I watch as my little army gathers up and marches towards the crab territory. The army has almost 200 skeletons, all of them have bone bodies and armor, and I hope most of them will evolve into Osseous classes. Most of the army is soldiers, but there are a few fighters like Stinger, some mages with Merlin and a few zombies with Gorger and in fact a few boneshapers with Kaiman, plus the giant bone living armor crab that Kaiman made, and a lot of drone skulls of different types.

Jack and Bob are staying behind with a mostly throwing force, just in case the lizards get any funny ideas, I have even created new weapons for them to use, a nice throwing spear that should be particularly effective on the ebonwood forest.

Irax is at the very back of the army, with Merlin. The reason for that is the gigantic amount of necrotic energy surrounding my army. My undead are strong enough that they can release some energy around them, and then have the mages hold it there, creating a thick curtain of miasma and death energy around them. This is something I have been thinking about, besides the fact that I can just create quests for other people.

My minions are mostly undead, and undead are natural magical beings, meaning as they get stronger they naturally get more magic, meaning most of them will be able to cast some spells, spellcasting is not that simple of course, just because you have the power does not mean you have the capability. Still it should not be too hard to teach them to heal bones and other simple spells.

Certain undead clearly have better magical capabilities, Merlin for example is way ahead of everybody, I told him to try and control his crystals, initially he could not control them at all, soon enough he was able to control the necrotic energy inside of them, making it stronger, and soon enough he will be able to manipulate and change its shape. Right now he is not only practicing his crystal manipulation but also his speaking spell. Irax really is made from sterner stuff, completely ignoring Merlin’s constantly changing voice. I have to explain to Merlin that most people would be put off by his voice testing, especially when they have a mild tinge of necrotic energy. He turns to look at Irax.

“Are you not afraid of the undead?“ This is probably because I did tell Merlin that most people might have a bad reaction to an undead’s general existence, Irax looks upwards.

“Most people would find this place scary. But the dark shadowy trees give me a sense of nostalgia” He gestures with his hands to the trees.

“I grew up in a place like this, in fact a place even more dangerous, where shades occupied the trees and bone horrors prowled the land. I am not afraid, I may be wary but I do not have an inherent fear of the undead.”

“So most people do?”

“It’s complicated, most Malgaro like me have a neutral view of the undead, we see most undead like animals, we do not think they are an aberration of nature. But Seltila, where I was born, is the one of the few places that naturally spawns undead on the planet.“

“There are more places besides Seltila?” I let Merlin lead the conversation and ask whatever he wants, though there are more things that I want to know about, like the shade trees.

“Two other continents. One of them has a complicated history, it was governed by a powerful necromancer ruler, the empire fractured and he was killed. That’s when the problem got worse, the necromancer had many contingencies for his death, and when he was killed much of the infrastructure of the entire continent failed, sometimes catastrophically, undead were unbound, curses were released, from all accounts it was a nightmare to deal with, the necromancer had many secrets and all of them were coming out to make sure nothing survived after his death. To this very day the capital, where he died, is still considered one of the most dangerous places in existence” Irax scratches his chin, looking a bit thoughtful.

“Then the remaining people of the empire separated into two: Those who detested necromancy and those who were still in favor of it.”

“Why is the capital so dangerous?” Merlin’s tones wobble a bit, at this point I am not quite sure if he is still testing the spell or just likes the sound effects.

I think I should create a voice box for me, it really wouldn’t be difficult, I just never felt that I really needed it, plus I was unsure if the undead would understand my language, which is not a problem for Merlin.

“The necrotic energy there is gigantic, to the point that just looking at it from the distance can affect you, plus there are many creatures roaming around in there, from normal undead to monstrous experiments of all kinds, of course that does mean that untold riches lie there too, which cause many adventurer’s deaths.” Adventurers huh?

“What is an adventurer?”

“There is the Adventure Society, under it are the Adventurer Guilds, which give varied jobs, those who complete said jobs and are part of the Society are considered adventurers, the job can range from pretty much anything, though it’s mostly associated with monster extermination.“

“How varied can they be?”

I see his jaw move a bit, like he is smiling.

“From ‘find my cat’ to ‘kill this volcano’, there are rules of course, the Adventure Society does not involve itself in wars, most of the time.” Irax says, and I think he is smiling?

