The elders had gone to fight the church’s army. Mircalla said they couldn’t enter the necropolis before night. They waited in the mansion.

Mircalla and Reymond went to Vanilla’s room. They were comforting her who was still in shock because of the news of Shadowperk City’s destruction.

Allen asked her permission to use one of the empty rooms. He invited Eren to carry the coffin he got from Grimfield.

Eren lit the candle inside the room. His complexion was pale.

“Is something troubling you, Eren?” Allen asked.

“I am just feeling complicated about the eldest brother’s death.”

“Why on earth did you feel bad for a person who wanted to take advantage of you?”

“I mean; even if he’d genuinely wanted to use us, he was still loyal to the sect.”

“Are you saying you have loyalty for this sect?”

“I—it’s complicated. By the way, what are you planning with this coffin?”

“I want to forcefully inject spiritual roots for my corpses, so they can cultivate. I’ve read the manual about how to do it. Do you have magical herbs in your arsenal? Let me borrow it.”

Eren’s expression became even paler. However, he lent Allen some magical herbs. “Just promise to me to pay it back.”

Allen opened the coffin and the human skeleton awoke and left it. There was only the rat skeleton inside. He threw the magical herbs needed and closed the coffin again.

Allen chanted something and the gem in the middle of the coffin glowed.

“According to the manual, we need around a full day to forcefully inject someone with spiritual roots. When it has done, they will become mindless. The side effect isn’t affecting my corpse at all. They are controlled by my will, to begin with.

“I need your help to fasten the process by chanting the spell together. That’s what people in charge of this coffin do to fasten the zombified process, right?”

“You learn fast, Allen. This coffin is wonderful, but your true necromancy is even rarer. Imagine someone finds out you can do this.”

Allen truly didn’t understand. From what he saw, this necromancy technique wasn’t that powerful and similar to the zombie soldier that was made from this coffin. There had to be something special about the necromancy he didn’t know.

“Are you planning to snitch me?”

“Of course no,” Eren answered seriously. “I mean you can’t put your guard down. The last time someone put a spell on us secretly.”

“I will keep that in mind. I have a theory that Johan person put the spell on us when we were in Shadowperk City. Sect master had dispelled it all. Now, just help me, so we can finish before the night come, okay?”

Eren nodded. They chanted the spell together.

The night had come. Mircalla called them from outside. Allen opened the door and saw everyone had come with her.”

Reymond’s expression turned into shock when they saw Allen and Eren were dripping in sweat. “A—Allen? I don’t know you swing that way.”

“It’s not what you think, fool.”

“Are you okay, Allen? You both look exhausted.” Mircalla looked at them in worry. He pulled Allen and Eren in and closed the door.

“Allen, did you go berserk when meditating again?”

“Something like that, Master.”

Mircalla sighed and extended her hand. “It’s fine, you can suck my life force. Necropolis is dangerous. However, don’t even try to suck my flesh and blood.”

“I won’t be shy.” Allen held her hand and lifesteal aura flowed into her. He saw her eyes twitched, but she still maintained a straight face. That’s cute, he thought.

Allen retracted his hand and tapped Eren’s shoulder. This time, lifesteal aura flowed into him. He moaned. His face was full of bliss.

“Hey, try holding back. People will get the wrong idea.”

“I can’t help it. It feels so good.”

“Can I do it once again, master? As you can see, Eren needed to replenish his mana too.”

Mircalla only nodded and extended her hand again. When Allen tried to replenish his mana, he still felt pain from converting the soul. However, he did feel good when his mana sea was filled up.

I only focused on the pain of refining soul until now. I just realized replenishing mana felt so good.

“Are you done, Allen? We will travel to a certain mansion near Shadowperk City that’s located in the forest. Under it, there’s a dungeon that leads to the Nether Necropolis. From there, all of you have to follow my instruction. Let’s go. The others are waiting.”

They finally left the mansion. They traveled with a carriage that was pulled by Mircalla’s wolf. Mircalla and Reymond sat at the front. The situation was awkward at the back. Allen was only familiar with Eren. He didn’t close with Ren and Peter, the sect leader’s son.

They followed a small path down the cliff. The valley felt creepy as usual with mist scattered around. However, it felt empty. It seemed the sect leader brought all zombie soldiers.

“I wonder where they fight the church’s army,” Allen muttered.

“The fight takes place in our hometown,” Ren surprisingly replied. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Stargazer?”

Peter nodded. Allen still couldn’t believe it. When they passed the city, the situation was still normal.

Vanilla who sat beside Ren wept. Ren comforted her.

“My condolence, Miss Vanilla, Mr. Shadowstep.” Allen expressed his sympathy as though it didn’t concern him.

“I’ve heard about yourself from Big Brother Reymond, Mr. Vos. Now that you don’t have those scars anymore, we look similar.”

Allen smiled. Now that he had a chance. He used it to get familiar with Ren and Peter. By the time they arrived at the destination, they agreed to call each other with the first name.

