My skeleton summons were busy dragging dead metal eaters to my throne room, making me kind of impatient. Now, don't get me wrong. I had no fascination with the dead bugs, but I needed their carcasses or at least one of their carcasses for the next thing I was about to do. I had weighed my options and had settled on one that I thought was a relatively acceptable compromise. It felt like I was playing one of those stupid open world RPG games, where I had to decide what quest to take next or what dialogue option to use next. Each decision had a chance of leading to disaster or to an unexpected surprise. Gamers back on Earth believed that was the charm of such games, but I didn't know what was so charming about my situation.

Watching my blood and guts covered skeleton summons tossing metal eater body parts into different piles, I wondered what the game makers from Earth would make of all this. I doubted they would have been able to remain sane or calmly make quest choices while covered in gore. In fact, part of me wondered why I was sane after all the crap so far: crossing into some fantasy world, becoming some undead monster, and starting a war with some overgrown pests. I knew for a fact that my former self would have probably still been gibbering in shock.

However, something had changed in that white room, when I had swallowed Neduzar's soul. Whatever I had gained from the bastard, it included some of his irrationality, ruthlessness, and determination. It made sense, since originally crazy lich had forced himself to survive for however long, while stuck in this stone and metal tomb only with some suspicious torches for company. It was just his shitty luck that his soul had been weakened so badly, when I showed up to munch on it.

As the last big chunks from the mid tier metal eater were dragged into the center of the throne room, I turned my attention to mentally reviewing the long ass 'Book' spell that I planned on using. Screwing up a high tier spell 'Book' spell, had the chance of causing disastrous results. I was fortunate, though, that most of the 'Book' spells that Neduzar had obsessively memorized were related to necromancy and so called 'black magic.' In some ways, however, I did regret not remembering some of the other types of spells Licopedia told me existed, since it would have been useful to be able to forge some basic mithril or adamantium armors and weapons for my summoned skeletons or even melt my way carefully through the walls without risking a collapse. That just meant I had to work with what I had.

Making sure all was ready, with enough flesh and parts from the mid tier mental eater piled up in one place along with some bones from the former heroes, I began mentally reciting the long, 'Book' spell, [Sculpt Body]. The spell name was pretty self explanatory, leaving me in shock about what it could do. Any self respecting surgeon would have probably willingly sold their soul to the devil for just this spell. After about five minutes of saying shit in a magic language I barely understood, I felt a chunck of mana sucked out of me and saw the pile of flesh and bones take on an unnatural green glow.

The whole thing was a bit surprising as I realized the inefficiency of 'Book' spells when compared to 'Lineage' spells both in how much mana and time they sucked up to use. However, what really caught my attention, besides the pile of boy parts that were glowing like they had been dipped in radioactive waste, was the mental representation of the pile that showed up in my mind. It was like looking at some 3D animation maker, except in this case I could use it to literally assemble a creature to my satisfaction. I suddenly pitied the dirt poor, ignorant necromancers hunched over in some dark, damp dungeon piecing together body parts using crappy sewing.

Once again, however, I realized how bloody and horrifying being a lich was going to be. On Earth, only doctors or medical researchers had the liberty to play around with the dead like I was doing. As I molded a piece of exoskeleton ripped from the the mid tier mental eater into something resembling a breastplate, I was forced to rethink the personalities of some of the doctors I had met during my days as a research assistant. Their excitement about various diseases, medical experiments, and challenging medical procedures made more sense now. As I bunched muscle fibers together to stick under the exoskeleton breastplate, I even felt some camaraderie with them.

Shrugging off that unpleasant thought, I began assembling and sculpting the skeleton of my future mid tier summon, using those bones still relatively intact from the high tier heroes. Not only did I feel it was appropriate retribution, they were also surprisingly well preserved, just like all the other mid tier bones of my former servants still scattered around my throne room. A creature reaching mid tier strength meant the flesh, bones, plant material, or whatever constituted its body was reinforced directly with mana. It was like a cyborg with nanites, except in this case a fantasy creature with mana. That meant their flesh and especially their bones lasted a long time without breaking down or spoiling. While Neduzar had used special methods to make the bones of his mid tier summons further durable, the high tier bones of the heroes had essentially stayed intact, due to the density of mana that had solidified in them.

Eventually, I was finished and was even satisfied with the final product. I had been a tad bit influenced by fantasy concepts, though I had started with a plate armored medieval knight in mind. However, the body's built in black and brown armor was organic, though just as strong as steel. Also, my horrible artistic sense led me to throw on random spikes and 'cool' looking curved protrusions onto the armor surface that no blacksmith in his right mind would agree to do. The head had especially taken some fine tuning, adding the right amount of horns, engraving the right amount of random geometric designs, and finally coming up with the right type of face plate to give off just the right intimidation factor. I had chosen to eventually go with the fully enclosed form, with just two stylized, hollow 'eyes' visible on the otherwise smooth face plate.

The final form looked like some demonic, medieval knight, who was a walking buzz saw. “Yep, about right..” Almost immediately, the pile of glowing remains in front of me was surrounded by dark black and green mist, and sounds of bone splintering and flesh tearing filled the throne hall. It sounded like Friday night at some cheap all you can eat buffet, not that I had anything against such places, having been a relatively poor research assistant. Eventually, the mist dissipated, leaving behind a familiar, menacing body lying on the ground, surrounded by the remaining flesh and bones.

Finally came the most important part. Holding my right hand out, palm up and with my phalanges appropriately curved, I dramatically proclaimed, “!” Almost immediately, the body of my mid tier summon was covered in black mist that slowly invaded it. For a second, nothing else happened, then the body twitched and trembled, its arms and legs flailing around. A sound similar like a wet screech came from it, as it flipped over onto all fours and scrambled back like an insect. Its head swiveled towards me, its hollow eyes now blazing in a dark, green glow.

Then, in my 'mind,' I heard a mental scream. “Kiiilllll!” The newly born wight lunged forward towards my throne, its hate and anger pulsing in my mind.

“Oh, hell no!” With a quick thought from me, however, the wight collapsed on the floor, trembling uselessly. I rested my arms on my armrests and leaned back in my throne. “Well, now... You're useless the way you are, aren't you? Good thing, I don't need all of you...”