29 Devil Wears Prada

The battle was over, and I was too tired to comment on anything so I made several beds from the wood around here. With my mana I created a canopy over us making the area into a shelter with spiky brambles all over it. Unlike Zack who was used to this sort of environment, the three of us passed out before he could say anything.

My little demons kept watch over the night, with my golem ready to attack at any time, her sword stabbed in the ground. Luckily nothing attacked during the night, the blood and gore already eaten by the little demons so it didn't attract anything.

When I awoke, I found my body stiff and itchy with a layer of dried blood all over me. My body though didn't need any healing which surprised Joshua to no end considering the condition of my body before I slept. He still did some light healing to get rid of my stiffness which I was thankful for.

After we all bathed in the small river, I gathered up the little demons in front of me. "Joshua, Zack, you've both probably noticed these guys. The reason for secrecy is I found spell that creates golems such as these.."

".. from corpses." Zack finished, and I simply nodded, "You know what the church would say right?"

"What would the church say about my spell? Or about my aura spell? They might even say something about my spell around eating!" I shook my head, "Everyone knows I let my emotions control me once before, and cast a demonic spell. I took that spell and modified it so it would act different."

"But isn't that touching on necromancy?" Joshua spoke up this time, nervous.

"Luci isn't undead, Luci have heartbeat, need to eat, breath, and I have my own circuit! Lifebringer transfers life, does not create or destroy." Luci was angry that my friends didn't support me.

"It's as Luci says, I use creation magic to bottle up the remaining life energy from the person into a new vessel."

"Isn't that even more dangerous?"

I shook my head, "Fertility magic does something similar. Guiding the life force of two people together in the womb."

"Does that make you their.. father?" Jade asked with a blush on her face.

"Luci has a father?" Luci looked up to me, his eyes bright.

"No, if anything that makes the creature I killed to make them their father." I sighed looking at Luci, "I am their Lifebringer though."

Luci scrunched his face up in mock anger, "Hello my name is Luci! You killed my father prepare to get bit!"

I kicked Luci across the ground into one of the beds, my eyes rolling as I did, "Bite me if you must, but I'm sure I've given you enough of my blood to make up for it."

"Lifebringer jokes, how can Luci bite you?" Luci dug himself out of the rubble of the bed, brushing off his coat of fur.

"Either way, they are their own creatures now. They follow me willingly as I am the one who brought them life, and I give them power. They can leave at any time." I looked to Joshua, then to Zack. "My goal at the moment is as simple, as it is ambitious. I plan on becoming strong enough so that no one can take anything from me."

"And Luci wants to become an assassin!"

"I want to make a meal for a king!" All of us looked at Jade when she spoke, "What? I want to be a chef.." She started to fidget under all of our stares before we all smiled.

"It's not like you're a demon or anything, so I don't see any harm in what you're doing." Joshua shrugged.

"Hey I'm just a bodyguard that signed a non-disclosure agreement, I'm not important enough to care!" I punched his arm, giving him a grin. "Okay, and as a friend I support you even if you were going to overthrow the king."

"I don't have enough of an army for that."

"You considered it‽ I was just joking, don't start a holy war!" Zack looked around him for someone to support him.

"I mean we all heard it right? Zack is a traitor to the crown. I think we're going to need hush money." My grin turned wider.

"Hush money my ass, you necromancer!"

"An assassin, a necromancer, a traitor, a chef, and a white mage walk into a bar.." Joshua started.

"God, we're a weird bunch." Zack sighed as he looked at Jade for normalcy.

"Why do I sound like the odd one out?" Jade pouted a little.

"You think a white mage belongs in that group?" Jade nodded, and Joshua looked almost offended. "We walk the path of healing miss!"

"You can heal an evil warlord as much as heal a saint." Jade pointed out which took the wind out of Joshua's sails.

"I guess that's true for all magic, there's good and bad in every circle of magic. What makes necromancy worse than others?" All of them looked at me worried, "I can boil you alive in acid and make a stone statue out of you, send you to your family and make the statue explode killing everyone with earth magic. What makes one more evil than the other?

