Harry was having the dream again, and time seemed to stretch; he stood on a platform in front of a train station sitting with a girl with brown eyes who knew him. She seemed so familiar, but he couldn’t place where he knew her from. He wouldn’t be able to leave until the train arrived, and it always took weeks to arrive. So, Harry made his notebook appear and continued to work on his scripts, stealing a few more weeks of training.

 

“Are they feeding you?” The red-haired girl asked.

 

Harry sighed and put his pen down. She hadn’t spoken before; normally, she stares at him until the train arrives, unaware of what’s happening. Harry waited for her to return to her silence, but for once, her eyes were aware.

 

“I think I prefer it when you don’t speak,” Harry said, channeling his annoyance.

 

She blinked slowly as a day went by, by the slow-moving clock. “Are you happy?” The girl asked, and Harry put down his pen again. He looked around, but they were sitting on the only bench in the train station.

 

“You're aware enough in the dream plane to talk. Most people wouldn’t be aware and don’t remember anything when they wake up. Remembering makes differentiating dreams and reality difficult unless you prepare. It is a privilege to take advantage of this plane and use it to steal time. I’ve gained six months in a week.”

 

“I missed you.”

 

He shut his book. “Have we met before? Are you familiar with me?”

 

A tear ran down her cheeks, and he felt his own eyes burn but didn’t know why. Words came unbidden to his lips. “I will find you,” Harry said

 

 

…

 

After studying scripts, watching tutorial videos, and copying examples, he made something functional after two weeks. Nemean was a lion made of bone, magic, and will. Scripts and enchantments he barely understood gave it a semblance of life and allowed it to walk and act like a lion. A file of Nemean’s personal information filling up as divination spells acted as sensory organs. Finally, the lion moved through the thick grass and turned its great head.

 

White frills, each with their own spells, gave the undead information about its environment. Harry approached it even as the beastly undead towered over him. Various mismatched hides clung to the undead lion’s body loosely like a poncho on a scarecrow. It wasn’t bad work, in Harry’s opinion, but there were many flaws. Every step it took channeled a seismic spell designed to find rare ores, but it worked to tell the lion more information. The file representing the lion’s memories continued to fill with sensory information. The creature’s memories were already too alien for Harry to even conceive.

 

Harry wouldn’t have given his first creation sensory features if he hadn’t seen so many warning videos about them. It was thanks to the knowledge collected by others and posted that he was able to make any progress.

 

He learned from some of Jester’s cards. While Harry’s master had his system, Jester had his own. Cards of different suits were used to denote how powerful each card was. Jester had 4 aces that could be considered apprentices, and the ace of hearts was a flesh mage class. Flesh molding magic had some of the same problems as necromancy, so Harry learned much from it. He may have used some scripts from Ace of hearts, but it was public domain. Harry hadn’t contacted devils to copyright his necromancy style, but he would soon. If he didn’t, someone else would steal it, and copyright claim Harry’s necromancy style. Harry wasn’t powerful enough for devils to fear bringing him to court.

 

The lion turned to him and chuffed before rolling its mane. Its primitive AI filled with information rapidly while its scripts searched information online, filling the undead’s memory file with knowledge of all sorts of things. The lion lifted a great paw and extended its claws before retracting them. That was a problem Harry knew he had to deal with. His undead was practically a newborn. It had no experience fighting anything, much less a giant grizzly bear. Suddenly, Harry’s plan for revenge seemed like a faraway thing.

 

Instead, the lion chuffed more like a tiger than a lion and cocked its head back. Harry would assume it wanted him to get close if it were human. Instead, Harry looked back to see his master with an open screen recording the entire thing. He felt his cheeks heat up before stumbling over to the Nemean.

 

Harry touched the course hides that covered Nemean’s body, and the undead purred a rattling sound akin to a revving chopper. Its white mane practically glowed in the moonlight as it stood on end, continuously collecting sensory information. Half a dozen divination spells went off every second, giving the lion as close an understanding of reality as Harry could give it. But that didn’t mean sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell. No, the lion tracked distant enemies, knew things that would impede it, track living things, detect spies, predict short-term catastrophes, and point me. Moreover, these spells were enchanted into the lion’s mane giving it an extensive network of sensory information to work with.

 

Enchantments allowed the lion to move while scripts relayed that it had moved. If Harry had known the lion could access the system and, through it, the internet, he would have installed cameras in the Nemean’s empty eye sockets. Unfortunately, that would have to wait for another time.

 

He felt a cold hand grip his shoulder, and Nemean growled. “Be careful; revenge isn’t bad, but don’t pay too high a price against a dumb animal. Have you read the story of Mobi Dick?” Master asked.

 

“Yes, I won’t be a Captain Ahab. Can I go? If it poops, I won’t be able to ambush it?” Harry asked.

 

“How quickly you’ve learned to talk back. Where did that timid boy in the park go?” Master asked.

 

“He died when you had me kill,” Harry snarked.

 

“I prefer to think he died when you learned to trust me. Be swift and show no mercy; you should expect none from a monster too dumb to not fear me.” Master said.

