Marcus was so surprised that he froze for a while. From his experience reading manga and web novels on Earth, he knew how the system worked and that in situations like this he had to remain calm. After a few minutes, he finally calmed down and began to check his status meticulously.
'Hu... Looks like the hours I wasted on the manga and anime are finally paying off. Apparently, Edward wasn't lying about recruiting otaku for reincarnation... Wait, I'm a skeleton!... Why the hell am I a skeleton?!'
The first thing he noticed was that for some reason his race had changed and he was now a skeleton. Although Marcus had been shocked at first, he calmed down very quickly.
The truth was that he wasn't too worried about his sudden change of race (except for the baldness and the loss of his reproductive organ).
The undead were Marcus' favorite monsters. Somehow he felt that a fantasy story would never be complete without the inclusion of these walking corpses that envied and hated living. Therefore, when it came to the undead, he considered himself an expert on the subject.
Skeletons did not need to eat or breathe, did not tire, were immune to multiple negative status effects such as disease, poisoning, and were resistant to environments with hostile climates such as freezing tundras or places filled with toxins and radiation. If one thought about it, trading some hair and all the organs for an immortal body didn't sound so bad (or at least until one saw the weaknesses of the said body).
'Well...I knew that as a skeleton it would have weaknesses... But this is too much! And I think I lost my 5 senses along with my ability to speak. Sigh...this just keeps getting worse and worse'
The characteristics of the skeletons were not all the same in the stories Marcus read when he was on Earth. Some would be able to keep moving even if their skulls were destroyed, while others turned to ash if they were hit by sunlight.
Marcus not only didn't have night vision like most of the undead he knew, but he also couldn't use any of the senses he had when he was human. From his perspective, he was in a void where he was still conscious but could do nothing but stare at his status screen.
But he wasn't worried. If he couldn't use his senses from when he was ''alive'' he could technically use something else to know what his surroundings were like, otherwise, he would just be a pile of bones.
After a few minutes of checking his character status, Marcus realized that he only had two skills that were not of the passive type like his immunities, resistances, and weaknesses. The first was the [inventory] he had received from Edward.
'Okay, let's give it a try... Open inventory'
Instantly a transparent checkered window appeared before him. The inventory was divided into square boxes, currently, the skill was level 1 and only had 9 boxes so one would not be able to store many things. But the storage capacity would increase as he leveled up so Marcus wasn't worried about this.
He then closed his inventory and focused his attention on his second skill, [Primal Sense]. Although Marcus didn't know what this skill was, he deduced that it was a replacement for the 5 human senses, so without much thought, he activated it.
A second after activating the ability, everything went from being dark to having certain defined contours. It was different from sight, if it could be compared to any other sense of the body it would be a mixture of touch and hearing.
Of course, Marcus still couldn't hear or feel any kind of texture, it was more like he could perceive white lines of different shapes and sizes that formed the edges of the objects around him.
That way he could tell he was in a cave with rocks and stalactites all over the place. He could also tell that its body was all bones, he couldn't see colors, but from his point of view, it looked like a black skeleton with white lines marking every part of its body.
'It feels a little weird, but at least now I can feel something more than just emptiness, I can't believe I'm a skeleton. Well... for the time being I'll try to figure out how to get out of this cave and then I'll see what to do. Can I also evolve into a superior monster?'
In fantasy novels that included systems, it was normal for the main character to get abilities after performing one or several actions a certain amount of times, completing quests, fulfilling some requirements, or leveling up.
Also if the main character was reborn as a monster, it was normal that after reaching a certain level, he would evolve to a higher species. Marcus hoped that if so, he could become something stronger than just a common Skeleton, such as a [Skeleton King] or a [Lich].
Once Marcus finished checking his character status, he started to walk around and explore the cave where he was. Also since he didn't have a weapon, he tried to find something to defend himself against possible enemy monsters.
Since his body was nothing more than a pile of bones, he didn't think he could defeat someone empty-handed. But the only useful thing he found was a stone little bigger than his hand. Though under the circumstances it was better than nothing.
****
After walking for about 30 minutes, Marcus' [Primary Sense] detected something moving in the darkness of the cave. It was a skeletal figure dressed in old rags full of holes and with his right hand, he held what appeared to be a battle mace, with a handle about 50 centimeters long, and at the end was a metal ball 15 centimeters long with worn and broken spikes.
