With two contract slots left to fill, Michael didn’t really have a lot of freedom to choose randomly.
Currently, he had four corpses to choose from.
The Hobgoblins he had taken from the real world, the long-armed monkeys and sand scorpions he had also collected from the same place, and the black griffin.
Among the four types, Michael still had at least three for each corpse but only two for the black griffin.
It was also this particular group that Michael wasn’t exactly excited to try. Just because he succeeded with the first corpse didn’t blind Michael.
Putting luck aside, experience told him he might very well just waste his time using undead Revival and resting to recover mana and still fail at reviving even one out of the two undead.
Putting this aside as well, though the successful Revival of a black griffin would very well give him more undead with rank two prowess, that was just it.
At rank 1, he didn’t think he’d be able to have a successful attempt at undead summoning on them, which also meant he would have to keep off evolving them, as that would only make things harder.
And though rank two prowess was powerful, it wasn’t like Michael didn’t already have this. Lucky and Prince, any of the two, could compete against early-stage rank 2 creatures and still win.
Also, with his other high-leveled undead, thanks to the chaos that happened in the real world, with a little bit of evolution points to spend, he’d have several three-star rare rank undead with rank 2 prowess.
To be honest, for Michael, the greatest attraction the black Griffins had for him was their ability to fly, and he wasn’t sure how long such attraction would last. This was because of the words he had heard from Brian before they separated and the sight of the man flying itself.
Unfortunately, the forum didn’t provide much detail about the power increase or uniqueness of Rank 2 Awakeners compared to Rank 1 and unranked awakeners, aside from the greater increase in stats and more skills gained.
As for flying, Michael wasn’t sure, but he hoped that would be the case.
With his mind not really at the idea of attempting to revive the two black Griffins, Michael turned to the other three corpses types he had.
Anyway, he could always attempt the two later when he got more stronger and when he was at a higher level.
After thinking about it for a while, Michael later chose the last two monsters he wanted to use and fill up his contract slots: the long-armed monkey and the sand scorpion.
Though they both only had one skill, which were each interesting, together with this, the main reason Michael chose them was because he had enough orcs in his army for now.
Michael wasn’t a specialist Necromancer.
Though he’d love to have more than one of the same undead in his army, it wasn’t to the point he was obsessed with it. If he saw five birds and five lizards and he particularly loved birds, he’d choose three birds and two lizards.
The only time he’d choose only one was if he was way too broke. At that point, the cheaper option just looked way more attractive.
After making his decision, Michael didn’t waste any more time and immediately started using undead Revival on the corpses of the long-armed monkey and the sand scorpion.
It wasn’t until more than half an hour later that Michael was done.
For the long-armed monkeys, he succeeded at his third corpse and the second attempt out of the three chances he had with the one, and for the sand scorpions, he succeeded in the third attempt with the first corpse.
Though he later ended up filling his contract slots, Michael wasn’t satisfied with the success rate.
“Have I killed too much? I’ve accumulated some bad energy?” Remembering the ghost he brought “peace” to, Michael didn’t feel his thoughts were impossible.
Remembering the ghost he had apparently brought “peace” to without seeing them also made Michael develop some thoughts. For one, but seemed a class and a panel with the ability to level up wasn’t all there was to an Awakener.
Though the world resembled a game to them, it obviously worked outside of a game. The limitations that games had didn’t exist in this supernatural universe.
“Ghosts, huh? I wonder if it’s possible to contract one in the future.” Michael felt his thoughts were a bit ambitious, but perhaps it shouldn’t be impossible.
With a class that dealt with death, if he couldn’t do it at rank one, didn’t mean it was impossible at higher stages.
With the matter of his contract slots being filled finally done, Michael then went to the next matter at hand.
Preserving his corpse collection.
Well, rather than calling it preserving, in its bare form, he just wanted to bury them. Fortunately, he had the perfect undead for the job: a female orc shaman with earth manipulation skills.
With her abilities, Michael saw the possibility of this task being a lot easier.
Since the earth shaman wasn’t one he was able to summon at any time from the netherworld, Michael tugged on his connection with her and commanded her to come to his location.
When she did, they immediately got to work. The ground vibrated, and a hole slowly appeared. Just as Michael had thought, with his earth shaman, burying the corpses became a lot easier.
With the undead orc by his side, Michael started to bury his corpse collection one by one.
With the vitality of a monster, monsters didn’t rot that fast, but it was only in relation to higher-level monsters. For lower-level ones, it was only slow at most.
At least Michael could already start to smell some odd scent from some of the corpses when he moved them into the earth holes his earth shaman made.
“Hopefully, their bodies are able to stay relatively complete,” Michael muttered as he stared at his surroundings.
With a little attempt at clearing traces of his earth shaman’s undead use of magic, one wouldn’t even know there were monster corpses buried underneath. At least in the operation of storing the corpses, burying them was a successful method.
As for worrying about the completeness of the corpses when he needed them, Michael wasn’t really concerned.
For one, the transformation into an undead, especially to a flesh undead, healed the body a little, which was why the stitched monster corpses he brought from the association had no issues.
And if his suspicion about his talent healing his undead through evolution was true, he only needed materials for creating undead and not how complete they were, as long as it worked. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire
“Phew, I guess it’s finally that time.” With anything related to unused corpses out of the way, there was only one thing left now.
Entering civilization for the first time in the land of origin.
Michael stared at his outfit. Aside from looking a little dirty, he still looked presentable. At least to him, he did. The black leather coat he wore also made him look quite not out of place if the fashion style if the parr of the land of origin he was in was the medieval era.
So, all in all, Michael didn’t have any issues with himself.
However, when it came to his undead, things became a little tricky.
“Hmmm. I could have the human mage follow me as he looks more human than any of my undead, but unfortunately, he himself is not presentable.”
Unfortunately, Michael hadn’t brought a lot of disguise cloth.
The human mage, not only was it dirty-looking, but its leather armor and robe were also in tatters, thanks to Prince’s handling.
Just because he couldn’t bring the undead in public with him didn’t mean he couldn’t do it secretly.
However, it was only the human mage and the undead griffin Michael planned to bring along on his trip to the settlement not so far from him with his storage space. He planned to let his other undead hide here for the meantime.
As for his protection, he felt he was strong enough for that.
However, Michael was not cocky, but even if he needed protection beyond what he could give himself, the undead that had fought with him in the real world – the human mage undead and the undead griffin, alongside Lucky and Prince, whom he could summon from the Netherworld – the undead he left in this world were lacking.
Since he knew what he was going to do, Michael did just that.
Gathering all his undead in one spot, the cave he had used for his temporary residence, and leaving a few instructions, Michael dashed out of the forest alone.
After a while of running at a leisurely pace, Michael finally came out of the forest and was eye to eye with the walls of a not-so-distant settlement.
Taking a deep breath, Michael started making his way to the settlement, but not on the main road.
From his location, he could tell the gates were closed.
Michael planned to sneak in.