Chương 24: Preparing

The next morning, Jack was standing deep underground. His brass-headed cane was in his hand, supporting his weight. A single tallow candle was on a nearby stone ledge, casting a flickering, pale light over the floor. On the stone floor, the bodies of the two bandit mages were resting. Bones had dragged them down here the night before, exactly as commanded. The Fire Mage's chest was completely crushed from the armored skeleton's heavy strike.

The Wind Mage lay a few feet away, his neck bent at an unnatural angle from Rusty's brutal execution. Jack took a slow, deep breath. He looked down at the two bodies. If he could reanimate them with their magical abilities intact, the entire dynamic of his fief would change. An undead Fire Mage would be the ultimate industrial tool. It could power the greenhouse furnace endlessly without requiring a single lump of coal. It could provide extreme heat for Barnaby's forge, allowing the blacksmith to work pure steel.

In combat, it would be a artillery piece that never felt fear or hesitation. A Wind Mage would be just as valuable, capable of deflecting arrows from the walls or clearing snowdrifts in seconds.

"You are both Grey Cores," Jack whispered to the quiet bodies.

"I am a Grey Core. We are equals in tier." He remembered his disastrous attempt to animate the Iron Core Fire Mage. The residual power of a higher tier had violently rejected his death mana, nearly shattering his own soul. But these two were different. They were low-tier. Weak. Their cores were completely drained of elemental mana before they died. According to the fragmented memories Jack had inherited from the original John Frost-Grip, this should work.

A necromancer could animate the dead of an equal or lower tier. Jack closed his eyes. He reached into the swirling pool of energy in his chest. He pushed two steady streams of a grey vapor down his arms, directing the death mana toward the two bodies on the floor. The mist washed over the corpses. It sank into their skin, reaching for their bones and the dormant, empty cores in their chests. Jack waited for the familiar, sharp tug on his mind. He waited for the grey threads to anchor into his soul.

Nothing happened. There was no violent explosion. There was no spiritual backlash like the one that had thrown him across the room the other day. Instead, there was just an absolute, empty nothingness. The death mana washed over the bodies and simply slipped away, like water pouring over a smooth glass surface. It refused to anchor. Jack opened his eyes, frowning deeply. He tried again, pushing a massive, concentrated surge of mana directly into the Fire Mage's skull. The result was the exactly same.

The energy dissipated harmlessly into the cold air.

"Why?" Jack muttered, lowering his hands. His brow was furrowed in deep frustration. He leaned heavily on his cane. The logic was broken. If the tier restriction was the only rule, these two should be standing right now. Was there another condition? Did the bodies need to be stripped to the bare bone first? No, the bodies of other mages were safely preserved. Or was there a deeper, fundamental law governing uncommon magic that the original Jack simply didn't know?

The original John Frost-Grip was a sickly, sheltered boy. He had a core, but he had never actually fought a real battle, and he had certainly never killed an enemy mage to practice on. His memories were mostly theoretical, gathered from the rambling stories of his dying father and whatever basic texts he had read as a child.

"He didn't know everything," Jack realized, a heavy sigh escaping his lips.

"His memories are incomplete. Elemental magic is straightforward, but uncommon magic... it clearly has hidden restrictions." Jack looked at the two bodies one last time. Without the ability to animate them, they were useless to him.

"Bones," Jack commanded mentally, waking the giant skeleton who was standing dormant in the shadows.

"Take these two bodies deep into the old, collapsed tunnels. Bury them under the rubble. Leave their clothes and whatever coin they have, but bury the meat." The giant skeleton stepped forward, grabbing the two bodies by their collars and dragging them away into the darkness. Jack turned around and began the slow climb up the stairs. If the inherited memories were flawed, he needed to find the real rules. He needed information.

Ten minutes later, Jack was standing in front of the doors of the castle library on the second floor. He turned to Karen, who had followed him up the stairs with a fresh cup of hot water.

"I am going to be in here for a long time, Karen," Jack said, his tone incredibly serious.

"Do not let anyone disturb me. Only knock if the castle is literally on fire."

"Understood, Lord Jack," Karen said, bowing her head respectfully. Jack pushed the doors open and stepped inside. The library was massive, and it was a complete disaster. Tall wooden bookshelves lined the walls, stretching up to the vaulted ceiling. Many of the shelves were sagging under the weight of heavy tomes. Cobwebs were thick in the corners, and a thick layer of dust was over the large wooden reading table in the center of the room.

Jack walked over to the table, using his sleeve to wipe away a large circle of dust. He set his tallow candle down. For the next four days, Jack practically lived in the library. He pulled books from the shelves, stacking them high on the table. He read through tomes on history, geography, and magical theory. He read until his eyes burned and the words began to blur on the yellowed parchment. He learned a great deal about the world he was now living in.

