Sam perked up at Eric’s question, his eyes lighting up as he spoke about what was clearly a favorite topic. “Great question, Eric. Forging zombies involve runes and enchantments placed on a subject to both preserve it, infuse it with netherworld energies, and control it once it's inhabited by a fresh spirit under your dominion. Most often, though not always, the spirit inhabiting the flesh puppet is, in fact, the original soul. You could pretty much say it's possessing itself! With the exception of failed shamblers, mindless groaning travesties used only by failed necromancers and the cheesiest of movies, proper zombies are the most basic of all undead to raise that I would even categorize as proper undead."

Eric gave Sam a polite nod before frowning down at the javelin whose point he had already reinforced with several layers of blood and infused with the essence of heat at several different temperatures until it finally reached a white hot brilliance just a hair beyond anything he had forged before. And that was only because he had achieved both Journeyman tier Heat Surge combined with Adept tier Blood Mastery.

Not surprisingly, his essence infusions were now more powerful than ever, at only a fraction of the former cost. Because only a whisper of his potential was needed to turn his pyramid shaped, diamond-hard and near indestructible javelin head into both a deadly armor piercing instrument of destruction, and a great soldering tool.

Yet he could push it further, he knew that. Knew that he was capable of forging javelin tips that could reach 5000 degrees and beyond. A part of him was tempted to see just how far he could push his gift, seeing as his Mastery Path with his Heat Surge skill meant that both his body and his sight were protected from a great deal of the pilum tip’s devastating brilliance. Even better, wearing his Soul-Linked lizard scale armor, also infused with the essence of Heat and Dominion both, meant that using weapons infused with the essence of his own flame occurred without any sort of penalty at all.

But the cost of any further increases to temperature would be nothing short of absurd. He sensed that as well. To say nothing of the uncomfortable flinch that Samuel, who’s eyes were covered, was giving him now.

"Um... Eric?"

"What's up, Sam?"

"You seem kind of... well, w hat exactly are you doing?"

Eric shook away his distraction, focusing on what mattered, talking his friend through what he was doing and why.

“I’m sealing together these granite blocks for what I hope will be a kickass stove. Sorry, I should have told you look away. And please step back, in case the blocks explode into painful fragments, because I have no real idea what the hell I’m doing.”

The boy paled and quickly stepped back, before flashing an impressed smile. “Actually, that’s kind of awesome! But that looks like a, um, well, a pretty massive fucking stove.”

Eric nodded. “Yup! I’m going ‘whole hog...’ ha ha!”

“Okay, sure, and I see you widened the air vent. All three of them, actually.”

“Yup. Way out of range for the tuskers, and this keep our air nice and clean. Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to barbecue out in the open with dozens of pigs squealing for blood! Now, enough about my stove. Let’s get back to the coolness that is raising undead servants, guardians, and necromancy! So what comes after zombies?”

Samuel nodded. “Right! Next up in order of difficulty and complexity are skeletons. Constructs which, far from how they’re portrayed in every rpg game ever, actually require a great deal of expertise and care to construct, and are potentially quite powerful. They are the hallmark of talented necromancers going places who have achieved Journeyman status or better, at least as the System records these things, which is actually pretty damn powerful.”

Sam raised a cautionary finger with those words, earning a bemused smile from his student.

“But they aren’t easy to make, Eric. I’ll even concede that many strong necromancers who lack our clan’s multi-discipline potential will forgo their creation entirely, and stick with zombies. And yes, zombie specialization can evolve into a very powerful path all its own. Regardless, skeleton forging is the next step for any student of Grim’s. It requires flaying the flesh completely from the bones, then sigil-marking each and every one of them. We’ll be using the potency of our necromantic gifts along with primal arcana, and the power of the whole to bind the bones together. Then we will inscribe upon the skull the runes of containment and obedience before animating it.”

