RSK 5

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Oberon POV~~~~~

I looked at the new skill I gained when I leveled up from killing and capturing the goblins. I was happy that I gained exp from capturing them, while not as much it made certain activities easier. Particularly, interrogation and information gathering were a lot easier when the subject in question is alive. 

The new skill was Necromancy. I wasn’t surprised to have it, I was surprised I didn’t have it before I hit level 5. As a lich it would be hard to work on my own if I didn’t already have access to the various magics that I did. I wanted to shake my head at the ridiculous way the world of Orium had become with this stupid leveling system. 

“Are there still schools if people gain skills when they level up?” I asked as we walked. 

“Huh?” Alessa said not paying attention, I glared at her and repeated the question, she answered with a bit of a squeak in her voice, “we… we don’t gain skills automatically. When you turn five you can start working on skills from trainers or schools, plus things like language and maths aren’t represented by AIGO.”

“AIGO?”

“It’s what the summoned hero called it, there is an inscription in his book, but he used periods after each letter.”

“Huh, maybe I’ll met this AIGO in the future,” I said offhandedly. 

“It’s a god!” Alessa said with shock. 

“I’ve met Terina before, she saved me when one of my extra planar spells went haywire. Pretty sure I would have died,” I said as faded memories came back to me when she mentioned gods. I had been trying to get a more powerful teleport spell to work and put myself in a void. I have no idea how long I was in there, felt like months before a woman that gave off enough light to fill the void appeared before me. Her beauty that even Lilith couldn’t match had been deeply engraved in my mind, but it wasn’t a beauty to be lusted after more like a piece of art to be appreciated. 

I pulled myself out of memory lane as we were approaching a large hill. We were still a kilometer or so out. Large ants the size of a human were crawling all over the hill. There were several dozen of them on the surface so there were probably several hundred below. A few of the ants seemed to notice us as they started to make their way towards us. 

When they were about three hundred meters out, I decided to strike first. I pointed Promise in their direction after I drew it, “Magic Missile,” I said with a grin. Thirty six sword shaped magic creations appeared in the air around me. Seven blades shot forward and each impaled an ant through the head. The blade dissipated once the target died. Damn, I love magic, I thought to myself probably for the millionth time if you included my last life. 

All the ants on the hill stopped then issued a weird screech. I ignored them as I played with my new skill. I poured mana into the skill as I selected the dead ants as the targets. Streams of green energy left me then sank into the corpses. They twitched then suddenly burst in a spray of gore. Adult human sized skeletons stood from the gore wielding just a sword made from bone. 

They had green cracks all over their bodies which made them pretty evil looking. Once they had finished emerging from the dead ants, they turned towards me and bowed. Well, maybe they were cute after all. I could feel a link with each of them, but I don’t know if it was due to my mastery being low or some other reason, but I couldn’t control them through a mental command. 

“Kill the ants,” I ordered. I wanted to test a vague order to see how they would respond. They turned towards the onrushing ants then ran straight at them. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had never done or studied this branch of magic so I had no idea if they were strong or paper tigers. 

The two waves collide, several ants would swarm over a single skeleton while it would take one or two swipes with their blades to kill an ant. I could vaguely feel my EXP going up with every kill so that was one experiment with good results. Some of the links disappeared while others strengthened. Some of the skeletons got noticeably smarter as they grouped up together to strike at the ants swarming over each other. 

“This necromancy thing might not be too bad after all,” I said with a chuckle. 

Finally, the battle came to an end as the ants stopped pouring out of the mound. I could sense many more inside, but this breed of ant was known to try to cut their losses if they were losing. Of the dozen or so undead I made, only four remained which to me was a pretty good number for a new skill I had never used before. 

They marched over then stood in a line in front of me. I tapped my bone hand against one of them and felt the link between us grow much stronger. I also instinctively knew his status. 

Name: N/A

Master: Oberon DarkPhoenix

Race: Skeleton

Level: 3

Well, that was fascinating. I guess when they were first summoned they weren’t completely under my control. I would have to make note of that, wouldn’t want to summon something that immediately wants to kill me. With my EXP debuff from the curse, I couldn’t be sure if they were also getting full EXP or if it was reduced. I would have to run some tests to find out. At least the battle pushed me all the way to level seven. These little ants gave quite a bit of EXP considering how easy they were to kill. I tilted my head to the side, or maybe I was just out of the balance.

There were still nearly a dozen magic missiles floating around my head, and I felt it a shame to waste them. I pooled all the new mana I had ‘access’ to, it seemed I could see my entire mana pool, but could only use a certain amount of it as I leveled. I had several tests I wanted to run on that as well but they would have to wait for a more controlled environment. I channeled the mana into the remaining missiles, basically supercharging them.