 

Harry narrowed his eyes on the inside. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust and believe his master, but this was what Ace of hearts would call a teachable moment. Like after Harry raised Nemean, he immediately learned where he messed up. Harry planned to fix his mistakes, but that would have to wait until he returned to his workshop, which his master was building for him.

 

If he peered in the distance, Harry could see the edge of a tall building. That was amazing his master was building Harry an awesome workshop. After he stripped the bear of meat, he would get to work on his next undead. A necromancer grew stronger with every undead, and the power of each undead mattered a lot. There were also skills like grave lord he wanted to try out, but that would have to wait. First, Harry needed to work on killing the bastard bear that ate his bow.

 

Harry jumped on Nemean and realized he hadn’t added a sticking charm enchantment. Nemean’s claws dug into the ground, and Harry grabbed two hand fulls of the undead lion’s mane. It shot off, and Harry’s eyes stung as the wind hit them. They left the safety line of the homestead and shot off into the grassland before launching into the forest. Harry could feel his backside threaten to crack with every lunging leap and quickly realized lions weren’t made to be ridden. He hadn’t thought that would be a problem before another lesson that made his first undead a teachable moment. Ace of hearts was right Harry learned so much from his first raising, and it was worth it to go and do it instead of waiting to make the first raising perfect.

 

Harry turned on the tracker as they barreled like a bull through a China shop through the tree line. With that thought, Harry planned to raise a minotaur but left the thoughts aside as he directed Nemean to make a turn. The lion undead roared and leaped on one of the great trees using it to take its momentum before launching itself onto the branches above. Sharp claws punctured branches as a couple tons of undead lion pretended to be Tarzan.

 

They landed in time to see the bear swipe at a moose. Harry watched the pickup truck-sized moose’s head fly off its body horns in a fountain of blood and wiggling cartilage. The bear opened its mouth and planted it on the moose’s stump. Harry watched the creature drink the moose, and suddenly it was ok that it ruined his bow. The moose shrunk in on itself like a crushed soda can. As Harry watched the monstrous bear, he realized it was bigger than the system suggested.

 

Of course, that didn’t mean a thing to Nemean. The undead lion roared and shook Harry off it before launching itself at the bear. Suddenly Harry realized something important, Nemean’s claws weren’t long enough to cut anything vital. Harry turned his head to the moose head on the ground that came off with a single blow.

 

Harry felt a buzzing at the end of his fingers and extended his qi a few centimeters. Six was his limit, but three would do the job without taxing him too much. He heard a hard thump and saw Nemean fly backward and shatter a tree. The undead got up, roared, and charged back into the fray, but the demon bear didn’t look any worse for wear.

 

While the bear was distracted, Harry took off the moose’s horns and tried a flesh-shaping technique to bind the horns together. His hands shook, and he barely touched the horns together; thankfully, they were dying but alive, so Harry managed it after a few tries. With the horns melded together, it was time to use the clay bone technique to fold the horns into a lump to be molded into a new shape.

 

The bear and Nemean swapped earth-shaking blows, each more brutal than the last. Both were heavy hitters with no fear to be found, and the demon bear healed quickly from its injuries while Nemean continued to take damage. Unfortunately, Harry didn’t have enough death qi to heal it quickly. Every earth-shattering blow from the bear was mounting, and soon Nemean would be out of commission.

 

Harry worked quickly with his bone lump working it like clay into the form of a spear, twisting and adding piercing runes and propulsion and homing scripts based on the tracker on the monster. Unfortunately, the tracking script was nearly through the bear’s system. So Harry levitated the weapon, a twisted spear of bone formed from the dead prey of the bear formed for revenge. The propulsion scripts activated, and the spear spiraled while the runes activated the enchantment while it spun, increasing its piercing power. Harry was to the bear’s rear, which made it perfect.  

 

Telekinesis pointed the weapon towards the bear as a paw swipe knocked Nemean aside, tearing one of the undead lion’s legs nearly off. The bear charged in for the kill when Harry launched the spear. If the spear hit hide, it wouldn’t manage to do any more damage than Nemean’s claws, but there was another target.

 

Twisted spinning bone blasted forth in a trail of green and black qi before hitting the bear’s exit point. Where the tracking signature would have been released. After the spear pierced, it continued forward, spinning and piercing the bear’s insides as it traveled through the monster. The monster roared and trashed as blood flowed out the monster’s arsehole.

 

While the bear was distracted, Nemean launched itself and bit down on the bear’s throat with his canines. The bear thrashed as the undead lion held the demon bear that wouldn’t go down. Harry could feel pleasure leaking from his connection with Nemean as the bear’s life flowed down Nemean’s gullet. Something was happening that Harry hadn’t anticipated. His undead could grow stronger without Harry’s intervention by consuming other creatures' qi and life. The little shards of bone connected to Nemean’s leg came to life, and the leg reattached itself. The loose hide that covered Nemean suddenly appeared vibrant, and Nemean’s bones seemed a little whiter. It was something Harry decided to look into.

 

His master came up behind him with an eye smile. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble hunting by yourself, so I won’t worry about you finding food. I moved a few books into your workshop; you should look around and get a feel for the place.” Master said before patting Harry on the head before vanishing.