4 Man Proposes and Heaven Disposes

As the fires lighting the cauldron began to die out, two idling skeletons watched the events occurring inside the secret room of the Necromancer's residence. All was recorded within their lifeless eye-holes: from the moment when their master fell into the burning cauldron thanks to their good-for-nothing comrade, to the time when their master's painful screams of agony echoed across the room, to the point when the airhead skeleton gave an evil smile as it turned to ash, to the current situation, where the adventurer, their master and their airhead comrade had turned into a greenish-grey ball of muck.

The skeletons were at a loss for what to do next. Now that their master was reduced to a liquid state, the skeletons were technically jobless. Were they destined to become Ronin? What were they to do without their master? They would roam the lands as pitiful, low-levelled undead, be bullied by all types of existences such as Villagers, Horn Vultures or Mandy Wolves, and decay into oblivion with no chances at evolution in the vast and hostile lands due to a lack of supplementary resources; their future was looking bleak. Without their master, there was no one in this world to support them. Forget support, there was no one that would even glance at them if not to chop them to pieces in the name of eradicating evil. Their master, a Necromancer, was one of the few existences that would gladly enlist the services of skeletons and provide meaning to their undead lives. Now that there master was gone, however, the skeletons were like children without parents, lacking in purpose and almost certainly destined for failure. What good were the skeleton minions without a mastermind to control them? What they didn't realize though was that if their master had truly disowned her possession over them, they would've long fell to the ground as lifeless piles of bones. This did not happen, however, indicating only one possibility. Their master was still strangely alive. But the skeletons did not know this nor could they even comprehend such a possibility. All that was on their minds was what to do next and how to move forwards.

As the skeletons were thinking these thoughts with their limited intelligence, the temperature in the room began to gradually decrease. A few hours after the incident, the heat stored in the room dissipated into the surroundings, restoring normal room temperature. Then, something astonishing happened. The skeletons became surprised. Yes, lowly beings incapable of emotions such as themselves had a trace of shock appear on their bony faces, indicating just how miraculous of an event had just occurred. What earned the awe of these skeletons was the fact that the temperature did not stop dropping; instead, the room became chillier, until, three days later, it was cold enough to cause water to instantly freeze and the ground to frost over. On the fifth day after the incident, the greenish-grey ball began to show changes. A powerful Qi condensed in the form of a sphere at the core of this slime ball. If the Necromancer girl were to see this ball, she would be able to tell at glance that this seemingly innocuous spherical substance was a Demonic Core found only in the bellies of Demonic Beasts. Moreover, this Demonic Core was in no way of an inferior grade. One would be hard-pressed to come by such a Demonic Core in the entire country, much less a tiny Cogcairin County.

On the sixth day, the Demonic Core fully condensed and began to shine, enveloping the entire ball of muck in its glow. As time slowly progressed, a vapour almost imperceptible to the naked eye began to leak out of the muck ball. From greenish-grey, the shade of the ball began to become lighter. The more vapour that was emitted from the ball, the lighter the shade the ball would become. The numerous strands of vapour, of course, were the impurities present in the bodies of the adventurer, the Necromancer and the skeleton. These impurities included everything that accumulated in the body from living in a lesser plane with filth in abundant qualities. Everything that made up the fleshly body was impure; the only thing which could be considered pure was Qi. As a result, when all the impurities of the mortal world were driven out, the ball of muck decreased in mass. From a dirty greenish-grey, the ball became a pristine, flawless white. It was extremely dense in Qi. Normal Demonic Cores wouldn't have more Qi than one-hundreth of what this ball of Qi had on its surface, and this wan't even taking into consideration the ridiculous, game-breaking amount it had stored in its Demonic Core.

Since the vapours had little places to go to in this underground, congested and sealed-off room, they became absorbed by the surrounding objects in the room, the many medicinal plants, the skeletons and the cauldron. Consequently, everything in the room was decimated, as the impurities in the vapours were insanely strong and abundant. Usually, when one entered the road of cultivation, he would gradually eliminate the filth and impurities present within his body. And this was by no means a one-step process. If experts of the cultivation world were to see this ball of muck so effortlessly expel all impurities present within the three bodies of its source material, the so-called experts would be baffled to the point of vomiting blood. To expel all impurities was extremely beneficial in one's cultivation path, as, by doing so, one would able to more easily channel Qi through his meridians; blood-flow would also be increased in the important blood vessels and the brain would be able to more quickly send messages to the nerves and vice versa. In simple terms, expelling all impurities of the mortal world was a milestone achievement in one's path to immortal cultivation. So, with this in mind, how would normal objects and lowly skeletons be able to withstand all the impurities amassed by two beings that lived for a sum total of over 35 years? And this was not even considering the impurities accumulated by the ancient skeleton that lived for who-knows-how-long. Understandably, after the impurities went wild with a craze to destroy all, nothing but the white ball of Qi remained in the room. Most of the vapours were also gone as well, since they were absorbed into the soil surrounding the room, causing the surrounding soil to become infertile for the next couple of centuries.