I set the spinning rapidly, turning them into drills. I let my eye shift to my life sense that I gained from be undead then looked down. I tracked the movement of all the ants that I could find finally arriving at the Queen. It was simple to add the targets to my spell. 

“Fly!” I said with a thrust of my sword. The magic missiles took off at a tremendous speed. The shot towards the entrance of the hive then swerved down, it wasn’t ten seconds later that I felt my first burst of EXP. Soon it was like a river, with a constant stream always flowing into me. I followed the missiles with my senses, the ants getting more worked up the closer they got to their queen. 

The lead missile finally ran out of mana as it struck through its hundredth ant. The rest powered on, tearing through ants like a hot knife through butter. By the time the missiles reached the Queen only two remained. She was not unprotected as I could see several larger and more powerful life signs from in front of her. I focused on the missile that had been mostly used up, and made it charge the guards. 

It impacted the first one, but didn’t manage to tear through like they had for the regular ants. It took roughly two or three seconds before it was able to bore its way through the hard charpiece. It swerved, this time I manually aimed it towards the weaker armor on its head. This time it only took it a second and some spare coins to break through. 

While the guards tried to deal with the insanely powerful magic, the Queen either was unconcerned or was literally unable to do anything as she just sat there. From her life signature I thought she was more powerful, but it might just be that she is constantly producing offspring gaining a lot of EXP doing that. Everything in this world appeared to give EXP. I wasn’t about to miss out on an opportunity like this, I directed the remaining magic missile at her head. 

It was twenty meters away when a wall like barrier appeared around the Queen. The missile impacted the barrier, sparks flying as it ground its way through. I quickly redirected the other missile towards the barrier as well, but the guardian ants weren’t going to let it get away. They jumped off and around each other, throwing themselves in the path. Before the second one could reach the barrier it ran out of energy. 

The final one kept drilling through the barrier and even I had to give the Queen credit for how thick this thing was. Finally, the missile broke through but it had used most of its energy to make it through. It collided with the Queen’s thorax. Like I thought it ran out of energy after only leaving a flesh wound. 

“Well, If that’s how you want it,” I murmured to myself. My mana pool, or more accurately ocean had refilled, it looked like whatever I used would still be refilled by the rest of the locked pool. Much like a real body of water filling the spot when someone takes a bucket of water out of the lake. 

I looked over my status as I had gained quite a few levels from killing all the ants before the Queen. 

Name: Oberon DarkPhoenix

Age: N/A

Race: World Lich

Level: 11

[Necromancy Basic Magic Mastery: Novice] [Basic Magic Mastery: Partial Lock 75%] [Sword Mastery: Partial Lock 50%] [Rune Mastery: Partial Lock 86%] [Advanced Magic Mastery: Partial Lock 97%] [Contract Magic Mastery: Partial Lock 76%] [Space Magic Mastery: Partial Lock 87%]...

Sin: Error! World’s Curse detected! EXP gain reduced by 66.6%!

Curses: World’s Curse, Ancestral Curse, Undeath

Boons: Forgotten Knowledge

This time the status had changed a bit as it actually showed me how much of my skills were locked. I felt a bit hateful that I had a Novice skill again but that would only be a temporary thing. It also looked like there was an advanced branch to Necromancy as it had the basic label. I would have to master the basic before it would appear. 

~~~~~~

Alessa POV~~~~~

For the hundredth time today I was questioning my lot in life. Oberon was decimating monsters that the Guild would require Raids to conquer and even then it was touch and go for the initial confrontation. Of course, I was hanging back as much as I could, I wasn’t even sure I would be able to make a scratch much less kill anything. 

“Scaredy girl,” the goblin that had been a annoyance since the beginning said as he looked at me. 

“Shut up,” I shot back, Oberon was busy concentrating on something and didn’t have much attention to pay us. 

“Survive not long… desert. If yous always scared,” he said with a shake of his head as if he was disappointed in me.

“Everything here can kill me in a second,” I retorted. 

“Then whys you here?” it asked.

“I had no other choice,” I said with a frown. While my family wouldn’t make good slaves, there were a lot of nobles in all the races that liked to captured us and torture or put us on display. Something about having a relic from Oberon.

“Gobluke, this mighty goblin, assist Scaredy girl get stronger!” the goblin said with a fist to its chest.

I looked the little thing over again, warmth filling my chest just a bit at the goblin’s declaration. The other goblin that hadn’t said a thing the entire time just nodded, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong that made him unable to speak. Suddenly, a boom sounded behind me, I jerked around to see Vaunn with her fist on her chest as well. 

“Thank you guys!” I said, just having people around that weren’t trying to kill me for once already made me happy, but people that actually wanted to help me out was altogether new experience.