The Monte Auction House. Located in Rift City, a dungeon city, was a rather popular auction house.
It was very regularly visited by outstanding adventurers and powerful magnates. As a matter of fact, there would at times even be foreigners joining from other countries. It ranged from small ones like the Mrines Archipelago east of Bosque, or even large ones like the Galeburst Dynasty.
Overall, it was a distinguished auction house. Its location made it so as it was near the Bosque Kingdom's northwestern border which bordered three countries.
Currently, there was an auction and a very special one too. The auction house always had a monthly event where they sold all of the best items they gathered throughout that month at once.
Still, that alone wasn't enough to make it special. What really made it stand out were the many rumors that had been generated less than a day before the auction took place!
"Do you really think such a potion exists?" Muttered a commoner as he gazed at the grand Monte auction house
Weldon Monte was the one checking people in as instructed to him by his father. He couldn't help but inwardly scoff when he heard the commoner's distant rumbling. Of course, it exists!
The Monte auction house was partnered with most if not all of the famous alchemists. This meant having a partnership with large families as well. Such as the Flamewood county. Who as a matter of fact were the ones that provided the wonder drug.
It had been sent over soon after concoction. The shelf life was estimated to be around three months. The auction house was not going to sell it until the next month, however. The main reason being that the Flamewood county had instructed so rather last minute.
The Monte's didn't dare disagree either. They already planned to catch everyone's attention by selling an ancient magic weapon. It was estimated to be over 300 years old and its origins seemed to be some sort of oceanic civilization.
Weldon started to feel his ego swell at the thought alone! His Monte family was not as small as people made it seem! Otherwise, how could they get their hands on such luxury goods? To the point where such a good thing could even be overshadowed by another as a matter of fact!
The Monte noble family was only at the rank of viscount. They had a substantial amount of wealth so that ranking at times felt unfitting. Weldon was greatly displeased whenever someone brought it up.
The only ones he might not be able to compete against in Bosque would be the Harvest March. The Marquess, Harel Harvest, was singlehandedly responsible for feeding nearly 50% of the entire Bosque Kingdom! That was a substantial number for a single house to take charge of.
"...damn" Weldon ended up lowering his self-esteem just by thinking about it. He then heard a confident voice.
"Ah! If it isn't young master Weldon, did your father put you to wait for guests?" A respectable-looking man had just finished climbing the grand steps of the auction house when he noticed Weldon guarding the stylish doors.
Weldon's melancholy quickly faded after catching a glimpse of the gold suited figure. He couldn't show an ugly face!
"Y-yes!" He ended up being caught off guard.
"Hahaha, why so tense?" The man laughed boisterously before asking with a wide smile.
"I- I just didn't expect to see you here Master Archippus" Weldon told the gold-suited middle-aged man.
"It's alright I get it, hahaha!" The master laughed again causing Weldon's eye to involuntarily twitch. He actually really hated the man!
The problem was that this man was one of the main contributors to the magic devices sold at the auction. The Monte house was wealthy but they still couldn't go around showing off lest they piss off one of their sponsors.
"Enough of that, I'll see you inside I suppose" Archippus said and Weldon naturally didn't stop him. He would usually check and verify the identity but he already knew the flamboyant man.
He watched the man's retreating figure and once more drowned in his melancholy. Was he really supposed to simply wait for guests? Where was the monte's dignity!?
***
Iron Knight. Well, a Windstone knight. That was a fit description for Iron's new appearance.
The armor even seemed as if it had come to life on its own. The dark anti-skeletons, coupled with the dim lighting, meant that Iron's skull could barely be seen through the helmet's opening.
'How do you feel?' Ed asked the curious Iron.
Iron's attention was taken away from the surreal feelings he felt. His attention was instead taken by Ed and his transmission. Almost instinctively, Iron knelt.
Its memories as Iron were still there so it was more than well aware of who Ed was and his strength. Iron, therefore, felt rather grateful. It knew that Ed had provided it the chance to see the world in a new light.
It felt as if it could suddenly absorb all of the knowledge in the land! That was obviously not the case but the amount of memory space it had gained was substantial.
'Very good. You are my knight now.' Ed told it.
With an increase in consciousness, size came not only increased memory but also increased understanding. Ed didn't know how much the increase attributed but as he had fused a total of four orc consciousness it was bound to be significant.
This meant that all Ed needed to do now was set up law and order. Set up a hierarchy and leave himself a representative. He was going to set up his undead realm!
He could occasionally return to the crypt, namely when intruders entered, or simply to check up on things. Whenever his strength grew it wouldn't be bad to give the skeletons an upgrade either.
'I wonder if the liches can receive robes' Was there a thing as a death mage?
'Those are liches I suppose…' Ed's thoughts only reached this point because if not, his mages had reached a bottleneck. Their intelligence and understanding would fall behind when compared to the knights who could simply wear stronger suits of armor to house a stronger consciousness.
'Whoever heard of such a thing?' That was too backward!
He could just give Iron a core assuming it was possible but its mana manipulation would be inhibited by the armor.
'If I was a craftsman I could solve that but I'm not' Ed imagined that creating some sort mana channels inside the armors should be possible. He could add runes to the armors but that wouldn't really help the channeling as much as one thought it would.
A robe would still be more fitting as they were specifically made to allow for easy passage of mana and often boosted magical capabilities as opposed to armor which was for withstanding blows.
The point in case being, it was possible to have armor and cast magic but it wouldn't be up to mage standards.
'I'll think about that later' Ed still needed to know what constituted as a body. The death knight in front of him was obviously still valid since the skeleton was inside. He didn't need to ask any questions on that matter.
'Let's try this then' Ed raised an earthen cube. He would use it as a body
He placed his polished boney white palm atop of the cube and activated his spirit insertion. If it worked someone would undoubtedly be an unlucky fellow!
Ed activated his sixth sense, he saw no swirling clouds on his palm even as he slowly raised it off the cube.
'It failed' The consciousness didn't even make it into the cube.
'But… what about golems?' Ed wasn't sure if they existed but he did have vague memories of them. Some were iron giants, others were humanoid to the point of being indistinguishable. It varied by media.
'So what kind of media am I in?' The fantasy world he had been sent to seemed to adhere by some sort of magical common sense. There were proper laws in place when it came to anything magical.
'Eh, is this system logical?' What laws was the system acting under? Who was to say it wasn't possible to turn that cube into a living thing?
Until he learned of any proper laws, nothing was off the table!
'I must be missing the correct requirements' Ed began to ponder on what does requirements might be.
'Let's assume that the requirements are… living! They had to be living or have lived' Ed followed this route.
'With this logic… how can I make this dirt come to life?' Ed asked himself once more while gazing intently at the cube of earth. It was to the point where there existed hidden tension.
'Living… so what if I stuff something living into it?' He didn't mean stuffing in an alive animal as that would just be animal cruelty. He meant a carcass or remnant of a creature.
Ed started thinking of his undead. He saw the shining mana cores of different colors and the anti-skeletons inspecting them.
'Yes, a sort of core' A… golem core!
Suddenly Ed's vague memories of golem's seemed to have become clearer bringing him a slight headache. It soon faded, however.
'I can bring this dungeon to life' And he didn't mean the dungeon entity but the rooms and such! He just needed to create a core to house consciousness.