Pride of a Leader(PD inc. 6)
Before Samuel's eyes was a vast landscape of a picturesque valley, there were a few small hills interspersed with grassy meadows, and the rest was occupied by great plains, all surrounded by a large forest stretching all the way to the horizon.
The night time only added to the fairy tale atmosphere, making the place seem as if taken out of a painting, the only thing missing to make the view truly perfect were the animals in their natural habitat. And the silence, an unsettling and penetrating silence which made the view seemed strange.
"So the area around the entrance to the dungeon is devoid of trees, but the further you go down, the more trees grow in the area"
"It gets more and more interesting." thought Samuel after calming his early emotions. He had to do this to be prepared for any eventuality that might occur outside.
"The only question that remains is whether this is a natural in the creation of the dungeon, or maybe someone was here before me and specifically cut down trees to make it easier to find this place,"
"It's irrelevant for now because whatever the answer is one thing is certain I need to get out of here quickly,"
"I can think about such things when I find a safe place to hide."
Without waiting any longer, the "young" Half Lich, together with his skeleton company of, ruthlessly devoted servants, headed towards the nearest forest, where he would be able to hide better from the sight of all unexpected threats both human and animal.
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"Fuck, how glad I am that as undead I can see very well in the dark, just as well as in the daytime. I can just imagine what a pain in the ass it would be if I had to do without it, having to give orders to brainless skeletons to move", thought Samuel as he pushed his way through the dense coniferous forest in the dark, trying at the same time to preserve at least the remnants of the battle formation he had set up at the beginning
"The only question now is whether my vision is since I am an undead Half-Lich, or because I have a System?"
"So many questions and so few answers"
"..."
"The System" Called his partner in thought Samuel.
...
"Eh...Never mind I have better things to do, like thinking about such as how to get out of this forest and where the nearest human settlement is".
"I already miss good old civilization and my experiments."
A good few minutes of continuous walking among the trees had passed when the skeleton team spotted their first living animal since leaving the dungeon.
"That's interesting," Samuel said as he began to look at the old wolf with the eyes of the shieldman he had established at the head of the makeshift formation protecting himself inside.
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'Mana Link', as Samuel called this skill, was an ability that allowed him to 'see' and 'feel' the same as the object on which the ability was used.
Because the skeletons had the same structure as he did (consisting only of bones) and were just as 'alive', the sight of their 'eyes' was no different from how the necromancer saw it, feeling the world around him just as gloomily as before.
Even more thanks to this simple ability, Samuel now had an almost 360-degree vision when he used it on multiple skeletons at once. But the ability had one major drawback when the necromancer used it on multiple targets at the same time the mana consumption outweighed its regeneration, which made it simply unprofitable under normal circumstances.
"I wonder how it would work if I were a living necromancer or vice versa, a controlled being would be alive?" wondered Samuel, coming up with a new conundrum during a "short" trek through the forest.
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Looking at the animal he encountered, to say it was different from those he was used to would be an understatement.
The 'wolf' was huge, the size of a warhorse on his former planet, it had a long, unnaturally elongated mouth filled with two rows of fangs that seemed as sharp as if they could easily cut through metal. Its long claws seemed just as sharp, if not more so, making them equally dangerous. And the grey thick fur with which he was surrounded entirely except for his eyes did not seem easy to pierce, and certainly not for the blunt swords at his army's disposal.
His 'eyes' glowed red filled with an undisguised emotion that was well known to Samuel - hatred.
The wolf, despite what one would expect from an animal of such size, did not immediately attack the unsuspecting skeletons, confident of his victory, but stared menacingly at the small army before him, ready for the slightest threat from Samuel and his servants.
Normally Samuel wouldn't even consider fighting such a monster, because he knew perfectly well that although the numerical advantage was on his side, in this case, it didn't matter. For the great monstrosity would have destroyed his army along with him like a house of cards.
Fortunately, one of the reasons the wolf didn't attack was because it was wounded, horribly wounded.
