That was quite the experience. The whole ordeal exhausted him mentally. Bones was on the brink of falling down right there due to the overloading of his core. With great mental fortitude, he walked down the tunnel, back into one of the empty caverns he passed by. Looking up at the ceiling basked in crystal lights, he plunged bone after bone into the wall, climbing all the way to the top. Hanging from the ceiling, he took out a few of the weapons he previously looted from the inventory and embedded them into the walls, making a makeshift platform he could lay on and enter Eternal Rest to "recharge".

It didn't look comfortable, but as a skeleton he wasn't looking for comfort. He laid on his back against the flat sides of the weapons and the next moment, his vision and senses turned black. It was a dreamless sleep that seemed to pass in a second, however, a whole day had passed. Bones' vision turned back and his senses immediately detected figures down below. He didn't move nor react. His mind felt sluggish and it took a moment to process everything that happened before the Eternal Rest. After a minute, he remembered. He sat up, cross legged and watched the three trolls down below. At the same time he called up his status.

Status.

Status

Attributes

Name: Bones

Race: Undead Skeleton lvl 17

Class: Bonemancer lvl 23

Profession: ???

Hp - 370 (3.7 hp/s)

Mp - 510 (19.1 mp/s)

Sta - ∞

STR: 21

AGI: 5

END: 5

VIT: 37

INT: 51

WIS: 14

Free points:

A slew of notifications welcomed him. He skipped most of the experience gained notifications and read the more important ones. Bone manipulation had reached level 20 and upgraded to advanced mastery, reducing the mana cost of manipulation, making it easier for him to manipulate bones and increasing the damage and cast speed of bone related skills. Contrary to what he expected, it was a rather normal upgrade. A brief sense of disappointment came over him but it passed, as quickly as it came. Attributes from the race leveling were automatically distributed and free points from two class levels, he distributed like he did so previously, in WIS. Among the last notifications he read was a quest received notification. Well, sort of.

You have gazed upon the king on his throne and he gazed back. You felt the power behind his eyes and it felt like an ever expanding abyss you lacked the power to understand. Meet The King, test its powers against your own, feel the unfathomable gap between you two.

Quest received: Confront the Troll King Aberrant

Is the system trolling me right now? The quest was, as he understood, to challenge the king himself. The King? Either a high gold rank or an ascendant monster, he couldn’t tell. The last notification told him his core had recovered, damage repaired and has been further strengthened due to often overloading. It sounded ominous. He remembered a few times it happened and didn’t think it was that often. With notifications done, he continued meditating, thinking about the King.

Bones snapped back to his senses an hour later. Darkness surrounded him and silence welcomed him. The trolls were gone, patrolling maybe? It didn't matter, it was time to find his way out.

Even with the purpose of leaving the cavern system and not purposely engaging in battles, Bones found it difficult to find a way out. Tunnels either led to more caverns or there was an intersection where tunnels split, getting him lost even more. At some point, he even managed to get back to the pyramid where the now empty throne rested. Bones would swear it took him the whole day to find an exit but only a few hours had passed when the moonlight reached him from the exit of one of the tunnels.

Upon leaving, he found himself standing at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the outline of the forests in the blackness of the night. In the distance, his vision detected a clearing illuminated by the moonlight, where the barely visible road led to a small watchpost lit by the torches. Bones looked down, then stretched his senses until he picked up the shapes of stones, boulders, trees and a path. With a step forward, he descended.

He landed on a path leading down the mountain and after a brief jog, he reached the base of the mountain where the path was connected to the road. He continued down the road until he reached the gates of a watchpost.

“Halt! You are approaching the Northpoint watchpost. State your business or turn around and be on your way.”

…

“This IS my way. I'm heading towards the capital and would like to stay the night.” Bones replied to the guard behind the gates.

…

“Oh? Alright then.” The guard exclaimed with relief. Soon after, the gates opened up and two watch guards appeared before Bones and after taking a good look at him, nervously asked for an ID. Bones swayed his ID card in front of them and entered. “The tavern is the big building on the left, they have a bath.” One of the guards added to him after Bones passed them by. Bones turned around to look at the man questioningly, then down at his equipement. His coat was colored rusty red and he could only imagine what his mask looked like.

The watchpost, as the guard at the gate said, was small with merely a few buildings. The biggest of the buildings was a tavern with the small general goods shop next to it and barracks situated across, with the training ground near it. The stable was right next to the gates. Tavern it is.

Entering the tavern, Bones gazed at the place. It was mostly empty. No wonder, given it was past midnight. Bones approached the tired looking man behind the counter and asked him for a place to stay for the rest of the night and if he had mana potions for sale. One thing he learned was that barkeepers and innkeepers always had potions for sale for some reason. He was right, as the man pulled out a few from below the desk. Bones bought them all and went up the stairs with the key to his room.

His appearance was noticed by the man sitting at the table at the far end of the tavern. Once Bones went up the stairs, he quickly got up and left.

The room was a simple one. Wooden doors, floors and windows. Stone walls, a bed with a night table next to it and a small bathroom. Surprisingly, it was rather clean.

