Jay's necrotic ring seemed to be draining blood from his finger.
Finally it stopped, and a red band appeared around the ring; now it was like a piece of him had become a part of it.
He took the ring off after the process was complete and found a black band now around his finger too; it appeared to be like a tattoo.
Jay sighed looking at his ring, and he got a notification.
[Necrotic Sense Acquired]
[Necrotic Sense - Level 1]
- You are able to sense in which direction and how far away your constructs are.
- You are able to give more detailed commands over longer distances.
“Oh, good. That was worth the pain I guess” Jay shrugged with a smile.
It was a great passive to get. He knew it was not too useful now, but later on when he had more skeletons, this ability would be invaluable.
Not to mention, he also kind of liked the look of the red band on the black ring too.
With a stretch, Jay got up and stashed his stool and chair away in his inventory.
“Time to summon this thing...” he prepared to test out his new [Summon Bone Helminth] skill.
Jay shifted his ring, causing a flying curtain of bones to orbit around him like usual and chanted.
“Come forwards, helminth”
“...” he raised a brow, confused as nothing had happened..
“Hmm? Did I miss something?” Jay had to re-read the skill.
“Oh, it needs spines... Right… I wonder if this is why it stored them in my inventory instead of the ring? Hmm. I guess they weren't an weapon ingredient of some sort after all.”
Jay had collected 11 spines from the silt wolves, so he took two out from his inventory.
“Glad I collected extra soap rat skeletons too… Ok, here we go.” he smiled.
Jay held out his hand over the spines while his bones levitated around him.
“Come forwards, helminth” he chanted again, thinking he sounded cool.
Green gas left his hand, and the creature wasn’t constructed as he thought it would be.
Jay assumed that each spine would simply be connected from end to end, but instead, every single vertebrae was pulled out and disconnected; it floated for a moment before being rearranged from the largest to the smallest.
A soap rat skull was pulled from the floating wall of bones and attached to the top of the spine. The core body of the creature was formed - but it kept floating as more was constructed.
Next, some smaller finger and rib bones were also pulled from the ring, attaching to each side of the 4 meter spine.
“interesting…”
After that was complete, it stopped floating and dropped harmlessly to the ground.
Suddenly the creature twitched, then began to move.
Jay had used two different creatures to form the undead creature, so he got another notification.
[Chimera Research 10%]
The creature had dark-green eyes that didn’t glow, and each of them were like a solid ball of glass; quite different to the skeletons which had gaseous non-physical eyes that slightly illuminated their wolf skulls.
The spine of the snake-like creature was blue with white ribs that ran along each side of its body; the head was a soap rat skill that was now modified and warped.
The necrotic gases warped and stretched it longer, making its jaw much skinnier. It more closely resembled the skull of a small crocodile.
“Interesting… I guess it prefers a smaller skull?”
After seeing how long and slender the skull was now, Jay doubted that it would even want to use a wolf skull; The silt-wolves had much wider and bigger heads compared to the soap rats.
The helminth coiled its body and raised its head up, staring at Jay; it seemed like a dancing cobra as it gazed at him with its dark-green eyes.
Jay only gazed back, wondering what it was going to do.
It seemed like it wasn’t waiting for orders, but was analysing its master. It was like it was trying to work out Jay’s intentions.
Suddenly, it dived underground.
“Huh?”
Jay was confused why it did this, but he could sense it now that he had the necrotic sense passive skill.
He looked in its direction as it seemed to swim through the earth; it was heading towards the bone pile that was being gathered from one of Jay’s skeletons.
Jay decided to wait and see what would happen rauther than to stop it.
Suddenly, a bone was pulled underground. It happened quickly and quietly. Jay wouldn’t have noticed unless he was looking directly at it. Not even a sound was made.
Next, he sensed that the snake-like creature was coming back to him.
It was right under his feet when suddenly it's pointy skull poked out of the ground. In between its jaws was a bone.
The creature looked at Jay, seemingly with anticipation as it held the bone.
“Oh? This is for me?” Jay reached down and grabbed it. “Thankyou…?” he raised a brow.
The serpent then squirmed for a moment, and another bone appeared in its mouth. It had regurgitated a second bone.
“Oh?” Jay hesitated for a moment, but after closer inspection, the bone didn’t have any goo or bile on it, so he grabbed it with a smile too.
“Thankyou.”
The helminth snapped its jaws a few times which made a noise, and dived back underground.
It repeated the process of bringing nearby bones to its master, but Jay decided to just walk over to the bone pile and re-summon his perennial skeleton.
The bone worm could only carry two bones at a time, so this would have taken too much time otherwise.
It was clear that the powerful glowing golden arrow had dealt massive damage to the components of its skeleton, as the skeleton seemed quite skinny after being summoned again, so Jay gave it access to his soap-rat bone stockpile, which it proceeded to munch down on.
The bone worm periodically stuck its head out of the ground as it analysed its master once more. Jay was glad that he had a little bone gathering machine now, but he realised that he would not want it bringing him human bones in the middle of the night while he was trying to sleep, so he gave it its first orders.
“Helminth? Come here.”
After a moment the spindly creature poked its head out of the ground; the rest of its body followed and it curled up, waiting for its master's orders.
“I have some rules for you. Never bring me human bones, and never show yourself to anyone.” Jay said with a nod.
The helminth chomped its jaw in the air twice and then dove back underground.
“Strange little thing…” Jay thought with a warm smile.
“Now… what was next… oh yeah, the item. How did I get an item anyway?”
“It must have to do with the pure necromancer path too, as I got the notification after choosing it.”
Surely an item cannot just appear out of nowhere, but soon enough, Jay got his answer.
***Hooray, chapter 100! Thanks for joining me on this journey, I hope you're enjoying it! I know some parts have been slow, but sometimes it's just 'the calm before the storm'... other times, it's character/world building. Jay is finally level 10 after 100 chapters; hehe, he's a bit of a noob but he's getting there! We're still in the beginning part of the story so rest assured, there are plenty more chapters coming. If you don't mind, please keep sending me those delicious power stones, and also thanks for the gifts! Very encouraging :) - Aero182***
