Savani had the undead drive the cart down the main road. Along the way out of the forest he saw different apprentices going into the different hunting zones the tower had set up. The forest that surrounded the tower Savani had been staying in had a radius of 10 miles. This radius was under direct control and influence of the tower. Savani took the winding road through the forest until he finally got out of this radius and the cloud cover disappeared. For the first time in almost a year Savani was under sunlight.

Savani saw that the forest was next to a large plains filled with tall grass and several hills off in the distance. After traveling forward another several minutes Savani looked back and noticed how the clouds stopped directly over the treeline. It truly was a peculiar site and Savani couldn't help but be impressed. The site fueled his desire to become a Sage even more, having the power to manipulate the environment to better suit their needs was something most people craved but few would get to experience.

Over the next few days Savani quickly got bored with the monotony of travel. Though the landscape was certainly far beyond the view of the cloud overcast forest he had become use to Savani got bored with the lack of activity. The town he was going toward was called Forest Grove, called such because it was the closest town to the Sage's forest and even then it was a 5 day travel. Savani found that such a distance was actually quite common. Due to the large number of more powerful creatures Sages generally kept around their permanent residences, normal mortals would put a large buffer zone between where they lived and where the local Sage resided.

During his travel Savani had gone back to the virtual training room the chip designed. With his increase in Spirit he could spend more time inside experimenting with various spells. The primary focus was on the creation of the two new forms of undead he could create. Savani found that in order to turn a normal undead into these newer forms he would have to do it all in one try, otherwise the magic would go haywire and destroy the body. This means that Savani needed to either have a very powerful Spirit or more practically find materials he could use to help lessen the burden of the spell.

For the Rot Zombie it wasn't that difficult. Savani already had a spell that let him corrupt water into a magical mixture of acid and poison. All he would have to do is have Preserve Corpse before lowering it into a vat of acid created with the Water Corruption spell. Then while the body was half submerged Savani would begin to use Create Undead to draw in energy from the vat to refine the undead. Not only would this create a Rot Zombie but it would also give the acid the zombie used a poison attribute increasing its damage.

The problem was the Shadow Ghast. Savani would need something that held a large amount of shadow essence in order to fully refine one. If he could manage to find such an object Savani would be able to create his very own assassin. This made Savani very eager to enter the town and begin to search for the local Sage Mart.

From what Savani had gathered over the last few months with the help of the chip every major town would have a section designed for traveling Sages and Apprentices. This section would allow them to mingle with their own kind while also protecting normal mortals from the powers these traveling forces would often project. Inside these areas would be a market where Sages and Apprentices would sell various wares they gathered on their travels. Of course the Sages and Apprentices could still enter other areas of the town. No one would be foolish enough to stop them.

Besides practicing spells Savani also began to use the training room to learn some of the instruments from Earth. Savani had always been a fan of classical and instrumental music and not being able to hear the familiar songs had really saddened him when he first transitioned to this world. But now that he had the chip he could have it play any song he had listened to before, and since Savani was an introvert who loved music that was certainly a large list. Savani decided during this travel that since his learning capability had increased with his Spirit and his fingers were far more dexterous than before thanks to his Agility it would be fun to play some of his more favorite instruments as a way to relieve some of his stress.

Besides experimenting and learning to play instruments Savani also went over what he knew about the world. Savani learned when one broke through to the level of Sage each rank was dictated by stars with the lowest being a 1-star Sage. Even these stars were further broken down into ranks, though Savani wasn't sure what they were. From what he had gathered the tower he was apart of was part of a small Sage Association that held ten 1-star Sages and one 2-star Sage. Several of these Sages were in charge of a tower that protected a particular resource as well as trained new Apprentices for the Association. The rest would travel inside the Associations territory either acting as back-up to the different towers or dealing with threats from other Associations.

The Association Savani was conscripted into is called the Thunder Legion. It was named this because the leader of the Association was a 2-star Sage named Ludvig that had fused with the blood of a Storm Giant. This not only gave him monstrous strength but it also gave him the ability to manipulate the weather and create lighting. All the other Sages in the Association had pledged allegiance to Ludvig and using his power managed to claim an area that covered 2 mortal kingdoms.

The tower Savani belonged to had been built over an entrance to the Hollow, a giant underground realm formed between two tectonic plates. This realm was filled with all forms of odd and powerful creatures along with other sentient races that the Sages would either enslave or conquer. Due to the fact that it was underground Darkness essence was the most prominent making it the perfect place to station a Darkness aligned Sage.

