Chương 32: Deer in the Woods

Light erupted over their heads as Paige threw an apple-sized light spirit into the air. The green grass beneath their feet glowed white and the treeline cast an intense shadow away from them. Underneath the circle of intense light on the floor lay the corpse of a deer. Aaron's True Sight told him it was only recently killed, as the muscles were yet to stiffen. It had puncture wounds on its neck as if it had been bitten multiple times.

Aaron walked closer to inspect it, expecting to see evidence of corruption around the wounds, but they were clean. It must have been killed by a normal creature, like a wolf or lion. There were some further wounds on its legs and torso. Something must have chased them off before they could eat it.

"It's time to hold up your end of the bargain," Paige said.

"you said that you need some practice to train your skills. Go ahead" Paige had a severe look on her face, far from the gentleness of the girl he met in the laundry room. But he was convinced by now that it was an act, at least to an extent. He had seen moments of kindness and generosity from her, but out in the Desolated Lands she was focused and precise and who could blame her? Aaron didn't hesitate to pull his tome out from his bag. He didn't want to leave it unattended back at the camp.

Giddeon was sleeping and he had shown no interest in it so far, but he didn't want him snooping. He flipped it open to his Somatomancy page, which read the following: Heart Mastery: Rank Five Bone Mastery: Rank Two Flesh Mastery: Rank Five Animate Corpse: Not learned The skills above were blurry and grey. Presumably they were beyond the reach of a novice Necromancer and were not available to be read yet, let alone learned.

"Look, once Bone, Flesh and Heart Mastery are rank five, I have the option to learn Animate Corpse, but I'll need to increase my potential mana first. Last time I had enough mana to learn a new skill, it was from draining a guard almost to death, but this time I feel closer. With some practice and a bit of luck, I will spirit coalesce the rest of the mana I need." Paige scanned the page as he spoke. Her eyes were so intently focused on the tome, it wasn't obvious if she'd heard him or not.

Most people in the city kept them private, except from their masters. If Giddeon had a tome, it was highly unlikely he would let Paige study it. Perhaps this was the first time she'd had the opportunity to look at one in detail.

"Is there any way to know how much mana you need before you can learn the skill?" She asked.

"Yes," Aaron said. He turned the book to the main class page. New class: Necromancer Rank: Novice Progress to next rank: 1/5 Aaron hadn't looked at this page in a while. The progress bar was new, but he was familiar with it from when he was practising Spirit Healing. As he invested his mana into different talents and skills, it would progress until he advanced to Journeyman at five points invested. There was a shimmering blue bar underneath about three-quarters of the way full.

"This represents my potential mana. I'm still getting to grips with it, but it goes up every time I drain mana remnants or spirit coalesce."

"So you just drain mana out of people and use it to become more powerful?" Paige asked. Aaron never really thought of it this way. She made it sound so powerful, although it probably was if used to its potential. But Aaron wasn't willing to hurt people to progress. He could see how a highly motivated, morally dubious mage could gather power extremely quickly.

"Pretty much," he said. Paige half squinted at him for a moment. Aaron sensed a hint of fear in her gaze, but she quickly returned back to normal.

"I don't have a tome, so I'm not too familiar with how you get stronger. I've always learned through repetition and practice, like learning any other skill."

"Well, it's kind of the same for me, except the tome lets me see how strong each of my abilities is comparatively and it lets me focus my energy into learning specific skills and talents." Paige nodded and made an interested hum.

"You should practise your Bone Mastery. That's the weakest proficiency you need to learn the skill." Aaron agreed.

"Yep, and the deer is perfect. It's bigger than anything I've tried to use it on before, but a bigger challenge means better gains." He turned to the Osteomancy page as he still had to read the runes to cast the spell. Eventually, he hoped to memorise them well enough to cast it without the tome open. He drew the runes in his mind's eye. It was quicker and more fluid, especially now he was more familiar with the newer runes like "Mortis." His cold mana flooded out of his hand and into the deer.

Aaron focused on her bones and joints. They were no more complex than the rat. If anything, its structure was simpler, as the tail was small and didn't play a role in balance and movement. If he focused on stitching his mana through the legs and spine, that should be plenty to stand her up and walk her around the opening. Focusing on the legs first, Aaron embedded some mana through the twelve bones. Their power and density were much greater than in the rat.

The knees of the deer were stronger and larger to handle the increased weight and the impact from the way it leapt as it ran. He reinforced the knees by twisting the spell around them multiple times. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Next, Aaron wrapped his mana in spirals along the spine of the deer, carefully interlocking each individual vertebra. It needed to be strong, yet mobile enough to flex and move as it ran.

He sensed that it played an important role in absorbing impact, preserving kinetic energy and increasing the efficiency between strides. He already had a rudimentary knowledge of bones and the mechanics of movement in humans, but was astounded by how much he intuitively picked up just from a few levels in Bone Mastery.

With all individual components reinforced and optimised, Aaron carefully connected the mana in the spine to each leg, making sure the connection was stable, but still allowing the legs to move freely. The entire spell took a few minutes to put together and Aaron sighed a breath of relief as he released the magical runes in his mind's eye. [Skill proficiency increase] Osteokinesis: Level 4 * [Somatomancy talent increased] Bone Mastery: Rank 3"What happened?" Paige asked, "Why are you smiling like that?"