First course of action was, as one might have guessed, to clean his equipment. Taking off his coat, chitin armor and shirt, Bones was looking at himself in the mirror. Huh, bone armor truly filled in the gaps in my skeleton. He was no longer looking like a normal skeleton. Bone armor was sturdier than before as it leveled up and looked the part, but it was still a bit of a strain to constantly have it on when battling. A few times during a battle with the trolls, he was forced to turn the skill off so he could regenerate the much needed mana.

Filling the tub with water, he left the equipment to soak and laid down on the bed, placing one leg over the other with one hand behind his head and taking out the mana potion with the other hand. One swig later, his face was covered with liquid as mana potion spilled all over. “Oh for the love of…” a deep sigh later, he took another sip, carefully and started working out future plans in his head. So far, he didn't really have A plan, but mostly went with the flow. He always liked having power just for the sake of having it. Nothing changed there and he still wanted more power. What kind of power he wanted to pursue though?

Hmm…the goal was always immortality and now I have it. Not how I imagined I would obtain it but…a skeleton huh? There was no mention of race upgrades with undead in the books I’ve read, just class upgrades. Is it impossible to change or advance a race as a skeleton? Doubt it. Even if it wasn't, I would be fine with how I am. With each level I could feel myself getting stronger. So what do I want?

“I want…”

*knock knock*

Bones' train of thought was interrupted by the knocking on the door. He frowned.

“No, that's not it…What is it?” Bones asked.

“Ah, excuse me sir. There are some men downstairs asking for you.”

A figure he detected was leaving the tavern after he went up the stairs, came to mind.

“It's the middle of the night. Tell 'em I'm not receiving any visitors.” Bones replied.

A barkeep detected the tone of annoyance in his reply but continued…

“Sir, I'm afraid I have to insist!”

A few seconds later, a sound of boots clanking on the wooden floor was heard. Bones opened the door and the barkeep gasped and froze stiff in fear, looking into the blue baleful blaze where Bones' eyes would be. Bones spared him a glance and went downstairs. The clacking on the wooden floor, following his footsteps.

Downstairs, two men were waiting at the base of the stairs, the third was leaning against the bar and the last one leaned against a tavern door, blocking the exit.

“Now, who would be so polite as to ask for me in the middle of the night?” The voice was heard while the clanking intensified and Bones descended the stairs.

The two men at the base looked at each other and snickered before one of them replied. “You don't need to know, just get down here! Do you have any fucking idea how long we searched for you? Who the fuck goes over the mountains during the troll season??”

Bones halted his steps. “Troll season?” He asked.

“Are you for real? Hey!” The other thug turned to the other two behind him. “This dumbass doesn't even know about troll season!” Snickering permitted the empty tavern as the clacking continued. A thug next to the mocking one, took two steps back until he stopped stiff and growled “What the fuck are you?” The mocking one turned to him, seeing he was stepping away. “What the hell are you doing man?”

“Look behind you, idiot!”

The man slowly turned around and saw a skeleton in leather pants and worker boots standing in front of him. His eyes went wide and with a stutter he barely uttered “Wh, wha, what are you?”

“You were asking for me? Who are YOU?” Bones replied, ticked off.

“What? You? You, you, you are a skeleton?”

“I know who I am, lad, I'm asking you who YOU are?”

Stupefied, the man needed a second to respond. “Stones? Stones! We're here for the stones!” He spat out.

“That…doesn't really tell me much.” Bones cocked his head and replied. A glance over the man's shoulder told him they weren't really here to talk. The other three men had weapons drawn and were now blocking the exit. They seemed on edge and ready to attack at moment's notice. “We weren't told this!” One of the men in the back shouted. “We need to report this to Guntar!”

Hearing the name, Bones repeated: “Guntar…I see. Are these the stones you were looking for?” He summoned a pair of mana stones in his hand for them to see.

“Shit! It really is him! What do we do?” One of them asked.

“Oh you don't have to do anything, I'll do all the work.” Bones replied instead, in his most sinister voice.

For a second, nobody moved and a deafening silence permitted the tavern until the thug in front of Bones moved. His hand drew the sword from the sheet of his belt while he jumped back at the same time. The two thugs behind stepped forward while the fourth one reached for the door. All of it happening in a second.

Bones also reacted in that same second. Raising his arm, spikes were manifested at the location the first thug jumped back to, predicting the man's course of action. Raising the other arm, Bones summoned a lance and immediately sent it towards the man reaching for the door. The two thugs that stepped forward, ducked below the lance and looked back as the fourth one managed to avoid a direct hit but was impaled to the door through his shoulder.

Bones didn't summon another lance. He thought about it after he left the mountains and came to the conclusion that he really needed to work on his defense, so he waited for his attackers to come to him. The thug that drew his sword, jumped right into the spikes behind that crippled him. Best he could do now was to scream and cuss profanities. The other two that ducked below the lance, looked at each other, nodded and dashed forward, flanking Bones from the sides. This is fine, I need to see how much damage bone armor could take.