When he was still a day away from Forest Grove Savani was writing in one of his books when an arrow was shot from a nearby hill striking the undead driver in the chest. Startled by the sudden attack Savani quickly used the chip to scan the surroundings. Thanks to the increase in Spirit the range the chip could scan had increased from a radius of 100 feet to 150 feet.

Savani found that there was a group of men on the other side of the hill armed with swords and arrows. Finding that it was just a group of bandits Savani began to laugh. With his increase in power such a small band of thieves was child's play. Savani had the undead stop the cart before casting Shadow Bind using the chip to locate the unfortunate group. He then took control of two other undead he had brought along and had all 3 undead he controlled go and bring the bandits to his cart.

Savani sat inside while he listened to the screams and pleas that came from on top of the nearby hill. Savani realized that listening to such pleas no longer bothered him. During the time at the tower it was repeatedly hammered in to him that kindness was weakness and that only the strong had any rights. Since these people thought it would be a good idea to try and rob him, and probably kill him if the previously shot arrow was any indication, then he wouldn't show any mercy.

Once all the bandits were outside Savani got up and parted the curtain covering the back of the cart and looked down on his new captives. On the ground were five bandits bound in a shadow like tentacle. They all wore leather armor in various levels of disrepair. Off to the side one of the zombies had piled the various weapons that were on the unfortunate group.

One of the bandits spoke up and began to plead "Sir mage, I am so sorry for offending you. If we had known that it was someone as noble as you we would have not dared to attack. I swear if we are let free we will immediately leave. We can even pay you!"

Hearing the bandits pleading Savani was inwardly disgusted. These bandits would let him off yes but he knew it was only because they couldn't harm him. "Im sorry but I don't have the habit of letting off those that attack me."

Realizing they were about to die the bandits began to curse at Savani. Ignoring them Savani walked over to one of the bandits and placed his hand on their head. The bandit tried to shrink away but Savani had an undead walk over and hold him in place. Once the bandit couldn't escape Savani cast Life Drain on the poor man. Savani had decided that he would use these bandits to practice Life Drain before turning them into undead. The shortest bandit was still over 5 feet which made him larger than any of Savani's current undead. Whats more Savani knew that a good necromancer would always have a surplus of undead. It was rumored that Adept Lance had an entire floor of undead under the tower, just waiting for someone to be foolish enough to attack his tower.

Once Savani cast Life Drain he felt this sickening suction feeling come from his palm. The bandits face instantly became pale as he began to plead and curse Savani. The man even tried to bite him, but the undead held the man in such a way that his actions were futile. Savani felt a form of energy enter his body from his palm and spread to the various parts of his body. The soreness Savani had developed from sitting in a cart all day slowly faded as he began to feel like he had just woken up from a restful nights sleep.

Once the spell was over the bandit had looked like he hadn't slept in a week. His eyes were surrounded by dark rings and his skin was as white as paper. Savani took a dagger from the pile of weapons and stabbed the bandit in the heart before moving on to the next bandit. Savani repeated the process over and over until all five bandits were dead. On one bandit Savani cut his arm before casting the spell, on another he took a minor poison he had brought and had the antidote for. On each bandit Savani would experiment to find out the extent of the spells capability.

"Chip did you manage to gather any data from the experiments?"

[Affirmative. All data has been recorded and added to spells archive.]

"Anything of use?"

[Affirmative. If host is able to gather more data a new spell module may be constructed.]

Hearing that the chip could potentially make a new spell module Savani was surprised. Quickly he asked about the spell as well as what the chip would need.

[Due to hosts constant intake of Vitality increasing substances, use of magic on humanoid bodies, knowledge of anatomy, and host's need for viable way to increase Vitality a spell can be created that would allow the host to increase their Vitality by draining the Vitality out of others. However more data is needed to finish the project. It is recommended that the host use Life Drain on a wide variety of creatures of different species and elemental affinities to gather enough data to allow creation of spell.]

Looking at the information the chip gave him Savani couldn't help but pinch himself. Vitality was one of the hardest attributes to increase. If Savani developed such a spell then he couldn't tell anyone. If they found out that he could drain the Vitality out of other to strengthen himself he would be hunted to either stop him or torture him for the spell. Loading the bodies of the bandits along with the rest of his spoils into the cart, Savani began to plan how to get his hands on a large variety of creatures while still being able to keep it hidden what he was doing.