About the undead

'Okay, now I just have to transfer the mana from the rings to the elemental links, while absorbing the Rehi from the environment to supply energy and develop the rings... Easy peasy.'

Following the instructions written in the book, Marcus focused his mind and started to transfer the energy from the rings into the black-colored sphere while drawing energy threads from his spirit form to pass it to the rings in his body.

But just as the strands of energy were about to touch the energy rings, the purple sphere began to tremble and spin out of control, expelling gusts of cold and sinister energy.

In that instant, the energy threads returned to his spiritual body, and Marcus was forced to leave his spiritual unconsciousness and before he could do anything he was back in the basement of the mansion.

'SH*T!... Tch, I was sure I would make it this time... I don't understand, I followed the instructions to the letter. So what am I doing wrong?'

Marcus got up from the floor and went to the desk on the other side of the basement, on which there were dozens of books, papers, and documents, all related to the magical arts of this world.

From among all those documents and writings, Marcus picked up the black book of spells he had gotten at the auction.

'Let's see... Enter a state of total calm and harmony... feel the Rehi of the environment...cultivate where the gap with the element is the least... enter the spiritual unconscious... distribute the Rehi...' Marcus turned page after page as he went through the meditation technique as it was in the black book.

It had currently been three days since the auction had taken place.

After his meeting with the Giant Clan leader, Marcus went straight to his mansion, took some books and a desk from the library, and locked himself in the basement.

In that time, Marcus had spent his time reading all sorts of books related to the magical arts of this world and had managed to translate the black book he had found at the auction.

Mostly the book contained formulas and models of level 2 and 3 elemental spells, but in addition to that, there was also an incomplete meditation technique related to the dark element.

Magic in Genaerrsis was incredibly complex and complicated. Not only was there more than one type of magic user, but each magic had its specific logic and rules. However, all of these magics had one or two things in which they were similar and one of them was "mastery".

It didn't matter if it was elemental magic, sorcery, holy magic, or evil arts, if a person wanted to use some kind of magic, he or she first had to collect Rehi from the environment and store it in the body.

Once a person collected enough Rehi in their body they would have to use their internal energy (mana) to create a bond with the source of their power. As the bond strengthened the "mastery" would increase and therefore the user's power and control over his spells would be greater and, in some cases, the energy consumption of certain spells would also be reduced.

But while theoretically, this may sound easy, in practice it was a different story.

Each time a person ascended a realm, they would need to create a new Rehi ring to move on to the next one. But as the number of rings increased, so did the amount of energy needed to create them. In addition, as the person's magical power grew, their internal energy would generate a rejection effect that caused their rate of growth to slow down.

Another fact to note was that even if a magic-user belonged to a higher realm if his "mastery" was too low then his spells could not demonstrate their full potential or simply could not be conjured because that person would not be able to control the power of the spells.

For all these reasons magic users studied and created various meditation techniques that would allow them to increase their strength by absorbing the energy of the environment more efficiently. Among these meditation techniques were some that were created to generate a synergy effect so that both a person's internal energy and "mastery" would increase simultaneously.

Of course, since Marcus had the system he only needed to practice his skills and level up to become stronger, so he did not need to go through such a tedious process to increase his strength and it was much less effective than the system. However, he decided to try it anyway for two reasons.

The first was because Marcus didn't know when the point would come where the amount of experience required to level up would be so high that it would be almost unfeasible and the second was because he didn't have full control of the system.

As far as Marcus knew, the [Monarch of the eternal garden] had almost absolute control over the system. If this mysterious being wished, it could restrict both the user's freedom to distribute their stat points, as well as other features. In the worst-case scenario, it could control the user's mind or block the ability to gain XP to level up.

To avoid this Marcus had decided to try practicing the meditation technique from the black book. Although the meditation technique was incomplete, he was still able to deduce the rest after going through every book related to the magical arts, and after a couple of failures, he had finally managed to enter the so-called spiritual unconscious.

But whenever Marcus tried to meditate something prevented him from completing the process and he was kicked out of his spiritual unconscious without any progress.

'What am I doing wrong...? I don't think it's the fault of the system because I didn't get any notification... Let's see.... [The History of the Wizards]...[The Sorcerers Alument].... [The Sorcery of the mystic Drauns]' Marcus started going through every scroll and book about all the types of magic used by all the races of the world and their respective basic theories. ' Huh? [Anatomy and morphology of the undead]? I hadn't seen this one.'

Marcus picked up the red-covered book and began to turn the pages while reading the contents that were written. About 30 minutes later, he put the book down half-read, leaned on the desk, and entered a state of comprehension as he tried to analyze and connect the cause of his problem.

'The problem is my race and ... perhaps my tainted life force' Marcus thought to himself believing he had found the source of his problem.

From among the writings related to the magical arts that Marcus had read over the past few days, many had an explanation and information from basic studies on souls.

According to these writings, when a person was reincarnated into this world their soul would merge with a new body in the developmental stage. In this state the soul would be in direct contact with the Rehi of the environment, so the soul would begin to collect energy and then transform it into life force.

The amount of life force that a soul could create varied greatly depending on the environment and the species in which it was reincarnated. This life force also determined things like certain genetic characteristics of the body and the abilities of an individual.

But more importantly, the life force was the energy that kept a person's soul attached to his or her body on the earthly plane. When an individual's life force was depleted, the body died and the soul returned to the cycle of reincarnation once again.

