2 Narrow Escape
I shook my head and put the thought to the back of my mind as I resumed mining. So did he.
The day was going to be long and hard.
Wait. That didn’t sound right.
We kept digging and digging.
The sensations we feel are limited. We have endless endurance, but we can get bored. Get angry. Happy. Our minds are a mystery.
For a long time, I have always enjoyed playing with the mana gems before we have to take them to storage. They are pretty, and at first, I just enjoyed handling them. Then I began to sense the mana within them over time. From sensing to feeling it on my bony hands. Then I began absorbing it.
For centuries.
I grew proficient in it, draining only a little from many stones so that I didn’t get into trouble.
Typically all undead absorb mana. However, they do it unconsciously. It takes a long time to even form a mana core as the mana is so damn thin here.
After a very long time, I developed a skill.
It was related to mana, but I didn’t know its name, only feeling its effects. I was scared of asking the undead captains its name as I didn’t know what they would tell the Lich. I only ever told my friend, Bonet.
I could feel the mana vividly even though it was very thin. The more I absorbed from the mana gems the more the skill grew.
Over a thousand years.
Right now, I could sense the mana within a 100-meter radius vividly.
I just can’t do anything to it.
Strangely, I’m the only one who finds this life monotonous. Or at least I started to feel how boring it was at some point.
That’s what spurred me to enjoy the thrill of feeling my sensitivity to mana grow.
As we dug, one thing that always happens in the mines, happened again.
A fight.
“Hey what’s your problem! Can’t you see I’m digging over here?!” a short undead with a blazing blue flame in his socket barked.
Tktktktktktktktkt!
“So was I, why did you bump into me?!” another undead of average height pushed the other.
The short undead staggered and fell only to rise immediately, his socket flame flaring in anger.
“You socket hole!!” the short undead rushed up to the other undead and rammed him with his head.
The two tumbled down the ground with the funniest clattering of bones I’ve heard in a while.
The undead captain just watched, his flames dancing in amusement.
The two rolled on the ground, hitting each other on the bones with punches and kicks.
They saw how pointless it was after a time and then the short undead finally lost it.
“FLESH YOU!” he boomed.
Then there was a silence.
Every undead’s eye flames flickered dangerously. Mine too.
The undead captain finally stepped in.
“Hey. That was over the line. Apologise,” he said.
“I…I…” the short undead looked around and saw all undead shaking their heads in disapproval.
What he just said was a taboo. Sentencing someone to having flesh and life was the worst insult you could throw at a fellow undead.
“I’m sorry,” he bowed at the other undead apologetically.
The undead captain nodded his head and then signalled for us to get back to work.
We continued swinging and digging for the rest of the day. I managed to dig out a few mana gems.
I stealthily absorbed their mana, feeling a chilling sensation in my bones as I did so before leaving just enough juice to keep them from being promoted to regular stones.
Their glow made all the difference.
With each absorption, I felt, through my skill, the minuscule changes in my mana core.
After the day’s work was done, we walked in a single file back to our cave.
At night, the red sun in the sky would turn darker, emitting almost no light at all.
When we reached the entrance to the cave, the same Death Knight from this morning halted me and Bonet.
His gaze turned to me with his brilliant flame and he spoke.
“Skillius?” he asked.
I was so nervous that my mana core bobbled.
“Y..yes?” I answered.
“Follow me. Master wants to see you.”
I shook.
What could Master want from me?
Did my silly tales of how he had once touched my head finally reach his ear? Or maybe the worse ones?
I followed the towering Death Knight through the dark lands until we reached a massive tower where many undead were stationed, swords on their waists and shields on their backs.
They looked threatening.
The massive stone tower that rose into the sky with a conical shape spooked me. It was roughly 100 meters wide with a large number of floors. A thick deathly mist surrounded it, nourishing the undead that guarded it.
The Death Knight led me inside through the massive door made to cater for undead as tall and as large as him.
The interior was full of a rather…pleasant design of bones and gems featuring an array of different colours.
We walked up the many flights of stairs, getting next to no time to appraise and admire the structure of the tower’s rooms and build.
It was certainly better than a bunk tomb.
We finally reached a large room with many materials that I understood and otherwise, potions, gems, bloody organs and a magic circle in the middle, glowing with a green hue.
Tens of mana gems were arranged around it, powering it up with mana.
Before the circle was a black-robed figure who instantly turned to us as we came in.
It was a dark green skeletal undead with a deep red socket flame that demanded reverence and praise from me.
It was Lich Somanda.
I resisted the urge to bow down and call him master as it came to me, staring at him in fear and anticipation for what we wanted with me.
He raised his bony hand and waved, making the Death Knight leave the room. I felt awkward. Somanda didn’t say anything for a while, his gaze dead set upon me.
“I didn’t think it was possible so soon,” he said. “You’re already resisting my binding. Tktktktktktktktkt.”
