton without a weapon, all of her unit destroyed.

He nods again, he can understand it, Stinger is quite effective with only her fists and legs, but most skeletons are not, Stinger wants more fighting skeletons like her, but is afraid that their Master won’t create them anymore.

Merlin shows her the prototype skull, he then sends memories of all the different skeletons created, she doesn’t nod, but she understands, their Master will probably keep making fighting skeletons like her.

Both Stinger and Merlin see Kaiman, the three share a look, Kaiman looks different, his body is much much larger now, his tail is longer than Merlin, and he has a mantle of lizard skins all over his body. His larger size is from a skill he gained {Bone Tithe}.

Kaiman is carrying a few corpses with him, Kaiman is also going up, probably to dump the corpses there.

Getting bigger is not the only different thing, Kaiman also has many parts of the crabs around him, for example on his spine and joints, again from {Bone Tithe} and {Remold Bone}. Unlike Merlin and Stinger and a few others Kaiman did not evolve in the last battle, but rather gained the {Bone Tithe} skill and then after using it quite a bit he evolved, becoming a [Bone Juggernaut].

Merlin also changed, he is now a [Spell Aide], instead of a [Spell Squire], it gave him {Caster Help} letting him help his students cast their spells.

Stinger became a [Secret Fight Pit Society Initiate].

Soon enough they arrive and start going up, through the new gates. The bone gates are now full of engravings all over them, they stop in front of one, who looks at them, the engravings all shine for a second and the door slides open. They pass through all of them and arrive at the core floor.

It is quite a bit different now, the whole floor is a lot more spacious, his Master cleared the stone and created many places for experiments, he sees Kaiman throwing the corpses at a hole in the floor, and sees Gorger vomiting out large plumes of black mana down on it.

He passes a skull made out of black quartz with bone rings around it. He sees another one with larger wings made out of bone, each wing with a large hole in the middle

He and Stinger stop inside the core room, he concentrates and uses {Burst Shell} on his whole body, before the shards can get far they suddenly stop, and all fly in the same direction, the shards hit each other and fuse together becoming a large lump.

Merlin then starts using the dense necrotic mana inside the core room to recreate his exoskeleton.

This is something he has been doing since the battle too, his crystals are used to make other skeletons or improvements to them.

Merlin then looks at Stinger, he feels the energy congregate around her and then take shape.

Bone grows and shapes itself around her body, he sees many pieces forming, connecting bones, plates of many sizes all around her, when it finishes Stinger looks completely different, she is now not simply a skeleton, but now she has a body, not like him, who just has a exoskeleton in the general shape of a body, she has an actual body, not of flesh but one of pure bone. She soon starts moving, trying her new body, he sees all of it moving, he imagines having a body like that but from his crystals, he gets the feeling that he will, eventually.

But first he should help strengthen the other skeletons, as he is regenerating his exoskeleton he stares at the ground, right in front of his Master’s heart he sees a drawing on the ground.

ALYSSA.

He wonders what it is supposed to be, it looks like the drawings he sometimes sees in the visions.

His attention is pulled by his Master, he gets another vision. He sees a flesh being in front of him, he feels a voice coming from him.

“I’m Alyssa” The voice says. The vision changes and he again hears the word, this time it’s someone else, they are pointing somewhere, on a weird board full of… names.

Those are all names, and those drawings are…

The vision changes again, now that he is closer to the heart his Master’s control of them is much finer and stronger.

“I am Merlin, the headmagus of this institution” The man says, as he points at a rectangle on his clothes, Merlin stares at it, he sees the drawings again and then, something clicks.

Words, right, written words. Writing. The vision ends.

Merlin takes control of his black mana, he then uses it to write his name, he then writes Alyssa using the mana.

Merlin can feel something, something close to him, at the back of his mind.

He turns and looks at Stinger. He manipulates his mana again, and writes her name.

Gained {Writing of the Dead}!

Merlin feels his Master seeing his skill, and he sees the stone floor gain new words. The words are different now, in fact he can see the phrases are all written in different languages, yet he can still read them.

“Okay, so this might be a bit of a tall tale.” The written words say, Merlin keeps reading.