The origin of the sweetness turned out to take the longest to reach. By the time they were close to it, Emil and his undead creations had been on an almost two-hour-long trek. The sun sat low on the horizon, it would begin to set soon. During that wait, while he rode his elk, he had rummaged through his supply bag for a new set of clothes. It was the last clothes he had, so if they got ruined, that was that.

Emil now wore a long-sleeve sweater, pants, gloves, and thick socks. So while he had no shoes or anything to for his head, his body was mostly covered. If he could just get his hands on something to hide his head and face, he would feel perfectly fine interacting with other people again.

Perhaps he could use some of the old, torn cloth and craft a makeshift hoodie and mask out of it. Though he had worked with making clothes a day in his life, so that idea was probably easier said than done. If only being a Necromancer added an ability for that to his Class Info, wouldn’t that have been convenient?

But his idle thoughts were dismissed as they approached a lake. The trail for scent definitely led to it, so this had to be the spot for its source. Emil hopped down from Ray’s back, and walked down toward the lake’s perimeter. The water had become frozen into ice around the edges, but remained liquid past that point.

At first glance, there seemed to be nothing of note about it. However, as he got closer to the water, he noticed something. Emil squinted to try and get a better look, and his eyes widened at what he then saw. Towards the center of the lake, a few dozen dead fished lazily bobbed at the water’s surface. But around those fish, an inky darkness slowly swirled around. It seemed like small whisps of black gas would occasionally rise out of the water, and escape into the open air.

“Of course!” Emil excitedly exclaimed. “I never even thought about it, but of course death energy would easily stay trapped in water. It’s already thick enough to remain in the air for a while before dissipating. And since it’s kinda sticky too, it’ll cling to a surface it gets caught on. So if something dies underwater, the death that creates would remain there for much longer than an animal that died out in the open.”

The Undead Human took off his clothes and left them on dry land. He then stepped into the lake, and began to wade his way toward the center. Emil was slightly concerned about how his undead body would fair when it came to swimming. But as he moved through the water, all remained well.

It took him a little while to get there, but when he did, Emil dived underwater. The large cloud of darkness was now in front of him, and obscured anything past it. He reached a hand out, and touched it. Even while surrounded by water, the cloud of death still felt thick and viscous. He was then pulled into visions of the deaths of all these fish.

Though for the first time, taking their perspective actually gave little insight into how they died. Each of the fish had been just going on as usual, and then within a day, their bodies just up and suddenly shut down. It wasn’t as if something had caused the mass death of every fish in the lake. These were just dozens out of hundreds that lived in these waters. The unknown cause of death did draw his curiosity, but at the same time, it was of little consequence to him.

But he did wonder if this was actually the cause of how their deaths smelled. Emil had initially thought that maybe it was related to the type of creature that died. However, as he thought about it again, he believed that perhaps it was based on the cause of death instead. That did make sense, since it would directly relate to the visions he saw upon making physical contact with them. But it was now that Emil began to draw in the murky fog of death before him.

+225 Mana acquired

Conversion into a usable form is required

Estimated conversion time: two hundred and twenty-five minutes

The total amount of death energy these dozens of fish had created was enough to completely refill his Mana Level and then some. Even after he absorbed as much as he could, quite a bit of it remained. From the way the cloud had now shrunk down, Emil estimated that he had taken in around a little more than half of the total death energy here. Which meant that there was still plenty more for him to save as memory orbs.

He began to condense it down, but rather than create one large orb, he decided to be tactical about it. Whenever Emil had used Death Magic or Unholy Fire Magic, the resulting spell used up the entire supply of death energy given to it. So if he only created one big orb and cast either ability it would create a powerful spell. But it would also mean that he would be unable to cast such a spell again until he got his hands on more memory orbs.

As such, just to be on the safe side, the Necromancer decided to split the remaining death energy into three separate orbs. Each one would fit into the medium category, and he estimated that they each contained about 50 Mana’s worth of power. So if Emil did need to use them to restore his Mana Level, he had about half of his capacity now securely stored up.

With a happy nod to himself, he resurfaced and swam back to the shore. It took a bit longer to get there as he carried the three new memory orbs. But as he got close, he willed for Ray to come down and meet him there. Emil walked over to his bag and placed the orbs inside. He then gathered up his clothes and put them back on. They would get wet as they absorbed the water that covered his body, and he didn’t mind. In fact, that was preferable for him. Better for the wet clothes to be affected by freezing temperatures than his skin being directly frozen.

Emil get back on his elk’s back, and looked toward the setting sun. With it as his reference, he had Ray turn eastward. Even after night falls, he would still be able to maintain his course by relying on the north star to make sure he didn’t deviate from his path. He now had the mount he wanted, and satisfied his desire to encounter the ice elemental. It had proven to be a valuable experience, that resulted in him acquiring extra memory orbs as well.

Despite the difficulties he had faced over today, Emil was satisfied. Even if he encountered magical beasts or the like, from here on out, he wouldn’t go out of his way to find them. Unless something forced him to stop or take a roundabout path, he would continuously head straight east until he reached the kingdom’s border. Emil and Ray began to head east. But as they did, he realized that there was just one thing that did nag at him, now that he thought about it.

