[Your mana is overflowing.]
[You have gained the skill {Blind Curse}]
“Another curse skill?”
Michael was surprised. More than surprised—he was happy.
Finally, it seemed like Lady Luck had decided to smile on him.
Without hesitation, he checked the skill’s description.
Based on his understanding of his other curse-type skill, if this one was anything like that ime, he already had a good idea of what it could do.
[{Blind Curse} (Basic Mastery) Proficiency: 0.5%]
Blind Curse reduces the target’s vision, impairing their ability to perceive their surroundings.
Duration: 8 seconds.
“It’s just as I thought,” Michael muttered, a slight smile forming at the edge of his lips.
Against an opponent of similar power, this skill—like the slow version of its series—had its limitations.
However, even the little it could do was enough in a high-stakes battle.
Michael hadn’t tested it yet, but he believed that if he used both of his curse skills simultaneously on a single enemy, their combined effects might result in a qualitative change.
Even if that change lasted only for a moment, at his current level, a single second could decide the outcome of a fight.
“I wonder if I’ll get more curse skills in the future,” he thought hopefully before shifting his focus back to his stats.
After increasing his Intelligence, he immediately felt the change.
His mana pool expanded, increasing his overall mana capacity, though there was no improvement in quality.
Looking at the 55 attribute points he still had left, Michael considered his next distribution carefully.
For a mage, the importance of Agility was closely linked to Intelligence.
Not only was it his second-highest stat, but he also enjoyed the speed, reaction time, and flexibility it granted—especially since it made wielding his spear easier and more effective.
With that in mind, he allocated 5 points to Agility, bringing it up to 47.
To avoid losing control over his body from previous experiences, he didn’t add all five at once.
Instead, he did it gradually, adjusting to the increasing changes.
The method wasn’t perfect, but it had its merits.
After moving his limbs for a short while, he quickly regained full control over his body.
With ten attribute points spent, he now had 50 remaining.
Michael didn’t hesitate and added more into Intelligence.
The previous five points were too little to significantly boost his mana pool enough to revive a Rank 2 creature.
Although he didn’t know exactly how much mana he needed, he was certain it would be a lot.
The possibility of failure and having to restart the revival process also meant he needed enough mana to attempt it at least twice in a row.
Right now he wasn’t quite confident he could do all three tries on a corpse.
With this thought in mind, Michael went all out, adding 30 points to his Intelligence stat.
Like before, he did it gradually—this time in larger increments, starting with five points, then four, then six, and so on.
A little while later, he was done.
His Intelligence stat now stood at 150, an amount nearly 150 times that of an average human—at least in raw numbers.
But more importantly, the quality of his intelligence was much higher than any normal person’s.
It wasn’t just a quantitative increase but a qualitative one.
Feeling the abundance of mana surging through his body, Michael couldn’t help but smile.
The feeling of getting stronger was intoxicating.
He turned his gaze toward the last 20 attribute points he had left.
After a brief moment of consideration, he decided to keep them.
He could have gone all out and added ten more points to push his Intelligence to 160, but he didn’t. His current mana felt enough.
Michael also didn’t want to admit that part of the reason was his reluctance to face another failed chance at gaining a skill.
Just when he thought Lady Luck was finally smiling at him—after hitting 140 Intelligence and waiting second after second for another notification—he realized he had been too hopeful.
Lady Luck wasn’t smiling at him today.
She had only pitied him for a brief moment before forgetting about him entirely.
“This should be enough to try Undead Revival three times in a row, right?”
Michael wasn’t entirely confident about reviving one of the three black griffin corpses in front of him—and rightfully so.
However, having three corpses meant three chances to finally gain a flying undead.
He just hoped he wasn’t too unlucky.
His heart pounded with anxiety.
Taking a moment to calm himself—lest his emotions affect the revival process—Michael steadied his breath.
After finally settling down, he locked eyes on the massive black griffin corpse in front of him.
Without hesitation, he activated {Undead Revival}.
The moment he did, an alarming amount of mana surged out of his body.
“So much?”
Michael was shocked at how quickly his mana was being drained.
The rate at which his mana was being consumed by the skill was something the revival process of the Commander-rank human mage he revived a while ago couldn’t even compare to.
Though he had been alarmed back then, it wasn’t as significant as it was now.
However, fortunately, he had more mana now.
Judging by how things were going, it seemed like he could even attempt more than one corpse and still have enough left to make a few tries on another griffin corpse—even if he failed.
Of course, Michael wasn’t hoping to fail, but as expected, not everything always went as one wished…
“Rank 2 creatures are truly something,” Michael muttered bitterly as he stared at the lifeless black griffin corpse in front of him.
As expected, he had failed his first attempt.
No surprise there—ironically.
However, this was only the first.
And with more mana still left in his mana pool, Michael immediately went for his second attempt.
As he activated the skill, a thought crossed his mind.
What if his two undead-related skills had advanced spell models?
Aside from rituals that boosted success rates, this method also didn’t seem too bad.
Michael concentrated on what he was doing.
As more mana drained from him and it seemed like he was about to lose another attempt at successfully reviving this Rank 2 flying unit—
—it succeeded.
“Yes!”
Michael couldn’t help but clench his fists in excitement as he saw his contracted slot number increase from 47 to 48.
Checking his panel wasn’t even necessary.
Due to the new connection he could now feel with the black griffin that stood before him, shaking its body, Michael didn’t need a system notification to tell him he had succeeded.
It was right in front of his eyes.
Still buzzing with excitement, Michael then went to check out the status of his new undead.
[Black Griffin Lv. 27]
[Rank: Rare ★]
[Name: None]
[EXP: 799,345/3,448,414]
[Skills: Wind Manipulation {Intermediate Mastery}, Wind Slash {Intermediate Mastery}, Air Spike {Intermediate Mastery}, Air Bullet {Intermediate Mastery}]
[Master: Michael Norman]
Though he hadn’t had access to the status of the griffin before it became his undead, Michael, who had already fought with more than one of them more than once in the real world, felt the status was familiar.
The black griffin, though it had a less impressive skill set than his level 25 human mage, was undoubtedly stronger.
All its skills, too, were at intermediate mastery.
Unlike his female orc shamans that also had an elemental manipulation skill, the black griffin actually complemented its main skill with elemental skills, rather than just throwing the element around.
After calming down, Michael’s eyes shined as he stared at the flying undead.
A question he had surprisingly not thought about before popped up on his mind.
“It being dead, does that take away its flying ability, right?”
To be honest, Michael felt this wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t help but think about it.
“Fly.” He immediately commanded the black griffin mentally.
Though they were in a forest, it wasn’t one dense with trees and had quite a few open areas around that could even comfortably accommodate the huge bodies of the griffin like the one in front of him.
The moment Michael gave his command, the undead in front of him did not hesitate.
It crouched down and added strength to its four limbs.
After doing so, it gave itself a powerful jump and threw itself out of the coverage of the surrounding trees.
Under Michael’s intense gaze, he watched as the undead griffin spread out its wings and flapped them, creating a gust of wind, and shot up to the sky.
It twirled around in the sky for a moment before coming to fly above Michael’s location.
It was in the air.
It flew.
It didn’t fall.
Michael’s calm heart once again started beating fast.
Just a few days ago, he had fantasized about having a flying undead, and to think he got one so soon.
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“Haha.” A sudden thought appeared in Michael’s mind.
This undead…
The black griffin flying above him….
He wanted to ride it!