Eric frowned thoughtfully as he put the finishing touches on his stove. “So what you’re saying is zombies are easiest, we’re taking advantage of mother nature’s own design to store the soul where it sort of naturally goes anyway. In the brain case. But we want it well preserved, so our poor animated creature isn’t an idiot. But when it comes to skeletons, we actually have to have proficiency with multiple arts. Not just necromancy, but also rune forging. And from what your saying about this ‘primal arcana’ and the power of the whole, which sounds an awful lot like arcane laws of similarity and contagion...”

Eric felt a shiver of unexpected insight, shaking his head with a smile. “Shit, Grim’s necromancers are natural mages, right? Not just tapping into Soul Reserves, but their Mana Pool as well. Which tells me that the System did NOT invent arcane magic. It just, well, I guess like it’s like a tool, or extremely complex program. Maybe it makes magic a lot easier for others to access and master? And maybe that’s why high tech fizzled out. We’ve always had a trickle of magic running through our world. The System just turned it into a flood.”

“Exactly!” Samuel flashed a pleased smile. “I’m glad to see you understand. Now, skeletons are going to behave quite differently from zombies. For the former, think automated terminators without personality, but with the capacity to follow highly complex if-then sequence conditional orders. Zombies, on the other hand, will think and act like a living creature. Especially if you use a cadaver so fresh there was no significant brain decomposition. And if you infuse it with enough potency, the body will even regain a semblance of it’s metabolic functions! Which makes it a hell of a lot more durable and long lasting. For the truly talented, that’s the crucial step to forging your own elite tier revenants, and this is the path that many necromancers lacking proficiency in arcana or rune forging choose to follow.”

Eric gave a pleased nod as he gazed at his completed stove of sealed-together granite slabs, complete with air vent and flume. He had even made a stone griddle, thanks again to the assassin’s blade he thought a far finer tool for construction and handiwork than anything else he could have asked for, with the mild drawback that any blade slippage could result in a near fatal wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, so thank goodness for monstrous stats!

He turned to the boy who was gazing at Eric’s handiwork with just a bit of awe.

“Well shit, you actually did it! Made an oven? Grill? Kiln? Made a cool ass thing with just granite and a knife...”

“Actually, it’s pretty much a gladius.”

“...Radiating some wicked killing intent!”

Eric grinned. “Yup! And if I can juggle these rocks I prepared right...”

“The rocks you just sprayed with your blood?”

Eric nodded. “Each of these two foot long slabs of stone looks like a plate, right?”

The boy nodded dutifully at the slab his slid free of the incision he made from the wall, before inserting it into the kiln oven, underneath his makeshift grill. “Each will heat up the stone oven to a certain temperature. 300, 400, and 500 Fahrenheit to start, and we can experiment with grilling, and frying our chops at different temperatures, and see what works best!”

Eric then gestured at the blood-spattered stone wall.

“And you see these wall slots you got so pasty-faced watching me spurt my own blood into? You can safely slide each stone heating plate inside, and you don’t have to worry about us slowly cooking to death, thanks to our own hot plates! Heat will be 100% contained.”

Samuel gave him a doubting look. “Really. The laws of physics have been totally abrogated? Your magic blood-spattered stone slits will perfectly seal the heat of your cooking plates?”

Eric grinned, he couldn’t help it, savoring the boys bemused smile turn to drop-jawed awe and maybe a bit of fear when Eric slowly unsheathed his blazing 2000 degree saber from it’s blood-lined sheath.

“As a matter of fact… yeah, I do,” he said, quickly resheathing his blade.

Samual gazed at him in open-mouthed disbelief. “But, wait… how? Eric! That’s… shit.” The boy stumbled back on his ass and winced, before shaking his head and chuckling. “And you want to take lessons from me?”

“Damn right I do!” Eric assured. “And thanks to my former acquaintances, and by acquaintances I mean goblin assassins I took great pleasure in cutting down like the shitheads they were, we got all the pots and pans we need for some serious cooking!”

Samuel positively beamed. “Damn, you are something of a badass, Eric. Just like your character in the premier I totally didn’t see with the way you’re looking at me, no matter how well connected grandpop is.”