“You know, out of my abilities, Negative Magic might be the one I’ve used the most. Heck, just how many times did I use it earlier against that ice elemental? Maybe a dozen, I think? Yet even though I’ve not just cast Negative Void, but different spells as well, it hasn’t leveled up at all. If this was a Mage ability, I’d get that. I don’t even want to remember how hard it was to get level Fire Magic to level up,” Emil began to say aloud as they walked.

“But these Necromancer abilities have been leveling up super fast. I mean, Undead Creation is already level three for gods’ sake. If I had managed to level anything twice so quickly as a Mage, I’d probably have thrown a party to celebrate it. Heck, even Spell Manipulation has leveled twice since I was a Mage. And that’s supposed to be one of the slowest leveling things in any Mage’s Class Info.”

“I should have bought extra enchanted scrolls. If I could check with one of those right now, I hope it would show that Negative Magic leveled up. I just wish I had a way to check my Sheet,” he admitted with a wistful sigh. However, it was as the words left his mouth, that something popped up in front of him.

[General Info:]

Mana Level: 75/300

Soul Durability: 100%

Class: Necromancer

Rank: Undead Human

Grade: B+

[Class Info:]

Death Magic: Level 2

Undead Creation: Level 3

Soul Manipulation: Level 2

Negative Magic: Level 1

Spell Manipulation: Level 5

Unholy Fire Magic: Level 1

Flesh Manipulation: Level 1

Emil blinked rapidly in surprise, his mouth slightly open. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, but the pop-up was still there. So shocked, he nearly forget that one eye was still just an empty socket. But it wasn’t just his imagination. It was definitely real and included his current Mana Level. Tentatively, he dismissed the Sheet. He then once again desired for it to reappear, and it did so immediately.

“I… I still almost can’t believe it. This has to be part of me being undead now. But even so, it’s still amazing,” Emil muttered to himself. No longer would he need to buy enchanted scrolls to check his Sheet. No longer would he need to manually keep track of his current Mana Level. It would always be right there for him to look at whenever he so desired. Once the initial surprise of it all had waned off, Emil left the Sheet dismissed.

He had to remember that his very existence was unique. Only humanoids created by the gods like humans or elves had a soul. As such, they were also the only creatures that had access to the System. But Emil’s own soul was directly modified and changed by Alterum, an ancient being that rivaled the gods. And now that he was no longer a living human, the rulebook for how the System normally worked might as well have been thrown out of a window.

The very existence of Soul Durability also pointed to that conclusion. As far as he knew, no Mage or mortal for that matter had ever acquired that stat. But since he was an Undead Human with a soul concentrated into a small core, it was a new thing that was unique to him. Emil didn’t want to admit it out loud, but he liked the thought of that. Of him being unique, being special. It was a feeling that he could get used to.

However, aside from that, this now confirmed that Negative Magic had indeed remained at level one. Perhaps he needed to experiment with it further for more spells, and deepen his understanding of its nature. But that could wait until after he reached the border with the nation of Vermila. With that in mind, Emil and his undead continued their trek through the wilderness.

The following journey they made had only two major things of note. First of which was that at one point, Emil almost accidentally stumbled onto a road. It had been on the other side of a wall of thick brush, so he didn’t see it until he was practically right on top of it. Luckily, there hadn’t been anyone within sight that could have seen him.

Emil then created some distance from it before he continued on his way. Though for future reference, he only wanted to be moderately far from it. The road would actually provide a helpful marker once he was near the border. Since there would be a checkpoint on it between the border of the Kingdom of Mendac and Vermila.

The second instance of importance was when a violent snowstorm came in during the middle of the night. While Emil was able to see fine in pitch-black darkness, heavy snowfall with fast winds was a different story. He had tried to have Ray push through it at first. However, even though he believed he was still heading eastward, at some point he realized that he had somehow changed directions midway.

Unable to use the north star as a reference point, it would be impossible to keep going without getting lost. So he had been forced to hunker down in place, and wait for it to pass. This pause ended up constituting a delay of what seemed like twelve hours or so. But once it did clear up, he had been able to continue onward without any further setbacks.

In the end, it took Emil approximately three days until he believed he was close to the border. If he counted the total amount of time it had been since he originally left his old camp, then he’d been on this journey for four days. If it hadn’t been for that snowstorm, he would have been able to say that he reached the border with Ray in half the time it would have taken on foot.

Emil and Ray climbed up a hill, and looked outward. The forest thinned out before them, and he was able to see the road. Up ahead, he could spot a small fortress. It extended across both sides of the road, with a closed, wooden gate in between. As he peered closely, he was just able to make out what seemed like a carriage in front of the gate. But this now confirmed that he was now only perhaps another hour away from the border.

The Undead Human and his two loyal creations began to venture down the hill. Luckily for them, going around the checkpoint would prove to be an easy feat. Emil was by no means the most prominent expert in international politics. However, he did know that Vermila and his home kingdom had a rather lax policy on their shared borders. As such, no large efforts were made by either side to hinder people from freely crossing the border.

Though now that I think about it, I thought I saw a headline about relations with Vermila when I was skimming through those newspapers in the tavern. That there were threats from the Kingdom of Mendac to implement tighter border control. Yet I can’t quite remember what caused that. Hmm, ah well. It might be an issue when I need to come back and recross it. But that won’t happen until I find Alterum’s tooth, so who knows when that’ll be.

It was with that thought, that Emil later crossed the boundary between the two countries. He was now within the nation of Vermila, where his search for the ancient dragon’s tooth would soon begin.