"Mastering Spirituality"

After investing an immense amount of energy and patience, Alex eventually succeeded in mastering Spirituality. Upon entering the cemetery and checking his character stats, he observed that 'Spirituality LV1' was included in the skillset. He was overjoyed yet cautiously exited, inhaling deeply before attempting spiritualism for the first time.

As a faint grey-white light began to coalesce in his palm, he remained focused and soon enough a red ring formed within. Chanting softly under his breath, this mini red circle enlarged itself until it became a vortex with a white skeletal arm bursting out from the centre!

Alex was ecstatic witnessing the emergence of the skeleton soldiers from a mystic circle with striking light and shadow special effects. The skeletal warriors were extremely tall, sporting bones that were strong similar to steel and adorned in leather helmets with short swords and shields on their backs. They were summoned to reality by Alex from the graveyard, which sent him into a frenzied state of joy.

As he reached out to touch one of them, he was surprised as they weren't as foul-smelling like other undead creatures. The soul fire in their eye sockets exposed a hint of malice, but it quickly dissipated when confronted by Alex's power, causing them to kneel down humbly in submission.

Alex was disappointed that the room was too small to witness how strong the skeleton soldiers were, so he utilized Spirituality to return them to the cemetery. With his first successful use of this magic, Alex began mastering it in order to be prepared for any future sudden situations that might arise and could perform spell casts swiftly.

Alex, although feeling a bit weary the next morning, was still filled with enthusiasm. He had stayed up all night practising his spiritualism and testing how many spells he could use in one go with his own magical power and how long it would take to recover when used up.

The findings of the inspection were not as good as anticipated. Being an apprentice necromancer, Alex was able to bring forth twelve skeleton soldiers consecutively before possessing no more magical power, which then took him three hours to re-energise himself.

Through constant practice, Alex was positive that he would be able to level up [Spirituality], thereby reducing magic consumption and achieving better results. This being said, after just one night of training, Alex's Soulism had been boosted to [LV2], giving him a higher speed in casting and comparatively consuming less magic energy.

Alex was not content with the sluggishness of his magic recovery; it took him three hours to regenerate his magical strength which seriously affected his ability to fight continuously. This was caused by his lack of a meditative practice.

Meditation is essential for any mage, if casting a spell is like making a move then meditation is akin to training inner strength. Enhancing mental power leads to increased storage capacity in the body and quicker recuperation times for magical energy.

It's also regrettable that Alex doesn't have access to any meditation techniques he can nourish and cultivate, plus they are usually even more precious than magical talents and generally hard to come across outside of master-disciple connections or official magic academies.

It explains why when he met Will Dr Fauci, Alex did not bring up anything related to meditation due mainly because he didn't possess one himself. It looks like it is not easy to be a good wild mage. It doesn't matter what you want; Alex shook his head and sighed. Fortunately, he still has hope; he should be able to obtain the meditation method by building a magic guild in the cemetery.

However, the cost of building a magic guild is not low and it requires 2,000 psionic energy. If he recruits skeleton soldiers, he can already recruit 400, which is equivalent to the strength of a battalion. The last time Alex absorbed the wind blade bracelet, except for opening the cemetery, he only had 25 psionic energy.

"Forget it, let's focus on the moment!" Alex returned to the cemetery and used the remaining 20 psionic powers in one go, recruiting a total of five skeleton soldiers. This makes Alex's current combat effectiveness far beyond that of ordinary junior necromancer apprentices.

In contrast to other necromancers, Alex was not concerned about the strength of the skeleton soldiers he summoned, as they came from a cemetery and were in a good condition. He thought of something different with the undead creatures in that graveyard serving as his standing army; he wanted to equip them better than others.

In this day and age, when even knights have magical rifles at their disposal, it's almost comical to see skeleton soldiers still hefting around short swords and shields.

Alex's plan was to take a chance and replace the short swords and shields of skeleton soldiers with enchanted rifles in order to double their combat effectiveness. His idea, however, required considerable preparation - namely gathering enough resources to purchase the arms needed. Additionally, there was uncertainty as to how these weapons would be equipped on the skeleton soldiers and returned to their cemetery.

Alex immediately put his plan into action and used Spirituality to summon a skeleton soldier from the cemetery. He wanted to do an experiment; he began by trying to take off the skeleton soldier's leather Armor, but it was tightly-worn and rusted buckles made it more difficult. Then he attempted to remove its round shield, and the short sword too, which was held firmly in its grasp. Finally, Alex chose a random book from his table and stuffed it into the leather armour before proceeding with anti-spiritualism that sent it back to the cemetery.

After Alex saw the skeletal soldiers vanish, the circular shield that had been left behind began to erode away at an observable rate. Ecstatic upon entering the graveyard and noticing his newly-summoned skeleton soldier still there, he realized that he could bring in weapons if he ever wanted to change them up in future. This gave him a brilliant idea; could this massive cemetery be turned into his own storage space?

The experiment was successful - much to his delight - and soon enough, Alex dedicated time to hone his ability of [Spirituality]. However, what he noticed was that although he could manage it within the cemetery walls itself, beyond those limits he felt no traces of void energy nor death realm which made him unable to randomly call forth undead creatures like other necromancers did with their spiritualism.

Alex originally wanted to try to summon randomly and compare the combat effectiveness of the skeleton soldiers in the cemetery. Since he couldn't do it, he could only give up.

…

In a flash, it was already the evening. Alex had been utilizing his Spirituality non-stop throughout the day, draining his magical powers and eventually resting in the cemetery's town hall. He realized that lying down when his magical energy was depleted and his spirit entering into the cemetery was basically like sleeping. While staying in the town hall, it also provided him with some sort of meditation effect which allowed him to recover from fatigue quicker; two hours were enough for him to return fully energized.

This made up for Alex's lack of meditation method, thus allowing him to gain proficiency in Spirituality faster; he jumped up a level after more than ten hours.

But just as he reached LV3 in Spirituality, he instantly felt an agonizing sting on his brain, difficulty breathing and muscle spasms which made it unbearable for him; it took roughly seven or eight minutes before he could get rid of these discomforts. He felt wet under his nose, his ears were buzzing, and it was a little itchy. He wiped the blood dripping from his nose and ears with his hands.