Necromancer

A Royal Road Fan Fiction

By: Halosty

Chapter 86

Mortimer was moving into his sophomore year of university. Though the classes got harder, he was still able to handle them just fine. Especially since he was actually working at it. He knew it was better to give up some leisure time now for benefits later. More importantly, this time he actually followed what he knew.

While Mortimer hadn’t made any more friends, he felt that he had grown closer to his friends, including Solara. At least, he could sometimes have normal conversations with her. That was something, anyway.

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Master Valarao hadn’t taught Mortimer anything new in some time. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought maybe he needed to get better at what he’d already learned. Thus, he dedicated himself to honing the skills he had learned. It helped when he remembered to use them in Royal Road, since that gave him a lot more training time. Of course, inside Royal Road his body was completely different in terms of its capabilities, but the basic principles were still the same.

Mortimer also kept up with the various exercises that Master Valarao had for him, and he was glad that he’d finally gotten to the point where he was just maintaining his form, instead of improving it. That meant no muscular pain. He was in great shape, though it wasn’t extremely obvious. He was still quite skinny, since none of the exercises were intended to bulk him up, and he also wasn’t naturally large.

Mortimer had wondered what it would be like to be larger and more muscles. Normally, that would just be idle curiosity, but in a world where virtual reality existed, it could be tested. The program that Master Valarao used for training Mortimer allowed the physical parameters of the body to be set. Upon trying it, Mortimer could definitely see that it wasn’t the right kind of build for what he had learned. It just wasn’t fast enough, and the extra power didn’t help enough. Though, it was better if he wanted to punch through a wall. Of course, if he’d learned a different fighting style, it would be better for more than that, but Mortimer wouldn’t be suited for that anyway.

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Quietus had found something that money was useful for. Ritual components. Most of the things he needed could be purchased directly from the necromancer’s guild. It wasn’t like he needed orphan hearts or virgin sacrifices. It was much better to use good herbs, crystals for energy, and knowledge of necromancy. What did he need ritual components for? The dragon, obviously.

Though he could simply raise it into an undead with a spell, it wouldn’t be as good. That would have been a big waste, because it’s not often that he would get his hands on a dragon corpse. In fact, the method he was going to use would still make the dragon weaker than it had been, but with the possibility to achieve its former strength or even greater eventually. Of course, the type of undead it became would greatly influence its growth.

Before anything else, Quietus started patching it up. He began by “stitching” up its wing, though obviously thread would be useless. Instead, he settled on steel rope. That would hold it together long enough for his magic to do the rest. He also went over the entire corpse, repairing any broken scales. Though his magic could repair it as a whole, he wasn’t sure whether it was completely done, since it didn’t inform him of whether the spell actually did any more repairing or not. Thus, he checked everything just to be safe. He felt that repairs were better when they were specific than when he just cast with the intention to “repair that undead”.

Satisfied with his work, Quietus started setting up a magic circle. Occasionally, he had some of his ghouls or other strong minions lift part of the dragon so that he could work underneath it. After he was finished, he cast the spell. There wasn’t any need for anything creepy, though the spell would work better at night. Not that the dark bothered Quietus.

Quietus cast his undead raising spell, calling upon the power of the circle, with the intention of turning the dragon into a Death Knight. After all, it possessed its own armor and weapons that could not be taken away. There wasn’t very much at all better equipped than a dragon, and thus it fit into the role very well. Quietus wasn’t sure if it would still be able to devour souls, but he didn’t have any forms of undead that would help with that either.

Upon completion of the spell, energy flowed into the dragon’s corpse, and it trembled. Then, slowly, it started to move. A wing shifted, then a leg, and then its eyes slowly opened. Rising to its feet, the gigantic head moved over toward Quietus. At this distance, he was reminded that it could swallow him whole, and its teeth were each almost as big as him. However, he wasn’t afraid. At least, not that afraid. He wasn’t afraid of being eaten, but he was still slightly afraid that it might accidentally crush him underneath, if it wasn’t paying attention.

The dragon spoke in a low rumble, and though it was not attempting to be loud, it still almost knocked Quietus off his feet. “Greetings, milord. How may I serve you?”

Well, at least Quietus was now sure it had worked. He looked at the dragon’s level… 250. Well, that was a pretty significant decrease in level, but of course a level 250 dragon was generally much stronger than anything else at that level. Quietus wanted to pat it on the nose, but he couldn’t actually reach that high. It would also be somewhat disrespectful, but the reach was what stopped him. “Your first task is to regain some of your former level of power. For that, you are to hunt monsters in the surrounding area.” Quietus also gave him some more specific instructions, such as avoiding players. He didn’t want his dragon to die “young” after all.

“Understand, Sir Draco?” Quietus wasn’t good with names, but he could have come up with worse. Sir Draco, as he was now called, nodded. “Good. I won’t be around for a short while, since I will need some time to recover after I transfer some of my power to you.” That was Quietus’ way of saying he was going to die. After all, it would be an extreme waste to not turn the dragon into a Destroyer. That would certainly help its future potential.

After that, Quietus died, as he was now accustomed to doing at the end of every play session. With that, came Journeyman level of The Power To Accept Death.

You have died!

Cannot log in for 10 hours. (I believe I said 10 hours earlier for Advanced level 9, but it should have been 10:30)

The Power To Accept Death has reached Journeyman level 1.

Upon death, experience lost will be stored in a buffer, which will give you a 155% bonus on experience until the buffer is empty. In addition, the lockout time upon death is reduced by fourteen hours

Affinity with undead is increased.

Resistance to Dark Magic is increased.

Allows actions to be performed for 1 second upon death.

//End Chapter 86