When Damon woke up, he noticed that everything except his small rodent friend had been cleaned up.

He went outside to clear his lungs from the stuffy underground air. Unfortunately, the air emanating from the grey trees around the lair wasn’t much better. When Damon inhaled the air, it was overwhelmingly humid. But when he exhaled, it’s dryness scrapped against his lungs and nose.

Damon turned to Stolas, “So what are we hunting?”

“What do you want to hunt?”

“Something bigger than a rodent. Maybe something that’ll be able to fight when I turn it into an undead, perhaps a goblin.”

“Pfft, I doubt anything you made right now could do anything more than walk. Although it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try your hand at killing a goblin. Luckily for you I think there’s a goblin nest in the eastern swamps.”

“Sounds good.”

An hour later they arrived at a little swamp-like area. The grey leaves which fell from the trees turned the puddles of water grey and gave the entire area an apocalyptic aura. Thankfully, Damon couldn’t smell any diseases. However, he could see Goblins patrolling in the distance.

Damon activated his usual black magic; lessen reflection, and shadow meld which wasn’t as effective during the day, however, since goblins were nocturnal animals, they tended to be less aware when the sun shined.

When Damon could roughly guess the goblins path, he climbed a tree in their direction and waited for them to come. The three of them held wooden bats and dragged them on the ground or placed them on their shoulders. Their skin wasn’t as green as what he saw in the illustrations. They looked slightly grey and a bit reptilian. They were covered in mud and wore a leaf skirt around their waist. Damon made sure they were alone.

When he did Damon jumped down and planted his sword through the collar bone of the first goblin. Although surprised the others immediately acted and tried to bash Damon’s head. However, he had already readied his shield. He used his shield to push one of the goblins away while he stabbed his sword into the other one’s chest.

Unfortunately, his strength wasn’t great and the goblin he pushed away quickly came back and smashed his bat on Damon’s shield arm which promptly fell limp on his side. Damon screamed in pain but still manage to pull out his sword from the other goblins chest and swing it down through the last one’s head, spilling brain onto the forest floor.

Damon moved his left arm. Thankfully it still seemed to work; however, he probably suffered a hairline fracture at best.

“Lets, go back,” said Damon, he wasn’t in the mood to keep hunting goblins. He stored his sword in his scabbard and slung his shield on his back. He carried back two of the three corpses, Stolas took the last one and they headed back to his room and laboratory.

His arm had started to swell; however, it could probably heal in a month. As long as he didn't get hit in the same area again, he could probably still hunt.

“Here, a restorative potion.” Damon pointed to the undead which carried a transparent potion in its hands. “It won’t heal you completely, but it should help.”

Damon removed the cork and smelled the potion. It smelled like mint. Drinking the whole thing in one go, it first tasted like mint, but, as the seconds went on, the taste and his face contorted“That’s one hell of an after taste.” It had become unbearably sour.

“Well, it’s a cheap one. I’m not funding holy mages anymore than this.”

When Damon arrived in his room, his mana had recovered. He immediately cast the slow deterioration spell on the three corpses, it cost 10 mana points per use.

He decided to start dissecting the first goblin corpse.

An hour later he stepped back and looked at the final product. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he saw butchered corpse.

“For fuck’s sake. Are there no skills for this?”

The owl laughed, “There is, but you don’t have it.”

“Can’t you gain the skill through practice?”

“Nope, tough luck my little prince. Personally, this isn’t very interesting, and I need to go do something else so keep at it. I’ll bring you a gift when I come back.”

“Will this at least increase my black magic skill?”

“You wish, no this will help you deal with blood, and help you make a living dead when you reach that stage.”

Damon went back to his craft.

Twelve hours later, Damon finished dissecting his last corpse. He stepped back and examined his work. Although it wasn’t good enough to reanimate, it was a much better product than the first and second one. Wanting to get a bit of fresh air towards the door, but his stomach started to churn and his stomach contracted. The guts and organs of the goblins overflowed from a large wooden crate placed next to the door. Shit was flowing out of the guts, and blood coagulated around the organs and muscle tissue.

