Status

Attributes

Name: Murdok

Race: Orc Warrior lvl 48

Soul Core: [Growth-type]

[Soulbound]

Core capacity: [10 000/10 000]

Hp - /

Mp - /

Sta - ∞

STR: 144

AGI: 5

END: 88

VIT: 144

INT: 1

WIS: 1

Free points:

Innate abilities:

Greater Strength [+2 STR per lvl]; [advanced]

Greater Vitality [+2 VIT per lvl]; [advanced]

Increased Health Regeneration; [basic]

Reinforced Body; [basic]

Basic Two-handed weapon mastery; [basic]

User =”Insert skill here”;

"It is here! I can impart one of my skills to Murdok as well!"

I shared Mana Manipulation with Skully and it worked out well. With his advanced Spearmanship, he is able to imbue strikes more often. He does expand more mana that way but it hasn't been a problem so far. Should I do the same with Murdok? Hm…

"No, I think you'll do enough damage without imbuing your weapon my boy. I think I know just the skill for you, it's just…"

I don't know if it'll work or not, since the skill became a part of me with my race upgrade to the Revenant…

"We'll just have to try and see no?"

Bones focused on the skill he chose to share and received a prompt asking him to confirm his choice. Relieved, he accepted and when he Identified Murdok again, he saw that Bone Armor [basic] was added to the list of learned skills.

The skill has been shared, but only the basic tier? Bone Armor has been upgraded to Bone Aura… perhaps only basic skills can be shared? I haven't thought of this. My golems can level skills but I have no idea if they can advance them too.

Speaking of, I still have many skills to advance. The skill Create Bone Golem is leveling slowly compared to Golem Mastery, but each time I create one, it gains a considerable amount of experience. Perhaps I could make more of those spider constructs - they seem to be quite useful.

ding

Level up!

Congratulations! You have gained a level 30 in Undead Revenant race

"Oh?"

The hunting and the expertise with his golems pushed Bones beyond the threshold of the current level and out of the blue, he leveled up. While pleasantly surprised, he couldn’t help but ask himself why now and not right after the fight. He then remembered that his actions, no matter how small or big, learning new skills and professions, all provided experience to his race and the latest spark infusion pushed him to level up.

He summoned his status screen and saw his status is Weakened once again, then displayed the new skill he acquired with the new level up. The skill was called a Haunting Touch and it was an ominous and eerie skill fit with the Revenant he was. The skill worked on weak minded and weakened targets and was a form of a hex, a curse placed on a soul that further weakened the target and made it susceptible to control to an extent or extracting information out of it.

No matter how Bones looked at it, the skill seemed very much in tune with his Soul Weaver class and he believed he started seeing a pattern forming. The skills were automatically picked and added out of the pool of skills he wasn't privy to see. It was the workings of the system behind the scenes, but Bones was sure the system was slowly leading him up to something soul related.

"The second tier", - all will be revealed when he reaches the second tier. "That seems pretty far off though."

He exhaled and summoned the reinforced bow the bandit leader used. It was a beautifully crafted bow with dark metal reinforcing limbs, parts of the bow under constant bend and flex. Bones had never seen this type of black metal.

Black steel?

He stored the bow and took out the battleaxe which he then handed to Murdok. With a weapon in hand, Murdok looked intimidating. Skully entered the room and Bones took a few steps back and had them go against each other.

Skully immediately dashed forward with an extended arm and imbued a piercing attack while Murdok deflected the attack with the head of an axe, then countered with an overhead strike. Skully stepped aside just a second before the axe passed him by and crashed into the floor, tearing up the carpet and breaking the wooden floor beneath in half.

"Holy…" Bones exclaimed. The two golems went on for a minute before Bones ordered them to stop. Any more and he would have to spend hours repairing them. Between the two, Skully had the upper hand for the whole fight which Bones already expected given the advanced Spearmanship and the increased attack speed. What he wanted to see was how Murdok and Bone Armor world fare in a fight and they didn't disappoint.

Bone Armor made Murdok even bulkier and what disadvantages and weakness he had, he compensated with the raw power of a level forty-eight orc. Although undead ones, Bones' golems fighting power wasn't anything to scoff at. Both of them were somewhat equal to their human counterparts of the same level.

Bones unsummoned his golems, storing them in his inventory and headed downstairs and into the courtyard that reeked of dead bodies. Unbothered by the smell, he didn't spare a single glance at the dead while leaving through the castle's gates. Once outside and in the clearing before the start of the forest, he casted Bone Storm.

The mana around Bones intensified and dozens of bones the size of his fingers appeared and started swirling in a small radius around him. With each passing second, the number, size and the radius of swirling bones increased until it became a whirlwind of deathly bone spikes. Bones observed the spell until everything faded back to nothingness, then casted the spell again. This time, he counted how long it took for the Bone Storm to reach its maximum capacity and the duration of the spell.

Five seconds to reach maximum capacity and the overall duration is about nine seconds. Nine seconds seems like a long duration for the spell. Now then, can I cast more than one at the same time? And more importantly, can I manipulate the bone spikes?