Aaron looked up from the deer. He hadn't noticed the grin he let out as he read the mental notifications.

"Oh, I don't normally get two separate buffs for casting this spell, but I must have done something different this time to reward my Bone Mastery. I guess it's because I really connected with the natural structure of its skeleton. I could tell which bits needed the most strength and focused my energy there." Paige nodded, but her eyes looked blank.

"So, did you finish the spell?" Aaron looked down at the lifeless deer. He felt his mana flowing through it, but from an outside perspective, it was still lying lifeless on the floor.

"Oh, yes, sorry" Aaron smiled with mild embarrassment.

"The spell is just to infuse its bones with my mana. I have to focus again to actually make it move. This is usually the part which levels up my Bone Mastery." He looked at the deer and focused on the scaffold of mana embedded into its body and willed it to stand. It felt more natural this time, and there was little resistance from the muscle. If it was dead for much longer, rigor mortis would have probably made it much more difficult to do. Aaron might have needed his Manipulate skill as well if that was the case.

Perhaps it was his practice with the guard and skeleton, or maybe there was some carryover from having Manipulate at level five. But he definitely felt the difference in the ease of the spell. To his delight, the deer corpse effortlessly rose to its feet. It took a lot of focus, but it felt weirdly easier than moving the rat. The larger, less delicate joints responded well to brute force, rather than delicate precision. [Somatomancy talent increased] Bone Mastery: Rank 4 A bead of sweat trickled down Aaron's brow.

He was nearly there, if he managed to coordinate the deer's legs and get it walking, surely that would get the last rank he needed. He felt a much greater strain on his mana this time. With the rat, his mana drained when he initially cast the spell, but the skeleton was so small that it took very little to maintain and move it. This time, enormous amounts of mana went into coordinating the skeleton that Aaron felt a real strain on his energy every time he commanded it to move. But he pushed through.

Carefully, the deer lifted its front right foot, bending at the knee and rising from the shoulder. The back left foot rose a short delay after, briefly balancing the deer on two legs. Aaron felt the weight shift forwards and placed the deer's front foot down firmly whilst initiating movement of the other two legs. The deer jerked forwards, but remained firmly balanced. Its head, full of puncture wounds, was stiffly fixed in an upright position the whole time and its mouth was slightly open.

Its eyes were wide, yet eerie and empty, more like a puppet than a living creature. Aaron cycled the movement slowly at first, jerking the animal forwards in clumsy, uneven motions. It took all of his focus and strength to stop the thing from toppling over with each step. Gradually, the movements became more fluid. Aaron started to use the upper spine to bounce the head in time with its movement.

This balanced the motion like a counterweight, allowing each leg to be lifted up with more relative ease and lightened the blow to the floor each time a foot landed. He started to take shorter strides on the right than the left and lean the head inwards, initiating a turn to the right. The deer was now looping around in small circles.

[Somatomancy talent increased] Bone Mastery: Rank 5 With a sigh of relief, Aaron relinquished his control over the mana in the deer's bones and steadied himself by placing a hand on Paige's shoulder. Only then did he realise how heavy he was breathing and how faint his sight had become. The world was spinning around him and the edges of his vision were blackened. After a few concentrated deep breaths, Aaron felt better.

His vision was clear and the vertigo was gone, but he definitely didn't have much grain left in the store. He was half expecting the itchy sensation of being flooded with potential mana and ready to invest into his tome. He was so close, but he didn't get quite enough Spirit Coalescence to push him over the edge. Remembering what he learned with Harrold, the dead pig had mana remnants in it which he had used to fuel his training and learn Curse of Rotting, although he hadn't meant to learn it.

Harrold had asked him to learn Manipulation Mastery, but he was drawn to the curses for the sake of learning how to save his brother. Aaron began to cast Absorb Remnant on the deer corpse, which had now flopped onto the floor and looked very much dead again. There wasn't much mana in the animal, as expected, but a bit of a boost couldn't hurt. And if he was lucky, it would allow him to learn the new ability. He couldn't tell if Paige's face was full of horror or fascination as he drained the mana out of the deer.

He could see the similarities between his spell and the mana hound's drain. That would be enough to terrify most people. Glittery blue particles swirled into a vortex and were sucked into his hand, sending a wave of refreshing cold through Aaron's body. The mana drain was only moderate, but he felt revitalised. The feeling was surreal and just as intoxicating as the first time he performed the spell. He noticed a rank-up in his Corpse Draining part way through the process.

[Necromancer Rank progression increased] Novice: 2/5 * [New skill discovered] Spell Name: Animate Corpse Spell school: Somatomancy Spell class: Necromancer Level: 1 Use: Combination casting Aaron blinked slowly twice and stared blankly into the forest, as if he was looking at the notifications in his mind's eye. He hadn't even intentionally invested his mana this time. But it must have been so clear in his soul that his mana was allocated automatically.

He shuddered at the thought of his soul being so closely aligned to raising the dead. It would have made perfect sense for the liches of legend who rose armies of ghouls to do their bidding. But he still felt like a simple healer. Although deep down he was curious. He wanted to know what it meant to animate corpses. Could they speak and recall their memories? Could he learn to develop his skills further as a healer? The burning question inside him wasn't whether he could create a walking corpse.

It was whether he could learn to restore life to those who had passed on and perform a resurrection spell. He was ready to practise on the deer. Not just to help Paige, but to satisfy his own curiosities.