"The Fearless Ghoul and the Clever Necromancer"

Alex had taken everything that the thief had on him out of his pockets and was examining them with curiosity. The robber, who was in a state of fear, seemed anxious about what kind of payment Alex would offer yet he could not bring himself to inquire further and instead just silently stayed put while his eyes kept glancing toward Alex's neck and chest which were hidden behind the surface, radiating an avaricious and blood-thirsty madness. After about ten minutes or so, the carriage pulled over; Alex returned the items back into their rightful place without discovering anything special from them apart from lacking any psychic energy.

Alex, however, was unfazed. He had managed to siphon off all the psionic energy contained in the magical object he had bought from the old one-eyed man at the cemetery. This combined with his own existing [64] psionic energies made him quite pleased. With a single thought, he immediately recruited three more skeleton soldiers from the cemetery to bring his total number of skeletons up to eight.

The thief, now out of their carriage and on foot, felt something wrong in this area as they had not noticed it while they were inside their transport vehicle. This road seemed deserted compared to what they were used to seeing and it only allowed room for one carriage wide with two-story buildings on both sides.

In an instant, he jumped into action with his dagger firmly clenched in hand as soon as he detected danger heading towards Alex's way.

Alex acted quickly and plotted against the thief, using spiritualism twice and constructing a magic circle, which only took him 1.5 seconds. Then, in less than 15 seconds, he managed to summon eight skeleton soldiers from the cemetery to protect himself from the thief. He shouted some advice to keep his distance for safety reasons.

The thief, however, was not scared when he witnessed the skeleton soldiers. On the contrary, he scoffed and bellowed: "Are you kidding me? Don't you know that higher undead creatures have dominance over lower undead? I am coming for you!" As he spoke, his form started changing; his skin cracked and enlarged, bursting out of his armour. In place of a human was a two-meters-tall grey creature with sharp teeth. Its ape-like long arms exerted great force on both sides as three bone spurs appeared on each hand - more than one foot in length - forming two formidable weapons to attack with.

   Alex quickly identified the monster that had revealed itself. The Magician Association had a book of illustrations which depicted a second-level undead creature, one with combat potential far beyond that of regular skeleton soldiers. Ghouls are classified as zombies, which are variants of the zombie species, and those with toughened skin and bolstered protection were dubbed hard-skinned ghouls -they belonged to the second-tier elite forces.

Unfortunately for this ghoul, it failed to consider its current situation as it was not confronting standard skeleton soldiers. After crashing into two skeleton soldiers, it leapt over the Shield Striker Skeleton Soldier's head in a single bound before plunging its dagger in fiercely.

   With a loud 'click', the thick-skinned ghoul just managed to parry the dagger using its bony claws. Despite the effort, one of its claws was shattered from the force of impact. Not giving it any opportunity to rest, other skeleton soldiers stormed forward, howling, and roaring in disarray as they soon pinned him down and presented it before Alex.

Alex watched the wretched ghoul with curiosity, noting that one of his arms was chopped off and multiple marks from a dagger were visible on his body. Discoloured pus and blood oozed out, distinct from other undead. He seemed quite intelligent, evidenced by his random thoughts and fearlessness towards death, which made Alex even more intrigued. "Great necromancer, I am a servant to Cristiano - please seek mercy for me from my master! I'm certain he will pay any ransom asked." Despairingly the ghoul begged for compassion as he faced Alex.

Alex recalled the name of 'Cristiano' he had seen in the Wizards Association's records. This senior necromancer apprentice who lived in Rhine City, neighbouring PARSLOV City was known to have a powerful personality and was not a weakling by any means. It was rumoured that they had a family legacy associated with them as well. He did not anticipate that this wise ghoul would be linked to him.

"It certainly has been lively around PARSLOV lately," Alex thought with emotion yet no pause to his actions whatsoever. During the battle just now, an auto-prompt selecting system had kicked in at the cemetery reminding him of what rewards he could expect after killing this ghoul.

The cunning creature begged for mercy while shaking violently and emitting a crazed hoarse roar all at once.

Alex suddenly became watchful when he observed the ghoul and noticed a brilliant red light sparkling between its eyebrows. Suddenly, in the next instant, the red light burst forth with immense force, causing a powerful shock wave which made the nearby skeleton soldiers go back. The ghoul freed itself from Alex's grip and quickly leapt on him again.

  "Bloodthirsty fury!"

