The undead spicebush swallowtail moth was named Purple by Michael, following a similar thought process to when he named Blue.
With these two included, Michael now had seven named undead and a total of 25 undead under his control.
This also meant that his next daily Evolution Points would amount to 26 points—provided he didn’t continue reviving more corpses and turning them into Evolution Point generators.
Of course, this wasn’t possible.
With the insect-related matters out of the way, Michael moved to the place where he had stored the monster corpses he’d bought from the Association and began using {Undead Revival} on them.
As for why he didn’t evolve his insect undead immediately, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to—it was because he preferred to do so only after successfully testing {Undead Summoning} on them.
Just because Michael had become stronger didn’t mean the skill was any less of a gamble.
Its success had little to do with his personal growth.
The only real benefit of advancing was that he now had more mana to try more attempts, which in turn steadily increased the mastery proficiency of {Undead Summoning}.
Moreover, while repeated failures made it harder for an undead to enter the Netherworld, ironically, the sheer number of attempts increased his chances of eventually succeeding.
However, this improvement only applied to weaker monsters.
When it came to monsters of a similar level or those at high ranks, Michael’s odds were no better than they had been back when he was still unranked.
This was why he had felt somewhat reluctant when he evolved his undead into rare-rank creatures, which automatically advanced them to Rank 1 without first being sent to the Netherworld for his Advancement quest.
However, he had done what he could at the time, which was why he now had 13 undead residing in the Netherworld that he could summon and dismiss at will.
All of this contributed to Michael’s reluctance to rush into evolving his undead into rare-rank creatures, as doing so would automatically push them into Rank 1, thereby making them harder to send to the Netherworld.
For now, he preferred that they serve as reliable Evolution Point providers before they either succeeded in entering the Netherworld or met some other criteria that warranted their evolution.
After resolving the issues regarding his undead insects, Michael resumed using {Undead Revival}, this time on creatures that weren’t insects.
However, after failing twice in a row, he felt a mix of mild frustration and unexpected relief.
He really needed that dose of humility.
Thanks to his constant success with the insect undead, his mindset had been shifting in an unbalanced direction.
“Truly, failure is a necessary part of success,” Michael muttered, having this strange yet grounding thought.
Despite the minor setbacks, he didn’t stop using {Undead Revival}, and after a few hours of effort, he finally managed to fill all his contract slots.
‘Status’
[Name: Michael Norman]
[Class: Adept Necromancer]
[Level: 15]
[EXP: 1094/17,718]
[Strength: 30.42]
[Agility: 41.16]
[Constitution: 31.72]
[Intelligence: 110.1]
[Attribute Points: 30]
[Skills: Undead Summoning, Undead Revival, Detect, Basic Shot, Share Senses, Spearmanship, Acid Shot, Bone Spear, Slow Curse, Bone Armour, Corpse Explosion]
[Talent: Infinite Evolution]
[Class Skill: Contract Slot {40/40}]
[Gift: Mark of Origin]
Even now, Michael only felt mildly exhausted, with a relatively drained mana pool.
Yet, despite all this, he still had enough mana to continue if he wanted.
All of that without needing to touch his attribute points.
Evidently, his Intelligence stat—now over 100—was showing its merits.
“Now, I just need to use {Undead Summoning} on some of the undead, get more of them into the Netherworld, and then start evolving them.”
The plan ahead wasn’t too complicated, but it wasn’t something for now.
“First, it’s time to head back to the real world and sell off these corpses.”
Since his storage space wasn’t vast enough to keep everything, nor was he planning to camp out in the wilderness like a cave dweller just to guard corpses when he had civilization so close to him.
Besides, the wilderness wasn’t exactly a freezer or corpse preservation zone—sooner or later, even monster bodies would start to rot, which, in Michael’s eyes, was practically throwing money away.
They needed to go back to where they belonged—the Association.
It wasn’t always about the money…
Yes, definitely not always about the money.
Before heading back, however, there was something Michael wanted to do first—equip his undead like a proper boss would!
Using the connection he shared with them, Michael summoned all his undead within a hundred-meter radius, excluding the wolves, to an open area in the forest.
He then summoned his other orcs from the Netherworld.
The sight that greeted him almost blinded him.
With naked bodies gathered around him, and certain parts blatantly exposed, it looked like some questionable activity was taking place in the middle of the forest.
Though it didn’t seem entirely necessary, Michael had the orcs wipe themselves down using body wipes he had bought at Bayon Market before dressing and equipping them.
Once they were somewhat cleaner, he divided the clothes he had bought among his undead, distributing them based on their genders.
Unfortunately, to prevent the clothes from being torn apart and to ensure they wore them properly, he had to personally supervise the process.
Thankfully, none of them completely destroyed their outfits.
Looking at his orcs, who resembled humans aside from a few obvious non-human features, Michael found himself fascinated for a moment.
After dressing up the orcs, he set the female ones aside and focused on equipping the male orcs with the armor he had purchased from the Association.
During this time, he also took a moment to clean himself with a body wipe in the Land of Origin and changed into a fresh set of clothes.
By the time he was done, the male orcs had finished equipping themselves with their new armor.
In an instant, not only did their appearance points shoot up, but they also exuded a fierce and commanding aura.