He cackled, and I swear, I wanted to run. Bro, that was a phenomenal laugh!
“Hmmm might as well extract some data from you before ending your pitiful existence,” he said in a dreadful tone.
End my what now?!
Is he talking about ending my death?!!!
I knelt with both knees on the floor and begged.
“Br- I mean Master! Please spare this lowly servant! I beg you!”
Tktktktktktktktkt!
I heard his teeth clatter in laughter and shivered.
“This proves all the more that you’re an interesting specimen. You’re already close to recovering your memories. In my presence a normal undead can’t even speak,” he said.
‘My ….memories? What the flesh is going on here?!’ I thought.
“Relax, it will all be over soon. I’ll be quick, I have an appointment in another world anyway. Ah, let me get my new apparatus,” he said as he waved his hand, a powerful force locking me in place.
‘Oh crap!!’
I panicked. This is bad!
I was about to…die?
I tried to struggle but my body wouldn’t budge.
I really don’t mind spending eternity mining rocks you know!
Just thinking about the Mighty Skullius being erased from the world made me shiver!
All my work was rewarded with this?
I was scared.
I didn’t even get to learn the name of that skill I was so fond of yet?
I didn’t even get to ask why there aren’t any female undead here!
Wait. What are females?!
Argh, screw it! I’m finished!
I knew there was nothing I could do.
I stood there waiting for my end. However, something registered in me. Something that was near.
It was something resonating with my core. I focused with all my strength. At least I should see what it is before I meet my doom.
I finally burst of curiously to satisfy.
I felt mana. Mana weaved into something more profound. Into something that made my mana core yearn.
There wasn’t one of it, but two.
They were books.
Books emitting a beautifully weaved mana.
I felt for them. I also began to yearn for them. I was very sensitive to their beauty. I wanted it.
‘I want you,’ I thought subconsciously. ‘Come to me!’
My impulses led me to call out in my mind. I felt myself tugging at these books and….they responded.
I felt them float from where they were, and towards me. They swiftly glided through the air and reached me.
I had been in a state that confused me. I had been blind throughout the entire process, only focusing on the mana that was resonating with my core.
I looked before me to see two tomes that glowed.
One with a blue light, the other with a red light.
They looked old, with a weird insignia on them that exuded a profound power. I felt undeserving of such a thing.
I was drooling inwardly over them.
I focused on the one with the blue light and it instantly shot a blue light into me that pierced through my skull!
I felt a horrible pressure fall on my skeleton, causing me to quiver. I grunted and … moved.
I actually moved!
Was the restriction on me broken?
The pressure died down and I was left with a weird feeling.
My bones felt different but looked the same.
The book which had emitted a blue light fell to the ground. The glow around it had vanished, making it look ordinary.
The red book shot a red light into my skull also, making me grunt and clutch my skull!
I tried to make sure I didn’t make any attention-grabbing noise.
It was painful, to say the least.
Like the other book, this one fell when it finished tormenting me with its light.
I shook my skull and felt another different sensation in my bones. I was so confused. What were these books? What did they do to me?
I suddenly heard a voice speak in my head immediately after the light show. It was melodious, prompting even an undead like me to praise it.
[Congratulations, you are now qualified to hear the Voice of Worlds and be granted a guidance field.]
[Supreme Skill acquired: Lifeless Evolution].
[Supreme Skill acquired: Flesh It Like You Mean It].
Uuuuuuum what? Wait? Is that a female voice?
Damn it, I’m so confused!
What’s this voice in my head?
Skills? I acquired skills? How?
My mind was in turmoil. I grabbed one of the books and looked at it closely. There was nothing I could get from it. How could this thing grant me a skill? Just how much didn’t I know?!
I heard the clattering of feet approaching the room and I once again remembered that I was about to be …..ended.
I stood and looked left and right.
What do I do? This is definitely my only chance!
If I go outside…no I’ll be hacked by all those Death Knights and Captains!
If I stay in the tower, he’ll find me!
What do I do? Think you boned idiot!
Wait what?!
I then saw the magic circle. Powered by mana gems.
‘….’
Didn’t Somanda say he wanted to go to another world just now?! Could he be planning to use this? Wait! Those Death Knights often boasted about…
Without another thought, I rushed towards the magic circle and stood in the middle.
‘Will this work?’ I thought as I stood.
The circle glowed bright, then brighter and brighter and I felt a powerful force grip my entire body! It started to twist everything around me, and pull me downwards!
Somanda ran into the room, no doubt sensing the mana. His jaw fell to the floor as he saw ‘Doomed to die’ me being covered by a light from the magic circle.
I was satisfied seeing his flabbergasted face as his socket flame raged madly.
As I was dragged down the circle, my body disappearing within it, I said two words to him with an ecstatic tone. Two words I’d wanted to tell say to someone in a thousand years.
“FLESH YOU!!”