"Jessica," I say, looking towards the blond haired girl," Just heal it. I already severed the nerves connecting its mind to the body. It can't feel anything," I explain, standing over a damaged Desbat as it fruitless attempts to open its mouth, which I have mule keeping firmly shut with his skeletal hand.
So early morning, I had decided to level a bit via killing things, which involved taking Jessica with me. Granted, I did debate about loaning the ring to Anathema, but then decided against it considering how already uncomfortable Jessica is around her… I also can't trust Anathema to be civil.
Thus, that early morning, we left the home and I took all of my undead with me outside the city where we went far away and I started screaming… which attracted a few of the desbats that, like the the day before, were very easily taken down.
Which is when I had another idea.
"Look," I point towards the Desbats head," The monster is not at all in pain. Right now it's merely panicking because it doesn't know what else to do. It can't move its body and the only thing it can do is move its head, which is being held down."
Jessica, wide eyed, stares down at the monster, its inhuman eyes looking everywhere in panic. Then her eyes move down the body towards several cuts, gashes, and punctures. She take a deep breath.
"Fine," she says, giving in, unwilling to argue with a [Hero].
With a trembling hand, she kneels down towards the monsters leg and focuses her mana.
"[Minor Heal]."
______
Quasi watches as her hands starts to glow, focusing on the matrices of mana as they meld and form into the wounds.
After a minute, Quasi speaks up.
"When you heal, do you know what your mana is doing? What is going through your thoughts? What are you imagining?"
The light slightly dims before returning to normal as Jessica attempts to split her concentration, something Quasi does all the time since his [Bone Levitation] skill is actually a single target, albeit modified for his use.
"I… I just think of my mana flowing into the body." she says, her forehead wrinkling in concentration.
I see, so that… mark on her neck makes it so that her healing skill becomes more effective, efficient, making her mana move towards specific areas of a wound instead of everywhere. So in reality, she is just being inefficient… an easy fix.
"I see, well, I want you to try something different. Since you have the [Anatomy] skill," A weirdass name for a skill," I want you to imagine your mana, instead of dispersing, but to focus on the inner parts of the injury. Try to make it ignore the outer skin and only the inside first. Heal from the inside of the wound to the outside."
She complies.
After a moment pause, I notice a drastic change in the flow of mana as it moves differently. Her energy flows out of her hands, traveling through skin, entering deep within the wound, soliciting the cells to regenerate, to form and recreate. And then the mana changes again, not by her, but by the mark on her neck. The mana turns into strands, entering damaged areas, picking and choosing, similar to how a surgeon might use his utensils to lower the damage he does to a body, so too does the mana pick and choose the worst parts.
The damaged wound starts to heal significantly quickly, allowing the wound to fully heal in about five minutes.
Jessica drops down on the floor, breathing heavily, but a huge smile can be seen on her face.
"I did it," she says between deep breaths.
Giving her a minute, I look towards the leg which looks to be completely healed.
I turn to her, her eyes looking into my own. I return her smile.
And then I slice open the leg, recreating the wound once more.
Her eyes pop out in horror, unable to believe that I would destroy all her hard work.
"It's early morning and practice makes perfect." I say, a smile on my face while I twirl my bloody knife in the air.
She lays back down, her gaze looking towards the ceiling, not that she can even see that far due to the lack of light, which is only a few glowing fungi in the surroundings. She slowly closes her eyes, resting while her mana regenerates. She has healed [soldiers], many of which would return with fresh wounds, forcing her to heal them again. So having to heal a wound again is not something she hasn't done before… it's actually watching the same wound be made herself. Infuriating, and she probably would have been extremely upset… but that is rather difficult considering that she just healed a wound which would take her several hours... in mere minutes. A clear fraction of the time.
_____
Ignoring the constant change in Jessica's expression, my mind focuses back on the mark on her neck.
It is clearly improving the healing spell based on the individual's ability. Which is great because it can teach you to become a better healer… you just need to be able to sense it and copy the movements.
"Tell me when you recover. I have an idea to help you heal even faster." I say, watching her head move up, look at me, and nod slowly before returning back towards the hard ground.
Looking around, I frown as I notice that Peter has disappeared… again.
*********
Returning back towards the city was met with initial fear that eventually quickly died down as they notice me riding alongside twenty of the Desbats, which are all fully grown and far less damaged… mostly because I had Jessica fix the wounds before cleanly ending the monsters life and resurrecting it as a loyal minion.