He hadn’t realized it with the rodents, nor when he dissected the corpse, however, now that he could smell and see the bloody carnage it didn’t sit well with him. It all made him want to puke. It made him remember the skeleton guard he saw outside. After all, it wasn’t made from the body of goblin, but the body of a human. Perhaps they’d taken an already dead body; however, they might have killed, dissected, and turned a random person into an undead. But then again, he wasn’t human but a dark elf. It shouldn’t concern him.

Before his stream of thoughts continued. Stolas entered the room with two books. He placed it on the straw mattress, “Now that you’re done with that you should read the next books. These will let you create semi-permanent undead.”

“Semi-permanent?”

Stolas pointed towards a corner in the room. “The undead rodent you created, is it not un-undead.”

Damon poked the skeleton; it didn’t move.

“As you can see, the mana slowly dissipates into the world. You could always inject more mana; however, it would dissipate quicker than the last time since the bones get more brittle and less mana absorbing each minute. Remember the skeleton at the entrance, it had a viscous liquid on its surface.”

Damon nodded, thinking back to the skeleton. He seemed to have forgotten his previous thoughts.

“That was a conservation agent and it’s made through alchemy.”

A skeleton walked into the room. Damon quickly went to analyze it again. However, it started to wipe away the blood on the table and take away the box full of remains so he couldn't get a good look. Surprised from the strength of the undead he asked, “Are all human undead so strong?”

“No, the strength depends on its creator’s skill and knowledge. Although with you level you probably couldn’t even make a humanoid undead, the spell is just not usable by someone at level one.”

The vast difference in strength inspired Damon, he somewhat admired the skeleton’s creator. He had forgotten it was once a human and saw it as a method to show off one’s skill and knowledge. “When will I be able to make one?”

Stolas gave a wry smile. “At level 4 you’ll be able to create your first humanoid undead, although only small ones like goblins. For now, read the books. When you’re done, I’ll bring you more rodents. This time I’ll have someone prepare them for you since you’re so eager.”

The two books were on the same subject, alchemy. They stated that alchemy wasn’t a skill, but a process, anyone could do it; however, each magic element had their own specialized products that kind of magic. For example, earth magicians could create potions which made the ground more fertile, or flowers shine at night. Black magic users could make potions which slowed the time of decay for corpses. They could also make corrosive substances which burned through skin. This could be useful when it came to skinning people and beasts, unfortunately it required him at the fifth level to cast the required spells to activate the potion.

The books listed different types of items, such as creams, oils, and liquids which preserved the integrity of corpses, their advantages and disadvantages and steps to create them. Damon felt at ease with these books. They resembled his previous life’s scholarly works. Perhaps not exactly, but much more than the books he found on elemental magic. Perhaps holy magic books would resemble scriptures, however, since there wasn’t any dominant religion, and new religions seemed to pop up just as often as the full moon, he wondered how the material was presented. Especially since the people of this world seemed much less “religious” or “faithful” compared to medieval Europe. Perhaps it was due to the fact they received blessings or powers from their deities. After all it’s harder to have faith in something tangible.

Damon fell asleep wondering about religion and his black magic. When he woke up, he saw his table filled to the brim with ingredients, alchemic tools, and three rodent skeletons. Damon went straight to work, he brewed the first concoction, a mix of about ten organic ingredients such as butterfly wings, goblin blood, and spider glands. It seemed all too new to him, and he simply followed the instructions. After making ten vials of the product, he used a spell in the book to transform the inactive red substance into a translucent liquid. Apparently, what he had in the vials were the lesser versions of the degradation and mana dissipation retardant.

The alchemic spell only used up five mana points, so he took the skeleton and removed the residual mana, then applied a thin coat of the substance on the skeleton and finally applied the reanimation spell. The liquid hardened around the bones and stopped dripping on the table. Although the rodent didn’t show any visible change, he felt great joy at his new knowledge. Since his previous creation’s skeleton was still tucked away in the corner of the room, he passed his time by reanimating it every time it stopped moving. Each time the spell lasted less and less time. Finally, when he was about to head to bed the skeleton helper arrived and recuperated the equipment he used. Damon thanked him, and the skeleton left the room.