Chapter Nineteen: Abusing the System.

At the mere thought of the skill, my mana starts to form within my body, and like a river, flows down my arm, entering my staff. From there, it pulses as it transforms into absurdly complicated matrices of energy, creating a strong purple glow on my staff. Once fully formed, the mana releases, a purple fog spreads out, surrounding and entering the bosses dead body.

With a strained smile, I keep myself upright from the sheer quantity of my mana needed to fuel the spells activation. I slowly watch as matrices upon matrices of magic get compounded upon the dead body, strings of energy wrapping around and around the boss.

Only but a moment passes before the magic solidifies, the uninjured eyes of the monster start to glow a powerful deadly purple while a connection to the beast forms between me and itself.

With a mental command, I order the monster to stand.

Without a moment to lose, the beast lifts its heavy girth, standing upon it four legs, eyes boring into mine with non-existent intelligence.

I activate [Advanced Analyze], a skill which Jessica told me was extremely rare, that it only shows up in the most powerful of tier two classes like an [Inquisitor].

Lacerta.Level 117 Undead.

Lacerta, a former guardian of the first floor of Dungeon INAEQUO, has been defeated and turned into an undead by entity Quasi Eludo. This former boss is capable of utilizing its whip-like tail to assault targets at a distance and at extreme speeds. Its scales, though large, are actually very resistant to piercing damage due to the underlying bone fibers prevalent throughout. Atop its head, the boss is capable of using a hammer and a crystal-like structure to create an enormous bright light, blinding any foes or allies within the vicinity. -1 mana regen

I frown, reading through the description, noticing that I gain a lot more useful information from my undead than I would when it was living.

Is that because I know what it’s capable of or because I turned it into my minion?

Welp, I’ll have many opportunities to figure that out.

Noticing that my mana has stabilized and that I am no longer at risk of passing out, I move towards the side of the beast, retrieving one of its broken scale shards. The shard, though somewhat light, seems to be both extremely sturdy and very sharp on the side. Apparently, the bone fibers prevalent are seemingly far more powerful than the regular bones.

With but the smallest trickle of mana, I activate [Bone Levitation], a smile forming on my lips as the scale starts to float in the air.

Good, hopefully I can get a decent number of these shards… but this does give me an idea.

Sitting down, I mentally call mule to slowly walk towards my location, figuring that Jessica will follow mule in turn while I contemplate the battle I just had and await my mana to regenerate for my next experiment.

The battle itself was actually quite difficult. I probably would not have been able to even scratch Lacerta without a lot more preparation. Though its blind ability had been useless, the tail and powerful scales would force me to attempt to overpower it. I may have been able to win using a skeletal guardian enhanced with enrage while I had my aerial units keep it distracted. Of course, I still don't know if the guardian would be able to crack open those scales, especially considering how slow it is.

Makes me wonder how the group before me was able to even take the monster out. I guess I will have to ask Zorren when he wakes up.

Sighing out loud, I call upon the system, allowing the information I stopped before to flow into my view.

You have Slain Lacerta.

Potential of Lacerta Absorbed.

Level Up x 5

You are now a level 47 [Necromancer]

New Skill Awarded: [Create skeletal warrior.]

[Create Skeletal Warrior]

Utilizing the bones around you, create an undead warrior whose level matches the bones used. Mana regen cost is increased if undead is higher level than necromancer by 2% per level.

Level up x 3

You are now a level 35 [Noble]

Level Up x 6

You are now a level 36 [Hero]

Level Up x 1

You are now a level 30 [Enchanter]

New skill awarded: [Minor Mana Efficiency]

[Minor Mana Efficiency]

Enchantments created by you are 10% more mana efficient.

Killing the boss had surprisingly increased the levels of all of my classes. Unfortunately, the levels I gained are all over the place. As would be expected considering classes have different requirements to level. The [Hero] class, on the other hand, is actually quite confusing as I still don't understand why I am gaining levels on it. I wish it was as simple as my other classes.

[Necromancer] increased because I was using my minions. [Noble] increased because I was guiding my minions. And [Enchanter] increased… well, I have no idea why.

Even with those levels… the skills I gained are rather… lackluster. The [Create Skeletal Warrior] skill might actually be utterly useless considering that I am an extremely low level for a [necromancer], making it extremely costly to use… maybe, gotta see what the normal cost for it is.

As for the [Enchanter] skill [Minor Mana Efficiency], well, it isn't bad per-se, but not amazing either. Useful, but not nearly as good, especially considering I only know one enchant.

At my musing, I notice the sound of crunching bone as Mule comes to me, followed by Jessica whose eyes are trained on my new undead. Surprisingly, she shows no fear or disgust towards it, more so with a look of curiosity.

I have to admit, she is very good at adapting. Only a couple days with me and already she is relaxed around giant undead behemoth monsters that could destroy her with a swipe of its tail.

She looks around first and then turns to me, a frown forming on her face.

“Where is Zorren?” she asks.

I shrug my shoulders, pointing,” he is sleeping on the floor on the other side of my new undead.”

