It was fascinating, the feeling of flesh stretching over my skin even if it seemed as though I was still dead with my lack of a heartbeat. Breathing in a deep breath, and holding it my fascination was filled with something deeper, hatred and sorrow that sank deep into my core like a poison. The death of the men around me should have phased him, it should have made him feel regret, the part of him that still held onto my humanity told me this in a scream but there was just hollowness.

“Does one feel regret for killing their food usually?” Something was crawling into my hand, a raspy voice that sounded like sandpaper. My arm struck where I thought the noise had come from the tree behind me exploding in the center, and collapsing in on itself before hitting the ground with a thud.

“Come out.” My voice sounded much more full, having a body helped give it more substance, I tried making my voice sound as demanding as I could but a light almost feminine voice sounded out. In surprise I frowned, it sounded like what I would imagine a prince would, not the princes of actual kingdoms but those romantic ones that more women read than man.

“I am, you just aren’t looking for me in the right place.” Not going to play into his games, I ignored him collecting the soul stones that lay scattered before me. It wasn’t long before he spoke up again seemingly annoyed that I didn’t want to play with him, “Look for me with simple magical perception! A fellow necromancer, and you don’t even know that I’m a spirit.”

Switching my eyesight into the astral world I saw many things had changed since the day that bear died, necromatic energies swarmed through this area like a hungry wolf. It seemed as though during my time of senselessness I had expanded, and deepened my Domain by several times. I wasn’t very versed in these things, so I was curious how I expanded my Domain without killing like I was lead to believe from my companions. Looking to them I knew it would take several days for them to reconstruct from their injuries, but ripping their cores from their chests would benefit from fresh corpses rather than healing their old bodies.

A cough came from behind me again, and out of reflex another tree was destroyed by my fist leaving my fist elbow deep inside the chest of a rather young man. Luckily his body was astral, or he would have a rather large hole inside of his body that most white mages would struggle to heal even the cosmetic damage. The man stood to my eyeline, judging from rough estimates from my body I judged him to be around five foot tall, he had raven black hair that lingered at his shoulders bunching up with grease. He didn’t seem unfriendly, though he comically puffed out his chest in pride looking at me with a look that was a mixture of curiosity and pity, though I personally thought I was better off than his overly skinny body.

The look in his eyes changed from curiosity to horror, “What are you doing you brute?” He moved away from my arm, making it pass through his black robes without harm. “So, now do you wonder why you are in the sights of the most powerful necromancer to lay his eyes on this puny world, Jeremy?”

“Jeremy the necromancer?” I tried making my eyes show as little interest as possible which wasn’t a show, tucking the last soul crystal into a bag that I had picked up from one of the corpses. I would need clothes soon, I was getting rather uncomfortable with the wondering eyes of the Jeremy fellow so I gathered some up from the corpses around me. I purposefully let the silence linger as his puffed up, proud chest slowly deflated and he had a look of annoyance on his face instead. “What do I owe the honor?”

“Well, I see that you have gathered up quite a few soul crystals, I wish to procure them from you.” He said with a slight nod.

“What will I get in exchange?” Though I was not very interested in giving up hard to earn kills to a man I didn’t know, I was curious about the tools of another necromancer. If he offered up a book of knowledge, or some tools of the trade to better use soul crystals it would still be to my benefit since he can’t expect a fellow necromancer to give up all of the soul crystals in his possession.

“No, I don’t think you understand, there seems to have been a great battle here and you have been weakened. I only see one minion under your care,” His smile turned mocking as he continued, “I want you to hand them all over peacefully to me. Elves are known for their power with a bow, and spear not with magic, me being a human gives me the upper hand over you.”

“I’m not a damn Elf, and I’d gladly like to see you try to take them from my cold dead fingers” Speaking through clenched teeth, I stepped back knowing that if this was me the treat would be followed by immediate repercussions.

“Fine then, I will kill you in one week’s time when my horde gets there. I would have you know, there are no benefits to you resisting, and will only result in your death.” He smirked, throwing his robe back to show off a skeletal arm. “I’ll have you know that you are dealing with a half lich.”

A week, I’d be able to escape or build up a force with these soul crystals in much less than a week. It didn’t seem to be right, so I looked at him confused, talking to myself, “How long does it usually take to create a single undead?”

“Ha, with your skill probably a month, or two. With my skills I could create a group of three in a mere week.” He turned his back on me, “I shall come to see your one or two undead, and make them mine once I cleanse their undead cores!” His image vanished before me, leaving me very happy with this arrogant bastard.

“I can steal his undead to fill my ranks!” Fusing ten of the minor crystals together, I pulled out a rather good sized soul crystal spinning it in my fingers for a moment before pouring my magic into it to summon the creature. A flash of blue floated in front of me giving me a nostalgic feeling, I had been neglecting my necromancy for actual summoning. The menu looked a lot more detailed than the time that I had created Mr. Fly, which might be because of my advancements into necromancy over the months that I spent with Bear.