The world was vast, divided into three known, massive continents. The continent they were currently on was called Bhawan. It was the domain of humanity, ruled by a sprawling, powerful human empire and overseen by the absolute religious authority of the Holy Church. Across the great eastern ocean lay the second continent, Atera. According to the texts, Atera was a wild, untamed land ruled by partial-humans, beast-kin, and other strange species that the human empire regularly traded with but deeply distrusted.

The third continent, located far to the south, was entirely unnamed in the books. It was simply referred to as the Uninhabitable Land. The texts claimed the air there was toxic, the earth was scorched, and the creatures that lived there were nightmare horrors. No human expedition had ever returned from its shores. Jack pushed a geography book aside and pulled a thick, blue-bound tome on magical theory toward him. Magic, the book explained, was divided into two distinct categories.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The first was Elemental Magic. This was the most common form of power. It encompassed Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning, Ice, and Metal manipulation. These mages controlled the physical world around them. They were the soldiers, the builders, and the destroyers of the empire. The second category was Uncommon Magic. This was incredibly rare and highly regulated.

It encompassed esoteric abilities like Mind Magic, which could alter memories or compel truth; Transformation Magic, which altered physical forms; Spatial Magic, which dealt with shortening distances and creating storage voids; Blood Magic; and finally, Necromancy, the Grey Arts. Jack frantically flipped through the pages of the blue tome, searching for the chapter on the Grey Arts. He found the index. He traced his finger down the list. The Grey Arts... Page 412. Jack quickly turned the pages.

He found the section, but as his eyes scanned the text, his frustration rapidly grew. The book had dedicated hundreds of pages to the exact temperature variations required for Fire Magic and the complex fluid dynamics of Water manipulation. It offered step-by-step guides for young mages to shape their elements. But the section on Necromancy and the other uncommon magic was nothing more than two vague, dismissive paragraphs.

It offered absolutely no practical mechanics, no rules on core restrictions, and no instructions on reanimation. It merely described the Grey Arts as a "stagnant, inherently dangerous manipulation of residual life force best left untouched by civilized hands." Jack's jaw tightened. He grabbed another book on magical theory. He checked the index, found the section on Necromancy, and flipped to the page. It was the exact same story. He spent the next hour pulling every single book related to magic off the shelves.

He checked every single one. Without fail, every book provided exhausting detail on common magic, while the uncommon arts were reduced to vague philosophical warnings, historical condemnations, and fearful rumors. There was zero actual application or theory.

"The Church," Jack whispered, dropping a heavy book onto the table. A cloud of dust puffed into the air. It made perfect sense. When the Holy Church launched their crusade against the Frost-Grip family centuries ago, they didn't just strip them of their wealth and banish them to the north. They controlled the narrative. They had ensured that every text, manual, and academic guide published in the empire deliberately omitted the truths of the Grey Arts.

They wanted the magic to be seen as an unlearnable, vague evil, ensuring the knowledge would simply die out completely. Jack leaned back in his chair, rubbing his tired eyes. He was completely on his own. Whatever hidden rules governed the animation of magical corpses, whatever secrets lay beyond the Grey Core, he would have to discover them through blind trial and error. But trial and error took time. And time was a luxury the Frost-Grip fief did not have. Two weeks passed.

The harsh winter weather held the valley in an icy grip, but inside the castle walls, the atmosphere was a hive of frantic, determined activity. Jack was standing on the stone balcony overlooking the courtyard. The deep snow from the previous storms was cleared into neat, high mounds along the walls. The path to the armory and the greenhouse was completely clear. Down in the courtyard, Giles was barking orders to a group of twenty militiamen. They were not carrying swords or bows today.

They were holding wooden shovels and iron pickaxes.

"Dig it deeper!" Giles shouted, pointing at a large, rectangular pit being excavated just inside the main gates.

"If a beast hits that trench, I want its legs broken before it can even think about climbing out! Keep digging!" The threat of the bandits was over, but a much older, much more reliable threat was on the horizon. In roughly two months, the deepest part of the winter would break. But the slight warming of the air did not bring relief to the northern border. It brought the Beast Tide.

As the snows in the high mountains began to melt, thousands of starving, desperate predators—dire wolves, mountain cats, and things far worse—would descend into the valleys looking for food. Every year, the Beast Tide claimed lives. But this year, the village was uniquely vulnerable. The bandits had splintered the main gates, and the village had entirely relocated into the castle walls, putting all the human prey in one concentrated location. Jack watched the men dig. He knew his skeletons were powerful.

Rusty, Dusty, and Bones were formidable frontline fighters. His Night Shift could do heavy labor. But twenty-one skeletons could not hold off a massive, swarming tide of hundreds of starving beasts. He couldn't rely on his magic alone. Jack turned away from the balcony and hobbled down the stairs. He made his way across the busy courtyard, heading straight for the low stone building of the blacksmith's forge near the armory. Barnaby was inside, striking a glowing piece of iron on his anvil.

The forge was roaring, fueled by the steady supply of coal Jack's skeletons continued to mine every night.