"Old Alpha," thought Samuel looking at the wounded wolf through the eyes of his servant "I guess I'm lucky to have met him . Because looking at his fresh wounds and still bleeding missing eye, the fight for the leadership of the pack was not that long ago".
"Unfortunately that means one more thing, the pack is probably not far away, I have to hurry because if they find me I have no chance of surviving. I don't even know if I can handle one right now."
Not wanting to wait for a better opportunity to choose and to reduce his chances of dying in a future fight with a wounded wolf, Samuel finally decided to pick the magic that would allow him to defeat his current enemy.
"I choose..." Said the Half Lich to the SYSTEM after some thought.
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ICE MAGIC
It allows the ice to be shaped as the caster wishes, and the only limit to its use is the amount of mana and the caster's imagination.
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"..."
"And that's all?" thought Samuel, waiting for some System notification.
But he received none.
"Although maybe that's even better?" he said, looking at the only message he had received and starting to think about advantages.
"I'm only limited by my imagination, better than just skill selection and a stupid cooldown."
"This way I have so much to test later and maybe even the other displayed skills in the SYSTEM have more to them than at first glance."
"This needs to be tested, and what better way to learn than with practice, fortunately, I have a living test subject," He thought looking at the wolf and looking forward to future experiments.
With his new magic limited only by his imagination, all his servants around him, and a wounded opponent almost on the verge of death, Samuel was ready for his first real fight, now in a real way.
Samuel decided to start the fight lightly, testing his opponent's reactions by casting his first ice magic.
"ICE BOLT," thought Samuel imagining a flying projectile released from his bony hand, which he directed into a small gap between the formation of skeletons in front of him, aiming at the location of the wounded monster.
The necromancer was not disappointed in his expectations, for the wolf immediately leaped from its position and then, without a moment's pause, charged at Samuel, seeing that it posed an immediate threat to him.
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Mana : 985/1000
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"Only 15 mana per projectile," he thought, noting his status out of the corner of his 'eye' immediately after casting the spell,. At the same time, he did not turn his attention away from the incoming threat.
The wolf dodged the projectile with ease and attacked the shield formation while avoiding the arrows fired by the archers coming toward him. He avoided most of them, but Samuel had anticipated this too so he ordered the archers to fire when the monster least expected. That is why one managed to hit the wolf in the healing wound, which looked as if it had been attacked by claws, opening it completely.
As if not reacting to the pain, the monster moved again on the formation, trying to break through it. It tore apart the nearest shieldman with an attack of its claws as if it were made of paper. The only thing that stopped it from reaching Samuel, the only caster in the group, was an attack with spears and axes from behind the second row of shields.
"Ice Lance," He thought when the enemy was close to him.
"..."
"Got it!" thought Samuel as he saw one spear pierce the side of the huge wolf as it easily dodged the spell he had cast earlier.
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Mana : 935/1000
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The wolf, this time feeling the impact, quickly jumped away as if electrocuted and began circling the group around looking for a weak point in the formation, but seemed to go limp.
"Create a Minor Undead x4".
Samuel immediately cast skill to recover the shieldmen lost in the skirmish, then ordered all the skeletons to line up in a square formation, waiting for the wolf's next move.
He did not have to wait long as the wolf attacked the little fragment of the shield wall again and again as if to avenge the wounds he had just received, but when the skeletons were about to counterattack, he quickly returned to his previous position.
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Mana : 735/1000
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"He is clever, too clever for a wolf, it feels like I am fighting a human. He avoids the obvious traps in the formation and now he knows that my magic is his greatest threat."
"I shouldn't underestimate him because I will lose and a third chance at life is unlikely."
"I don't know how long it will take him to bleed out from those two open wounds, but I hope sooner than I run out of mana because then I'll have trouble winning against him with skeletons alone." Samuel contemplated what to do next as the monster dodged the archer's arrows fired from time to time.
"I'd better not try any other new spells for the time being unless I have no other choice. Worst case scenario I can still summon 14 shieldmen which should be enough to drag the fight to the end."