Customization of Undead:Current Undead Type: Elf (50% Variant Rate)Variant Chances: Feral Elf, Void Elf, Tree Elf, Immortal Elf.Strength: Base (14) Points of Mana for each Point 100Dexterity: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 50Time For Creation: 1 Hour 23 Minutes with no changes.Body: Base (10) Points of Mana for each Point 200Mana Cost for Creation: 400 Points of ManaBody Decay: Base (100) Points of Mana for removing each Point 30Chance of becoming intelligent: 40% Points of Mana for each Percentage 10Process of Soul Understanding (0%)

After a few minutes reading over each aspect of the menu, wondering what some of the benefits could be from the variants since they weren’t always better than the base creature. Pressing on some of the options I noticed my mana turning grey on the bar to the edge of my vision showing how much it would cost with each upgrade. As soon as my bar turned completely grey the option to increase anything went away, but mana was needed for creatures that were undead to survive so I couldn’t risk using all of my mana. Checking over the menu one last time, I committed to the setup knowing that I had a week to experiment on the creatures before the other necromancer would come.

Customization of Undead:Current Undead Type: Elf (50% Variant Rate)Variant Chances: Feral Elf, Void Elf, Tree Elf, Immortal Elf.Strength: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 100Dexterity: Base (40) Points of Mana for each Point 50Time For Creation: 4 Hour 01 MinutesBody: Base (20) Points of Mana for each Point 200Mana Cost for Creation: 6000 Points of ManaBody Decay: Base (50) Points of Mana for removing each Point 30Chance of becoming intelligent: 90% Points of Mana for each Percentage 10Process of Soul Understanding (0%)

Personally putting so many points into the chance of intelligence was almost necessary, first I needed more generals even if they aren’t the strongest of my group. I was not able to see from every angle, especially from the battlefield, having a few generals to make up for my absence will provide for flexibility for my army. Needing something to fight against something known as a lord to the beasts that crushed my allies and me beneath its feet without much effort I’d need many allies to pave the path in front of me.

A timer appeared over the crystal, and I set it down my mana was already doing its work on the soul inside crafting it into an undead under my control. The timer came with another line above it that read “Soul Understanding”, which gradually moved forward much slower than the timer below it. It would take several more Elves before I understood their soul, not knowing what it meant I would have to strive to actually achieve full understanding of their soul.

Turning to Red, and Purple’s cores I went to them trying to pull up a menu dealing with giving them certain benefits, to see if I could gradually make certain skeletons stronger than others through use of necromancy. It didn’t seem to work, though after I added necromatic energy directly into their core and it seemed to shine with a swarming of black energy within the core. Expecting another notification, nothing came so I continued to pour the last reserves of my mana, keeping above a solid one thousand using my breathing exercises to gather more energy into my body and force it into one of the two cores.

The four hours went by without any event even with thousands upon thousands points of mana went inside of Red’s core, nothing had happened to it though his body did start to create a spine out of the bones around him. A flash came from the soul crystal to my side, the crystal swelling, and bubbling into an ooze monster that grew in size with each passing second. Something in the center of the ooze started to darken, then take shape quickly into the outline of a body. Gripping the ooze, I ripped it open to expose the beautiful elven woman before me.

Looking her body over, she seemed to be vastly different than the other elves that were sent here. Her pupils had no iris, her skin seemed to softly glow with energy that seemed to eat at the necromatic energy healing her body in ways an undead should not, and her hair was actually white feathers. I considered killing the woman before she would wake up since I wasn’t sure if I would be able to control a non-undead with my necromancy abilities. The part of me that was looking over her womanly features, her wide hips, muscular stomach, and other things that I didn’t dare look at more than once, was the part that convinced me not to kill her.

Knowing that she was fine for now, I started my breathing exercises again no longer pouring energy into Red so I’d be able to create another undead before the sun rose on the next day. Letting the energy swirl around me, and engulf my body I sucked in the familiar feeling of magic into my soul. The feeling was calming, relaxing, and for the first time since I’ve been in this world my body met the conditions to fall asleep, so against my will I did.

Mr. Fly, carrying a large basket came running to me with glee before the basket fell to the floor scattering a bunch of soul gems all over the ground. “Master! He’s died once again!” Rushing over the gems, he flew up and landed on my chest his sharp appendage trying to slap me across the face which left a tear in my skin which let out a green thick substance. My first sleep, and my first time being rudely awakened in a matter of minutes. Luckily it didn’t take long for me to go back to sleep, another tree gone in my anger with a buzzing in the wreckage.