She lifts an eyebrow, wanting to ask a question, but then shakes her head, deciding to just walk around my new undead.

“He is bleeding. Should I heal him?” she asks from my monsters other side.

“Go ahead, not that he will die anytime soon,” I say, standing back up again, my mana finally full.

A moment after, I hear Jessica say ‘[Heal]’, but I quickly ignore it as I call upon my mana.

I point my staff towards Lacerta, hoping that it will work.

[Skeletal Renewal]

At the mention of my thought, my mana seeps out, entering shards and bones around me, turning them into dust and flying towards Lacerta, healing the cracks on her forehead.

And then I smile as the scales of my monster start to heal as well, dust forming around the injured side, replacing it with fresh, though white, scales.

And then, not even a third of the way done, my magic stops, the surrounding bones around me are completely gone, there being no material to continue the healing process.

Confusing, considering it took a huge amount of bone to just create a couple of scales.

I move my hand, touching the new scales, finding it to be rather rough without the black skin covering, but with a impact, I feel that the scale is exceptionally strong.

Which can only mean that better quality bone requires far more bone to heal.

I smile, looking around me, finding miles of bones sticking out.

And that's when an idea forms in my head.

Without being gentle, I take out my knife and start hacking away at the bone sticking out of Lacerta which holds a newly created white scale.

Eventually, after several minutes, I pry the scale off and place it on the ground. I then move towards another location filled with old bones, having Lacerta follow me as well. I frown as I see Jessica hunched over Zorren, still healing him after so many minutes already.

But I only give that a little thought as I am more focused on my experiment. Once me and Lacerta are at the new site, I once again activate my [Skeletal Renewal] skill, my mana pulsing as bones around me disintegrate, flying towards my undead.

***********

Jessica stops healing, her breath slightly ragged as she stands up, taking a step back from Zorren. It had cost her a significant amount of time healing him as the cuts around his body were superficial. The real damage was in his muscles, all of which had been strained and broken significantly. The [Berserker] had passed out not from exhaustion, but the sheer pain of having every muscle fiber broken in his body.

Jessica figures that such damage can only be done with either a skill or some kind of curse effect. She believes more on the former as the only one who would have any form of a curse spell would be Quasi, but he wouldn't use it against an Ally.

Regardless, she wipes the sweat from her face and turns towards Quasi, finding the [Hero] jumping up and down, yelling ‘Yes’ several times over and over.

With her healing job finished, she moves towards the beaming [Hero].

“Mule, follow,” she says, giving the fungi covered undead an order, something she rather enjoys doing, especially as it reminds her of the time she lived in the monastery, ordering [Acolytes] to get things done for her.

But her mood takes a nosedive as she remembers the monastery and what had happened to her… how she was sold off…

Shaking her head, she instead focuses on Quasi, who is yelling.

“Yes! Fucking Yes It Works. Haha,” he exclaims staring at the side of his new undead.

Walking up to him, a smile forms on Jessica's face as she suppresses a giggle.

“What happened?”

The [Hero] turns to her, his smile similar to a child after gaining his first skill.” I did it. I think I broke the system.” he says, pointing towards the white scales on the undead’s side.

“Since my skill, [Skeletal Renewal], allows me to heal the bones of any of my minions, I find that those bones healed are as strong as the monster’s natural bones, which are extremely powerful,” he says, placing his hand on the white scale.

“Thus, if I was to constantly rip off these scales and create new ones from the bones around me, I could have a literal treasure troves of both shields and weapons created from a boss monster!” He exclaims, spreading his arms apart for emphasis.

Jessica, understanding the implications, nods slowly, a smile forming on her lips, though for very different reasons.

He really is amazing. Not even two weeks of being summoned and he is already doing the impossible. Only a [Hero] would ever think about using a powerful monster’s body to create a nearly infinite supply of materials.

He quickly takes out his knife and starts to hack at the scale,” This will take a while, I suggest you just look around, I have a lot of work to do before we can start heading back.”

Nodding in understanding, Jessica looks around for something to do, quickly finding the entrance to the next level of the dungeon a bit away.

Normally, she would have trouble seeing anything far away, but slightly glowing crystals can be seen surrounding the entrance, seemingly signifying its location.

Curious, she calls Mule over and heads towards the crystals. It only takes about ten minutes before she makes it to the entrance that leads downward. A frown forms on her face as she notices something that Quasi will more than likely hate.

She takes a deep breath and turns around, heading towards the purple glowing eyes of his new undead to tell him the bad news.

**************

Hours later, I find myself seated atop my flying mount, wiping tears off my face the entire time.

Yes, I can be emotional, especially for very stupid reasons, but nobody is perfect.

I shake my head, watching as Lacerta trudges along, her scales on the top of her back completely removed, including a lot of meat, which I had thrown away and made the inside of my undead relatively hollow. A rather long and arduous process, but now that hollow contains scales, hundreds of white scales which I had created and loaded within.

Those scales will be used to create weapons, shields, and possibly armor if I can actually find someone who could make armor. Apparently, the Gejada prefer to not to use any armor, stating that their scales are ‘hard enough’. Which may be true against normal enemies, but anything that can get through those scales will easily find the tasty meat underneath.

