This time, he wasn't delivering examinations all at once, but one by one, thanks to the teleportation station. Along them, he was selling spells for decent prices.
He spent months this way, until he finally bought space magic. During this time, Dezen more and more felt his problem of lack of time. Examinations take a lot of it, making him unable to develop properly, therefore he decided to stop buying magics for some period of time.
Instead, Dezen will focus on his development, as he has good sources of money, needed for it.
Luckily, the Church of Alen assured him, that he won't be paid less for examinations in the future. Dezen assumes it is because he has a lot of experience in this aspect, and many spells used for this, what makes him better than necromancers they have.
In the past months, he created mostly spell used for examinations, and making undead stronger, thus he lacked many spell suitable for his current strength. The first were defensive spells. Then, he took care about the other aspects.
He was also slowly developing creation of enchanted items, and enslavement magic, but nothing extraordinary he achieved.
Understanding space magic went quite well. Dezen even came up with few ideas how to combine it with the necromancy, though he will try them in the future, as he is focused on developing properly now, and when his attainments of both magics will be higher.
This time would be as boring as when he was making examinations, if Dezen didn't find an assignment about killing bandits.
At first, he wasn't sure whether to accept it. Over the course of past months, he started having a desire to develop properly as a necromancer, which made him reluctant to interrupt it. However, after remembering how long he will probably have to wait, for a second chance, and how useful thinking undead would be, Dezen decided to accept it.
Report about bandits came from village, a little far from the Aren. The group was said to have 5, or 6 members, every of them being normal human. Since they do not possess a real threat, Dezen will be sent alone to kill them. However, he is still obligated to question them, whether they are part of some bigger group, or have any contact with criminal mages.
Because it shouldn't be dangerous, he took only 4 undead wolves and a wendigo, though he didn't take them to the village, where he asked where the bandits were last seen.
Then, he went to said place, used searching spells, and relatively quickly found the bandit camp.
Instead of just encircling them with his undead, Dezen used hiding spells, and cast Fire Fog. At first, it was small, hard to see, and emitting almost none of the light, exactly how he wanted. Dezen went around the camp, making a giant circle with this spell.
He was sure, that every bandit is there, so he poured mana in Fire Fog, creating a high, thick wall of fire, blocking their every way to escape.
With some pleasure, he watched them panicking, before he sent his undead to neutralize them.
They did this quickly, and gathered bandits in one place, so Dezen could easily throw at them Green Fire Ball, combined Healing Fire. This way, they were burning alive, and healed at the same time, what was Dezen's preparation for questioning them.
As expected, they were a small group, without mages, or any connections. Dezen quickly killed them, and revived, almost at the same time.
Then, he focused on marks in his soul, which appeared after it. Dezen don't know what is their use, but marks made by undead he quickly revived, feels stronger, more developed. Currently, he believes it is some secret of necromancy, that he will have to yet to discover.
Satisfied, Dezen watched his 5 new undead rising from the ground, before they kneeled in front of him.
While they were doing it, Dezen, with joy, recognised some intelligence in their eyes. However, it alone wasn't a proof that they have it, thus, to be sure, he asked with dignified tone.
- Do you can talk?
- Yes, master.
Two of the undead answered this way. The remaining 3 replied with.
- Yes, ruler.
- Great. Now, I hope and assume you all possess intelligence.
They answered the same way.
He smiled and decided to check it soon.
Pleased, he dispelled Fire Fog, which was still active, and teleported them all with space magic.
At the village, he continued creation of spells, tasking Alex to observe and test their intelligence.
Dezen did it, because he has an idea, how to make undead more useful, and the more intelligent the undead are, the better it will be, though he isn't sure whether it is possible.
The idea is to make a deeper connection between Dezen and his undead, letting them use his mana, and spell giving Dezen their memories.
Thanks to it, Dezen will be able to send his undead to do some of his tasks, and still gain experience from them.
It will not only solve his problem, of lack of time, but also will speed up, his development, making it faster and faster it the future. However, only if it works, what Dezen doesn't hope for. Not because it sounds too good to be real, but because most of the time, he expects the worst scenario, also, making such spell, giving him experience, may be impossible for current him to create.
After a week, he created a spell letting his undead use his mana. Dezen chose it to be first, because it alone will be useful, even without the second one.
Using this spell is quite easy. Dezen has to reach into his soul, find a mark of undead he wants to give mana to, use the spell and pour mana in the mark. Then, mana is taken automatically, and to stop, he has to give it a command in his mind.
Surprisingly, he felt something strange, while doing it. Almost like if the thing he creates to replace soul was alien to him.
Dezen ignored it, as it wasn't hostile in any way, and decided that he will check it in the future, when he has time to create a spell for this.
Since he couldn't be sure if the spell will be a success, Dezen tasked his intelligent undead with training usage of spells and modifying other undead. Thanks to it, even if the spell fails, time they already spent won't be wasted.
Making the second spell took him slightly over 2 months. The difficulty of this process comes mostly from his lack of experience in creating spells to see memories of other beings, and making this process fast.
He first tried it with the most intelligent human undead he had.
They were both at the large building, that Dezen uses for examinations. He touched his head with both hands, closed eyes, and focused on the spell. Next, he felt one of the most extraordinary feelings in his life. It was like he was exiting his body, but not entirely. He could also say it wasn't like his soul leaving it, though Dezen never experienced it, thus he shouldn't know how it feels.
Then, he felt very sense of that undead, without feeling his. He was also wielding memories of that undead, temporarily forgetting about most of his.
There was the first problem - flow of the memories was too big, causing headache to Dezen. Also, most of them are useless, only taking space in his brain, destined to store them. Because of it, he has to modify this spell, and try to make one erasing memories.
Experiencing undead's memories wasn't like watching a movie or something similar to it. It was more like Dezen himself was controlling this body, and it almost felt like he has free will at deciding what to do. At the same time, he was aware that he can end it whenever he wants.
That awareness was the next problem, he will have to solve. Currently, it is too big, destroying most of his gains from this process.
Dezen used this spell for something he took for an hour, then he deactivated it, and checked how much time he really spent.
It was around 20 minutes. He knew it, because especially for this, he bought a watch at the Aren.
Now, that he ended, he knew about two more things he will have to do. The first, is making "flow of time" in that state faster, to spend less time on it. The second is a modification of that spell, letting him chose from which part he will start getting experience. During this hour, that undead did nothing connected with magic. Normally it would be a waste of time, but Dezen wanted to remind himself, how it is to work physically, just in case. Therefore, he ended it after an hour, not 10 minutes.
Instead of immediately starting modifying this spell, which he called Shared Experience, Dezen decided to relax a little, and went to his house, to spend some time with Alex.