The next morning Savani once again headed to the Tower Quest board. This time behind him walked one of the undead goblins. After some experimenting last night Savani found that each goblin would take up 1 Spirit to control. That meant that Savani's overall Spirit capacity was reduced whenever he had an undead with him. With that being the case, Savani decided it would be smarter for now to only bring one unded with him while keeping the other as backup. Looking back at the undead minion following him Savani reviewed the data the chip gathered on it last night.

[Species name: Undead Goblin

Affinities: Darkness

Attributes: Strength: 7 Physique: 8 Vitality: 1 Agility: 3 Spirit: 1

Abilities: None]

Thanks to its undead nature the goblins Strength and Physique were both increadibly high, and due to the freshness of the corpse it still managed to retain a decent Agility. However, since it was essentially a walking corpse being controlled by Savani both its Vitality and Spirit were absolute garbage. This firmly cemented it as a tank and gopher in Savani's eyes. After looking at the goblin Savani reviewed his own status.

[Host name: Savani

Race: Human (beginner apprentice)

Affinities: Darkness, Space

Attributes: Strength: 2.91 Physique: 3.02 Vitality: 2.13 Agility: 2.46 Spirit: 7.01 (6)

Status: Healthy

Skills: Magic Language Proficiency (Basic)

Spells: Acid Shot (Proficient), Create Undead (Proficient), Control Undead (Adept)....]

Thanks to the constant draining of his Spirit followed by meditating as well as his rigorous daily absorption of Darkness and Space essence Savani managed to gather another point in Spirit over the last week. However, he felt a strange sense of unease. His Spirit was starting to feel like it was being restricted. Worried about the implications Savani had the chip start trying to diagnose the reason. Sadly due to lack of data the chip couldn't figure out the reason for the strange phenomena.

Pondering what he could do to fix the problem he was having Savani found himself in front of the Tower Quest board. Having the chip scan for anything suitable Savani saw that the quest for collecting frogs from last time was still up. Whats more the point contribution had been increased substantially.

Urgently need some poisonous frogs from the local swamp! Poison from frogs is needed to continue with some experiments. For every frogs captured you will be rewarded with 1 contribution point. I only need between 20 and 30 frogs though. If you capture 20 you can ask for two beginner level potion instead of contribution points or one potion and 10 points.

Looking at the posting Savani decided he would take this quest. His main purpose going out was to gather data on the surrounding areas and to get some more herbs to trade or stockpile. However Savani figured if he was already going out and exploring he might as well grab a quest or two along the way, so long as they didn't clash with his origional objective.

Savani took the quest and registered it before going out to the local apprentice bazaar. Since the apprentices had to essentially earn everything on their own after their first month of training the Tower only had the obsidian pillars to purchase things like rare herbs or lab rental. For more mundane and day to day equipment the tower instead allowed traders to come in and set up a bazaar in the back of the main hall. Here both traders and other apprentices would barter trying to get whatever resources they needed that the Tower didn't offer.

Walking into the bazaar Savani was amazed at all the different things he could buy here. In one stall there was a variety of odd looking fruits and meats being sold by a trader. In another there were all kinds of body parts preserved in various jars with an apprentice sitting behind the desk fiddling with a test tube. Looking farther down Savani could even see two stalls selling potions across from each other trying to both insult their competitor as well as trying to draw customers to their stall.

Savani activated the chips scanning function as he roamed around looking for supplies. With the large influx of data the libraries of the chip were quickly being filled. While wandering around Savani quickly understood the trading system in place. For the most part low tier supplies like nets and cages were traded using gold. These mundane objects weren't really worth apprentices trading rarer magical ingredients for. Anything magical in nature was either bartered for or, more rarely, was traded for magical crystal shards.

Magical crystals were rare gems that contained a large amount of neutral magical essence. These made them saught after by Sages everywhere for their experiments. When mining these magical crystals some of the crystals would be destroyed and turned into crystal shards. These shards were useless at the Sage's level but to an apprentice the ambient mana in them could still be extracted and used for their lower tier experiments. Since Sage's hated wasting such a resource one Sage decided to take these shards and implement them as currency for the apprentices. Over time this system began to be used by apprentices everywhere and an economy was built around the crystal shards. This economy was purely based on magical objects, be they equipment, herbs or animals. Anything mundane and non magical still used the coin system for common mortals.

Savani purposefully browses through the entire area until he managed to come across a mortal trader who sold cages and other hunting equipment. After bartering for a bit Savani managed to get a backpack, a few butterfly nets, some bags to keep herbs in, and two glass cages small enough to fit inside said backpack. After paying the man Savani loaded up both himself and his minion and headed out the door.

As he walked down the main road Savani had the chip scan the surroundings like last time for any danger. He couldn't help but remember last time when he was almost grabbed by a Corrupted Dryad. This time he was going to be far more careful.

