Without wasting time, Michael reached inward once more, his consciousness shifting back to Aurora.
The transition was smooth, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in his ruined estate.
Without hesitation, he continued the process—placing more undead into his storage space before shifting back to the Land of Origin.
In the secluded clearing, the summoned undead stood in disciplined silence.
Michael swiftly released the stored undead, allowing them to take their places around him before vanishing once more.
Back and forth he went, repeating the process with practiced efficiency.
With each return to Aurora, he emptied his storage space and filled it again with more undead he had taken in haste from the Everlong Forest.
Then, in the Land of Origin, he released them into the wilderness near his body.
Time slipped away unnoticed. The only indication of its passage was the gradual increase in the number of undead standing in the clearing.
After several cycles, Michael paused, taking a moment to assess his progress.
He had transported all of the undead that had originally been stationed in the Everlong Forest before that monster incident .
Michael was pleasantly surprised.
He had expected some failure, or at the very least, a good amount of failure due to how scammy Undead Summoning was, yet, the process had been smooth.
Looking at the thirty undead under his command on his status screen, Michael couldn’t help but smirk.
“It’s probably because of the difference in power.”
Michael figured
It made sense.
He was far above most of these undead in strength, and that difference likely played a huge role in why the process had gone so seamlessly.
If he were trying to bind something closer to his level—or stronger—it would probably be a different story.
Still, this was a good sign.
Now, he only had 20 undead left that he couldn’t summon and dismiss at will into the Netherworld.
This was far fewer than before, so Michael was quite pleased—though he couldn’t ignore the mild annoyance that lingered. He had already attempted to bind these remaining undead three times, only to fail each time.
Most of them were on the stronger end, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that they resisted the summoning process. Still, it grated on him.
Fortunately, the undead he was most interested in were already among those he could summon freely.
Aside from the new undead type he had obtained from the chaos caused by the demonic supernaturals, his primary interest lay in the insects.
Take the Spectral Ant, for example.
If it was an actual race that existed in the world and not just a creation of his talent, then its background was bound to be interesting.
Michael turned to glance at the Undead and its skills.
[{Ghostly Camouflage} (Basic Mastery) Proficiency: 2.324%]
The Spectral Ant can blend into its surroundings, becoming semi-transparent and significantly harder to detect visually.
At Basic Mastery, it becomes almost invisible in dim or shaded environments for up to 15 seconds. However, the effect does not prevent detection by enemies with heightened senses or those trained to detect supernatural creatures.
There is a 30-second cooldown after use.
[{Ghostly Charge} (Basic Mastery) Proficiency: 3.03%]
The Spectral Ant increases its speed by 40% for 8 seconds, allowing it to move in a sudden burst toward a target. After the charge, it suffers a 4-second slowdown, but the skill can be used again after a 20-second cooldown.
Its skills were interesting, but what Michael truly liked about this particular undead was its strength.
He had a strong suspicion that if this undead advanced to Rank 1, even as a Common-rank creature, its strength wouldn’t be any worse than his Rare-rank orcs when they had just advanced.
Ants had a social structure, and if the Spectral Ant belonged to a race that functioned like normal ants, it wouldn’t be considered special.
That was precisely why Michael found it so intriguing.
However, due to the nature of his talent—only being able to use it on dead creatures that became his undead—he might never be able to fully experiment with this race.
For example, what would happen if he revived a Ghost Ant Queen that the Spectral Ant evolved from?
The problem was that undead couldn’t reproduce.
Logically, this limitation would extend to a Ghost Ant Queen as well.
Evolving a breeding creature that couldn’t even breed felt like a complete waste.
Maybe things would change at higher ranks, but who knew what rank or how many evolution points it would take?
This point frustrated Michael greatly.
Until now, he had no idea how—nor was he even sure if it was possible—to use his talent on living creatures.
The thought of it gnawed at him, but he could only move forward, focusing on improving his knowledge of souls and all the aspects connected to his talent.
His frustration with this limitation only grew worse when his undead human mage evolved into a High Human.
If he could use his talent on himself…
Michael.
Michael couldn’t even imagine how powerful he’d become.
What he did know, though, was that he’d be terrifyingly strong.However, such thoughts weren’t occupying Michael’s mind now.
He turned his attention to his remaining evolution points.
21 Evolution Points.
It was just enough to evolve four three-star Common-rank creatures into one-star Rare-rank creatures.
It sounded like a lot, but in reality, it wasn’t much at all.
Still, Michael could only make do with what he had.
He had considered saving his evolution points, but after thinking it over, he decided against it.
Creatures like Prince or his undead humans, which required a high number of evolution points to advance to the next rank, would take at least three days of accumulation.
That wasn’t long in the grand scheme of things, but Michael didn’t think it was wise to neglect his other undead in the meantime.
Unless something unexpected came up, it was better to evolve all his undead to Rare rank first, then focus on raising the ranks of his stronger or more unique ones like his human undead.
For now, at least, he didn’t need an immediate boost in power.
Had that been the case, his priorities would have been entirely different.
