The next day after potions I was being taught how to enhance the zombie bodies. I had also bought some more steel and had changed the skeletons liquid.
"Today you'll be learning how to add metal and wire to bones and joints for more support to your zombies. Basically if you add wire mesh and such over the weak points it prevents Adventurers from just lopping off limbs." he explains. "Nothing more dissapointing than a limbless zombie and then you lose the parts or something and have a 1 armed zombie lumbering around."
"Sounds frustrating." i reply.
"You have no idea. Then at the necromancer meetings everyone calls you a bonehead for losing parts of your zombies and not making them right." he laments. "Anyway let's start off by adding plates to the chest cavity. This is where the soul control is located so you want it well protected. I have a preference for scale plates around the rib cage as it looks nice. Lots of necromancers just use regular square metal plates. No imagination i swear." he instructs me on what to do.
"Now it may take a bit more time than square plates but the more work you put into a creation the better it will be." He dumps out a box of metal scales.
"Now you want them all layered perfectly so they don't look suspicious under the skin. Metal squares make them look like garbage." He waves his hands in apparent hatred for metal squares.
"Now there are two ways to do this. The first is with small metal screws into the bones. not recommended by me as that weakens the bones. Next would be adhesives." he pulls out a barrel of goopy paste like substance.
"You'll want to wear gloves for this as its really strong stuff." he advises. "Don't know how many times I've had to pry things of my bones from spills."
I put on some high grade gloves I had brought along just in case.
He shows me how to layer everything perfectly covering the gaps between the ribs. When this is all done we add an oval shaped plate under the ribcage with wire to block off the bottom.
"Well done you catch on quickly." he compliments me.
"Thanks I'm a bit of a neat freak and like to have my things organized perfectly or it bugs me." I explain.
"I understand I get that way myself." he nods. "Alright now we do the same to the joints except we use mesh if you use too much wire or do it weird the zombie has trouble moving around and it will need to be redone."
He shows me how to apply the mesh without obstructing movement then watches me do the same to the rest of the zombies.
"Good now try to make them move around see if there's any conflicts." I do as instructed and only had a problem with one which was quickly fixed.
"Good. Now I'm going to teach you about soul trap." He says pulling out a bunch of glowing white crystals.
"Soul trap let's you steal souls from enemies and eliminate their conciousness. You can then use the souls to give your creations more life. They will be able to slowly learn and gain sentience. With the soul control you'll still have ultimate power over them and they won't ever betray you so no need to worry about that." he gets rid of the worries i had right off the bat.
"It's rough controlling tons of corpses so it's best if they can make decisions on their own. In these crystals are just some goblin souls. They work just as well as any other soul and are easy to acquire." he hands me the glowing crystals. "Simple use them where you put the soul control and it will meld together."
I put all the crystals into the corpses bodies and notice a slight difference in the blank look.
"When you give them orders they learn. So run them through the beginner dungeon a few times when you can." he advises me.
"So quick question can you get me more bodies and materials like this?" I ask the lich who looks at me with his glowing eyes.
"I may know a guy but it's going to cost ya." he says rubbing his bony fingers together.
"How much?" I say with narrowed eyes.
"100 gold per body."
"Fine with me." a pile of 10k gold coins appears on the table. "I want 100 adult bodies no children." I tell him.
"We don't do children even we have standards." he says sweeping away the gold into his own ring.
"Good. so what comes next?" I ask.
"tormented souls." he pulls out more goblin soul crystals. "These are used to mostly haunt and torment your foes. If an army can't sleep for days because of screaming then they are easy pickings for a horde." he says with a cackle. "Goblin souls are good as they are small and harder to hit with cleansing spells and easier to hide."
Soon I've got 20 little white goblin souls floating quietly around me under my control.
"Since they are just souls you can shape them anyway you like and make them strike fear into your opponents." he tells me.
Being from Earth I had seen some major horror movies so my ghosts started to turn into tome truly frightening sights.
"Jeez you've got some imagination on you kid those even give me the chills." he says with a cackle.
Over the next couple of months I would slowly modify the bodies he would get brought adding on personal touches.
He was sad to see me go as I was a great student I promised to visit and show him my new experiments when I get them.
In good news crime in the kingdom was at an all time low with the disappearance of criminals.