Savani kept walking along the road past the point he previously left until he came across the swamp. Finding that nothing was on the chips radar Savani hefted his backpack and began to slowly walk off the road. Keeping the undead in front of him Savani slowly started to explore the area around the road. Sadly it looked like anything useful so close to safety was already taken long ago forcing Savani to explore deeper.

Slowly Savani encroached deeper into the swamp, making sure to stay on the dry land surrounding the murky water. After several minutes of delving deeper, the chip detected a Giant Alligator hiding in the water. Luckily it seemed to be at the edge of the range the chip could scan.

[Species name: Giant Alligator

Affinities: Water, Earth

Attributes: Strength: 10 Physique: 8 Vitality: 6 Agility:5 Spirit: 2

Abilities: None]

As expected. The Giant Alligators were creatures of immense Strength. However due to their large size the alligators were slow. They were still creatures Savani couldn't handle, for now at least. Savani quickly put more distance between himself and the shore.

After a while the chip began to detect both the poisonous frogs as well as various magical herbs growing around. Some were in places he would never have even thought to look. Savani quickly had the undead go and collect each herb while he slowly walked along the shore collecting the frogs.

Savani explored the area surrounding the swamp for several hours collecting a large amount of herbs. If it wasn't for the chips ability to scan the area and the undeads ability to ignore some of the more dangerous effects Savani was sure that his bounty wouldn't even be a fraction of what it was.For instance there were some herbs that grew inside the trees or underground. There were numerous times where Savani would have to climb up a tree and reach into a hole or between some branches.

There were also several instances where a particular herb could only be collected by the undead. One such instance was with a flower called Dreamweaver. This flower released a pleasent odor that caused a euphoric sensation in whoever smelled it. Often those who smelled the scent of the flower would be drawn to it. The problem was that Dreamweaver was also accompanied by another plant called Bloodvine. This plant was a long red vine covered in vampiric thorns that would hang from trees and reach down on bewitched prey before binding them and draining them of all their blood. The bodies of these creatures would then become fertilizer for the Dreamweaver.

However thanks to the undead both not being able to smell as well as not having any blood Savani was able to aquire both the Dreamweaver as well as the Bloodvine. He was sure that both could be sold for a high price. Savani also managed to collect over 30 frogs during his exploration as well as map out a good chunk of the swamp. Several times Savani had to hide in the trees or run away because the chip picked up on various creatures.

Just from the scans done by the chip Savani was able to catalogue several dozen different plants and herbs as well as eight or nine different animals not including the Giant Alligators or poisonous frogs.

After filling both his bags with herbs and getting enough frogs to complete the quest Savani started heading back to the road. However on his way back Savani heard the sound of fighting. Curiouse he asked, "Chip what's going on?"

[Detecting battle ahead. Two apprentices are fighing one of the Giant Alligators. Both apprentices seem to be beginner grade. More than likely these apprentices decided to explore the swamp after some form of breakthrough.]

Looking at the chips message Savani began to question whether or not he should intervene. On the one hand these apprentices were foolish to come into the wild without any form of preparation. The only reason Savani did in the first place was he had the chip to keep an eye on the area as well as trained enough to hit a target with his spells. On the other if he ignored them and went on his way Savani would have to bear the guilt if anything happened to them. Despite reincarnating in a much crueler world Savani still held onto some of the ideals from Earth. One of which was to help someone if you noticed them in trouble.

Thinking it over Savani decided to help the other apprentices. Quickly loaded all of his bags onto the undead goblin and had it follow him at a distance. This way Savani wasn't burdened if he needed to run as well as could hide his spoils.

Walking towards the noise Savani saw the two apprentices fighting against the Giant Alligator on the shore of the swam. Savani also noticed that there was a body of a young man already on the ground. Both of the other apprentices were flinging spells at the Giant Alligator while trying to gain some distance. One of the apprentices, a young boy with freckles and curly brown hair, was flinging ice shards at the Alligator. The other was a girl with black hair who was weaving underneath trying to pierce the Alligators hide with a sword, her lower half covered in some form of swirling wind.

Watching the chaos before him Savani began to cast Acid Shot. Having an idea, Savani had the chip calculate the distance as well as the angle needed to strike the Alligators mouth the next time it was opened. When the alligator went to bite at the girl running beneath it Savani let loose his spell. The ball of acid flung itself directly into the creatures gaping maw eating away at the top of its mouth into its brain.

With a roar the Giant Alligator began to thrash and attack everything around it, almost crushing the girl in the process. Quickly Savani conjured up another ball of acid, this time firing it into the creatures eye. With acid eating it both inside and out the creature began to charge towards Savani's location. Savani flung another spell at the charging creature hitting it on the same spot as before. With the two different shots of acid eating away at its flesh the Giant Alligator finally colapsed just 15 feet away from Savani's location.

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves Savani turned and looked at the two apprentices now walking in his direction.