Michael thought for a while and didn’t immediately command his undead to descend from the sky.
Up here, there were a few things he could and wanted to do.
For one—
He hadn’t had his fill of flying yet.
Though Michael found himself trembling slightly whenever he saw the distance between him and the ground, he still enjoyed the feeling of cutting through the wind.
“Fly a little lower.”
Michael commanded his undead while also guiding it toward the sky above the settlement he had planned to enter the previous day.
Though he couldn’t see everything clearly from this height, Michael could still make out a few details.
“It’s quite huge.”
That was his first impression.
The entire settlement was walled off in an almost—but not quite—perfect circle.
Several stone buildings stood alongside residential structures.
Based on the territorial size, Michael estimated this place was probably a town.
As for the number of people living inside—
That was something he didn’t bother guessing.
Even though it was late at night, several buildings still had light coming from their windows.
Some streets were also lit up.
As he observed the town below, he made sure to keep his distance and not go any lower.
Only the heavens knew if they had weapons capable of shooting him down.
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This was his first interaction with civilization in the Land of Origin, so he remained cautious.
Fortunately, the griffin he rode on just happened to have a dark appearance.
Even if some people noticed him, the distance between them ensured that he and his undead would likely appear no larger than a bird.
Not to mention, the dark night sky helped conceal them even further.
After flying several laps around the town, Michael finally ordered his undead to return to the surface.
Landing near where his other undead were, Michael reluctantly got off the griffin.
He gazed at it, a small smile forming at the edge of his lips.
“I won’t even bother using {Undead Summoning} on you right now and ruin my mood.”
Michael had never been a fan of his luck.
And given that his mana was limited, unless he miraculously succeeded on his first attempt, he doubted he could manage more than two tries at best.
Rather than risk failure, it was better to find another corpse to revive and fill all his contract slots for more evolution points.
As for evolving the undead griffin, it wasn’t that Michael was tempted to do it.
At Level 27, the griffin was just one level away from reaching the maximum level its potential allowed.
Thanks to his experiment with Prince, Michael knew that if he evolved the griffin now, the increase in strength would be massive.
But—
That was one of the reasons why he held back.
Aside from the fact that he was saving evolution points for tomorrow—when he would receive more and attempt to evolve one of his human undead—there were other reasons as well.
For one, a stronger undead would only mean an even lower success rate when trying to use {Undead Summoning} on it.
And more importantly—
Michael worried that evolving the griffin would drastically increase its size, which would make things highly inconvenient.
One particular concern stood out—
While the black griffin was already huge, it could still barely squeeze into his storage space.
That meant he could bring it into the real world if needed.
But if it grew any larger—
That option would be completely cut off.
Sure, he would gain more strength as a Necromancer if his undead got stronger—
But right now, Michael was in no dire need of power.
If he was, none of these reasons would have stopped him.
For now, aside from wanting to fill his last two contract slots, Michael was also considering what to do with the rest of the corpses around him.
The situation in the real world didn’t seem like the best time to be buying and selling corpses like it was a normal day—
And Michael wasn’t interested in doing that anyway.
Unfortunately, he still hadn’t thought of a better way to store and preserve them.
“If only the space in my Mark of Origin was bigger…”
If that were the case—
It would be the best solution.
The time freeze effect inside the Mark’s storage only made it even more ideal.
Unfortunately, Michael also didn’t have an undead with powers that could preserve corpses.
Even if he did—
Would he just leave them out in the open?
“Never thought I would think so much about corpse-related matters, aside from how they’re buried…”
Michael muttered absentmindedly, lost in thought, before coming to a halt.
He turned his gaze downward, staring at the cold soil beneath his feet, then bent down to scoop up a handful.
“Cold.”
That was expected.
“Monster corpses, though, start to rot after a while… But if I bury them deep enough, not only will they be hidden, they’ll also be preserved for a bit, right?”
The thought wouldn’t leave his mind.
It just made sense.
Corpses were meant to be buried—
And when needed, unearthed.
A wry smile tugged at Michael’s lips as he spoke softly.
“My old image of necromancers had them digging up coffins… To think I’d be the one creating them.”
Once again, Michael felt like a fake necromancer.
Though he wasn’t certain if this method would actually work, he still wanted to try it.
At worst, the bodies would rot slightly and start to smell—
But once they were turned into undead, the process of decay would halt due to the necromantic energy sustaining them, keeping them in a functioning state.
“I should’ve thought of this sooner.”
Michael sighed in mild frustration.
That said—
Even if he wanted to test this method, there was something he needed to do first.
Fill up all his contract slots.
*****
A/N: It’s the weekend, guys! No more outings for me, so I can finally focus on writing.
Mass release of ten chapters on Monday (Two days to stockpile), right after the reset, as a thank-you for reaching Top 10 last month.
Thanks for reading!