Sam flashed a cheeky smile. “Now, what’s this you said about some tasty pork chops?”

Eric smirked before taking out the rather impressive collection of spices his would-be executioners had left him, giving credit where it was due. The goblins might have been cutthroat assassins, but at least they had culinary standards.

“Alright,” he said, pulling out a pig carcass from storage and plopping it in the stone trough he had made before detaching it, so he could take it in and out of storage as needed. “First, we need to dress our kill, then to get those steaks on! Now tell me about these elite tier revenants?” He asked while making good use of his experience dressing numerous giant rodent kills to make short work of separating the hide and entrails from the meat, plopping both heart, liver, and kidneys right on one of his hotplates, whistling as he sliced up the meat with the nicest chef knife in the goblin assassin’s collection, then placing a hot plate full of sizzling meat flavored with dried, parsley, sage, salt, pepper, and vinegar before his bemused looking companion.

“There. Some savory tasties that will put hair on your chest, and hopefully hemoglobin in your blood!”

The boy flashed a bemused smile when Eric passed him fork and knife. “I can’t help but notice that you aren’t joining in?” the boy noted.

Eric grinned. “That’s because I have porkchops and bacon to experiment with. Honestly? Besides Self-tube cooking and survival videos, I’m pulling most of this out of my ass. Hell, I refuse even to look at the System notifications on improvements to my Cooking, Survival, and Engineering skills, because I just know it will be full of snarky commentary!”

Samuel gazed at him for long moments as Eric went back to cooking. “You know your words don’t exactly inspire a huge amount of confidence?”

Eric laughed at that. “Get eating and tell me about those revenants. If you’re really good, I’ll let you try out my attempt at ribs and bacon!”

The boy laughed. “Fair enough! And… shit, this liver is, well… filling! Very meaty. And irony. And if I didn’t crave it so much right now...”

Eric smirked. “Considering that I pulled a pint of tainted blood from your sorry ass, I’m not surprised. Eat up! Bacon’s coming soon.”

Samuel did just that, and Eric was pleased to find that his bacon wasn’t a complete disaster, and that in fact his thick crispy slabs of meat were damned tasty.

The ribs on the other hand... He’d have to level up that a bit more before he’d give himself a passing grade. They both agreed on that.

Sam sighed sadly at the travesty that should have been baby back delight. “Alright, Eric, last but certainly not least… Revenants. You know how I spoke of zombies as being almost life like with a fully intact brain? That if you’re skilled enough, it’s hard to tell an undead zombie from a living creature?”

Eric nodded.

“Well, in the hands of a master necromancer, Revenants are just that. The body is fully restored. Even saturated with necromantic energies, the physical organs are brought back to such a state that homeostasis is fully restored. The host is, for all intense and purposes, alive once more, even if it’s infused with so much necromantic energies that your head will spin! Best of all, the spirit we summon back is the original host! This further energizes the vessel and assures full cognizance and compliance.”

Eric paused, gazing at the animated youth for long moments.

“That doesn’t sound like raising a zombie, Sam. That sounds like bringing back the dead.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically. “I know, right? And there are many versions of it! Some are more, well, Vampiric than others.” Eric blinked at this. “Anyway,” the boy quickly hurried on, “What makes them such awesome servants and guardians is their ability to think and act on their own, even while being completely loyal and devoted to their master! Full homeostasis also means that they can blend right in to any gathering of the living. But since they’re also infused with necromantic energy, they can push themselves beyond mortal means. Of course, they still have to be careful that they don’t push themselves too far without irreparably harming their bodies… or at least requiring a lot of repair work from their master. But it also means that they can heal supernaturally fast.” He blinked when a smirking Eric cut himself with a perfectly ordinary knife, the skin-deep wound healing in front of an awed Samuel’s eyes in seconds.

“Shit, like that. Exactly like that! Eric? Are you…” The boy paled. “Are you grandfather’s revenant, sent to rescue me?”

Eric solemnly shook his head. “No, Sam. I’m just a dude with 36 Vitality. That means I regenerate almost 4 health per second.”

