Chapter 14- New Buddy

Alaster dropped the meat, grabbed his sword, and spun around.

A single Goblin, clearly lost and too hungry to think properly. It was roughly four meters away and had a short spear. It had been attracted by the smell. Alaster did not hesitate to send a Necrotic Bolt flying.

The Goblin may have been too hungry for much thought, but was not too hungry for basic survival instinct. It did not try to dodge and instead just dropped to the ground. The Bolt shot overhead, slamming into a tree behind it and dissolving harmlessly.

Even when faced with an enemy, Alaster took note of this.

As the Goblin struggled to stand, as weak as it was due to starvation. Alaster sent another Bolt at it. His aim had been off. He had been aiming for the chest of the Goblin, but the bolt had instead hit the Goblin's leg.

It screamed as the Necrotic Energy began to eat its flesh. It tried to clutch at the leg in a desperate attempt to stop the spread, but it did nothing. The spread ignored its hands and continued to eat its way up the leg.

Once again, Alaster took note that the Necrotic Energy had not jumped from one limb to another, despite making contact.

The Goblin collapsed in the snow, spasming in pain, and throwing snow everywhere. The snow was only a foot deep in most sections and was loose. It did not take long for the claws of the Goblin to dig through the snow and reach the frozen ground underneath, where it stopped.

Eventually, the spread stopped after eating through roughly the same sized hole as it did the Boar. But the Goblin remained alive, it had lost any strength to scream, let alone fight back. The Bolt had not hit a vital area, which only seemed to prolong the pain.

Alaster calmly walked over, kicking away the sharpened stick it called a spear, further away from where the Goblin had dropped it. The Goblin watched Alaster crouch next to it, too weak to do anything about it. Alaster weighed simply stabbing it in the heart, but in the end, decided he would prefer the EXP for his spell.

Spell Casters could learn physical abilities if they trained enough, but Alaster did not have any currently, and was not in a rush to learn them at the moment. At least not when he still had spells to level up.

In the back of his mind, Alaster did recognize the use in having Skills to use when he ran out of mana for his Spells.

If he was honest with himself, Alaster simply wanted to see if the Necrotic Bolt would have a different effect if it was used up close.

Alaster raised his hand and fired another Bolt, this time only a meter away, and aiming at its face. The Bolt slammed into the head of the Goblin, throwing it back. It was dead before it fell. Alaster forced himself to watch the Bolt eat the flesh of the Goblin's face, revealing its skull. It was a disturbing sight that made his own skin crawl, but he did not turn away.

Once the Bolt stopped, Alaster called up his status once more, focusing on his Level EXP and his Spell EXP. Surprising him, that was all that appeared. It seemed, that if Alaster wished for it, he could summon specific parts of his status.

[Class: Death Mage

Level: 1

EXP: 12%]

[Necrotic Bolt

Level 1: 30%

Fires a single bolt of condensed Necrotic energy

Mana Cost: 10]

'So Necrotic Bolt needs an actual enemy to get EXP.' He had not gained any EXP for the first Bolt that missed.

'But it looks like this single Goblin gave me ten whole percent, while the Boar had only given two. Why? I would rather fight Goblins than Boars.'

But Alaster ignored that and looked at his Mana.

[Mana: 102/130

Mana Regeneration: 1/min]

'Still got plenty.'

Standing up and taking a deep breath, Alaster once again rose his hand towards the Goblin. But this time, cast a different spell.

"Raise Undead."

Had Alaster not raised his hand or spoken, there would have been no indication that Alaster was the one raised the dead Goblin was him. No visible mana stream connected the two. The moment Alaster had cast the spell, the deep sickly green of his mana began to coat the corpse of the Goblin. It was thicker than when he cast the Bolt and seemed to be more of a fog.

It quickly coated the body. Alaster leaned in a little, seeing the remaining flesh of the Goblin begin to bubble. He was confused, but then remembered some of the experiments he had assisted Colius with. Alaster dived away from the Corpse and not a moment later, it exploded. Small bits of flesh fell, but surprisingly, there was no Goblin Blood.

Alaster carefully stood up once more and looked around. It had been a small, localized, explosion. The small chunks of flesh only spread out in a two meter area. However, what truly caught his attention was the Goblin Skeleton that was standing up.

