After my talk with Otto, I quickly left the guild hall and made my way to my undead to practice and see if the carcasses were finished draining and ready to be skinned. Though it was dark out, the moon cast enough light to allow for me to attempt skinning a small animal so that my undead could understand and then do it on their own. After all, my skeletons were capable of perfectly seeing in the dark and as such, once they knew how to do it, it wouldn't matter if it were day or night.
Upon arriving at my cave, I quickly entered and found all my skeletons waiting in the shadowy depths caused by Casper's green soul light. Grabbing a gutted Blue Wing and a Golden Leaf Hare, I figured I would show them how to properly pluck a bird before then showing them how to skin a different animal.
"Come along my skeletons. Today you'll learn how to properly pluck and skin animals so animal carcasses can finally be processed and ready for me to sell or use."
After a few short hours taking it slow, I finally finished showing my skeletons how to properly process the different types of animals. Handing the skinning knife to Evis, I tasked him entirely with processing all the remaining carcasses, being sure to remind him to clean himself, the knife, and the meat after processing in the creek.
Once that was done, I quickly took a look at my stats and skills to see what I should work on before making a decision. I noticed that I had 12 stat points that I had yet to assign, and figured that now that my health was over 100 HP, which was far enough that no local monsters would be capable of one tapping me, I could devote my stats to Intellect and Energy to increase my Willpower, Mana, and Stamina stats. After adding 6 stats to both Intellect and Energy, I took a quick look to see what had changed.
<[ Eric]>
<[ Human ]>
<[ Necromancer ]>
<[ Level 6]>
<[Exp: 241/1650]>
Health: 105/105
[HP Regen: 7/ 10 min not in combat]
Stamina: 104/104 (34 -> 104)
[Stam Regen: 1/ 5 min of non-excursion, 2/ 5 min of rest, 4/ 5 min asleep]
Mana: 300/300 (300 -> 300)
[Mana Regen: 10/hr awake, 50/hr asleep, 100/hr meditation]
[Improved Mana - Buffed Regen/Exponential Pool Growth]
Willpower: 152/800 (200 -> 800)
[Resets upon a full night of rest]
<[ Statistics ]>
Strength: 12
Agility: 7
Intellect: 17 (11 -> 17)
Vitality: 16
Energy: 42 (36 -> 42)
Extra Stat points: 0
I also noticed that I had 5 free skill points remaining, however I felt that I should save them for either new skills I may learn or for dire situations. While looking over my stats, I quickly noticed my drastic leap in stamina, and began to wonder why a necromancer, or a mage for that matter, would ever need such a large amount of stamina. I then noticed that my pool of mana had remained at 300 and had not increased, and I became greatly confused as to why it did not increase. After all, after leveling up to Level 5, I now had a boosted mana pool along with an exponential pool growth so it should've most definitely been greater than 300.
I decided to not attempt figuring out what was going on with my stats and instead turned my focus onto my skills to see if there were any that I could take the time to level up through the night.
<[ 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 2] {0/100}
[Support Skills]
Undead Mastery [Level 2]
Bone Crafting [Level 1] {6/25}
Death Sense [Level 1]
Of course, the only two things I could really focus on practicing was my Necrotic Bolt and Bone Crafting skills; however, since I couldn't really craft anything other than the rings at the moment, I figured I would spend my time practicing my Necrotic Bolt and attempt to raise it to level 3 before I would return to my room and then meet Amira and Billie tomorrow.
I took a quick scroll through my necrotic bolt's description, finding that it now had a cool down of 9 seconds, dealt 10 direct damage and 5 wither damage per second at the same cost of mana and willpower. With this, I was able to cast 60 necrotic bolts in less than 9 minutes, leaving me completely drained of mana and causing me a massive migraine. Though, this time I noticed that I wasn't feeling any sort of drowsiness compared to the last time I had reached low mana. I had also used 120 points of willpower, leaving me with only 32 points left in the tank. After my previous few days of trying to understand willpower, I figured that this would not be enough to keep me awake and aware for the following day, and so decided that I could only return home to sleep for now since I had nothing else to do for the night.
After returning to my room, I fell on my bed and slept for the rest of the night before awakening and going about my morning routine as usual. Entering the classroom I looked at Amira and Billie who were once more discussing between themselves. Walking up to them I gave a small awkward cough. "Ahem"
Amira paused what she was saying as she turned to glance at me with her piercing electric blue eyes, and as I became lost within her gaze, I noticed a thin ring of orange that wrapped around her irises. Her eyes seemed to flicker with mischief and what I could only assume was devotion as she looked at me, and I shivered unconsciously.
"Can we help you?" I was pulled from my enrapturement by Billie as he glared daggers at me with his golden irises. Turning to face the man, I quickly noticed his nearly glowing pearl white hair, and I also felt a sense of revolt towards being in his presence. Clearly he either had a class that was heavily based in life magic, or he was most likely a holy class like a priest or paladin. His large stature couldn't be hidden as he sat on his seat, and I could feel a sense of great threat emanating from him as he stared me down.
"Ya, Otto said I could join you guys in your run on Cavler's Swamp. I was wondering if it would be possible to do so." I stated why I was even bothering them, though I doubted that they would be willing to give me a chance to conduct the run, after all for all they knew, I would be a liability since I was "classless".
"Why would we take a waste like you into a high leveled threat region? You must clearly be an idiot. Amira, just ignore this guy from now on, he isn't anything more than a waste of space." Billie quickly responded as he continued to glare at me before turning himself away from me and back towards Amira to continue their conversation.
"Oh come on Billie. There isn't any reason to be mean to him. Eric here was just asking to join our party for a dungeon run, besides, it's not like we aren't incapable of protecting him as long as we stay on the Mud Flats." Amira continued to stare at me as a slight smirk found itself across her lips, causing them to pucker and puff up and capturing my young, hormonal gaze.
Seeing this, Amira giggled, causing Billie to once more glare at me as he began wondering why Amira was giving me so much attention. I too couldn't figure the reason as to why, until I began thinking back to half a month ago.
My eyes widened as I remembered the incident. I had gone out for a nighttime stroll and on my return trip, I had found myself coming through the manor's back garden, out near the composter. There I had found Amira being assaulted by one of the older male adventurers who outclassed her by a few levels. The guy was so focused on stripping Amira, he never noticed me coming up behind him and running him through his heart with his own blade.
I then helped Amira fix her clothes the best we could before helping her pick up her notes that she had made for Otto's herbal class. She had told me that she had gone out there to see if the herb, Moon's Embrace, could be grown from the compost since until now, the herb had been unable to be turned into a farmable crop. While she was distracted, the adventurer had attacked her from behind and that was how I had found them.
And as I continued to remember this memory, I then realized why my stalker's notes had seemed so familiar. The girl before me was the one who had taken advantage of me. And looking into her hungry eyes, I realized that she had already noticed my enlightenment and was most likely no longer planning on hiding from me. But this also meant that she was the one who knew what my class was, and what I was capable of doing.
I shivered as cold sweat began to nearly flood down my body as I continued to stare at her.
"How about meeting during lunch and discussing it? Or would meeting somewhere more secluded and later at night work for you?" She grinned devilishly at me, and I could only bow my head in major regret.
"The evening works for me."