Reymond walked to the back and surprised that there was a friendly aura around them. “We’ve arrived kids. I see you have familiarized yourself with each other.”

Allen was the first to come down. He looked at the empty building before him. “It’s the same.”

This building was the place where Mr. Doortrick asked people of Shadowperk City to gather herbs. This building could only be visited on a certain day, or so from what he heard, and extremely dangerous at night.

“Hey, Reymond, isn’t this place full of ghosts?” Allen asked.

“You are right, Mr. Allen. However, those ghosts are controlled by our sect. We are safe on the surface,” Peter replied.

“Let’s go, everyone,” Mircalla called. She led them inside the building.

Allen and the others could see in the dark. However, since he had the system that couldn’t be seen, he summoned it.

Peter stopped walking and surprisingly turned at him. The glasses-wearing man looked precisely at the system that was floating before him.

Allen was taken aback and unsummoned the system. He couldn’t be….

Peter smiled mysteriously at him and summoned something similar, a floating tablet that emitted light.

As everyone kept walking, Peter approached Allen and whispered, “Mr. Allen, I don’t know you are blessed with otherworld knowledge too. There are only two known people who had this blessing, I and a girl called Princess Lily.”

“Otherworld knowledge?” Allen asked.

“Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know. Every person with this knowledge is granted with the system by the Ancient Beast of Enlightenment and Knowledge. I and Lily got knowledge from a planet called Earth.”

“Oh, fine, I won’t pretend anymore. I got knowledge of the same planet as you.”

“If you don’t mind, we can talk about it later after we get out of the necropolis. What say you?”

“I’d like to. I want to know about Earth more.”

“Fantastic.”

“Hey, Allen, Lord Peter, what are you doing? Let’s go,” Eren called.

They smiled at each other and caught up to the others.

Allen had ventured this mansion, but he didn’t know there was a stair to the dungeon. At the end of the stair, they faced an iron door. Mircalla chanted something and the door opened.

“The area beyond the door is the Nether Necropolis. From now on, I hope you all follow my instruction. We will visit the place that was fairly safe for the magus of our realm. However, with your power, I can’t assure your survival,” Mircalla warned.

They trespassed the door. Allen and Eren walked next to each other.

Eren elbowed him lightly. He was excited.

Allen smiled and nodded. He opened his cloak and the rat skeleton fell. Allen had put a shadow sentry spell on it before. So, he ordered it to scout the surrounding.

The rat was covered with shadow and it bolted forward. Yes, his undead rat could use a spell. It had been awakened. With the help of the coffin, the rat had instantly gone to rank 1, which was equal to the early stage of the mana condensation realm.

Even though he didn’t show it, Allen was quite proud of his product. He remembered how difficult it was to upgrade the corpse beast.

……

Several hours ago.

Allen and Eren chanted together. When the gem in the middle of the coffin stopped emitting light, he opened the coffin suspiciously. The rat was still there. The herbs had vanished, but nothing happened to the rat.

“Something is wrong. It’s not working. What went wrong?”

Eren pondered for a while and replied, “I think I know the problem.”

“What’s it?”

“The problem is we are trying to inject spiritual roots into a beast. Remember, magical beasts have a different way of cultivation than us.”

Allen slapped his face. “I was a fool to not thinking that. In my mind runes, I imagined creating spiritual roots. I should have imagined the beast’s core. Lend me your herbs again.”

Eren handed Allen his herbs. They repeated the process. This time the light in the game didn’t go out. Several hours had passed. The coffin produced clank sound and the gem’s light went out.

Allen opened the coffin nervously. The skeleton rat was there. Something was different about it.

The black mist that surrounded its entire body had pressure in it. It was like facing a magus.

“We did it!” Eren shouted.

Allen laughed out loud too. He lifted the skeleton rat and examined its body. There was a floating marble inside its ribs. “The core. Eren, thank you. We were lucky to have done it on the first try.”

“Hey, Allen, let me test its body’s durability. I wonder if it has the same durability as living rank 1 magical beasts. We upgraded it via Limitless Vigor Body Arts after all.”

“Alright, just don’t try too hard. We need it to scout around.”

Allen put the skeleton rat on the floor. Eren took a stance and stomped toward it.

Allen smirked. Let’s prank him a bit. He willed the skeleton rat to escape.

Allen’s order was absolute. However, he felt a different response this time. The rat’s body became a shadow and it vanished.

“What?” Both Allen and Eren were surprised. When they looked around, the skeleton rat stood in the corner of the room.

“Is it just me or is it using the Rotten Hunting Rat ability?” Eren asked.

“It seems so. Not only that, but its response was also more complex.”

“Try it once more, Allen.”

Allen nodded and willed the skeleton rat to use its ability. The black mist covered its entire body and it moved around with incredible speed.

“I can’t believe this. The zombie soldiers don’t have a mind and only have durability; they can’t learn any spell or have magical thaumaturgy. Allen, this is my theory, but if it’s true, I can now understand why necromancy is considered something legend.

“The awakened corpse can learn magic and have magical thaumaturgy!”