Darion went on to will the undead knights into his inventory one by one.
Undead knights...
They weren’t exactly knights yet, at least not to the eyes. Perhaps when he returned to his chambers he would equip them with so of the rusty old armors lying around, so that when he summoned them in battle they would at least look the part.
Right now they looked like normal skeletons: the kind of thing one would see in a horror story or so creepy scene like that.
But for so reason, they didn’t look scary or creepy to Darion. Not anymore.
When he had first unearthed the corpse of the first skeleton, it had looked deeply unsettling to him, and for a second he had genuinely thought:
’I’ll have to spend the rest of my life in this world staring at this every day?’
But after reviving it, sothing in his mind had quietly adjusted. He no longer took in the sight of a living skeleton as horrifying or shocking the way any normal person should have.
The unease had just... faded. Like his brain had looked at the situation, decided this was simply his life now, and moved on.
This sight would have given Garren the creeps. He was sure it would have done the sa for most people: grown n backing away, making signs against evil, refusing to look directly at them. But here he was, master to five, standing among them without so much as a flinch.
He willed all four into his inventory.
[Congratulations on Creating Your First Five Undead Knights!]
[STATUS]
Na: Darion
Title: Baron of Percvale
Class: Necromancer
Rank: Novice
Territory: Percvale (Border Domain)
Territorial Resonance: Low (Death-aligned)
[ATTRIBUTES]
Strength: 20 [ 8]
Agility: 12 [ 4]
Endurance: 17 [ 3]
Vitality: 13 [ 2]
Perception: 15 [ 3]
Intelligence: 17 [ 2]
Willpower: 18
[Undead Inventory: 5/5] [Limit Reached!]
[Skills:
Death Perception]
Darion studied his stats.
An increase of 8 to strength alone. The physical work of unearthing four graves with his own hands had clearly counted for sothing. The other attributes had gone up too, smaller increases but across the board. He wasn’t complaining.
Then Limit Reached caught his eye.
He had filled his undead inventory completely. Five slots, five undead, that was it. He couldn’t revive another knight and add them to his inventory unless one of his current five was destroyed first.
He turned the implication over in his mind.
So if they went into battle and he lost all five... he could simply walk to the nearest grave (or his fallen n on the battlefield) and revive five new ones.
He wasn’t permanently bound to these specific skeletons. The mont they were gone, the slots opened back up. That was actually useful, more flexible than he had initially assud. Lose five, make five more. There was sothing almost comfortable about that.
’Killed five of my knights? Well, I just revived another five’ — kind of thing.
Then his eyes moved to his rank.
Novice.
He was fairly certain that was the bottom of the ladder for a Necromancer in this world. He willed the system to show him the full rank hierarchy.
It did.
[NECROMANCER RANK HIERARCHY]
1. Novice
Beginner. Can bind basic undead. Low authority. Undead retain fragnted instinct from their past life, but cannot think independently.
2. Acolyte
Authority increases significantly.
Can create improved undead.
Unlocks minor battlefield aura.
3. Adept
Undead begin retaining partial combat mory.
Can issue complex tactical commands.
Authority increases again.
4. Master
Can create elite undead commanders.
Undead can operate semi-independently.
Territorial death resonance becos amplified.
5. High Necromancer
Can bind elite fallen — forr captains, heroes.
Can maintain undead army outside domain.
Unlocks large-scale battlefield resurrection.
6. Dread Sovereign
Authority becos oppressive.
Living enemies feel fear aura.
Can temporarily convert fresh battlefield casualties.
7. Death Lord
Controls thousands.
Can shape battlefield terrain with necrotic energy.
Undead evolve faster.
Empire-level threat.
8. Grave King
Creates undead generals capable of commanding legions.
Can establish permanent death domains.
Near-myth level.
9. Eternal Monarch
No natural limit to authority within controlled territory.
Can raise entire battlefields at once.
[Note: Upgrading to each rank requires ti and considerable effort.]
Darion read through the list slowly, then went back to the top and worked through each rank in his head, turning them over properly.
Novice to Acolyte was alright, that seed manageable, he would surely reach this level certainly. A step up, more authority, an improved undead or two, Nice...
Then, Adept, undead retaining partial combat mory and responding to complex commands. That was genuinely useful. A skeleton that could actually think in battle rather than just swing at whatever was in front of it.
Master, elite undead commanders. Semi-independent operation. Now that was interesting. The idea of an undead that didn’t need him to hold its hand (sothing like that) through every single decision on a battlefield.
High Necromancer, binding forr captains and heroes. Maintaining an undead army outside his domain. Large-scale resurrection. He paused on that one for a mont. Large-scale resurrection. That was a different category of power entirely.
Dread Sovereign, living enemies feeling a fear aura just from his presence. Converting fresh casualties on the battlefield, turning the enemy’s own dead against them in the middle of a fight. He read that one twice.
Death Lord, controlling thousands. Shaping the battlefield itself with necrotic energy. Empire-level threat.
Grave King, undead generals commanding entire legions. Permanent death domains. Near-myth level.
And then the last one.
Eternal Monarch!
That was the coolest in his opinion.
No natural limit to authority within controlled territory. Raise entire battlefields at once!
Darion stared at those two lines for a long mont.
An entire battlefield. Not soldiers... a goddamn battlefield!
Every single person who had ever fallen on a given stretch of ground, called back at once.
He was currently a Novice with five skeleton knights and a rusty shovel.
He had a long way to go.
A very, very long way.
He exhaled slowly, dismissed the screen, and looked around the graveyard. The unearthed graves were still open, dirt piled beside each one. He couldn’t exactly leave them like that.
He spent the next several minutes covering them back up, moving the loose earth back into place with his hands and feet, doing what he could to make them look undisturbed. It wasn’t perfect, but it at least made it seem like soone didn’t just leave here after unearthing so corpses.
When he was done, he walked back to the gate, untied his horse from the post, and mounted up.
He sat there for a mont, looking back at the graveyard one last ti.
Then he turned the horse around and rode back toward the barony.
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