By morning, I had finally finished inscriptioning all the books of the library, and I smiled as I exited the building, never having the intention of returning again. I once more followed my regular day schedule, still not figuring out who was the person watching me. I decided to put that out of mind and instead focus on the tasks at hand. I still figured Donven was sick, but decided to pay him a visit just in case. This time around however, a boy a year or so younger than me answered the door, drowsiness apparent in his stance.
"How's Donven doing?"
The boy looked up at me before responding. "He's still sick, and is resting for the day."
"Want me to get Master Otto to check him?" Worry laced my voice and heart, though I quickly realized it wasn't worry directly for Donven, but instead for me and on where I would be able to find a stable source of coin.
I inwardly grimaced at myself as the boy shook his head before closing the door. Seeing that I once more wouldn't be working in the afternoon, I quickly began making my way out to my undead. Today I would be looking at all of my new stats and skills, while also focusing on preparing my undead to leave should we have to.
As I was getting ready to leave through the Northern Gate, one of the guild's guards called out to me. "Be careful out there. Looks like a powerful monster has come about north of the graveyard, causing all the wildlife to leave or go into hiding. If you aren't careful, you may become its next meal."
Hearing the warning, I quickly put the connection to my undead, and decided that I would probably call them off from hunting for a while so that the wildlife could feel that it was safe enough to begin returning to this area of the woods. Maybe I could send them somewhere else to hunt?
After roughly half an hour, I was once more in front of my little cave and looking upon my undead. "Poky, whenever you see the others, inform them that I want them all to gather inside the cave. Once the last Feeble Bone Undead has returned, you and your zombies can join us in the cave."
Entering the cave, I found nearly the entirety of the cave wall covered with bone racks and had several dozen animal carcasses hanging up and draining. Looking at where I had indicated the organ pile to begin, I immediately found a pile that stood roughly as tall as my waist, all completely of the different internal organs.
I smiled upon seeing Evis working away on a newly gained prancing deer carcass, along with one of my unnamed skeletons who was about to leave. "Don't go just yet. Evis, I want you to continue cleaning all the animals until the last one is brought. Once you finish the last one, you can go and clean the gutting knife at the Creek." I glanced at the drenched gutting knife that I realized I had not told him to clean it after every removal.
Looking back at my nameless skeleton, I figured I could send him to go get cleaned at the creek nearby since he didn't have any necrosis on him. Pulling up the map, I marked the creek with a basic marker of [Creek]. "Go to the Creek and get yourself cleaned up. Once the others return, tell them to go and get cleaned up as well before returning and waiting here."
Now that my undead would undoubtedly begin handling these tasks I figured it was time for me to take a look at my notifications once more, along with seeing what was all new.
[Completed Undead Mastery Hidden Quest (3/3)]
[Undead Mastery Level Up]
[648]
[Level Up]
[Gained 5 Free Stat Points]
[Gained 2 Free Skill Points]
[Due to sitting in the presence of multiple dead bodies, a concentrated region of miasma, and filled with necrotic mana, you have gained a new class skill]
Seeing all these notifications, I sighed. Had I been a regular adventurer, I would never have been able to reach Level 6 in less than half a month. Truly being abandoned that night was the best situation for me.
I decided to take a look at my stats window to see how much I had progressed. 'Status'
<[ Eric]>
<[ Human ]>
<[ Necromancer ]>
<[ Level 6]>
<[Exp: 241/1650]>
Health: 105/105
[HP Regen: 7/ 10 min not in combat]
Stamina: 34/34
[Stam Regen: 1/ 5 min of non-excursion, 2/ 5 min of rest, 4/ 5 min asleep]
Mana: 300/300
[Mana Regen: 10/hr awake, 50/hr asleep, 100/hr meditation]
[Improved Mana - Buffed Regen/Exponential Pool Growth]
Willpower: 186/200
[Resets upon a full night of rest]
<[ Statistics ]>
Strength: 12
Agility: 7
Intellect: 11
Vitality: 16
Energy: 36
Extra Stat points: 12
<[ Class Skills ]>
[ Summon Skills]
Raise Feeble Bone Creature [Level 6] (6/6)
Animate Feeble Corpse Creature[Level 1] (1/1)
Summon Feeble Spirit [Level 1] (1/1)
[ Combat Skills]
Necrotic Bolt [Level 1]
[Support Skills]
Undead Mastery [Level 1]
Bone Crafting [Level 1]
Death Sense [Level 1]
<[ Gained Skills]>
[Non-Combat Skills]
Thorough Inspect (Activation)
Analyze (Activation)
Gathering [Level 1]
Herbalism [Level 1] (10/10)
Extra Skill Points: 5
I quickly noticed my large mana pool and grinned devilishly upon thinking about how many spells I would be able to cast with this much mana. Upon thinking about spells, I decisively scrolled down to my skills part, completely ignoring my new stat points. I noticed that I still had my class skills and gained categories, but quickly noticed that my class skills were divulged between Summon skills, Combat skills, and Support Skills. My summon skills were all the same as before, but under my combat skill I found a new skill called Necrotic Bolt.
I then continued looking until I saw my two new skills under the Support category. Bone Crafting and Death Sense huh. Time to figure out what these new skills do, though I have a very strong idea as to what they are, I chuckled to myself.
Bone Crafting:
Allows one to craft basic items with bones. Adding other sorts of crafting and experience will increase bone crafting abilities.
[Hidden Upgrade Quest: Craft 25 items to increase to level 2 (0/25)]
Necrotic Bolt:
Gather necrotic mana at a singular point before firing it in a given direction.
5 mana per usage
2 willpower per usage
5 damage
10 second cool down
Status effect: Withered (-3 hp/sec until purified) (can be stacked)
[Hidden Upgrade Quest: Fire a necrotic bolt 25 times (0/25)]
Death Sense:
One can sense the gathering of miasma upon a living creature when they are in each other's presence, allowing one to sense those who are dying.
Oh damn. I'll be able to build things with bone? Could I possibly build things with entire corpses and even souls later on? I'll have to try and see if I can do those once I have a better understanding of necromancy and souls. Nice, I can finally deal some damage without needing my actual undead around me. I liked the fact that I could now see the required hidden quests that could upgrade my skills, since I could now save my skill points for skills that would need it.
On the note of hidden quests, I should probably check up on my Undead Mastery and see what had changed. But first, I finished looking at my new skill Death Sense. Upon reading the description, I immediately thought of Donven and decided that the next time I went to see him tomorrow, I would do what I could to gain access to enter his home and actually see him.
Now that I was finished at seeing what was new, I pulled up my Undead Mastery description to see what had changed.
Undead Mastery - Level 2:
Your skills with necromancy grows stronger, and your understanding of the unlife grows deeper. Passive skill that increases the max level for your undead, allowing for max level to reach level 4.
[Hidden Upgrade Quest: Have at least 6 Level 4 Bone Undead, 2 Level 4 Spirit Undead, 3 Level 4 Corpse Undead]
I grinned jubilantly upon seeing that my undead could now level up to level 4 without me needing to devote a skill point towards increasing the level of my Undead Mastery. I figured, at the rate that I was growing, I might want to take into consideration future new skills that can't be upgraded with hidden quests, and maybe even scenarios that could pose extreme danger for me. Having a few extra skill points to drop into a skill and drastically increasing my power should I come across an enemy that I couldn't beat at the moment.
Looking up, I noticed that three of my five skeletons had returned and figured that it would still be a while before they all returned. I decided that I could devote some time to practicing my necrotic bolt. As for the bone crafting, after I took a look at all my undead, I would begin trying to figure out how I would go about working with those.