Of coarse Zorren is completely different… his endurance stat can get to some insane levels, making him a literal, almost unstoppable monster against non-bladed weapon.

Speaking of Zorren, I turn to the side, watching as Zorren is held firmly in the claws of one of my Desbats.

Yup, even after… nine hours, he still has not awakened. Which is fine as this makes our trip much faster, especially since another of my Desbats is holding mule while Jessica rides atop Lacerta.

An undead that will be completely useless for one huge reason.

I take a slow deep breath, trying my best to keep the sadness away.

Because apparently, the entrance to the second floor of the dungeon is half of Lacerta’s size.

Which seriously pisses me off! I was going to ride it into battle, killing monsters with a giant super undead.

But noo, whoever designed this stupid dungeon did not want bosses traveling to any other floors.

“Stupid fucking shit. Ughhhhhhh.”

Sighing again, I sit back thinking on my next course of action and how much longer I can stay on this floor.

The lack of an ability to create a fire as well as the lack of properly flammable material restrict what I and Jessica can eat. We are only lucky that Anathema has a decent amount of that juice or we would have already run out of the hard food I had taken from those [Mages] before.

In a sense, I have a week to level up my army to something usable while also arming them with powerful weapons and armor. Weapons which I will need to enchant so that they become even stronger. During this time I will need to get higher level Desbats, a rather annoying and long process since most of them are on average, forty, maxing out around ninety-one, but that is extremely rare to find. So I settle for in the eighties, which is usually a group alpha.

Welp, I have a lot of work going for me. Hopefully, I can get all of this done before the week is over… and maybe have more sex again. Apparently, having sex with a lot of Gejada women will increase my standing and respect from the entire species.

Or that is at least what Anathema explained to me… which I have no idea whether that is true… I will need to look into it.

***********

Thorous, a level 96 [Blader] and a newly level 11 [Soldier] flicks out her blade while her other one spins in the air, quickly turning into a reverse grip before she slashes forward herself.

A smile can be seen on her lips as sweat gleams down her scaly face from the exertion.

The former leader of the hunting group sheathes her blades to her back and walks towards a stand where she takes a crystal jug of water and gulps it all down.

The past week had been amazing for her. Most of which is because of the [Hero] directly teaching her how to fight with her two scythe like swords and other various weapons.

He had come to Thorous, telling her that he needed her to get the [Soldier] class as well, that he has future plans for her.

Unfortunately, Thorous had been quite angry that she would take another class even though she was so close to gaining a tier two class. All she needed was seven more levels.

But Quasi had rolled his eyes, asking about her class and demanding to see her blades.

She was about to tell him suck a tail, but stopped after remembering that Anathema might very well punish her if she refused.

So she had removed her swords, weapons her father had given her as a present once she became a [Blader], a class specializing in using slashing and cutting weapons.

When she had given him her swords, he immediately took a stance and then seemingly started to move fluidly. His movements quickly became quick and fluid as the blades seemingly flowed around him, moving so naturally as though they were a part of him.

She had never seen something so beautiful and impressive as that.

When she asked what that was, he had frowned and whispered ‘blade dancing’.

Thus, in exchange for being taught on how to fight and move like that, Thorous had made a deal with the [Hero] that she would obtain the [Soldier] class.

And only from a couple days of training, Thorous had gained three levels in her [Blader] class, a rather unprecedented amount considering all she did was copy his movements.

A blush forms on her face as she remembers the last time he had taught her, stating that ‘It is kinda unfair how quickly you are learning this martial art. I think you might be gifted.’

It was a small compliment, and most would have just nodded and continued on. But Thorous had remembered those words, words that for some reason meant a lot to her.

“Ughhhh, I must be turning into a hatchling”, she says, failing to hide the blush quickly spreading across her scales.

The males of her kind never really interested her, mostly because they were all so… lacking. They would stand straight and take direct hits from monsters to prove to the females that they were strong, powerful. That nothing can hurt them.

But Thorous’ father had taught her otherwise, stating that only idiots would take a hit willingly.

And to prove his point, he picked a fight with several [Gejada Guards] and cut them all open at the joints, all while avoiding every single blow they had attempted on him.

Eventually they all passed out from blood loss and Anathema had thanked him for humbling her men.

Thus, when she found out that the [Hero] preferred to fight like her father, prefering to avoid strikes, she had taken a huge liking to him… so much so that she has had to replace her pants every night.

“He has Returned,” someone yells, interrupting her degraded thoughts as she looks around her, finding children and adults running towards the city gates.

With a smile forming on her lips, she runs towards the gate, a new skill she had gained once she reached level ten in the [Soldier] class activating.

The skill, [Crowded Movement], allows her to weave through large crowd of people with expert ease, allowing her to use all of her speed to quickly get to the front gates which has a significant population of people present, most of which are cheering.

Their eyes are looking forward, watching as a massive monstrous beast trudges forward, its size and frightening girth would have normally caused utter fear in the Gejan population, but instead it causes the opposite.

All because the monsters eyes are glowing a powerful deep purple.