After waiting for a minute to recover his mana, Bones casted Bone Storm and before the spell reached its maximum capacity, he moved ten meters away and casted the spell again. Another storm started brewing around him and he quickly moved away and tried to cast Bone Storm for the third time, but failed to do so. Initial mana intensified around him but didn't manifest into bones and quickly dissipated. Still, Bones wasn't dispirited, he was satisfied with the result of his test.

The radius of the storm was around two meters at the start of the spell but it quickly picked up speed and increased to four meters. The number of bone spikes increased from fifteen at the start, to thirty at maximum capacity and their size from the finger's length to around thirty centimeters.

Bones turned around, facing the castle's walls and casted Bone Storm one final time. This time, he focused on sensing every bone spike manifesting in the storm. When he sensed all of them, he used bone manipulation and took control over them. It felt weird how easy it was and Bones thought, could it be that easy?

The spell duration ended but Bones still had a whirlwind of bone spikes swirling around him. He raised his right arm, then did the grabbing motion with his hand and started hurling bone spikes in the direction his arm was facing - toward the castle's walls. He swept his raised arm to the left and spikes followed his hand movement. In three seconds Bones sent thirty projectiles flying. Two thirds didn't penetrate the stone walls, but the remaining ten did. Bone spikes were roughly of the same hardiness as the spikes from Boneyard, but they did

gain increased penetrating power thanks to the speed of their swirling within the whirlwind.

"If controlled, the spikes have the potential to be truly devastating. And to think this is just a basic tier skill…"

Bones finished everything he set out to do and it was time to head back to the Adventurer's Guild. He returned to the spot he left his horse, not far from the camp he shared with the adventurer's parties on the first night, and found it riddled with shrapnel and missing a good chunk of its body.

"For fuck sake…" Bones cussed. He really tried to have the horse survive but they were so fragile. Died by a mere arrow…

Bones annoyingly pinched the bridge of his nose. He remained still for a minute, then turned in the general direction he saw he was supposed to go through the window of the castle and started running. After a few hours he found the road and an hour later, people he could ask for directions.

He continued running until late in the evening when he arrived at the gates of Arbington city. He provided his ID then went straight to the Adventurer's Guild. The Guild was mostly empty, apart from a few individuals at the reception desk finishing whatever business they had late at night. Bones turned to the contract board while waiting and started going through the wanted posters one by one.

Quite a few of them were monster hunting contracts requiring collecting certain monster body parts, but most were wanted contracts. Bandits wanted the posters to be exact. The two Bones cleared were on the lower difficulty level and he was surprised to find just how many bandits there were in Remore Kingdom.

A few of the more difficult ones require gold rankers and given there are multiple locations the targets could be found, the information given doesn't appear to be most reliable. Some of the locations even reach beyond the Remore Kingdom.

Bones glanced at the reception desk and saw the last adventurer leaving. He approached the desk, asked for Horace and said he was here to complete the contracts. The woman working the night shift asked for his badge, scanned it against their crystal display thingy and was supposed to gain access to Bones' information and his quests but…

"Umm…m-my apologies, I don't have the clearance to access your personal information." She said apologetically.

"Why not? Is something wrong?" Bones asked.

"Not wrong, but your information was restricted and the only ones with unrestricted access are people with administrator access."

"And who might that be?"

"Mr. Horace is the head administrator and the only one with administrator access in this branch of the Guild. You will have to wait and come back in the morning."

"I see. At what time should I come back then?"

"Mr. Horace will be here at six o'clock at the earliest."

"Thank you - I'll come back in the morning then. Could I…leave the heads with the Guild now? I'd rather not have them in my inventory."

"Of cour…heads, sir?" The receptionist repeated, wondering if she heard right.

Bones was about to take out and place the bandit leader's heads on the desk right there and then, but the woman downright refused him, telling him to follow her to the back where one of the Guild's clerks took the heads for identification.

"We usually receive quest items during the day and through the back sir. I'll pass on the note to Mr. Horace that you have delivered the quest items. The rest will be handled by him tomorrow morning."

Bones thanked the receptionist and left for the inn. He spent hours lying in the bed, staring at the ceiling. Morning seemed like it would never come.

I really need to find something to do overnight. Maybe pick up a hobby, something else besides engraving and shaping practices. I should read a book or two.

Bones took out one of the books he acquired in the town of Ascot, the romance one, and started reading. Halfway through the book, the light hit his blind spot through the windows and Bones closed the book, got up and headed back to the Adventurer's Guild. When he got there, Horace spotted him at the entrance and waved him to come forward, then led him to his office.

"Take a seat Mr. Jones."

Bones took a seat and Horace, all jolly-like, walked over with cups of tea and sat across from him.

"The heads you have left with the petrified and shocked receptionist Alice, have been confirmed to be of the two bandits leaders. Congratulations, Mr. Jones. You have officially completed two silver rank contracts, and I have prepared and updated your new ID card."