The fast paced, high level combat was no place for a low level golem, so Bones didn't bother to summon one. He himself had a hard time navigating the open field. Everywhere he looked he saw the potential experience to be gained, but he couldn't afford to draw too much attention on himself by making an enemy out of both sides. Not yet at least. Out of thirty-one bombs he made, he used seven during the night and two immediately after joining the battle. The tempered bodies of the second tier silver rankers rendered the effect mild at best, but not all participants were in the second tier. The ones he recognized to be affected the most were Bones’ targets.

The passing seconds in combat felt like minutes and minutes felt forever. Fifteen minutes into the battle, Bones barely registered a dinging sound of a new level up and a slew of notifications that followed. His second level gained in less than ten hours! Bones gained a bonus combat experience fighting against humans and adding the difference in levels allowed him to accumulate absurd amounts of experience in a very short amount of time. The experience was high but so was the risk.

It was mentally demanding to constantly keep his senses on edge, avoiding attacks and projectiles, and never stop moving. He felt tired, drained. His mana went down in one moment and jumped back up in the next, and his health points dangerously hung below half his health. It wasn't only him. The others felt it too. The mental strain and, unlike Bones, physical exhaustion.

The soldiers were hardened veterans from the main camp with plenty of battle experience, and it was showing. Even when their bodies strained and their injuries made fighting all the more difficult, they pressed on with the same ferocity as at the start of the battle. The difference was worlds apart compared to the low level soldiers from the South Camp that spent their daily routine guarding the gates and patrolling the streets of the city. Bones acknowledged that his experience was also lacking. Even now during a few precious moments he found between the fights, he admonished himself for thinking he could rely on past experiences. But he was learning!

Bones unloaded a barrage of Bone Lances into the man in front him. Three projectiles bounced off the plate armor while four penetrated and killed the man. Bones’ mana, almost depleted but quickly regenerated while he proceeded to his next target. Shortly after he moved, a hastily casted Mana Blast deflected the arrows coming his way and staggered a charging soldier. His mana was empty again and the cycle repeated.

The battle was that of attrition. There was nothing to win over. The goal was to cull the number of enemy soldiers and after two hours, the two armies ceased their attacks. The Aphitonians withdrew back to the border where they stood their ground, close to their main camp and the Wezar army didn't continue pursuing. They have lost many and they lacked the manpower to engage the enemy further. The soldiers set up a perimeter around the open field and began tending to their injured. Bones, in the meantime, looted the enemy bodies, taking what he needed and retreated back to his hiding place.

By the time he climbed the tree, he felt better. Refreshed he'd say. He dropped the cuirass on his way back and his robes were tattered and beyond repair. He was stabbed, slashed, crushed and burned, and his health points were below twenty percent. The hardened mud had crumbled and fallen off almost completely beneath his equipment during the combat and Bones watched for the next few hours as numerous cuts and cracks on his damaged bones gradually repaired.

I had the wrong impression on what health points were. The books I read and information I gathered all taught that health points represented the state of one's body and by all means, that is correct. And once the health points reach zero, the person is fatally wounded, on the brink of death or already dead. Quite an accurate explanation - for the living that is. I’m an undead, without flesh, muscle tissue and organs. It's only my bones that take the damage from physical attacks.

The amount of damage I received far exceeded the amount of health points I have. The health points represent the integrity of my bones and VIT increases their durability! Now the question is, what happens when MY health points reach zero? Death? Shouldn't be! The undead die when they lose their source of power which would be their core. My core! So technically, as long as my core doesn't break and shatter, I can't die and my body should be able to reform…I already knew that, but I think I'm only now beginning to truly understand the implications.

What if I could replace my damaged bones, a broken arm or a leg with a new one on the spot?! Would my health points jump to full? That's something to put more thought into! If I understand correctly how the system operates, I could control to some extent what upgrades and skills I could obtain. Having a skill that would allow me to affect, change or replace my bones would provide me with a huge boost to defense. The problem is…

Bones took a hard look at his arms, then the rest of his body. Even if he could replace bones, his Bone Aura and the recent Revenant transformation changed his body. He was no longer a skeleton, but something else.

*tch*

That ship might have already sailed. I tried to shape my bones before but this new body of mine is completely resilient to shaping. No, wait…that's not entirely true.

Bones watched the imitation of muscles made out of bones, contracted, as he clenched his fists. He had no control over it and did it subconsciously.

That reminds me…Why didn't I shape bones when I was making the golem construct? At that time, engraving completely occupied my mind. It didn't even occur to me to try and in some way improve the Lizardman skeleton!

What's done is done. Perhaps I could remake Skully and I still have an Orc skeleton to experiment on! I already did engravings on it but I can always redo them. As for me…the only way I see myself making changes is while reforming my body but that…that is a risk I'm not willing to take at this point. If I gain a skill or perhaps an upgrade that'll allow me to do the changes I want, great! If not, I'll find a way. Speaking of upgrades and skills…

Bones displayed the blue screen in front of him and was flooded with notifications. The most important one was a new level up in the Revenant race and Bonemancer Adept class, bringing him to level thirty five and granting him a new skill. Bones read through the description of his new skill and exhaled.

