The thought was a little dark—since, due to his subconscious reasoning that only dead creatures could be evolved, he had imagined these races he hadn’t even seen yet as corpses.
Michael shook the thought out of his head and immediately used {Undead Revival} on the corpse in front of him.
As a Rank 1 Necromancer, far stronger than the corpse could ever be, it only took a single try to turn it into an undead.
Fortunately, it worked on the first attempt. Nothing was ever guaranteed, of course, but his rank gave him a high success rate.
This was also why Michael hadn’t tried reviving the Level 25 human mage corpse he had. Due to its strength, the chance of failure was much higher.
Still, he was glad he had been able to find four more human corpses. It increased his chances of having at least one human undead.
After the revival, Michael commanded the undead to stand up and examined its appearance.
The rough-looking man now appeared much paler, his once lively eyes now completely white, but overall, he still looked very human.
It made sense—he was originally a human, unlike Beginning and Lily, who were orcs evolved from goblins.
After a quick glance at the undead human before him, Michael turned his focus to his main goal.
However, the moment he checked his talent section to evolve the undead, he was stunned by what he saw.
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“I can’t evolve it?”
Michael frowned. He had expected something unusual to happen, considering there were no star ratings or other indicators, but he had assumed it would just cost more Evolution Points.
Yet instead, he was met with “Insufficient Evolution Points.”
“71 Evolution Points aren’t enough to evolve it?”
“Then how many do I need?”
Michael didn’t believe it was simply because humans were an inherently formidable race.
At least, he had never thought of himself as formidable before awakening, and the undead in front of him didn’t seem any stronger than he had been back then.
Still, he wasn’t one to jump to conclusions.
Michael proceeded to revive the other three human corpses—only to end up in the same situation.
Unless he wanted to assume that all four just happened to be special cases, it had to be because of their race.
But even then, he didn’t believe this was because humans were uniquely powerful.
There had to be another explanation—something similar to how evolving through stars and ranks required five times the previous amount of Evolution Points.
In the end, there was nothing he could do for now.
Michael decided to wait and accumulate more Evolution Points to see if anything changed.
Yes, he was willing to be patient—at least until he had enough to evolve an extraordinary creature. If he still couldn’t evolve his human undead then, he would just evolve Prince instead, pushing the beast not only to its peak but beyond it, into a higher rank altogether.
“Two days at most, and I’ll have my answer.”
At Level 20 from Level 15, Michael had gained 10 open slots for contracts.
Now, having used four, he only had six left.
One was reserved for the Griffin, and another for the undead human mage.
The remaining four would be divided among other undead materials he had in mind.
For one, he wanted to reserve a spot for the Sand Scorpion and a Long-Armed Monkey.
That left only two more open slots, which he could use however he liked.
Since he already had specific targets in mind, Michael immediately began attempting to contract them with the limited corpses he had at hand.
Of course, he didn’t start with the difficult ones—the Griffin and the human mage—due to their strength and the limited number of corpses, especially in the latter’s case.
If worse came to worst, he could try buying a few monster corpses from the Association, but he wasn’t sure if human corpses were something they even sold.
Perhaps if they knew his class, they might consider it.
Maybe they’d even be willing to sell one after some deliberation.
But that was all speculation.
If it were up to him, Michael didn’t want to go to the Association out of desperation.
If he ever sought out the Association for a corpse, it would be because he was simply trying his luck—not because he was forced to.
He also didn’t want to risk losing the almost Rank 2 corpse he had.
Michael had a strong suspicion that if he managed to turn that corpse into an undead, it would stay with him for a very, very long time.
With these thoughts running through his head, Michael turned his focus back to the corpses in front of him.
Under the illumination of the bright full moon, shrouded by the dark of the night, he began his attempt at contracting a Long-Armed Monkey and a Sand Scorpion.
— — —
In the Real World…
Deputy Manager Leo and the Branch Manager sat with their hands on their heads, rubbing their foreheads as if trying to suppress a terrible headache.
“So, you’re saying all the previous cracks in the entire city have disappeared?” The Branch Manager asked again, his tone heavy with disbelief.
“Yes,” Leo confirmed. “The news came about ten minutes ago. That’s why I’m here now.”
The Branch Manager exhaled sharply.
“I suppose this should be expected… You rarely find different cracks side by side. There’s no infinite spot for negative energy, after all. Even after appearing, negative energy isn’t ‘needed’ anymore. They just help speed up the regeneration process.”
He leaned back, his fingers tapping the desk.
“We have three Level 5 cracks above this city now. If anything…” he muttered, “…now that I think about it, it would actually be surprising if nothing happened to the previous cracks.”
Though he understood the reasoning, it didn’t make him feel any better.
These cracks—they were the livelihood of the Supers Association branches in the city.
Their workers, their funding, and the trade of the materials extracted from the cracks—they all depended on them.
And now, they were all gone.
“Damn those bastards,” Deputy Manager Leo muttered, his ever-composed demeanor cracking as he let out a rare curse.