Of course, there were also ways in which a fully developed individual could increase the amount of life force they possessed as was the case with meditation techniques or cultivation techniques used by magic users and aura users.

However, when a person was killed or died from disease or unnatural causes, the individual's soul would return to the cycle of reincarnation but the life force would remain on the earthly plane where it would slowly fade into the environment until it became ordinary Rehi. But there was an exception to the rule.

Being in direct contact with the soul, it was normal for the life force to be influenced by emotions. If a person at the time of an untimely death felt emotions such as fear, anger, envy, or hatred, his life force would be contaminated by these negative emotions and would take longer to dilute in the environment.

But when this contaminated life force accumulated in large quantities, after a while it would eventually corrupt and transform into necrotic energy. If the necrotic energy was not purified it would begin to attach itself to the corpses of other creatures, thus creating the undead.

'In theory, ordinary undead can't increase their power because they don't possess a soul... But that shouldn't be the case with me!' Angry and frustrated Marcus picked up the red book and continued to search for answers to his questions.

For an undead to maintain its existence it needed a constant supply of necrotic energy, which could be easily obtained by contaminating life force and environmental energy.

So when an undead radiated necrotic energy it was contaminating the energy of the environment and the life force of living beings. This was also the reason why places, where there was a high concentration of undead and necrotic energy, ended up becoming dead land.

However, the low-level undead were only corpses reanimated by necrotic energy that possessed neither soul nor will of their own and only had a basic instinct.

Not possessing a soul, the common undead were unable to control their corrupted nature so they could not collect the Rehi without corrupting it.

Even if they could use special skills or magic as was the case with skeleton mages or semi-liches, they would still be unable to increase their magical power on their own because they did not possess a soul and thus could not control their power.

The only exception to this rule were the high-ranking undead such as liches, zombie kings, superior ghouls, or vampires as these did possess souls and powers that defied the natural laws of this world.

'Then I simply don't have enough control over my body's energies... F**k!'

*scrunch*

In one of his sudden fits of rage, Marcus punched the desk so hard that he ended up making a hole in the middle of it. He then grabbed the desk and threw it against the basement wall scattering all the books and documents all over the floor.

'SH*T!... Sigh, that desk must have cost about 500 silver Raels.' Once Marcus calmed down, he put the desk back where it was and began to pick up all the papers and books he had thrown on the floor.

When he finished tidying up, Marcus opened his [Inventory] and pulled out two small wooden boxes. One was square and the other elongated rectangular. He opened them and used [Analysis] on the objects inside.

================================

Name: Dark amplification Orb.

Artifact: Magic Item

Tier: inferior

================================

Durability: 200/200

Attack Power: -/-

Description:

An orb created by melting Sadar's black sand and a Rehi crystal from a [Obsidian Skin Spider].

Abilities:

Darkness element boost 5%.

Mana cost reduction (Only darkness spells) 9%

================================

================================

Name: Wand of Malerich

Artifact: Magic Item

Tier: inferior

================================

Durability: 190/190

Attack Power: -/-

Description:

A wand crafted from combining synergistic willow wood and a Rehi crystal from a [Malerich Fox].

Abilities:

Energy element boost 6%.

Mana cost reduction (Only Energy spells) 10%

================================

'I honestly wanted to keep them, but I think they'll be more useful this way.' Marcus thought as he picked up the baseball-sized black orb.

....

{The artifact [Dark Amplification Orb] is compatible with the system}

....

{System upgrade is possible}

....

{Do you want to upgrade the system?}

[Yes/No]

....

[Yes]

....

{Upgrade in progress}

....

{The efficiency of the skill [Dark Resistance] increases slightly}

....

{The power of the skill [Dark Magic] increases slightly}

....

{Intelligence increases by 1 point}

....

{Upgrade completed}

....

Once the upgrade was finished, the dark crystal sphere began to glow and disintegrated into particles of light. Then, Marcus took the wooden wand about 20 cm (7.87 inches) long and repeated the process.

....

{Update in progress}

....

{The power of the skill [Energy Magic] increases slightly}

....

{The efficiency of the skill [Automatic Mp recovery] increases slightly}

....

{Intelligence increases by 2 points}

....

{Upgrade completed}

....

'Hmm. I was hoping to get more, but I guess this is for the best considering they were lower-level items.' He thought as he watched the wand transform into particles of light and vanish into thin air.

A few days ago when he attended the auction, Marcus had bought some magic items. But when he touched them the system had warned him that these two items could be used to upgrade the system. So after a few tests, Marcus had concluded.

The upgrade was a type of special system ability or code which allowed the user to gain and increase their abilities by consuming magic items. But it had its flaws.

In addition to the orb and the wand, Marcus had 3 other magic items but none of them could be used for the upgrade. This meant that if the items were not compatible with the user or the system then they could not be used for the upgrade. Also, the system did not seem to work with enchanted items or Rehi crystals.

Originally Marcus wanted to save those items for use in battle, but since the meditation method had failed he decided to use them for the upgrade. After all, as far as he knew the [Monarch of the Eternal Garden] had no control over the upgrade, or else it would have already been removed.

'Very well... If I can't meditate then I'll have to use plan B.'

Once the upgrade was over, Marcus put away all the books and documents on a shelf in the basement, opened his [Inventory], took out an old and worn parchment, and spread it out on the table.

On the parchment were several words and runes written along with a drawing of what appeared to be light armor made of leather.

'Okay Bairus, it's time for me to finish what you started 100,000 years ago.'

****

Please read the author's thoughts.