  Quite a few elite undead creatures have an ability to instantly unleash insane bloodlust; their strength and speed goes up drastically, but they lose their sanity and become mad beings that cannot differentiate between friend or foe.

  The ghoul's speed was such that the skeleton soldiers, who had just retreated, had no opportunity to prevent its advance. With an almighty thud, the bone claws pierced directly through the sternum of one of these soldiers and sent them flying off their feet. Despite their size, they were made up of neither flesh nor blood and as a result were too light to withstand being thrown back by a ghoul as if hit by a small truck.

Enraged and overcome with fury, it charged forward at Alex with its claws raised ready to strike. In an instant the deadly claws reached his chest but what it lacked in mental capacity was more than compensated for by its natural fighting instinct which told him he would triumph against this necromancer apprentice under any circumstance.

Alex remained motionless, feeling a bit anxious in the face of life and death. He could perceive the acrid stench that came from the ghoul's mouth as it inched closer to him. All of a sudden, his staff flew up - with its gem encrusted head shining brightly and creating a blue-grey Dharma Ring. Immediately after, his staff made numerous "bang bang bang" motions which caused several two-meter-long spikes to burst out of the ground beneath the monster. The sharp projectiles came at an unbelievable speed, covering an area of two meters by two meters; there was no way for the ghoul to avoid them. In no time at all, four points - its left shoulder, ribcage, chest, and leg - were pierced by those spikes one after another.

  The ghoul let out a cry of pain as its eyes narrowed like needles. Even though it was insanely bloodthirsty, it instinctively felt fear. It had never expected Alex's [Bone Spur Technique] to be so effective; under normal circumstances, the bone spurs of an average necromancer apprentice striking a hard-skinned ghoul would only cause a superficial wound and not penetrate deeply. To its surprise, Alex had polished his stone spikes to degrees far beyond the usual ones that could be immediately summoned and made them several times sharper than before.

Alex was relieved after the ghoul struck the ground with a "pop", spurting out black pus and blood as its hands and feet twitched twice, indicating it could no longer move. He had never been in a life-and-death battle before and surprisingly found that he had some talent in fighting.

His spirit during the fight remained calm while using magic, even faster than when training regularly. His mind received an alert from the cemetery again: 'Victory in the battle, found a hard-skinned ghoul in a dying state, whether to capture...' With this strike, power gathered from his enemy converted into psionic energy which returned to surround him at the cemetery.

  Alex let out a 'huh', but he did not expect that he had suffered such a serious injury. This ghoul was not completely dead, but he was secretly happy and quickly chose to capture it.

 After the 'ding' sound, a spinning circle appeared beneath the prone ghoul and was shortly enveloped in a milky white light. Upon the light's disappearance, the healed ghoul manifested itself inside an old, ruined building—previously it had been used to fabricate zombies—within the cemetery. Furthermore, Alex noticed that upon his capture of the ghoul, twenty psionic powers had automatically been deducted as payment for its healing.

When Alex witnessed that it had regained consciousness and was in good health, he waved in greeting at the driver whose face displayed his fearfulness.

This coachman was assigned to him by the GOLDERT family. Knowing that he was serving a necromancer, he had been mentally prepared for it, but the scene just now, the low roar, the terrifying monster, and the **** battle, were tearing at this man.

Coachman's nerves. Fortunately, the battle ended quickly, he was not so frightened that he lost his mind, and still stood beside the carriage trembling, otherwise Alex would have to drive the carriage home by himself.

 Alex rode in a carriage, unwillingly heading back home. He requested the driver to take him around the city. Upon entering the cemetery, he was met with only his thoughts for company until he laid his eyes on a bewildered lone ghoul. Alex then spent twenty psionic energy points to alter this creature's form and make it conform to the usual standard of cemetery inhabitants.

Consequently, a two-meter-tall intimidating figure came out of it; its skin had become darker while muscles had grown more prominent and bone spurs sprouted from its shoulders, elbows, and knees - even bony claws were now longer, sharper, and blacker than before. To top it all off, instead of human eyes were two Alex lights that exuded an ominous chillness as they shone brightly.

Alex was incredibly pleased with the outcome and power of the ghouls that were transformed by the cemetery. According to their data, skeleton soldiers held a rating of 4.5 in terms of overall combat power, while hard-skinned ghouls had 9.5! This may not look like much on paper, but it is important to remember that real battles are not decided by numbers.

In fact, one hard-skinned ghoul could easily defeat four or five skeleton soldiers in a fight; meaning its combat power would be considered leader-worthy among senior apprentice knights!