Even if it looked like a typical weak tutorial monster, Marcus didn't think he could beat the skeleton in a head-on battle, so he opted for the safest option: attack the enemy from behind as stealthily as possible and end the fight quickly.
He began to approach as cautiously as possible trying not to be noticed by his opponent, he was only a few steps away ready to attack, with the stone aimed at the skull of an unprotected skeleton, when without warning...
'Huh?!'
The skeleton turned around and with its battle mace attacked Marcus' left arm, causing a fracture in it. The force of the blow caused him to fall back against the rocky ground and he was now totally defenseless.
The skeleton was ready to deliver the coup de grace, but Marcus was faster and hit his opponent's leg making him lose his balance causing the mace to hit the ground. He did not waste this opportunity, he got up, took the stone, and hit as hard as he could the skull of his enemy, making him fall.
But Marcus didn't stop, he then kicked the skeleton's head with all the power that his strength statistics could give him so that the skeleton's mandible flew off and he kept hitting him without giving him the chance to counterattack.
*Crack, Snap, Crack, Snap!*
After 10 minutes of beating him relentlessly, the skeleton's head finally broke into pieces and it stopped moving. Marcus was mentally exhausted so after defeating the skeleton he laid down on the ground.
'Huf...That... was more difficult than I thought it would be, but at least I did it. It honestly seemed a lot easier in the novels.'
Marcus wanted to reflect on what happened so he wouldn't make similar mistakes in the future. This time he was lucky and had only broken his arm, but if he hadn't kicked the skeleton in the leg at that moment he would have been the one who would have been dead!
But at that moment the system flooded him with notifications.
Ding!
....
{The user has obtained the skill [Melee Combat]}
....
{The user has defeated a [Common Skeleton] for the first time, 5 additional experience points will be awarded}
....
{You gained 5 XP.}
....
{You leveled up}
....
{You gained 12 stat points.}
....
When Marcus finished reading the system messages, he was more than satisfied with the result.
In just one fight he managed to level up and gained a new passive skill, as well as 12 stat points. The only bad thing was that even after leveling up his HP had not regenerated.
[HP: 27/30]
Even though the skeleton's mace attack seemed to lack much strength, Marcus was still weak to blunt damage, so even a simple hit like that nearly destroyed his arm and took away 10% of his HP.
'Humm... I think I can fix that if I add more stat points in vitality. Now... How should I distribute them?'
The number of points Marcus could get was limited. Also, since skeletons have no organs or muscles, they could not increase their stats through training like living beings. So he would have to choose very carefully how he would distribute them.
So after a while, he decided to try putting two points into intelligence.
Marcus' current intelligence was at 0 as was his MP. If this system worked just like fantasy novels, intelligence represented an individual's magical potential.
So if he could increase his intelligence stat he could gain MP and hopefully gain magic-related skills. But when I try to place the points for the stats...
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function}
This did not surprise Marcus in the least. As a common skeleton, the likelihood that he could use magic was very low. After all, he was just a weak monster and probably couldn't acquire mana until he had reached a higher level or achieved a specific skill. So he decided to increase his other stats.
But what happened next almost made his mandible drop to the floor. He tried to distribute his points in strength when...
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function}
Marcus was very surprised by this. He thought it might be a bug in the workings of the system and tried to increase his other stats. But...
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function}
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function.}
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function.}
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform this function.}
{ERROR, the user does not meet the requirements to perform...
{ERROR, the user does not...
{ERROR…
After trying to distribute his stat points for about 10 minutes, Marcus had only managed to increase his Wisdom by 2 points. But since he wasn't sure what function this had, he decided to leave it at that.
How Marcus managed to increase his wisdom, it was clear that it was not a system error.
After thinking about it for a while, Marcus came to two possible conclusions as to why his system was not working properly.
The first was that this was the work of some unknown being interfering with the system's functions. But since he had no proof and could still increase his wisdom and gain skills, he dismissed this option.
The second possibility had to do with his racial change.
'As a skeleton, I have no muscles or organs, so I can't increase my physical stats, I also can't increase my MP because I have no magic potential and I can't recover the HP I lost'
Since there was nothing he could do to fix this, Marcus just lay down and "watched" the ceiling of the cave.
But one thing was for sure. He was a weak skeleton with a useless system, by definition, he was useless.