"Souls Crowley, you shouldn't mess with someone's soul." Joshua shook his head, "Necromancy isn't talked about at all usually but you hear some things from the grapevine. Powerful necromancers can bind your souls to objects to power their spells."

With a nod I started to gather my supplies, the only one with a core of course was the cerberus dog himself and I packed it away. Along with that, I checked my other reward, the abilities that the dog itself had.

Three Heads (2500)

Regeneration (3025)

Pack Instincts (105)

Fur (50)

Knot (50)

My smile twitched as I looked at the last option immediately closing the system as I rubbed my temples. There were people back in my world that would kill for this system right now after reading that, I just knew it.

Regeneration was too far out there for me to consider for now. Pack instincts could be good, especially now that I could give my upgrades to my minions which cost the same amount. It was worth the upgrade now but I could only do it to one other sitting at 254 upgrade points. I accepted the upgrade to myself, and to Luci and I immediately felt a connection between us.

Exploring the connection I could almost tell what his next action would be, then I felt something different. "Luci, if you're hungry you could have just told me." Throwing a fish to him he caught it in his hands and began devouring it.

"Luci was waiting for more powerful meat, but a snack is welcome!" He cheerfully explained. He felt closer to his Lifebringer now for some reason and he was ecstatic for this weird connection.

The day went by peacefully for us, not so well for the local wildlife because we never felt with a head on battle after the wolves. Luci was cheerful shouting after a kill, "Killing things that don't know you're there is so eaaaasy!"

"The downside is if you fail to injure your enemy on the first attack, you're vulnerable. That's why the second best skill for any assassin is the ability to run away." I smiled a bit at Luci, "That's why I taught you flash, shadow movement, and light bend."

Luci grumbled a bit, "Luci isn't a coward."

"Yes but think about the thrill of getting out of their sight then attacking them again when they least expect it!" I started the process of slowly polishing the cores in front of me, putting a layer of oil on top of them to make them clear for the cutting process.

Taking out a machine much like a rock tumbler I added some special grit and three of the orbs to get rid of some of their imperfections and shrink their size. A properly prepared core should only be the size of a tennis ball, the grit presses the mana deeper into the core and takes off the fragile shell over top of the core. Making the grit was actually fairly easy, as it just required another core to be grinded down in a specific fashion.

Not willing to waste my time turning the crank, I created a mud golem to do the job for me, powering it for a single hour. Each hour I needed to look at the cores and make sure they were stable, and to see if they were the right size. Considering the ones we got were mostly grapefruit size, it shouldn't be a long process.

Grabbing a few materials I started making a golem for this core, this one would be more practical than the battle maid I created before. This one would be a backpack, with automatic arms, two arms would have shields allowing it to defend my back. Two other arms had four fingers fashioned like a claw grabber with pads on the inside. The final two arms had scissors on them, allowing them to attack and cut plants as we went. Creating six opals, sanding them down with paper, I made them into 'eyes' for the bag.

I paused for a moment, since this would be an AI I added a voicebox to this one as well, this one empty as it could learn how to speak on its own. With a few adjustments, I made it so all six hands could collapse into the bag making it look like it was just a normal bag. A series of spectral runes added to the inside to make the bag be able to hold about five times the amount of stuff, the limit for someone who didn't have a space circuit.

With six layers of spider silk weaved together, the backpack itself was nearly indestructible. The joints were rounded, and it was easy to exchange out the limbs just in case. Three extra sockets were added to each side for expansion if I ever need more arms for it. The core would fit snugly in a spiral of silk that it could move around in the body of the bag much like a tongue.

"Your name will be Backpack!" I wanted to dye it purple.

"That's not a name for something, that's what it is. It's like calling a dog, dog!" Zack yelled at me, a fruit pouncing off my side.

"Fine! Gucci it is. Wait! Prada." I nodded softly as I laughed. "The devil himself wears Prada."