If only her skills worked on the dead, then I could restart the heart and have living undead minions.
Landing my mounts down, I walk towards Jessica and pick her off one of my desbats. Throwing the sleeping exhausted girl over my shoulder, I head towards Anathema's home, delighted in the fact that undead only decompose under sunlight, allowing me to keep them indefinitely here in the dungeon.
Ignoring the confused looks of several children and adults, I walk up the stairs, entering Anathema's home, finding a rather interesting conversation about me.
______
Tessa is sitting at a table, her white scales are quite a bit darker as she struggles to eat her food, something that her mother is making extremely difficult for her to do.
"He was amazing in bed. No wonder you screamed so loud, I cannot think of any female who could stay silent at such a display," Anathema says with enthusiasm as she stands over her daughter.
Tessa immediately notices Quasi at the doorway, freezing up at the sight of him.
But Anathema does not.
"Did he slam you into the wall as well? It was rather intoxicating as he held me at the wall, biting my tail while making me scream. Mhmmmm truly, I've never been mated properly before. Even your father couldn't make me scream a fraction as loud."
Anathema shakes her head, her mind thinking on the night before.
Tessa lowers her face, doing her best to avoid Quasi's gaze, failing as she peeks up, looking into his dazzling cocky smile as he also listens to Anathema praise his sexual finesse.
"Ohhh, and then at the end, he did something I didn't know was possible. He stuck his huge girth into my other hole. The hole that I poop out of! I thought he was crazy, and I was almost going to make him stop since it hurt at first." Anathema hugs herself, a crazed glint in her eye.
"And then the pleasure came. I started screaming. Orgasm after Orgasm came and went at infuriating speeds. By the end of it, I passed out next to him," she exclaims and then frowns as Anathema notices her daughter shaking and breathing extremely hard, her eyes finally turning towards the home entrance.
Anathema notices Quasi, standing tall and handsome, Jessica passed out on his shoulder a he gives them a very intoxicating look.
She smiles, blushing only slightly at the sight of the only male to truly exhaust her.
"Don't mind me, i'm just slowly passing through," Quasi says, walking towards the stairs and climbing up towards his room.
As Quasi leaves, Tessa falls on the floor, twitching, her mother giving the girl a knowing look.
_________
Entering his room, Quasi places Jessica on the bed, covering her with fur while he himself sits on a chair, mentally opening up the system.
Level Up X 22
You are now a level 43 [Necromancer].
Three skills awarded:
[Lightless Undead]: You are able to hide the mana glow of your undead at will.
[Minor Undead Modification]: You are able to make small changes to undead under your control.
[Create Skeletal Guardian]: Create a [Skeletal Guardian] undead utilizing bones within the vicinity. Guardian stats are based on [Necromancer] level and monster bone used.
I leveled a lot today, mostly because I slaughtered over two hundred Desbats. Granted, I was aiming at about fifty… but I ended up testing out my other new ability, [Undead Enrage]. Its an impressive ability with a pretty shitty price tag. I target an undead, the ominous glow of its head brightens considerably as does it's body, and then the undead gets drastically increased stats for thirty seconds.
Then its head explodes at the end… very loudly.
It literally caused a massive swarm of desbats to my location. The only reason that I survived was because I had a small army of my own desbats fighting the new arrivals. By the time the numbers dwindled, Jessica was shaking in fear, my undead were severely damaged… and I gained several levels in both [Necromancer] and even my [Noble] class.
Level UP x 27
You are now a level 27 [Noble]
Two skills Awarded:
[Split Concentration]: When you need to think about several things at once, you do it significantly better than the average person.
Aura:[Converging Mana]: When activated, your aura will spin around you, suctioning mana from your surroundings to fuel your spells. Decrease spell costs by 20% while active.
Surprisingly, [split concentration] I had gained mid battle when I was fighting the swarm. I was organizing a defensive perimeter with my undead, using them to quickly take out the swarm while also using my bones to puncture lungs. It was very difficult, but halfway through the fight everything just became significantly easier. I felt like I turned into a multitasking monster.
It was after that fight that I learned I had gained a skill midway.
Unfortunately, It would have been nice if I checked if I gained new skills or spells during the fight. [Converging Mana] would have been extremely useful at the time.