Samuel gazed at him for long moments. “Dude, I really, really, want to hop in a pod and get a class right now.”

Eric smirked. “Eat your bacon, buddy. With only a 10% survival rate, it’s not a path I recommend, especially since you clearly have power as a mortal already.”

The boy sighed and nodded. “If I didn’t have grandfather’s blood flowing through my veins, I’d 100% agree with you. I’d rather have ten normal lives than one where I’m extra special. And this bacon is excellent, by the way! Even if you need to work on the ribs.”

“I know. Even the Interface made that clear,” Eric sighed.

“But yeah. Just so you know? That 10% survival rate is bullshit.” Samuel quickly raised a placating hand at Eric’s frown. “No, you’re right about the 10% survival rate for the average sap caught by the CSA and forced into the pods, or just someone desperate enough to try. Grim paid fortune in copper and silver to widows and broken families while gathering an awful lot of data over the past half year in Freetown, so we know better than most just how badly the odds are stacked against the average Joe.

“But here’s the good news, Eric. If you’re able to walk the path we are, if you have any gift at manipulating blood or the dead like members of my clan do, you’re guaranteed to at least get a Profession. And if you know what you’re doing, if you’re able to get experience at anything of significance, like raising a zombie or a skeleton, or manipulating an arcane artifact, or maybe unlocking the ability to cultivate somehow, you’re all but guaranteed an adventuring class that isn’t complete bullshit! At least eventually.”

Eric grinned. “That knowledge right there could save a lot of lives. Especially if we set up tests, maybe even spring for the cost of a buying and hiring handful of high quality wands and tutors of whatever arcane or necromantic professions we can, and having the most ideal candidates spend a few weeks seeing if they have a spark of power in anything, anything at all, before daring the pods.” Eric chewed lunch in thought. “We could even make it economically viable, eventually, so long as whoever signs up for our ‘safe testing plan’ agrees to join our corp or guild, or give us a cut of their profits for a few years… not for profit for us, but just to ‘pay it forward’ for the next batch of would-be recruits, and thus help give humanity one more bastion of hope and possible adventurers without a 90% mortality rate probably keeping 90% of those who would make it from even daring the pods at all. Because what same person would with a 90% mortality rate?

Sam grinned at Eric’s hopeful smile, while taking another bite of crispy bacon. “Fucking delicious bacon! And you’re damn right that’s the plan. Because we love our humanity and pay our adventurer allies well, but the ones who dared and survived the pods are as likely to be idealistic goofballs, ex cons that are either savage bastards or looking for a fresh start, and your all-around poor impulse control Jane and Joe that just couldn’t take living in this new age with no hope at all. Not exactly the thoughtful genius tacticians or stable people you can build the cornerstone of humanity’s hopes and dreams on.”

The boy shook his head and sighed. “Of course all that’s still in the planning stage. Because sure as shit, we don’t have the millions of credits it would cost to set up such an operation even for just a year… but it’s something we can aspire to down the line.”

Eric solemnly nodded carefully not revealing a secret that would change absolutely everything for Sam, already looking forward to the glorious surprise he would share with his newfound friend when they eventually headed back to his home. Because sure as shit, Eric would happily bankroll that pipe dream in a heartbeat, if it helped save lives and gave humanity that much more of a chance.

Of course, for all Eric knew, his friends were already using just the tiniest portion of the near five hundred pounds of gold he had saved them from pouring into the goblin’s contractual trap to do just that. It was a good thing too that, according to Caliban, massive System-wide galactic demand kept the insane amount of gold he had unveiled from crashing the market. Because he could think of all sorts of exciting uses for it, especially if it were valued as highly as possible. Uses he would be enjoying right now, if he weren’t both trapped in this realm with potential goblin assassins and multiple batteries of orc cannons just waiting to obliterate him and Sam the moment they tried to escape.

Fortunately, neither he nor Sam were in any hurry to leave, presented with what might just be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to discover and embrace multiple paths to power like never before.