"Lord Jack," Barnaby said, lowering his hammer as Jack entered the shop.

"The men are working hard on the pits outside. But a pit won't stop a dire wolf from jumping the barricades if they get a running start."

"I know," Jack said. He pulled a fresh roll of parchment from his coat and unrolled it on Barnaby's workbench.

"Which is why we are not going to let them get a running start." Barnaby walked over and looked at the charcoal drawings. The first drawing was simple. It depicted a small, twisted piece of iron with four sharp points. No matter how the object was thrown or dropped on the ground, one sharp point was always facing straight up.

"What is this?" Barnaby asked, tracing the shape.

"A caltrop," Jack explained.

"It is a crowd-control weapon. When the Beast Tide approaches, we will scatter hundreds of these in the deep snow outside the gates. When the beasts charge, they won't see them until they step on them. The iron spikes will drive directly into their paws. A crippled beast cannot jump, and a bleeding beast will be torn apart by the starving pack behind it." Barnaby's eyes widened. He looked at the simple, brutal design. It required no complicated forging, just short lengths of scrap iron twisted and sharpened.

"It's brilliant, My Lord," Barnaby muttered.

"It's entirely without honor, but it is brilliant. We can forge hundreds of these a week with the scrap metal we have."

"Honor does not keep us warm, Barnaby," Jack laughed dryly. He tapped the second drawing on the parchment.

"Now, look at this. This requires precision." Barnaby squinted at the second sketch. It looked like a crossbow, but the scale was massive. It was mounted on a heavy, swiveling wooden base. Instead of a standard flexible bow prod made of wood, the design featured two rigid wooden arms inserted into thick, tightly twisted bundles of animal sinew and rope.

"A heavy wall-bow," Barnaby noted.

"But why the twisted ropes in the center?"

"It is called a torsion ballista," Jack explained, drawing on his modern knowledge of ancient siege engines.

"Standard wood snaps if you make a bow this large and try to draw it back. But twisted rope stores immense energy. When the arms are pulled back by a crank, the rope twists tighter. When you release it, the unwinding rope snaps the arms forward with enough force to drive a iron bolt straight through three beasts at once." Barnaby ran his hand over his thick beard. He was a master of metal, but he could see the engineering logic in the design.

"I can forge the iron cranks, the trigger mechanism, and the heavy bolts," Barnaby said, pointing at the specific parts.

"But the wooden frame and the torsion bundles... that is a carpenter's job. Giles will need thick, seasoned wood to handle that kind of pressure without snapping."

"I will speak with Giles immediately," Jack said, rolling the parchment back up.

"I want three of these mounted on the front walls before the tide arrives." The next week was a blur of intense labor. Jack spent his days coordinating the logistics between Barnaby's forge and Giles's carpentry crew. The castle courtyard sounded like a massive shipyard. The rhythmic striking of hammers, the rasp of saws cutting through thick oak, and the constant roar of the forge filled the air from dawn until dusk. The villagers worked with a frantic, eager energy.

They were being paid well in hot food and coal, and for the first time in their lives, they felt like they were actually building a defense rather than just hiding and hoping for the best. Inside the greenhouse, the progress was incredibly satisfying. The tiny green shoots had grown into sturdy, leafy plants. The humid, warm air inside the glass building was a perfect sanctuary. Karen spent hours every day tending to the crops, pulling tiny weeds and watering the soil with melted snow.

The promise of fresh cabbage and peas was keeping morale higher than it had been in years. But engineering real weapons took time. By the end of the second week, the first ballista was only half-finished. Giles and his men had successfully built the heavy, swiveling wooden base and the long firing trough, but setting the torsion bundles was proving to be a nightmare. The animal sinew and ropes had to be twisted to the exact same tension on both sides, or the weapon would fire wildly off target or tear itself apart.

Jack stood on the castle wall, watching Giles and three men struggling to turn the iron tightening cranks Barnaby had forged. The wooden arms of the ballista trembled under the immense pressure of the twisted ropes.

"Hold it there!" Giles shouted, his face red with exertion as he locked the iron gear into place. He wiped sweat from his forehead, looking at Jack.

"The tension is massive, Lord Jack. If this holds, it will shoot a bolt straight through a brick wall."

"We will test fire it tomorrow, then," Jack said, giving an approving nod.

"You and your men have done excellent work. Make sure the caltrops are being sorted into barrels near the gates." Jack turned away from the weapon and looked out over the vast, snow-covered valley. He hadn't unlocked the deep secrets of his uncommon magic. He still didn't know why he couldn't raise the enemy mages, and the missing pages in the library meant he probably wouldn't find out any time soon.

But as Jack leaned on his cane and felt the steady, reliable hum of the Grey Core in his chest, he accepted his reality. He didn't need to be an all-powerful god of death to survive. Human ingenuity, modern pragmatism, and the unyielding muscle of his skeletal workers were a potent combination.