Skull Bomb - A Bonemancer Adept creates a fragile skull in humanoid shape and imbues it with mana that detonates on impact, releasing the compressed mana contained within in the radius around the location of the impact. The radius and the strength of the explosion increases with a level in skill and is affected by Mana Manipulation and INT attribute.

Mana cost: 50 mp

How surprising - I’m speechless! Not a bad skill actually. Depends on the radius and the effectiveness of the explosion. I’ll give the skill a try as soon as I finish with the notifications.

A lot of his skills gained level ups over the last few days and his Bone Spikes finally advanced a tier.

Congratulation, your skill Bone Spikes has reached level 20

Upgrades available: 2

Bone Spikes > Boneyard

Bone Spikes > Bone Steak

Two upgrades again? Bone Armor also had two. Let’s see…Boneyard is a straight up improvement of Bone Spikes from what I could tell. Increased radius and twice the amount of spikes, but it seems the spikes are smaller and would deal less damage. And the other upgrade is Bone Steak…Steak?

Bone Steak - Instead of using Bone Spikes as a crowd control ability, Bonemancer Adept raises a single stake, but much larger in volume and density to skewer his target. The ability has a small delay as it takes the ability time to charge before it is used. The user can queue the skill in advance, significantly reducing the delay time at twice the mana cost for each stake queued. The strength and durability of Bone Stake increases with level in skill.

Mana cost: 80 mp

I see. The second upgrade is focused on damage while the first one further expands the ability to crowd control. Bones Spikes is a skill I often use and its ability to impair my targets is irreplaceable. More damage would be nice but I already have a single target damage spell.

It was a pretty forward decision and Bones upgraded his Bone Spikes to Boneyard. He looked down from the tree and slightly raised his hand. From the ground below, twenty spikes about thirty centimeters in length came through in a ten meter radius. The spikes looked sharp but the difference in length was noticeable. It will be fine. I can control the radius of a skill to an extent and make the area smaller. The upgraded version also gains plus one spike per five levels in a skill.

Bones once again casted Boneyard, but this time reducing the radius of the skill and saw he could reduce the area to a base radius of six meters. The amount of spikes remained the same and Bones grinned seeing a densely packed impairing contraption. Also, seeing as how he could cast the skill from all the way up in the tree, the distance he could cast from seemed increased as well. After twelve seconds, the spikes began to dissipate and the skill faded away. Bones turned his focus back to the notification and saw his Bone Nova still had a few levels to advance a tier. It wasn’t a skill he often used as it just didn’t have that much of an impact. Perhaps I could find a synergy between the skills and fuse it into a more usable skill later on?

The rest of his skills slowly advanced toward the master tier but it would take quite some time before he got there. General skills usually leveled slower with the Identify skill being the slowest. Only level fourteen huh…It’s a shame I hadn’t had much time to use Soul Magic these past few days. I’m close to leveling up and gaining a new skill at level fifteen. Definitely something to look forward to! I also have a general idea of what skill might be awaiting me. I guess that's it for the notifications. The only thing left is…

Bones looked up and groaned. He had five free attribute points to distribute and he totally forgot where he had planned to place them into. I should really start making notes…ah! Bones just remembered he had a parting gift given to him by the dwarves. He took out the small booklet from his inventory and started listing through the pages.

He initially didn’t plan to take out the booklet before he was out of Wezar Kingdom and on his way to the Remore Kingdom, but this is as good a time as any to browse through the content. Bones searched for any information on the attributes and luckily, Darsumi had foresight Bones would need help with stat distribution.

Bones focused on the part about mages that said it was a well known fact that their biggest weakness, compared to the other system users, is their poor physique. And while INT is the most important stat for a mage, the majority invest their free points in physical attributes like STR and END to cover for that weakness. The most balanced stat distribution was adding free points into STR, END and VIT.

At the end of the page there was a warning stating that the body of a user can handle at most twice the amount of VIT in any other attribute like INT or STR. Any more and the strain on the body would be too much to bear, lowering the user's performance. In extreme cases where the user couldn't handle the power coursing through their body, the mana pathways of the users were destroyed and the body crippled, thus rendering him unable to gather and circulate mana throughout his body.

Below the warning was a barely readable scribble and precisely what Bones was looking for.

Special note: Bones, I’ve no idea if the ratio 2:1 INT to VIT holds true for an Undead like yourself. You know your body the best and I’m sure whatever you put your points into, it’ll work out just fine! Considering you plan to use golems to fight by your side, you might want to take on a more supportive role and spare a few points from INT and place them in WIS or VIT.

You can’t go wrong with VIT. Best regards, Darsumi.

“I remember now. I did plan to invest my free points in VIT. Thank you for the reminder Dar.”

Bones didn’t rush to place his points in VIT. The points wouldn’t go anywhere and they wouldn’t make much of an impact even if he was to spend them right now. He hesitated for a moment, then closed the character screen, leaving five free available points to use at a later date. He looked at the clearing in the distance and saw soldiers busy securing the perimeter and setting up camp.

It seems the army from the main camp will be divided into numerous smaller camps positioned in a semi oval shape going from the North Camp to the new camp in the clearing and back to the South Camp. Risky strategy but in case of an attack, the other two camps would be quick to respond.

With nothing much to do, Bones continued practicing shaping until the evening when he decided to stretch his legs and explore the dangers deeper in the swamps.