Confronting this soul as dark as the abyss that demons climbed out from, Rino finally understood why the necromancer called him young.

He was simply too inexperienced in dark arts.

The magic tree's soul was a cauldron for stomaching many souls and absorbing suffering from charmed souls. Using the knowledge, memory and experience of these poor, unfortunate souls, the magic tree fed on their darkness to become a sinister existence that craved carnage.

Rino should take a leaf out of this mean existence to learn how to be a better lich. He thought that dark magic was used to manipulate shadows and consume souls. He did not think that it could do much more than simply torturing them for mana regeneration and increasing his mana capacity. Those soul contracts he made the fairies enter into were work contracts with their souls bonded to World Tree Rino for mutual benefits.

Rino had no idea soul contracts could be used without mutual benefits. These enslaved souls were merely food for this evil magic tree, and Rino shuddered, looking at the monstrosity it became for the sake of power. How unsightly!

The magic cypress tree was also a tree with a title. Anything that earned a title was a recognised global threat for its abilities, and Rino read the title that the magic tree had on its soul.

"Cypress Ghost?"

The tree shook with fury when Rino read its title. For magicians, their titles and true names were sacred. Reading it aloud will either strike fear into the hearts of their enemies or receive huge mental lashbacks. The stronger a magician's will, the higher the chances of causing damage to their enemy.

The Cypress Ghost Tree was strong. However, it was dumb. Living in the swamp for the last few centuries, the tree could not understand much about the outside world. The bits and pieces of information it devoured from trapped souls wasn't enough to educate it about humans. All it saw was miserable food.

In this aspect, Rino won. Isolating the necromancer from the tree was the right decision. Now, he could take his time to pry open the tree's weaknesses and own it completely.

Rino played on the Ghost Tree's ignorance to tear its illusion down, starting with its understanding of its identity. Without an identity, the tree could only spiral into depression about the purpose of its existence and what it was doing. Then, Rino crushed it by feeding it twisted information about life cycles and morality. With an awakened sense of righteousness, the tree was made to review all the lives it took and the souls it ate.

Like a house of cards, the magic tree's mental defences crumble to dust, and Rino waltzed into it like a kid in a candy shop without the storekeeper. He took his sweet time browsing through the magic tree's past to understand how the bog magician convinced it to join branches. It was such a stupid reason, but the magic tree did not know any better. The necromancer fed it lies, convincing the magic tree that its precious home would be destroyed if they did not work together to protect the swamp. Rino felt jealous that he did not find the Cypress Ghost Tree first. Such a good tree, tainted by the darkness of a twisted magician.

Unforgivable!

If it were up to Rino, he would make this tree a nurturer instead of a demolisher. This swamp needed a new master, so Rino showered the tree with compliments as well as a peek into the kingdom he wished to create.

"What do you think?" he asked the Cypress tree. "Equal work benefits. You get to grow together with the wisps under your command in this area. Whatever you want, you can get. I have cooks who know how to make meals more delicious than rotting meat in the bottom of this muddy lake."

Tempted by the promise of a better working condition, freedom and rewards, the tree gave in and acknowledged Rino as its new master.

World Tree Rino did not hesitate and quickly pulled the Ghost Tree into its ranks once Lich Rino secured a deal. The soul from World Tree Rino was split, and half of it was fused with the cypress magic tree.

Rino watched as the colour turned from pitch black into a glowing orange. Contrary to the green and brown scheme in the swamp, the cypress tree had an orange soul when it was purged of that disgusting black. Without a place to go, the darkness attacked Rino's soul.

Thankfully, the lich was ready for them. For a ball of negativity this strong, Rino knew that he could mould it into an artificial soul and use one very ancient forbidden spell he read about in a grimoire in the previous world to trap it.

Demons were born from this negativity in a different dimension, separated by life and death. It was challenging for such negativity to be found in the material world as it would easily be overpowered by the overflowing life energy naturally present. However, if there was enough resentment deliberately collected, something similar to a demon could be born.

That creature born from pure darkness was called a wraith.

Normally, wraiths were similar to ghosts, but they feed on the fears, exhaustion and negative emotions of a host like a parasite before killing them and taking over a new body to become stronger.

The church was in charge of exorcising them. Rino was only invited for exorcisms when the wraiths overpowered the priest's holy magic and could not be sent away through conventional means.

With so much negativity, Rino chuckled. He would not only have a wraith from this mass of darkness. Rino was going to create something only from legends and theories he formulated.

Screeching, the darkness fused together and turned into a wisp that slowly took form. It had no face, hands or legs. Instead, Rino noticed how there was that signature wraith appearance with the hood. Instead of the usual colour of blood that regular wraiths had, this wraith's hood was pitch black, and it was at least three times bigger than a regular wraith.

Excited, Rino looked at his beautiful summon struggling in the cage of Rino's ancient spell. This was a Wraith King, rumoured to kill hundreds with just one cry. Wraith Kings were national-level disasters on par with the black plague. If one appeared, cities had to be evacuated, and infected villages were banned from fleeing to stall the Wraith King until help arrived.

Looking at the newly born Wraith King, Rino wondered what he should name it. Born from nature, fear and everything revolting, this creature was like a dumpster.

That's right! He knew the perfect name for his newest minion.

"Serve me well, Wraith King Ubel. Kneel!"

Even without legs, the shadowy wraith lowered itself in the mental arena, and Rino felt the necromancer's spell weakened tremendously without the support of its power source.

Smirking to himself, Rino let his soul get pulled back to his body. It was time to teach that old fart a lesson and recruit himself an adequate dark magic teacher since he wasn't interested in paying hefty school fees.