On the seventh day after the incident, the ball of Qi stopped emitting vapours and began to change in shape. Despite the room's frigid temperature, the ball was bubbling ablaze. Every few minutes it would reach extremely high temperatures, only to immediately revert back to sub-zero temperatures. In this way, the white ball was constantly tempering and reforging itself. The reforging process continued for a few hours, until the ball of Qi took the form of a thick-boned skeleton. Though the skeleton had thick bones, because of its bodily proportions, it looked quite skinny. It had spindly arms of uneven length, sharp, knife-like elbows, long, frail-looking legs, a hard but pathetic-looking chest, and a very broken skull. One of its eye sockets was completely busted, and, instead of looking like a socket, it looked like a gaping hole that covered half of its face; it was severely dented. All-in-all, the skeleton looked like a cripple, the lowest form of any undead-type being. It did, however, exude a very ancient aura that coated its bones like a layer of oil. Any normal cultivator underneath the heavens that took this skeleton lightly would suffer eight-hundred if not a thousand losses.

As the skeleton was fully materialized, a trace of intelligence flashed into its eye-holes. Its once empty sockets were now burning with a flame that could only be labelled as vigorous. The skeleton's choppy chuckling began to sound. It looked around the room in utmost happiness. It had waited for more than 10,000 years for this moment. Gone were the days of living as a decaying corpse and serving a pathetic Necromancer-apprentice as a slave. It was once an arrow at the end of its flight, a tiger that was lured out of the mountain and plotted against; it had no choice but to gnash his teeth and toss away its pride to continue on with its existence. For 100 generations it served as the plaything of the Necromancers. At first, its existence wasn't so bad. But as the years went by, the Necromancers declined and the skeleton was finally forced to become the vassal of a lowly apprentice. To think it, which could once slay a Red Dragon as easily as lifting a hand, would devolve to such a point. The skeleton could not bear it. For one with such a fierce will like itself, it would never bow down. Even if it were in the face of its parents; even if it were in the face of its creator; even if it were in the face of death. It would always find a way to circumvent dishonouring itself. Yet, its hands were forced and it could do little else but flow along with the river's current. After becoming an eternal slave, it could never disobey its masters' commands. To try and do so would be analogous to a tadpole trying to fight against the current and flow upstream; it would be an impossible feat.

Thankfully, however, the Necromancers were decreasing in quality and quantity. The skeleton would never dare to rebel if its masters were of Arch-mage level or higher like in the days of old or if its masters were a part of some huge faction with over a million followers.

Presently though, its master and its former masters were as different as heaven and earth. To compare the abilities of its current master with its older masters was like comparing the abilities of a little pond snake to those of a mighty Dragon Emperor, sovereign of all realms. It was not a comparison; it was a blatant insult to those deceased old foxes. In addition, the skeleton's current master had no backing; she was a simple village girl from a branch family of the timeworn Necromancers; she had no parents; she had no mentors; if she were to die, it would be like a star mysteriously vanishing from the boundless horizon. No one would care. No one would cry. No one would pay the incident any attention. The moment was thus ripe for the skeleton's rebellion.

Of course, the skeleton was still a slave and it didn't have many methods of reclaiming what was lost. Though the principle rule that it could not directly disobey its master still existed, it had a lot more freedom. So this much at least was comforting. The reason why Necromancers found it harder to raise stronger skeletons was because, the stronger a skeleton, the more intelligent it was. Likewise, the more intelligent a skeleton, the stronger of a will it possessed. This was an iron rule. Due to this, when low-levelled Necromancers tried to control higher-levelled skeletons, they would not be able to completely subdue them due to their differences in power. If the power gap was wide enough, they could even be slaughtered by these types of greater skeletons. Though this skeleton was once quite strong, it was in a very weak, coma-like state and was not a tiny fraction of its former-self. Hence, it was not strong enough to straightly kill its master. It could only stand idle, forming plans, devising stratergies and waiting for the perfect moment to "accidentally" cause its master's demise.

And then an opportunity arose. The skeleton knew that its master was skilled in the arts of rune-making. But, with a mere 19 years of age, there was a limit to how far its master's skills could extend. Hence, its master had to pay utmost attention when crafting a rune to refine the body of a mortal with a special constitution. The scope of her talent would not help her in performing such task with a flick of the sleeves; she had to enter a particular state-of-mind, which could not be disturbed, to craft such a refinement rune. Consequently, she was unaware of the skeleton's clumsy movements. The skeleton's direct command was to fill the cauldron with herbs which he was previously instructed to fetch. This was not a command he could violate. What he could do, however, was "accidentally" tip a couple charcoals to block his path, eventually causing the skeleton to stumble and commit a "blunder". By leaving her back open to the skeleton's advances, the Necromancer girl was throwing herself into a net of no escape.

And so she fell.

And so did the skeleton as well.

After a metamorphosis of sorts, the skeleton was reborn, reaching heaven in a single bound. The skeleton felt elation, and this was perfectly justified. Its schemes had worked, the clouds were dispelled, and the sun was now visible. All was right in the skeleton's life. It's plan had perfectly worked. It was only a matter of time before the skeleton's meteoric rise began.

Alas, man proposes and heaven disposes.

The story was not at all in favour of the skeleton's advance.