Regardless, the fight was won and I gained a great many levels, though I wish my new [necromancer] skills were more useful.
[Lightless Undead] can be pretty useful If I get some kind of stealth predator under my control, but other than that, the cool purple glow is far better to look at.
[Minor Undead Modification] is actually quite crap. When the system says minor, it really means minor. I created a horn on the Desbats head… and that's it. Nothing else. It's a pathetic skill whose only usefulness is to sharpen monster weapons like claws.
And then there's my third skill, which is both really awesome and extremely unwieldy.
The skill [Create Skeletal Guardian], is amazing because it pools all of the bones in the vicinity to create a truck sized monster of bone on four legs while its upper body has four massive extendable tower shields with eight more arms having extendable spears. Overall, this thing is powerful, but it has an extremely huge weakness.
The legs are fucking slow. Seriously, I walk faster than it. Its only good for protecting a location, and would have been great against the swarm, if it didn't cost practically my entire mana pool to create. And yes, I am including my staff.
In other words, I can't cast the spell without the staff.
Slightly Upset, I open my robe and take out a sharp piece of bone, smiling at the new skill I had gained yesterday night. I call it up.
[Enhanced Structural Enchantments]: When you enchant, your enchanted items become stronger and harder to destroy.
The skill is great because it means anything I enchant will be a few degrees stronger. Perfect If I can get an enchant that would let me enchant an undead body.
Unfortunately, the only enchanting spell I know is [Bloodletting], which took a long time to get. I destroyed so many bones by the time I obtained the spell.
"Well, I guess it's time to work," I say, calling Mule inside. With a casual mental activation, all of the bones I use for weaponry fly next to me, a pile of 68 niceley sharpened daggers. I pick one up and start activating my [Enchant]: [Bloodletting] skill, hoping to gain two more levels to increase my [Enchanter] class from 28 to 30.
This will take awhile.
*******************
Thorous stands tall, her red scales glinting in the reflective light as she looks towards her entire hunting group as they look at her confused on why she had called up a meeting.
Her gaze, strong and confident, scans through over 80 people, all with a rather interesting range in classes, though still quite low compared to her own.
"Alright," she says, her voice not too loud, but not too soft that it would not be heard," I'm sure many of you are curious on why I called all of you here, especially at such a time."
Many nods, others swishing their tails, upset to be away from there friends and family at such a time, confused at the rather abrupt meeting call.
Thorous, still standing tall, opens her mouth," Anathema plans to send another force of our people towards the sixth floor," she explains watching the reactions of the Gajen.
A rather mixed reaction. Some are fearful, others are confused, but quite a few of them are rather excited.
"The plan is to leave within a few cycles… I will be leaving with the group."
And then the crowd gasps, their tails swishing in panic as that means the hunting group will be left without a leader.
"Why must you go?" a Gejan asks.
"Does Anathema not think of the consequences," another yells out
"We cannot allow this," another states.
More questions and statements, interjects at her leaving rise out from the group… which only makes thorous angry.
"SHUT IT," she yells, immediately silencing the group," I will be leaving and at least twenty of you will be leaving with me. If you have a problem, then explain to Anathema, because thirty hunters is more than enough to feed the city."
All of the hunters go silent, upset, but the sheer mention of Anathema immediately rises a sense of dread, fear, and respect.
Finding that the group had started to calm down, she walks forward, gazing into the eyes of the hunting group," The trip will be extremely dangerous, so I will not force you to go, but I need twenty of you. Five [Trackers], Five [Scouts], and Ten others with a combat class," she says.
None step forward, all showing fear and uncertainty. Many of the hunting group have already figured out that the massive group they sent before has never returned, most fearing the worst.
And they would be right.
"Will it be just us?" one of the female Gejan asks.
Thorous shakes her head," No, we will be going with a large group of [Gejan Guards] and Zorren."
At the mention of the guards and Zorren, three people step forward, willing to risk their lives, only because they will be traveling with a very strong reliable group.
Finding that only three people stepped forward, Thorous sigh's, unhappy that so many of her hunters were actually such cowards.
Shaking her head, Thorous decides to pick and choose, but is stopped as the same female speaks up.
"Will the [Hero] be going with us," she asks, her small frame hiding her relatively large strength stat.
"Yes, he will be leading the entire group."
And then to her complete and utter surprise, every female steps forward.