"Volcano?" Merlin asks, nailing his voice control and making a perfect perplexed and curious voice.

“Yes, someone was talking about it a few weeks ago, there was a job to kill a volcano elemental, the size of a small island apparently”

As we get closer to the crab territory Irax proceeds to explain guild rank, or rather how much of a nightmare of bureaucracy it is. The Adventure Society created six rankings: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Mithril, Adamantine. The problem starts with the fact that each Guild creates their own requirements for a rank until gold, Mithril and adamantium are handled by the Society itself. Theoretically this does make sense, a team of adventurer swimmers might be silver in a beach or the ocean, but be a lot less effective in the middle of the desert.

Guilds are just associations that handle the jobs in certain areas, for example in a certain kingdom the guild might be fully related and part of the government, a certain guild might handle all adventurer jobs in a coast and facilitate selling or buying with merchants, things like that. The actual ability of adventurers can vary wildly, Irax explains that Seltila produces higher quality adventurers, since all tests there are much stricter than in other places.

“Why don’t you just separate the ranks into Levels?” Merlin asks in an echoing voice. He really does like messing around with it.

Irax stays quiet for a brief moment.

“How many classes do you have Merlin?” I tell Merlin to be honest, and only tell him the number and not anything else, I also tell him and the army to be ready, just in case this is some information that will make Irax attack my minions for some reason.

“Three”

“Most beings not created by dungeons have only one, rarely two, now think about it: If you had ten levels in each class, versus a monster with one class at level 30” I can actually see that Merlin is indeed thinking about it.

“Beings like you level differently from beings like me, you evolve and level indefinitely, I can only level a class to Level 20 and I can actively choose my classes, while your evolutions will be dictated by your previous class and skills.” Merlin swivels his body to look at Irax.

“The reasons for why that is are unknown, but there are more differences. I got a skill for almost all of my Levels, and my classes have tiers. There are five Tiers, numbered from one to five, the higher the more powerful they are, though Tier four and Five are so rare to be legends. Also all sapient beings have a number of class slots, when we are born we have zero slots, eventually gaining one and going up from there, most average at four or five, though it is possible to have seven.”

So monsters can level as much as they want and can evolve, but in return people have Tiers and more skills?

“Tiers are more complicated, certain classes will only be available to you only if you meet certain requirements, pretty much anyone can get a Tier 1 class, for Tier 2 you generally need to have done something special or have a specific skill, you can get a [Dancer] class pretty easily, but to get [Bladedancer] you need either a warrior class or a lot of experience fighting, probably a few blade skills too”

“We also gain a capstone skill at Level 20, this skill tends to be very very strong, so let’s say I have three Level 20 classes, you have the same number, I will always have three very powerful skills, my capstone skills.”

Irax keeps explaining it a bit as he walks. The capstone skills can be so strong they actually change your class and even previous skills. The way I understood it is kind of like my Mark skills, in that it shifts the skills to be in line with something in particular. So instead of something like {Mark of Blood} it would be a {Mark of The Hunter}. His classes can also evolve, though not as easily as my undead. He didn’t go into much detail at all, mostly saying it happens through System quests. Although I think I know how, it’s probably through capstone skills. You have class A, and your class B gets a capstone skill which changes it, perhaps class A is a Swordsman, and your class B is Axeman or whatever, as you get a capstone skill your Swordsman becomes Bladesman?

This makes me wonder what would happen if I put more than one Mark skill on an undead, for example if I put {Mark of Fire} and {Mark of Blood} would I get {Mark of Boiling Blood}, maybe combustion blood? What if I put Frost with Fire?

Another thing I will investigate later on. Actually there may be a candidate for the Blood and Fire mixture in the near future.

We arrive at the crab territory, and I see my plan mostly working, the heavy fog of necrotic energy is rotting the hell out of the trees, and the frontline of hammers are destroying and clearing a way ahead. I can already see the crabs coming to attack.

“I see, it seems more complicated than I thought, who created this? The system and the classes and skills” Merlin says, his crystal face changing slightly, did he just try to frown? He is getting better at controlling the crystals.

“The gods probably, before they disappeared, long ago.”