A few hours of trial and error had passed. But when it came to converting death into Mana, Emil had managed to find a simple solution. Though in reality, he was only stealing an idea from Alterum’s playbook. It was still in only the early stages of winter. As such, not all the insects had gone into hiding yet to wait out the cold.

So when he searched in dead logs, under rocks, and the like, there were plenty of bugs to be found. He didn’t necessarily hate insects, but he had no problem with the act of killing them for his own benefit. So that he could convert their deaths into Mana for himself.

However, they weren’t exactly an efficient source. It often took a couple dozen bugs just to regain ten points of Mana. When Emil tried keeping track, he found that not every bug was created equally. By his guess, it depended on both their size and overall complexity. A group of tiny worms wasn’t worth much. But when he came across a nest of arachnids instead of insects, the spiders inside had given him quite a few points.

All in all though, through this farming method, he managed to convert them into another sixty of Mana. And luckily for him, since they were a bunch of individuals, the conversion time was rather short. So now he was nearly back to the level he had started from and was already at over half of his total capacity.

However, there was another interesting discovery Emil had made. When he had first started, the smell of the insects’ death clouds had still enticed him. It hadn’t been as strong as like before, with the deer. But it had been noticeable. Though once he reached a hundred Mana’s worth collected, the enticement fully disappeared. And as he farmed the various bugs, his sense of taste and smell gradually became sharper.

Now they were just about back to normal. But that was the thing that interested him. If they were back to their usual now, what would happen when he reached the current cap of his Mana level? Would they remain the same, or actually become heightened?

There was only one way to find out. As such, while taking short breaks here and there, Emil dedicated the rest of his day to this task. He would keep going until either his Mana level became full, or it was sundown, whichever came first.

After farming for part of the evening, he only had ten points left to go. But luckily for him, he managed to find a particular large anthill, and that gave him enough to make the difference. Emil sat back down in the cave. It was almost dusk, but he had finished in time for dinner. It would take a few minutes to convert into Mana, but he could prepare his last meal of the day during that time. In terms of heightened senses, however, he didn’t notice anything different.

‘Maybe I thought about it the wrong way? Rather than it being a thing where it got back to normal and then kept going up, maybe I should have looked at it from the other way around. From top to bottom instead.’

He began to look back, and tried to piece it all together. At 120/200 Mana, he had felt fine. Then he cast spells until he was down to 20/200, that was when he both lost his normal senses and became hyper-aware of the deer’s death. As soon as he absorbed power from its death, his senses largely returned even before it converted into Mana. Then when he eventually climbed back to 100/200, the halfway point, his senses also returned to normal.

As such, it was probably something like this: there was a critical point in which his body needed to use death as a power source. If he went below that threshold, then it showed up as physical side effects. If that was the case, then it was already a cause of concern for Emil. Because that was just another stack on the pile that he wasn’t really a normal person. In the eyes of the System and these powers, “Fully Mortal” was seemingly not the same as fully human.

Emil chewed on his food, and went to lay down against the ground by the cave entrance. The weather would seemingly be clear tonight, so the stars would be out again. When he lived at the Academy, by the big city, the stars were barely visible. But out here, he would be able to clearly see them all. As the last light of the sun disappeared behind the horizon, he began to think.

‘What am I doing?’ Emil asked himself. ‘I either use these powers and do my end of the deal, or I experience something supposedly worse than death. That’s it, those are the only two options I get to pick from.’

He had told himself earlier that he would train for two weeks and then see what he would do next. But he knew that was just a load of nonsense, just a poor attempt to kick the problem down the road. Emil thought back to Alterum’s words. As he stared at the night sky, something clicked. They had made a contract, yes, one that was seemingly eternally binding. But when it came to contracts, the exact wording was important, and the dragon had left theirs’… rather vague.

There were only two definite terms. One, build an army and establish a kingdom of undeath. Two, after Emil gathered the power to do so, free Alterum from its prison. That was all. There was no mention of a time limit. And what exactly would qualify as an army or kingdom?

If the intent is to wage a full-blown war against the gods, then he would need a massive amount of undead. As for the kingdom, to have the resources necessary for that, would need to be as large as the biggest countries. The dragon had said that it would know if Emil even tried to go against their contract. So in short, as long as he intended to get it done, the methods he employed or the time it takes wouldn’t matter?

Emil was afraid of eventually losing his humanity. But even more so, he had feared that he would eventually become the same kind of undead as the dragon. Viewing people as either toys in a game like his teammates, or as a tool like him.

But what if he could keep a part of himself, just enough to go down this path without becoming a monster. Even when he becomes undead, as long as he remembered his human origin, was there just a chance that he could do this? That he could fulfill his side of the deal without compromising his humanity?

It would be the road in the middle, the most difficult one. He knew that there was probably the way the dragon intended, for him to become heartless and uncaring like it. Then there was the easy way out, to become defiant and be tossed aside. But Emil didn’t want to just roll over and play his role as a pawn in some chess game. But nor did he want to be treated like trash and disposed of.

So he would be defiantly cooperative. He would give the dragon what it wanted, but it would be on his terms. How did he exactly plan to actually pull something like that off? Emil had no clue. Maybe it was impossible and naive, but it was worth a shot. And he was determined to at least try.

To the stars and moon that were always there in the sky, he swore that as an oath. And with that, Emil finished his meal and tried to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day for him.