Alaster raised his sword, ready for anything, but the Goblin Skeleton simply stood there, staring at him.

Several tense moments passed, at least for Alaster, but nothing happened. It took him a moment to understand.

"Jump."

The Skeleton jumped, reaching nearly two meters high.

"Goblins certainly can't jump that high."

In fact, Alaster had never really heard of any Goblin jumping. Leaping at their prey, yes, but actually jumping, no.

Alaster quickly took a look at his mana and spell.

[Raise Undead

Level 1: 20%

Raise a small corpse to serve as your servant

Max Minion: 1/1

Mana Cost: 50]

[Mana: 53/130

Mana Regeneration: 1/min]

'Holy shit, I have an Undead Goblin as my minion!'

A bit of Childish joy seeped through the cold visage, Alaster normally displayed.

'Can I see its status?'

[Goblin Skeleton

Health: 55/55

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 12

Constitution: 6]

Alaster immediately noticed several differences.

First, it had no level. So it could not grow stronger. Which did make sense in some way.

Second, it had no health regeneration. Which means it could not heal, which again made sense as it was no longer living. Nor did it have any flesh to heal in the first place.

Third, it had no Mana of any sort, nor the Wisdom or Intelligence stat. It could not use any magic.

Fourth, it was truly pathetic. Its stats were all below a normal fifteen year old, except for its DEX, which was only a little better. From the looks of it, the Goblin had the standard CON of five, only half of a human. And a normal health of fifty.

Alaster was a little disappointed by its Stats, but then again, he did just create a skeleton which could serve and fight for him. Alaster was already thinking of ways to use it.

Nodding to himself, Alaster returned to the fire, and put the meat back over the fire as it had cooled quickly, being dropped in the snow. As it reheated, Alaster noticed that the Skeleton had followed him on its own and was staring blankly ahead.

As Alaster watched the meat over the flames, his first thought for the Skeleton was for it to protect him from any attacks while he dealt the actual damage with his [Necrotic Bolt]. His next thought quickly fell to the shield in his ring, but he discarded that thought. If he struggled to hold it with his twelve STR, the Goblin would not be able to hold it with its eight STR.

However, he did recall the hatchet in his ring. Currently, he did not have a use for it. It was too small for him to use in a fight, but would be a good size for the Goblin Skeleton.

The meat began to sizzle once more, and Alaster ate it while he remembered the level of his [Raise Undead] Spell. Just one cast had raised it a fifth of the way to level two. He would have to use the spell four more times.

'Could I just unsummon the Goblin Skeleton and cast it again?'

He was tempted to try it, but he was already running fairly low on mana and if it did not work, Alaster did not want to lose his only skeleton.

After Alaster finished eating the meat, he was feeling much better. He once again fought with his mana, but noticed that did not take him as long. Accessing his Ring of Holding, Alaster took out the hatchet and Alice's book.

Alaster tossed the hatchet in front of the Skeleton.

'"Use it and protect me." Alaster commanded, not quite sure if it would work. But it did.

The Skeleton bent down and picked up the hatchet before he began to slowly wander around Alaster. Alaster finally studied his new minion. To be perfectly honest, its skull was the only real difference between a Goblin skeleton and a Human one. Its bones were slightly thicker, but it seemed to be more compacted, like something had pushed down on its head and forced the rest of the bones closer.

However, the Goblin Skull was not any prettier without the flesh. It did not have the ears or nose, a Goblin's defining features. It had large holes where its eyes would have been, and a thick and large forehead. Its mouth was full of sharp fangs, almost like it had more teeth than it had room for.

Despite all of that, Alaster was only looking at the ropes of his mana connecting each bone. A single strand could be seen passing between the space of each bone. The strands became denser as they reached the chest of the Skeleton, and then a single thick strand from the chest, up the spine, to the skull, where two condensed orbs of his mana replaced the thing's eyes.

Even in the sun, it was apparent that the eyes glowed slightly.

It made very little sound, only the occasionally light tapping of its bones hitting each other, and the even lighter crunch of snow. Without the flesh of the Goblin to weigh it down, it was much lighter, and therefore impacted the snow left, leaving less of a trail.

Smiling to himself at his progress, Alaster sat himself on the shield next to the warm fire and opened his book. He wanted to know more about his class.

He only hoped that the book had something.